My refusal was followed, naturally enough, by an attempt on my own life. Two days afterwards the editor of an Anarchist paper, who had taken rather a fancy to me, came round to my lodgings before daybreak and advised me to leave for America. He gave me no reason for this advice, but he was very urgent with me, and insisted on writing me a letter of introduction to a man living in Jersey City. I promised to consider the matter, and he bade me farewell.
On leaving my lodging an hour later to go and look for a job—the customary pretence—I discovered immediately that I was being followed. I need scarcely say that for me to baffle the clumsy espionage of such blunderers would have been the easiest thing in the world. But I wished to see how far they would go, and I allowed my tracker to follow me all day. At night I went down to the Thames Embankment. I placed myself on the edge of the river steps by Cleopatra’s Needle, and waited.
I am a good swimmer, and I did not think it likely that my enemy would use a weapon if he thought he could get rid of me by the simple method of pushing me into the water. A pistol would be too dangerous for himself on account of the report. I had seen that he did not carry a stick. He was probably armed with a knife, and he might try and give me a thrust with it as he pushed me over; but a knife-thrust in the back is not a very serious thing to a man who has been in the habit of wearing a mail shirt for twenty years.
I am ready to confess that my heart beat faster as I heard the stealthy tread coming up behind me. To my surprise the would-be assassin paused before he had got within striking distance, and shuffled with his feet on the flags. Puzzled by these tactics I glanced round and saw a young man, not more than twenty years of age, whose face was white, and who was trembling in every limb. At once I grasped the situation. The poor wretch’s heart had failed him, and he was trying to put me on my guard against himself, in order that he might have an excuse for not carrying out his task.
I walked past him without a word, shook him off in the course of the next hour, and took the last train to Liverpool.
On my arrival in the States, I lost no time in seeking out the man to whom my editor friend had furnished me with an introduction. To the European reader it may be worth while to explain that Jersey City practically joins on to New York, so that it is really a suburb of the American metropolis.
I was received with open arms by this man—an Italian named Ferretti—and I became a member of the most influential Anarchist club. Among those I sometimes played dominoes with there was a long-haired dreamer named Bresci, a visitor from Paterson. All this time I passed under the name of Lebrun. My American citizenship I carefully concealed.
I soon saw that some one had informed the American group of my being bound by oath to kill a crowned head. On all hands I was treated with the deference due to a prospective martyr. It was not long before Ferretti himself began to sound me as to my willingness to make Humbert of Italy my victim.
“I walked past him without a word.”