The column shakes, the tyrant quakes,
And the wild wreckage leaps in glory.
Throw, comrades, throw; set the wild echoes flying;
Throw, comrades; answer, wretches, dying, dying, dying.”
Am getting to loathe the crew, now the novelty of their reception is beginning to wear off.
Tuesday (Afternoon).—Still higher, great discomfort being experienced. The barometer readings make us three and a half miles above sea-level over the pine-covered summits of the Jura mountains. I find it necessary to breathe much more rapidly, the rarity of the air is unsatisfying. At times a dizziness seizes me, and on examining my hands and body I find my veins standing out like whipcord. Hartmann shortly eases off the screws—he was experimenting, so it appears, with his machinery. A change of tactics is observable. He ignores possible sightseers now, probably because he knows that reports from tourists and mountaineers stand no chance of being believed. Hence we almost brush the mountains, and a superb privilege it is. The magnificent pines here surpass anything else of the kind. Sometimes we glide midway along a valley with a rushing torrent beneath us and these pine-fringed precipices on our sides; sometimes we amaze a luckless mountaineer or shepherd as we thread a defile; sometimes we curve over valley-heads with a grace an eagle might imitate; then, again, we breast the cloud-rack and are lost in its mantling fleeces. We are now bearing south-east by south, and are not far off from the beautiful lake of Geneva.
Tuesday (Night).—Wrote my letter and telegram, and gave them to Hartmann for the delegate. We have stopped over a pine forest some five miles distant from Morges, on the shore of the lake. Switzerland, I am told, was selected as the rendezvous because of its central position. Many Russians, Poles, Austrians, and Italians, besides delegates from other nationalities, are expected. They are to arrange details of the forthcoming revolution. Had a friendly talk with Burnett, who once more tried to proselytize me. Told him if any one could shake my convictions it is Hartmann and not he. How bloodthirsty the men are getting! Query.—What if the lust for blood grows by what it feeds on? What if this crew gets out of hand? Happily, a strong man stands at the helm.
(Later.)—The convention is in full swing. What enthusiasm must inspire these “tourists,” for, of course, it is in this character that they travel. Most, I hear, are very badly off, their funds being supplied by their associations. A great deal of provisions and matériel has been brought aboard. How well this crusade is organized!
Hartmann remains on board, he has never left the vessel except on the occasion when he visited his mother. Burnett and Schwartz take his instructions to the delegates, and most of the crew escort them. We are floating very near the ground in a rude clearing on the mountain side, two rope-ladders and some cables link us with the soil. After several hours’ conference below, the delegates visit the Attila. Heavens! what desperadoes some look! Yet they control, so Burnett says, vast societies. Hartmann interviews each. He works patiently through the list, and finally addresses them en masse, launching terms of the most animated invective against modern civilization. Am, of course, excluded, but learn that everything has gone off admirably. Five of the delegates are to join the crew, the rest carry back their instructions. We start early in the morning. What a spectacle there is before us! However, two days’ breathing time is something. Trust that delegate, whoever he is, will not forget the telegram and letter to Lena.