Chapter 12—The Council
The hatred which the King of Steel bore to Dr. Sarrasin’s work was no secret. Every one knew that his was a rival city. But no one would have believed him capable of attacking a peaceful town, and endeavoring to destroy it at a blow. The article in the New York Herald was, however, positive on the point. The correspondents of that journal had penetrated Herr Schultz’s designs, and, as they said, there was not an hour to spare!
The worthy doctor was confounded. Like all honest-hearted men, he refused as long as he could to believe in the evil designs of others. It seemed to him impossible that a human being could be so wicked as to wish to destroy without sufficient reason, and from simple malice, a city, which was in a certain sense the common property of mankind.
