But all the world was not stunned. There was the invariable
exception--the Island Empire of Japan. Drunken with the wine of
success deep-quaffed, without superstition and without faith in aught
but its own ascendant star, laughing at the wreckage of science and
mad with pride of race, it went forth upon the way of war. America's
fleets had been destroyed. From the battlements of heaven the
multitudinous ancestral shades of Japan leaned down. The
opportunity, God-given, had come. The Mikado was in truth a brother
to the gods.
The war-monsters of Japan were loosed in mighty fleets. The
Philippines were gathered in as a child gathers a nosegay. It took
longer for the battleships to travel to Hawaii, to Panama, and to the
Pacific Coast. The United States was panic-stricken, and there arose
the powerful party of dishonourable peace. In the midst of the
clamour the Energon arrived in San Francisco Bay and Goliah spoke
once more. There was a little brush as the Energon came in, and a
few explosions of magazines occurred along the war-tunnelled hills as
the coast defences went to smash.
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