SECOND SOLDIER: Property hath converted itself into armies, and the joy of riches means only the capacity to give.... Coffers and chests fly open. Countesses bring their silver, the legacy of famous ancestors, the old maid-servant her hoarded wage. The widow gives up her golden chain, the last love gift of her dead mate; the merchant his gains, and the old peasants the walnut tree in whose shadow they played as children.... The whole land becomes a mighty armoury ... they hammer, hammer, hammer, day and night. DYING SOLDIER: Do you not hear the thunder of Wieland’s hammer? The ringing armour of the Valkyries? Do you not hear the hoof-beats of their stallions? SECOND SOLDIER: Yea, rivers and fields, mountains and woods dream anew their German dreams.... Silently the women offer up their beauty ... the park of roses becomes the potato patch. The savant is his own servant. The mother can no longer mother her child. Work puts out the torch of love ... but all bear this ... they bear it for the sake of the blood which flowed for their sake. SOLDIER: I die ... I die happy. [_He dies._] AHASUERUS: O Fate! This moment outweighs all my two thousand years of torment. I am reconciled with my sorrow, in that the centuries have spared me to behold the mighty heroism of this people. [_Curtain._] [Illustration: ONE OF OUR ORCHESTRA.] * * * * * [Illustration: ENGINEER OF THE “HITACHI MARU.”] V VICTIMS OF THE “WOLF” Carlsruhe _Kriegsgefangenenlager_ being what was known as a Distribution Camp, there was a continual coming and going of officers. Here we had no continuing city. An occasional prisoner might linger on--as if entirely overlooked and forgotten--for a year or even two; in the majority of cases, however, the stay only extended for a few weeks, sometimes merely a few days. On three consecutive weeks the cast for one of our plays was removed almost _en bloc_. Friendships were formed overnight, to be violently disrupted by departure on the morrow. In our little world was a complete epitome of life. One afternoon in early March there arrived in camp a cartload of trunks and sea-chests bearing strange hieroglyphics, with a rumour that these would be followed by the officers of various nationality, including Japanese, captured from the ships sunk by the notorious German cruiser _Wolf_. Two days later they arrived, sailormen from the seven seas, British, American, Australian, Scandinavian, so that the next morning their blue suits and brown boots gave the _salon d’appel_ the appearance of a mercantile marine office when a crew is signing on. Some of the Captains, grizzled and weather-beaten, had an easy gait, a quiet laying down of the foot, which inevitably suggested the bridge or the moving decks of ships; different entirely from the more formal military stride. Some of them were doubtless glad to stretch their legs, having been cruising in the piratical _Wolf_ for a year or fifteen months.