20 
LAND & WATER 
Greenmantle 
By John Buchan 
A Sequel to " The Thirty-Nine Steps " 
September 28, 1916. 
Synopsis : Rtch.ani Haniiav is asked by Sir nailer 
Bullivant of the Foreign Office, to undertake a mtssion to 
unearth a secret connected with Turkey and Germany, me 
unlv clue is a scrap 0/ paper bearing the words, Kasrectin 
—cancer— V.I. Hannay undertakes the mission; his 
friend Sandy {the Hon. L. G. .{rbuthnot) agrees to help 
him. Sir Walter introduces him to an American, John S. 
Rlenkiron, a strong pro- Ally, who joins them. 1 hrcc 
months later they meet in Constantinople, Hannay having 
reached there bv wa\ of the Danube, accompanied by a 
lihodesian friend, Peter IHenaar, after many adventures 
in Germany. Blenkiron also goes by way of Germany, 
and Sandy arrives at Constantinople disguised as a Ma- 
hommedan fanatic. After the three meet. Hannay, who has 
previously posed as a Boer 'from Western Cape Colony. 
assumes the character of an American engineer. Riding 
one evening on the outskirts of Constantinople xvith Pienaar 
they lose their way and find themselves in total darkness in 
a garden. Here Hannay. by chance, meets Sandy m 
disguise. While talking, a big car drives up in lehich a 
German lady. Hilda von Einem, is seated : tins woman 
holds a clue to the secret. She drives Hannay to her 
house where she questions him. and on the morrow visits 
him at his house in Constantinople. Later, Sandy turns 
up. It is midnight: he tells his story. 
CHAPTER XV [continued) 
SANDY told me the story of his recent doings; he 
had found out the house of Frau von Einem without 
nuch trouble, and had performed witii his raga- 
muffins in the servants' quarters. The prophet had 
a large retinue, and the fame of the minstrels— for the 
Companions were known far and wide in the land of Islam 
— :ame speedily to the ears of the Holy Ones. Sandy, a 
leader in his most orthodo.x coterie, was taken into favour 
and brought to the notice of the four Ministers. He and 
his half-dozen retainers became inmates of the villa, 
and -Sandy, from ; his knowledge of Islamic lore and his 
ostentatious piety,' was admitted to the confidence of the 
household. Frau von Einerp welcomed him as an ally, for 
the Companions had been the most devoted propagandists 
of the new revelation. 
As he described it, it was a strange business. Green- 
mantle was dving and often in great pain, but he struggled 
to meet the demands of his protectress. The four Ministers, 
ai Sandy saw them, were unworldly ascetics ; the prophet 
himself was a saint, though a practical saint with some 
notions of pohcy ; but the controlhng brain and will 'were 
those of the lady. Sandy seemed to have won his iavour. 
He s^wke of him with a kind of desperate pity. 
" I never saw such a man. He is the greatest gentleman 
you can picture, with a dignity like a high mountain. He 
is a dreamer and a poet, too— a genius if I can judge these 
things. I think I can ^assess him rightly, for I know some- 
thing of the soul of the East, but it would be too long a story 
to tell now. The West knows nothing of the true Oriental. 
It pictures him as lapi>ed in colour and idleness and luxury 
and gorgeous dreams. But it is all wrong. The Kaf he 
veams for is an austere thing. It is the austerity of the 
feast that is its beauty and its terror. . . . It always wants 
the same things at the back of its head. The Turk and the 
Arab came out of big spaces, and they have the desire of 
them in their bones. Tiiey settle down and stagnate, and by 
and by they degenerate into that appalling subtlety which is 
their ruhng passion gone crooked. .Xnd then comes a new 
revelation and a great simplifying. They want to live face 
to face with God without a screen of ritual and images and 
j)riestcraft. They want to prune life of its foolish fringes 
and get back to the noble bareness of the desert. Remember 
it is always the emptv desert and the empty sky that cast 
their spelf over them these, and the hot, strong, antiseptic 
sunlight which burns up all rot and decay. ... It 
isn't inhuman. It's the humanity of one part of the human 
race. It isn't ours, it isn't as good as ours, but it's jolly 
;ood all the same." 
