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HARTMANN THE ANARCHIST;

OR,

THE DOOM OF THE GREAT CITY.

SHELLING THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.       See page [147].

HARTMANN THE ANARCHIST;
OR,
THE DOOM OF THE GREAT CITY.

BY

E. DOUGLAS FAWCETT.

ILLUSTRATED BY FRED. T. JANE.

LONDON

EDWARD ARNOLD

37 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C.

Publisher to the India Office

1893

[All rights reserved]

Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,

London & Bungay.

CONTENTS.

With seventeen Full-Page and several smaller Illustrations by Fred. T. Jane.

HARTMANN THE ANARCHIST;

OR,

THE DOOM OF THE GREAT CITY.

CHAPTER I.
DARK HINTS.

All things considered, I rate October 10th, 1920, as the most momentous day of my life. Why it should be so styled is not at once apparent. My career has not been unromantic; during many years I have rambled over the globe, courting danger wherever interest led me, and later on have splashed through shambles such as revolutions have seldom before been red with. More than once I have tripped near the cave where Death lies in ambush. I am now an old man, but my memory is green and vigorous. I can look back calmly on the varied spectacle of life and weigh each event impartially in the balance. And thus looking, I refer my most fateful experience to an hour during an afternoon conversation in my dull, dingy, severe-looking quarters in Bayswater.

From romance to the commonplace is seldom a long trudge. On this occasion a quite commonplace letter determined my destiny. There was nothing of any gravity in the letter itself. It was a mere invitation to meet some friends. Most people would stare vacantly were I to show it to them. They would stare still more vacantly were I to say that it enabled me to write this terrible story. Bear in mind, however, that a lever, insignificant in itself, switches an express train off one track on to another. In a like manner a very insignificant letter switched me off from the tracks of an ordinary work-a-day mortal into those of the companion and biographer of a Nero.

Some two years before the time of which I write I had returned to London, having completed a series of adventurous travels in Africa and South-West Asia. My foregoing career is easily briefed. Left an orphan of very tender years, I had grown up under the ægis of a bachelor uncle, one of those singularly good-hearted men who rescue humanity from the cynics. He had always treated me as his own son, had given me the advantages of a sterling education, and had finally crowned his benevolence by adopting me as his heir. An inveterate politician, he had early initiated me into the mysteries of his cult, and it is probably to his guidance that I owed much of my later enthusiasm for reform. As a youngster of twenty-three I could not, however, be expected to abandon myself to blue-books and statistics, and was indeed much more intent on amusement than anything else. Among my chief passions was that of travel, a pursuit which gratified both the acquired interests of culture and the natural lust of adventure. Of the raptures of the rambler I accordingly drank my fill, forwarding, in dutiful fashion, long accounts of my tours to my indulgent relative. Altogether I spent three or four years harvesting rich experience in this manner. I was preparing for a journey through Syria when I received a telegram from my uncle’s doctor urging me immediately to return. Being then at Alexandria I made all haste to comply with it, only, however, to discover the appeal too well grounded, and the goal of my journey a death-bed. I mourned for my uncle’s loss sincerely, and my natural regrets were sharpened when his will was read. With the exception of a few insignificant bequests, he had transferred his entire property to me.

The period of mourning over, I was free to indulge my whims to the utmost, and might well have been regarded as full of schemes for a life of wild adventure. Delay, however, had created novel interests; some papers I had published had been warmly welcomed by critics; and a new world—the literary and political—spread itself out seductively before me. Further, I had by this time seen “many cities and men,” and the hydra-headed problem of civilization began to appeal to me with commanding interest. The teachings also of my uncle had duly yielded their harvest, and ere long I threw myself into politics with the same zeal which had carried me through the African forests, and over the dreary burning sands of Araby. I became, first a radical of my uncle’s school, then a labour advocate and socialist, and lastly had aspired to the eminence of parliamentary candidate for Stepney. A word on the political situation.

Things had been looking very black in the closing years of the last century, but the pessimists of that epoch were the optimists of ours. London even in the old days was a bloated, unwieldy city, an abode of smoke and dreariness startled from time to time by the angry murmurs of labour. In 1920 this Colossus of cities held nigh six million souls, and the social problems of the past were intensified. The circle of competence was wider, but beyond it stretched a restless and dreaded democracy. Commerce had received a sharp check after the late Continental wars, and the depression was severely felt. That bad times were coming was the settled conviction of the middle classes, and to this belief was due the Coalition Government that held sway during the year in which my story opens. In many quarters a severe reaction had set in against Liberalism, and a stronger executive and repressive laws were urgently clamoured for. At the opposite extreme flew the red flag, and a social revolution was eagerly mooted.

