“It’s plain enough. Take her and her mother away from Warsaw.”
“How can I go, man? In Heaven’s name, how can I go? We are on the eve of the most glorious crisis in our country’s history; and we leaders dare not leave our posts.”
“Send them away then in some one else’s care.”
“Why? This city is the safest place in all the Empire for them. To-day the great demonstration at Petersburg will show the Czar and those about him and all the world that the people’s just demands can no longer be resisted. The power of these tyrants will be shattered against the greater might of the people’s will. You know my dreams of old. They are coming true. We are on the eve of the greatest revolution the world has ever seen: greatest in purpose, widest in area, most beneficial in results—and what is greatest of all—to be achieved without the shedding of a drop of blood.”
“A bloodless revolution will be a new thing in history, Ladislas, especially under Russian methods.”
“You do not understand and so you doubt. But we know. The army is with us almost to a man. They are of the people, blood of blood and bone of bone in close-knit kinship; and when the hour strikes, the people will rise in every city, town, and hamlet, rise as one man; and at that rising the musket of every soldier will be grounded and not a sword will leave its scabbard. Peace is our watch-word; peace our method; peace and brotherhood our end.”
“It is not only Polish independence then?”
“Poland will be free. Poland will lift her head again, a nation among the nations: but all Russia will be free in the gigantic upheaval.”
His eyes gleamed with excitement as he strode up and down flinging his arms about; his enthusiasm fired by his own rhapsody. He was very much the dreamer; and he gave the reins to his dream with voluble energy.
“Have you any practical men among you?” I asked, when at length he paused.