“Burn down the mill! Let us teach him what poverty means!”
Then Karl Metzerott, carried away from all power of reason or self-control by the spirit to which he had so long yielded, sprang upon his feet for the last time.
“The mill!” he cried with angry scorn. “Do you think his millions are there? Were you to burn ten mills he would scarcely feel the loss. The house, the house, I say! Burn down his house, with him in it, and teach him what hell means.”
In silence more deadly than the wildest outcry, the crowd swept down the steps and out into the night, a fit night for such plans as theirs; for the rain fell, not heavily, but in a soft, cold, treacherous drizzle. The sky had hidden her face from them, and there was not a star to be seen. And as they passed along their power grew: homeless waifs crept from the door-ways and market-stalls where they had sheltered, and joined them at the hint of fire; thieves and coiners left their secret labors; burglars stepped into rank, tools in hand; all the scum and slime of the great city left the holes and corners where it had festered, to aid in the work of flame and blood.
The meeting had been held with closed and guarded doors; but, as it ended, one man, light and active as a monkey, slipped through a window, lit upon the wide, projecting cornice of the one below, thence sprang swiftly and caught a rainpipe, by the aid of which he slid to the ground and ran rapidly up an alley into the principal street of Micklegard. Here he paused a moment, as if in doubt, then sprang upon a figure approaching him from the direction of up-town.
“Louis! was ever such luck as meeting you!”
“What is it, Fritz? not”—
Fritz nodded. “That’s what’s the matter,” he said. “Going to burn Randolph and his house together, and teach him what—well!” said Fritz considerately, “never mind that. Now, you see, there are two streets they can take to get there, and a fellow can’t tell which they’ll choose. I’ve got the pull on ‘em so far, though; and if you’ll take the road of the pins, I’ll take that of the needles, as the wolf said to Rothkäppchen; and then one or the other will do the business. See?”
Louis nodded, and sped away; but Fritz was surprised to see him turn off at right angles to his proper course. He did not stop to reason about it, however. “Louis is all right; there’s nothing mean about him,” said Fritz, “and I guess he knows what he means by it, if I don’t.”
The truth was that Louis had seen Edgar Harrison’s buggy standing before a door in this side street, and was quite prepared to run away with it if necessary; but the doctor was just stepping in as he reached it.