I myself, though a socialist, was averse to barricades. “Not revolution, but evolution” was the watchword of my section. Dumont has said that “the only period when one can undertake great legislative reforms is that in which the public passions are calm and in which the Government enjoys the greatest stability.” Of the importance of this truth I was firmly convinced. What was socialism? The nationalization of land and capital, of the means of production and distribution, in the interests of a vast industrial army. And how were the details of this vast change to be grappled with amid the throes of revolution? How deliberate with streets slippery with blood, the vilest passions unchained, stores, factories, and workshops wrecked, and perhaps a starving populace to conciliate? What man or convention could beat out a workable constitution in the turmoil? What guarantee had we against a reaction and a military saviour? By all means, I argued, have a revolution if a revolution is both a necessary and safe prelude of reform. But was it really necessary or even safe?

Feeling ran high in this dispute. Many a time was I attacked for my “lukewarmness” of conviction by socialists, but never did I hear my objections fairly met. Though on good terms with the advanced party as a whole, I was opposed at Stepney by an extremist as well as by the sitting Conservative member. My chances of election were poor, but victorious or not I meant to battle vigorously for principle. To a certain extent my perseverance bore good fruit. During the last month I had been honoured with the representation of an important body at a forthcoming Paris Convention, and was in fact on the eve of starting on my journey. There was no immediate call for departure, but the prospect of a pleasant holiday in France proved overwhelmingly seductive. The Socialist Congress was fixed for October 20th, and I proposed to enjoy the interval in true sybaritic fashion. Perhaps my eagerness to start was not unconnected with a tenderer subject than either rambling or politics. Happily or unhappily, however, these dispositions were about to receive short shrift.

It was a raw dismal afternoon, the grim fog-robed buildings, the dripping vehicles, and the dusky pedestrians below reminding one forcibly of the “City of Dreadful Night.” Memories of Schopenhauer and Thomson floated slowly across my mind, and the gathering shadows around seemed fraught with a gentle melancholy. Having some two hours before me, I drew my chair to the window and abandoned myself wholly to thought. What my meditations were matters very little, but I remember being vigorously recalled to reality by a smart blow on the shoulder.

“No, Stanley, my boy, it’s no use—she won’t look your way.”

I looked up with a laugh. A stalwart individual with a thick black beard and singularly resolute face had broken upon my solitude.

This worthy, whose acquaintance we shall improve hereafter, was no other than John Burnett, journalist and agitator, a man of the most advanced revolutionary opinions, in fact an apostle of what is generally known as anarchical communism. No law, no force, reference of all social energies to voluntary association of individuals, were his substitutes for the all-regulating executive of the socialists. He made no secret of his intentions—he meant to wage war in every effective mode, violent or otherwise, against the existing social system. Though strongly opposed to the theories, I was not a little attached to the theorist. He talked loudly, but, so far as I knew, his hands had never been stained with any actual crime. Further, he was most sincere, resolute, and unflinching—he had, moreover, once saved me from drowning at great risk to himself, and, like so many other persons of strong character, had contracted a warm affection for his debtor.

That his visits to me were always welcome I cannot indeed say. Many rumours of revolutions and risings were in the air, and some terrible anarchist outrages reported from Berlin had made the authorities unusually wary. Burnett, in consequence, was a marked man, and his friends and acquaintances shone with a borrowed glory. Moderate as were my own views, they might conceivably be a blind, and this possibility had of late been officially recognized. It was wonderful what a visiting list I had, and still more wonderful that my callers so often chose hours when I was out. However, as they found that I was guiltless of harbouring explosives and had no correspondence worth noting, their attentions were slowly becoming infrequent. Burnett, too, had been holding aloof of late, indeed I had not been treated to his propaganda for some weeks. To what was the honour of this unexpected visit due? “Off to Paris, I hear,” he continued. “Well, I thought I might do worse than look in. I have something to tell you too.”

A VISIT FROM BURNETT.

“My dear fellow,” I cried, “you choose your time oddly. I must leave this place in a trice. Meanwhile, however, tell me where you’ve been of late, and what this latest wrinkle is.”

“I? Well, out of London. If you had not been rushing off at short notice I might have spoken more to the point. You can’t stay a couple of days longer, can you? Say yes, and I will engage to open your eyes a bit.”

