Page:Weird Tales v33n05 (1939-05).djvu/57

chiaroscuro of upturned, eager faces, mostly women's, and drew a short deep breath. "My friends," her charmingly developed voice carried to the farthest corner of the upper balconies, and a storm of applause echoed through the house, "my fellow citizens and fellow countrywomen—" Now the applause slackened. These were strange words, falling from her lips. Always she had maintained the women of all countries were a class apart, sisters dedicated to a holy cause unbound by narrow nationalistic fetters.

"My sisters," she began again, and now the volume of applause swelled, "we must face conditions as they are, not as we'd like to have them. Almost two hundred years ago our ancestors set up a new nation dedicated to the proposition that all men are equals and enjoy the right to live and pursue happiness in freedom. We know this proposition to be right; we know unless it is maintained and nurtured mankind will sink once more to savagery, and war, plague, pestilence and famine will take dominion of the earth.

"But there are men across the sea who care nothing for these principles, who call the love of peace a sign of weakness, and deny responsibility to any power, even God's.

"We cannot reason with them nor persuade them any more than we could reason with a mad dog not to bite. When a mad dog rages through the streets men with guns must put an end to it, or dreadful harm will follow. The mad dogs of the world are loosed, my sisters; they have infected half the old world with the virus of their madness, and at any moment they may turn on us. And we have no guns. We are defenseless against them. We have no force to meet their force, no adequate defense to turn them back or beat them down.

"As one who hates war with the bitterest hatred any human heart can harbor, I call on you to arm for peace, to uphold the President and Congress in their effort to rearm America against the assaults of the mad dogs of the world!"

There was no applause as she walked from the stage. Here and there a boo or hiss began, but even these died out in a few seconds.

A silence deep and shocked as that which would lay hold upon a congregation if the priest should start to bawl a ribald ditty at the elevation of the Host held the assemblage spellbound.

Mrs. Matson-Jamison held her head high as she walked through the wings. Her lips were set in a firm line, her eyes gazed straight ahead, but as she passed, a stagehand heard her whisper: "I've kept the faith, my darling. Please God you and those others may not have died in vain!"

*****

THE whole thing's contra ordinem, as I said at the beginning. Who the stranger that appeared and walked across the terrace into nothingness was—or even if there were a stranger—I would not pretend to say. Of course, the probabilities . . .

But there is the testimony of three people, substantially agreed, differing just enough to strengthen credibility.

Also, there is the record of three abruptly changed life-patterns.

Is it—might it not be—possible that young soldier of America, known but to God, stands guard eternally above the Potomac, protecting in his immortality those things for which he gave his mortal life?

These three believe so implicitly, and probability to the contrary notwithstanding, bear testimony of the vision they beheld at the Unknown Soldier's Tomb that night.