“Ah, God! I wish I knew!” The woman’s words were a sob. “Perhaps a chance garroter! Perhaps—perhaps my enemies! I thought I had eluded them. I thought they were ignorant that I was here. But perhaps they knew that I came to the city that night. Perhaps they followed me. Perhaps they killed him. I do not know! But it was done by no friends of mine.”
Caruth drew a long breath. “Thank God for that! But the money! The money! You threatened him with death unless he gave up the clue to it——”
“Stop!” The girl’s interjection was swift. “Stop, Mr. Caruth! I did not threaten him. I warned him. I belong to a great organization that is waging a desperate warfare for the rights of millions of human beings. We fight as we can. Think for a moment! You have been free so long—you and your English forebears—that you take your freedom as a right. But it did not come as a right. All of it, all of it, was bought for you at a price. Every forward step was forced. Every grant from Magna Charta down was wrested from the king. Thousands upon thousands of unknown men died that you might live in peace and freedom, undespoiled. For a thousand years the path has been drenched in blood. What right have you—you to whom freedom came with your first breath; you who have never known tyranny; you who can freely assemble and criticise and change your rulers—what right have you to rebuke us who are just starting on the same bloody road your fathers trod for you? Granted that some innocent lives are taken; granted that some excesses and outrages are perpetrated in the name of freedom; granted that some of us go too far and shock your moral sense. What of it? Think you your ancestors of a thousand or even a hundred years ago were always calm and self-contained? Think you they perpetrated no crimes when they had the power? The world has grown thin-skinned with prevailing peace, and shrinks aghast at primitive Russians struggling for primitive freedom with what weapons they can grasp. You do not approve our methods! Do you approve the government’s methods? For every innocent man whom the terrorists have slain, the Czar has slain a hundred and imprisoned a thousand. From the salt mines of the north, from the frozen steppes, from the purgatory of water-soaked dungeons, they cry to Heaven. That letter placed in our hands might have meant—may still mean—the end of all this. At least, it would hasten the day when all will end. We did not kill your valet. We do not know who did. But if we had, what is his life compared with the lives of millions?”
The girl’s eyes flashed; her voice came rich and strong; like a Judith she stood.
Caruth was awed; almost silenced.
“I do not understand,” he muttered.
“You shall! Although when I tell you I place my life in your hands. I will tell you the story of the Orkney. Then you may judge.”
The girl paused to take breath. “In March, two years ago,” she went on, “the steamship Orkney sailed from London for St. Petersburg with a million pounds sterling in gold on board. This gold, borrowed on the people’s credit, was to be used in crushing the people. We determined to capture it, or, if that could not be done, at least to prevent its reaching Russia. It belonged to the people; the Czar should not use it to enslave them.
“A war-ship had been sent to bring this gold, but at the last moment the bureaucrats discovered that we had gained over the men on board and that a mutiny was probable. Urgently as it needed the money, the Russian government dared not send it by that means. Nor did it dare to send it by rail. We had inspired a wholesome terror in the hearts of the ministers of the Czar. At last it hit on the idea of blackening the gold bars and shipping them on an ordinary steamer as pig lead to Kronstadt. A battalion of soldiers would go along, ostensibly as passengers. So swiftly was this decided on and carried out, we learned it only at the very last minute. Had it not been for a lucky chance, we should not have known it at all. But, as it happened, two of the soldiers were our men, and we managed to get orders to them to see that the gold should never reach its destination. If they could not throw it into our hands, they were to sink the vessel and prevent its reaching Russia.
“The Orkney sailed, going north through the Irish Sea, and around the north end of Scotland. The war-ship followed her out of the harbor and hung on her heels persistently, secretly convoying her. Moreover, Russian agents were watching all along the route. Our agents, so far as we could reach them, were also watching.