The Indian Bangle

by Fergus Hume

With feverish hands he felt in the darkness for the stone, and found it. As he gripped, the rope shook away more glass. He listened for a moment to hear if the noise had attracted attention. All was quiet. Joyfully and hopefully he groped for the bed and drew in the rope until it was taut. At this end of it was prison, at the other liberty and Olive. Mallow bound it in tight knots to the iron framework of the bed. He felt these over and over again to make sure they would not slip. His life depended upon his care; and he anxiously tugged and strained until he poured with perspiration.

At last the task was complete. He ran his hand along the rope. It was taut as a bobstay--but at best it was but a frail bridge to safety. Yet it was his only one. Going to the door, he listened. Again silence. Taking off his shoes and socks, so that his bare feet might cling to the slates, Mallow sprang on the rope and swung himself upward. The rain, spurting in through the window, splattered on his upturned face; a piece of glass, loosened by the swing of the rope, fell and cut him; but the man set his teeth and climbed hand over hand to freedom. At last his head emerged through the skylight. He saw the dark and stormy sky spitting rain, and the light of the city glimmering through the mist. Luckily the skylight was large enough. Clinging tightly to the rope, Mallow thrust his shoulders against the glass. It smashed, splintered, broke in a hundred fragments. He was through in the fresh air, on the roof of a house fifty and more feet from the pavement. With desperate courage he clung to the frail rope, and lay flat on the wet slates, his toes digging into them to relieve the strain on the cord. The blood surged and gushed in his head, and he feared he would roll off insensible. Below was the abyss of the street, above the sloping wet slates at an acute angle, and, over all, the tearing, sweeping drench of the rain driven before the gusts of wind.

Then a new terror gripped his heart. The edge of the rope lay amongst the sharp angles of the glass. It might fray through, and he would be dashed over the parapet of the house to swing like a spider at the end of a thread. For a moment or so he lay flat in his soaked clothes, prone on the slant. Then, with a violent effort, he drew up his knees, and clawed his way along the rope. His trousers were cut to ribbons; his nails torn, hand and foot; and a piece of glass had cut one of his feet severely. But he was too excited to feel any pain. Slowly, but surely, he drew himself along the slates, ever ascending to the summit of the roof. There was no moon to help him; only a flurry of flying clouds and the steady thresh of the rain. It seemed a century, until he put out one hand and felt the ledge. With renewed courage he lifted himself over this, cutting his knees with the rough slates as he did so. The next moment he was safe from the abyss, and sliding carefully down the slant to a leaden gutter between two houses.

"Hush!" whispered a voice. "Hold to the rope, Monsieur; give me your hand."

Mallow gave a gasp of joy and relief as Rouge hauled him, wet and exhausted, through the window. He would have fallen, but that the man kept him upright by main force, and carried him through the candle-lighted room out on to the landing. How he got down the stairs he never knew. In the grip of Rouge he seemed to be falling, falling, falling into eternal darkness. Then he must have fainted for the moment. When he came to he was in a hansom, his head lying on Aldean's shoulder, and Aldean holding him with a grip of iron.

"Thank God! Oh, thank God!" he heard Aldean say as in a dream. "And you, Rouge--how can I thank you?"

"Adieu, Monsieur!" said a far-away voice. "Forget not the prayer for Sophie and the little Therèse."

[CHAPTER IV.]

"THE ISHMAELS OF HUMANITY."

At the head of a bare deal table, set on a dais at one end of the cellar, stood Madame Death-in-Life. This subterranean place of congress comprised the whole area of the building. Excavations had been made, indeed, extending some way below the street. These were bricked in with stones, rough whitewashed. The low roof was actually the concrete floor of the basement. It was supported by pillars and arches. Entrance and exit were effected through a trapdoor with a movable ladder. There were neither chairs nor benches. The Brothers stood huddled together like sheep in a pen before the daïs--the tribune of their infernal parliament. The lanterns slung at intervals along the wall shed their faint gleam only to make obscurity more obscure. It was curious to note on the faces of these men--faces shaven and unshaven, fierce and dreamy, bearded and haggard--one common expression of determination. The flash of fanaticism was in the eye of every one of them. Some of well-nigh each European nation were present here; and their spokeswoman addressed them, first in one language, and then in another. She was no longer the icicle. She was the zealot. She made herself felt solely by means of the sense of conviction which consumed her by the right of imaginary wrong. She communicated her feelings to those about her. She dominated them by sheer force of her own enthusiasm. She renounced, she denounced, she exhorted. "Our ruler is our enemy," she declared. "We Anarchists are without rulers. We fight against all the usurpers of power--against those who wish to usurp it. Our enemy is the landowner who keeps the land for himself, who makes the peasant work for his advantage. Our enemy is the manufacturer who fills his factory with slaves. Our enemy is the State, be it Anarchical, Oligarchical, or Democratic. Its official and staff of officers, magistrates, police-spies--all these are our enemies. Our enemy is every thought of authority, call it God or the devil, in whose name the priests have so long ruled the people. Our enemy is the law which oppresses the weak by the strong to the justification and apotheosis of crime. But if the landowners, the manufacturers, the heads of the State, the priests, and the law are our enemies, we are theirs, and we boldly oppose them. We will reconquer the land and the factories, we will annihilate the State, under whatever name it may be concealed, we will regain our freedom in spite of priest and law. We despise all legal means. They are the negations of our rights. We want no so-called universal suffrage, since we cannot get away from our own personal sovereignty. We cannot and will not make ourselves accomplices in the crimes committed by our so-called representatives. We will remain our own masters, and he amongst us who strives to become a chief or leader is a traitor to our cause. Our work it is to conquer and defend common property, and to overthrow governments by whatever name they may be called. To do this we must work, we must invent, we must sacrifice. Brains, money, labour, lives--let all go for the attainment of our end. And I have a thought--a great and glorious thought, a master-thought, which, if put to execution, will give us victory." For the first time she threw out her hands, and shouted, "Air-ships! that is my thought. Conceive to yourselves, brothers, the value of this. It is superb--magnificent. There are men of genius amongst you. Get you to work, then, with all your powers. Think, strive, experiment; dedicate yourselves to the fulfilment of this great project. Succeed. You shall have money, time, help--what you will, but succeed. This is no idle dream, I say. It is the vision of my faith. I see it now before me. It rises from the ground, it soars over the earth, it poises like a vulture o'er the cities. Death--death--death it deals around. Unassailable, unapproachable, ever victorious, our engine or right. Let this be your task, comrades, and France with her armies, and England with her navies, are puny and powerless against us. The dreams of to-day are the truths of to-morrow. Have we not proof of it? The steam-engine, the telegraph, the phonograph, the telephone--all these were but dreams, once. To-day they are with us. Again I say, work, toil, beat your brains, make the great secret ours; solve the mighty problem of the air, and make us victors over the kingdoms of the oppressors!"