carry each of them; they go over and root right down to the German
dugout, where the German has come in out of the golden rain, and they
fling it all up in the air.

These are such nights as Scheherazade with all her versatility never
dreamed of; or if such nightmares came she certainly never told of
them, or her august master, the Sultan, light of the age, would have
had her at once beheaded; and his people would have deemed that he did
well. It has been reserved for a modern autocrat to dream such a
nightmare, driven to it perhaps by the tales of a white-whiskered
Scheherazade, the Lord of the Kiel Canal; and being an autocrat he has
made the nightmare a reality for the world. But the nightmare is
stronger than its master, and grows mightier every night; and the
All-Highest War Lord learns that there are powers in Hell that are
easily summoned by the rulers of earth, but that go not easily home.

Two Degrees of Envy

It was night in the front line and no moon, or the moon was hidden.
There was a strafe going on. The Tok Emmas were angry. And the
artillery on both sides were looking for the Tok Emmas.

Tok Emma, I may explain for the blessed dwellers in whatever far happy
island there be that has not heard of these things, is the crude
language of Mars. He has not time to speak of a trunk mortar battery,
for he is always in a hurry, and so he calls them T. M.'s. But Bellona
might not hear him saying T. M., for all the din that she makes: might
think that he said D. N; and so he calls it Tok Emma. Ak, Beer, C,
Don: this is the alphabet of Mars.