"Rissler," he said gravely, "don't compel me to kill you, as kill you I must under certain circumstances. There is blood on my hands already, and more blood on my hands there must, of necessity, be before my work is done; but, of all men in the world, you are the one man whom I am most anxious to spare. You must see for yourself that you know too much, that you are too dangerous to be left at large, except as one of us. I have shown my heart, my hopes, my dreams, to you, as I have shown them to no other man. Can I do nothing, say nothing, to influence you? You feel as I do about the poor, as witness the fact of what you have done for Wright and his family. What moved you to do that? What brought you here, in Wright's house, at all?"
He stopped, as if expecting an answer; so, briefly as possible, I told him of the impression that had been made upon me by his words about the poor, and that, for the time, at least, I had thrown up my detective work, in order to devote myself to doing what lay in my power to alleviate the sufferings of my fellow-creatures.
He was genuinely moved, and when he inquired how I came to know of Wright, and I told him of my system of making inquiries at a small shop, in the very poorest district, he put a hand upon my shoulder, and said excitedly:
"Rissler, you have no choice in this matter. God has called you to the task, and you may not say Him nay. It is only a question of time. Two days—only two days ago, you were against us. You announced yourself as my enemy, as one who was set upon hunting me down. Now you tell me of your own accord—and I believe you—that you have abandoned this ignoble work of hunting down a fellow-creature who, whether his methods be right or wrong in your eyes, is at least consumed with a passionate desire to spend and to sacrifice everything he has, life itself, if necessary, to succour and to help the poor and the oppressed.
"Two days ago, Rissler, as I say, you were against us. To-day you are against us no more. Two days ago you cared nothing for the sufferings of the poor, you gave no thought to them. To-day you are here amongst them, ministering to them with your own hand. If two days have wrought this change in you, what change may not another two days work? Another two days may see you working with us, one of us, leading the Labour hosts in this battle of the Lord.
"Now, listen to me. I'll be frank with you, and tell you that from the first moment I saw you something within me warned me to beware of you, and cried out, 'Kill! kill! kill!' That night in the wine cellar, to-day in this squalid room, I should, had I followed my impulses, have strangled you without mercy, without remorse, and without a thought. Why don't I kill you? Why do I spend time which I can't afford to spend? Why do I run risks which I never ought to run, in talking to you, in explaining things to you, in trying to persuade you to join us?
"I will tell you. It is because God has revealed to me that you are destined to play a great part in the history of this rising. It was by no chance that you came that night to the opium den. It was by no chance, it was not entirely by your resourcefulness and skill, that you escaped with your life. It was no chance which drew you to the house in Taunton Square, no chance which sent you here to Cripps Court.
"The part you are to play, God has not yet revealed to me; but I will tell you what I believe that part to be. The army I command may be counted by many millions, but leader there is only one—myself. And the battle—which shall be called Armageddon—the battle which shall set Labour upon the throne as Lord and Ruler of this land—that battle approaches, and in that battle I shall fall. If I fall, all falls, unless God raise up a second in command who shall be the leader of the people after I am gone. That leader I believe you are marked out to be. That is why I dare not kill you; that is why I am going to do the maddest thing a sane man ever did.
"Of my own will I set you free to go from here unharmed. As yet you are not with us. As yet God has not made known His will to you. As yet, though I have twice appealed to you to throw in your lot with us, you have resisted my entreaty. But I am not dismayed. Once again I shall come to you. Once again I shall appeal to you, and that third time I shall give you such assured proof of the triumph of our cause, that after that third time I shall need to appeal to you no more. The victory will be won. Our cause, the people's cause, God's cause, you will, on that third appeal, espouse. Of my own accord I set you free."
As he spoke these last words, he stooped to unfasten my bonds, and, in doing so, looked me for a moment in the eyes. Once again a dream-tableau seemed to shape itself before me.