“No, I fear I can’t: the Congress is not till the 20th, but meantime I want rest. I am positively done up. Time enough, however, later on.”

Burnett laughed. “It is worth while sometimes to take time by the forelock. Look here, I am bound hand and foot at present, but this I will say, your congresses and your socialism—evolutionary, revolutionary, or what not—are played out.”

“I think I have heard that remark before,” I somewhat coldly rejoined; “still, say what you like, you will find that we hold the reins. I won’t say anything more of the practicability of anarchism, we have talked the matter over ad nauseam. But this I will say. Compared with us you are a handful of people, politically speaking of no account, and perhaps on the whole best left to the attention of the police. Forgive my bluntness, but to my mind, your crusade, when not absurd, appears only criminal.”

“As you like,” said Burnett doggedly; “the world has had enough barking—the time for biting has come. Restrain your eloquence for a season, and I’ll promise you a wonderful change of convictions.”

“What, have your Continental friends more wrecking in hand? What idiocy is this wretched campaign! It converts no one, strengthens the hands of the reactionaries, and, what is more, destroys useful capital. Why, I say, injure society thus aimlessly?”

“Curse society!”—and a heavy fist struck my writing-table—“I detest both society as it is and society as you hope it will be. To-day the capitalist wolves and a slavish multitude; to-morrow a corrupt officialism and the same slavish multitude, only with new masters. But about our numbers, my friend, you think that we must be politically impotent because we are relatively so few. We count only our thousands where you tot up your millions of supporters. Obviously we could hardly venture to beard you after the established orthodox fashion. But suppose, suppose, I say, our people had some incalculable force behind them. Suppose, for instance, that the leaders of these few thousands came to possess some novel invention—something that—that made them virtual dictators to their kind”—and looking very hard at me he seemed to await my answer with interest.

“Suppositions of this sort are best kept for novels. Besides, I see no scope even for such an invention—it is part of the furniture of Utopia. But, stay! was not this invention the dream of that saintly dynamiter Hartmann also? Hartmann! Now there’s a typical case of genius wasted on anarchy. A pretty story is that of your last martyr—tries to blow up a prince and destroys an arch and an applewoman. For the life of me I can’t see light here!”

“All men bungle sometimes,” growled the revolutionist, ignoring the first part of my reply; “Hartmann with the rest—ten years ago was it? Ah! he was young then. But mark me, my friend, don’t call people martyrs prematurely. You think Hartmann went down with that vessel—permit me to express a doubt.”

“Well,” I responded, “it matters little to me anyhow, but, anarchy apart, how that poor old mother of his would relish a glimpse of him, if what you hint at is true!”

He nodded, and involuntarily my thoughts ran back to the days of 1910, when my uncle read me, then a mere boy, the account of Hartmann’s outrage.

As Hartmann’s first crime is notorious I run some risk of purveying stale news. But for a younger generation it will suffice to mention the attempt of this enthusiast to blow up the German Crown Prince and suite when driving over Westminster Bridge on the occasion of their 1910 visit. Revenge for the severe measures taken against Berlin anarchists was the motive, but by some mischance the mine exploded just after the carriages had passed, wreaking, however, terrible havoc in the process. My sneer about the applewoman must not be taken too seriously, for though it is quite true that one such unfortunate perished, yet fifty to sixty victims fell with her in the crash of a rent arch. There was a terrible burst of indignation from all parts of the civilized world and the usual medley of useless arrests; the real culprits, Hartmann and his so-called “shadow” Michael Schwartz, escaping to sea in a cargo-boat bound for Holland. The boat went down in a storm, and, failing further news, it was believed that all on board had gone down with her. Hartmann was known to have possessed large funds, and these also presumably lined the sea-bottom. Such was the official belief, and most people had agreed that the official belief was the right one.

I should add that among Hartmann’s victims must, in a sense, be classed his mother. At the time of which I am now writing she was leading a very retired but useful life in Islington, where she spent her days in district-visiting and other charitable work. She still wore deep mourning, and had never, so it seemed, got over the shock caused by the appalling crime and early death of her son. Burnett knew her very well indeed, though she scarcely appreciated his visits. I was myself on excellent terms with the old lady, but had not seen her for some weeks previous to the conversation here recorded.

My time running fine, Burnett shortly rose to go.

“Be sure,” he said, “and look me up early on your return. Mischief, I tell you, is brewing, and how soon I shall have to pitch my camp elsewhere I hardly know.”

He was moving to the door when my landlady entered with a note. She had probably been listening to the conversation, for she glanced rather timorously at my guest before depositing her charge.

