On the Road to Bagdad: A Story of Townshend's Gallant Advance on the TigrisBrereton, F. S. (Frederick Sadleir)
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On the Road to Bagdad: A Story of Townshend's Gallant Advance on the Tigris
Brereton, F. S. (Frederick Sadleir)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Juvenile fiction
As for von Hildemaller, he tossed away the stump of the cigarette he had
been smoking, and watched the departing figure of the British officer
through half-closed lids, while he still panted and mopped his forehead.
Then, thrusting his panama upon his shaven head, he looked craftily
about him for a moment, and, having assured himself that no one in
particular was watching him, lifted his right hand to his shoulder and
made a sudden signal. A moment later a tall, sleek Turk slid up from an
adjacent stall, and halted beside him:
"My master?" he asked, in the Turkish tongue.
"You saw him," demanded the German curtly, with that brutal abruptness
common to the German. "That man--that Douglas Pasha--you saw the man?"
"I did. I watched and waited yonder. And then?" asked the Turk.
"Go and kill him, that's all! Go and slay the man!" von Hildemaller told
him, turning upon his emissary just as friendly a smile as ever he had
turned upon Joe Douglas. "There is no need to discuss the matter
further, for you know the man and you have the method. Go then! When it
is done come back to me and you shall be rewarded."
Who would have thought the worthy von Hildemaller capable of such words,
or of giving such a dastardly order? Indeed, at the very moment when he
was condemning the gallant Major to death by the hand of this Turkish
assassin, the stout German looked so utterly genial, so entirely
friendly and harmless, that none could possibly have suspected the real
gist of his orders. Yet, as we have inferred already, behind those
smiling, merry eyes, which looked so frankly and so honestly at people,
there was a clever scheming brain, and behind those lips which were
never stern, and seemed ever to be parted amiably, was a tongue given to
much lying. Let us add, too, the fact that that brain was capable of
inventing acts which would have shamed an Englishman, and of producing
orders even more dastardly than that which had already been given.
Indeed, there was no limit to the crimes which von Hildemaller could
perpetrate, more particularly if they were for the ultimate benefit of
his own country. With the smooth, smiling, genial face almost of a
child, he was at heart a wretch, a cruel, scheming, cunning creature, an
unscrupulous agent, capable of planning any atrocity. When that was
said, we have von Hildemaller's full character, and we have merely to
add that, like many of his kidney, when the planning was done, when the
schemes for assassination and murder were arranged, the power for evil
of this German suddenly subsided. He could scheme, but he lacked the
courage to carry out his enterprise. His was the crafty brain which
arranged the deed but contrived to get another to carry it out for him.
Thanks to a Government which supplied him with ample funds, he could
command in this country a host of ruffians. Pooh! The assassination of a
British officer was quite a small matter, to be arranged on the spur of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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