Well. Greenmantle is the prophet of this great simplicitv . 
He speaks straight to the heart of Islam, and it's an honour 
able me<;sagc. Hut for our sins it's been twisted into part of 
th It damned German propaganda. His unworldliness has 
been used for a cunning political move, and his creed of space 
and simplicity for the furtherance of the last word m human 
degeneracy. My God, Dick, it's like seeing St. Francis 
run by Mcssahna." . , ., , ■> >. cu 
•' The woman has been here to-night. I said. bhe 
asked me what I stood for. and I invented some infernal 
nonsense which she approved of. But I can see one thing. 
She and her prophet may run for different stakes, but it s 
the same course." ., t ^^ 
Sandy started. " She has been here ! he cried. fell 
me, Dick, what did you think of her ? " 
" I thougiit she was about two parts mad, but the third 
part was uncommon like inspiration. " 
"That's about right," he said.. " I was wrong in com- 
paring hertoMessalina. She's something a dashed sight more 
complicated. Slic runs the prophet just because she shares 
his belief. Only what in him is sane and fine, m her is mad 
and horrible. "You see, Germany also wants to simplify 
We." , , , 
" I know," I said. " I told her that an hour- ago when i 
talked more rot to the second than any mortal man ever 
achieved. It will come between me and my sleep for the 
rest of my days." 
" Germany's simplicity is that of the neurotic, not the 
primitive. It is megalomania and egotism and the pride of 
the man in the Bible that waxed fat and kicked. But the 
results are the same. She wants to destroy and simplify ; 
but it isn't the simplicity of the ascetic, which is of the spirit, 
but the simplicity of the madman that grinds down all the 
contrivances of civilisation to a featureless monotony. The 
prophet wants to save the souls of his people ; Germany wants 
to rule the inanimate corpse of the worid. But you can get 
the same language to cover both. And so you have the 
partnership of St. Francis and Messahna. Dick, did you 
ever hear of a thing called the Superman ? " 
•■ There was a time when the papers were full of nothing 
else," I answered. " I gather it was invented by a sportsman 
called Nietzsche." 
" Maybe," said Sandy. " Old Nietzsche has been blamed 
for a great deal of rubbish he would have died rather than 
acknowledge. But it's a craze of the new, fatted Germany. 
It's a fancv type which could never really exist, any more 
than the Economic Man of the politicians. Mankind has a 
sense of humour which stops slK)rt of the final absurdity. 
There never has been and there never could be a real Super- 
man. But there might be a Sup?rwomaii. " 
" You'll get into trouble, my lad, if you talk like that," 
I said. 
" It's true all the same. Women have got a perilous logic 
which we never have, and some of the best of them don't see 
tie joke of life like the ordinary man They can be far 
greater than men, for they can go straight to the heart of 
things. There never was a man so near the divine as Joan of 
Arc. But I think too they can be more entirely damnable 
than anything that was ever breeched, for thoy don't stop 
still now and then and laugh at themselves. . . . There 
is no Superman. The poor old donkeys that fancy themselves 
in the part are cither crack-brained professors who couldn't 
rule a Sunday-school class, or bristling soldiers with pint- 
pot heads who imagine that the shooting of a Due d'Enghien 
made a Napoleon. But there is a Superwoman, and her 
name's Hilda von Einem." 
" I thought our job was nearly over," I groaned. " and 
now it looks as if it hadn't well started. Bullivant said 
that all we had to do was to find out the truth." 
'■ BuUivant didn't know. No man knows except you and 
inc. I tell you. the woman has immense power. The Ger- 
mans have "trusted her with their trump card, and she's 
going to play it for all slie is worth. There's no crime that 
will stand in "her way. She has set the hall rolling, and if need 
be shell cut all her prophets' throats and run the show herself. 
. . . I don't know about your job, for honestly I can't 
(luite see what you and Blenkiron are going to do. But 
I m very clear about my own duty. She's let me into the 
business, and I'm going to stick to it in the hope th.it I 
.~— ,.^ (Continued ou page 22) 
