‘There is only one quarter to which I can look for aid,’ he said, ‘and that is England. Germany is a broken reed. Go to England, take this document with you, show it to the principal members of the Government, telling them how it came into your hands, and ask them if they wish to see a Russian Cherbourg within twelve hours of the Scottish coast. If they remain indifferent, I can do nothing more.’ ‘The English Press?’ I suggested doubtfully. ‘The Norwegians have captured it, I fear,’ objected his Majesty. ‘Norway is the playground of the British tourist; and, besides, the English consider themselves half Norwegian by race. No, popular sentiment in Great Britain is on the side of Norway.’ ‘Nevertheless, sire, if thoughtful Englishmen could be made to realise that, for the sake of pique--for a mere whim--the Norwegians were about to place the keys of the Atlantic in the hands of Britain’s most formidable foe, they might make their influence felt.’ ‘Do what you think best, M. V----,’ the King said wearily. ‘I am getting an old man, and I wish for peace.’ I have ventured to take his Majesty at his word. VII THE RUSE OF THE DOWAGER EMPRESS Some two or three years back--that is, shortly before the great Boxer rising in China--the careless Parisians were amused to hear of the existence in their midst of an association styling itself the _Company of the Joyous Peach Blossom_. This body professed to be a literary guild or brotherhood formed for the purpose of studying the Chinese poets, and transplanting some of the poetical flowers of the East into the garden of Western literature. All this sounded a trifle fantastic, and Paris, accustomed to the caprices of its youthful literary coteries, shrugged its shoulders and asked with a smile whether the guild possessed more than two members in all, or whether it were not a pure myth, and the _Company of the Joyous Peach Blossom_ a device of some budding poet, anxious to seek notoriety. The announcement of the guild’s existence struck me in a different light. Having made a profound study for many years of secret societies, past and present, I had grasped the fact that China is the one land in which such societies are truly formidable, all the most famous secret societies of Europe being mere trifles compared with the terrible conspiracies which honeycomb the Heavenly Kingdom. I had learned, moreover, that the most powerful and reckless of these Chinese societies assumed the most innocent and poetical names, as, for example, the dreaded brotherhood of the _Waterlily_, which deluged Southern China in blood forty years ago. Therefore, while the French police, usually so shrewd in dealing with secret political organisations, did not deem the _Company of the Joyous Peach Blossom_ worth a moment’s consideration, I set to work to find out all I could about it.