“Wait one moment, Burnett, and I’ll see you out,” said I, as I hastily broke the envelope. Yes, there was no mistaking the hand, the missive was really from my old friend, Mrs. Northerton. Its contents were fated to upset my programme. Only two days back I had arranged to meet the family in Paris at the express invitation of her husband, a genial old Liberal who took a lively interest in my work. This arrangement now received its death-blow.

“3, Carshalton Terrace, Bayswater.

“Dear Mr. Stanley,

“We have just returned from Paris, where we had, as you know, intended to stay some time. Old Mr. Matthews, whom you will recollect, died about a fortnight ago, leaving the Colonel one of his executors. As the estate is in rather a muddled condition, a good deal of attention may be necessary, so we made up our minds to forego the rest of our trip for the present. I shall be ‘at home’ to-morrow afternoon, when we shall be delighted to see you. With best wishes from all.

“Always yours sincerely,

“Maude C. Northerton.

“P.S.—Lena comes in for a bequest of £5000 in Mr. Matthews’s will.”

Lena in London! This was quite decisive.

“Excuse me, Burnett,” I said, turning to my neglected friend; “but this letter is most important. A nice business pickle I am in, I can tell you.”

“What nicely-scented note-paper your business correspondents use. You have my deep sympathies. Well, farewell for the present.”

“Don’t be in a hurry,” I said; “I am afraid I must postpone this Continental trip after all. Business is business, whoever one’s informant may be. No, I must really knock a few days off my rest.”

Burnett stared, and concluded that something really serious was on hand.

“So you will be available for two or three days longer. That being so, I shall expect to see you at the old place about eight o’clock to-morrow evening. Be sure and come, for I have a guest with me of peculiar interest to both of us. His name? Oh! don’t be impatient. It is a fixture, then? All right. No, I can’t stay. Good-night.”

I laughed heartily after I had seen him out. What a chequered life, what curious connections were mine—now a jostle with fashion, now with fanatics of anarchy like Burnett. Travelling, it is said, planes away social prejudices, and certainly in combination with Karl Marx it had done so in my case. Many friends used to rally me about my liking for the haunts of luxury, and some even went so far as to say it was of a piece with my other “lukewarm” doctrines. The answer, however, was ready. I hated revolution, and I equally hated the pettiness of a sordid socialism. We must not, I contended, see the graces of high life, art and culture, fouled by the mob, but the mob elevated into a possession and appreciation of the graces. It was just because I believed some approach to this ideal to be possible that I fought under the banners of my party, and forewent travel and independence in the interests of the wage-slave. That I was no Orator Puff I yearned for some opportunity to show. Cavillers would have then found that my money, my repute, and, if needful, my life, were all alike subservient to the cause I had at heart.

That night, however, lighter visions were to beguile my thoughts. When I dwelt upon once more meeting Miss Northerton, even Burnett’s sombre hints lost their power to interest me. And when later on I did find time to sift them, they received short shrift at my hands. Bluster in large part, no doubt, was my verdict as I turned into bed that night. However, to-morrow I should be in a better position to judge. The interview would, at any rate, prove interesting, for Burnett’s anarchist friends, however desperate, would furnish material in plenty for a study of human nature.

CHAPTER II.
THE ‘SHADOW’ OF HARTMANN.

It was with a light heart that I made my way to the Northertons’ the following afternoon. The prospect of a chat with the smart old gentleman and his ladies was delightful, and my only apprehensions concerned the assemblage I possibly might find there. As a rule receptions of this sort are tedious; prolific only of dyspepsia and boring conversations. Upper middle-class mediocrity swarms round Mammon, and Mammon, the cult of the senses apart, is uninteresting. With Mill I was always of opinion that the thinker is corrupted by the pettinesses of ordinary “social” intercourse. True, one occasionally meets a celebrity, but celebrities who are not professional talkers are best left unseen—their repute usually so outshines their deportment and conversation. Still, the celebrity is tolerable provided that not too much incense is required. The same thing cannot be said of the camp-following of mediocrities: of contact with this the effects may be as serious as they will certainly prove painful to a well-wisher of the human species. Happily, I rarely suffered at the Northertons’. Ever and anon lions stalked through their premises, and the legions of well-to-do imbeciles thronged them. But there was generally the host or hostess to fall back upon, to say nothing of the companionship of Lena, to whom, if the secret must be revealed, I had for some time been engaged. The understanding was for the present to be privy to ourselves, but I had no reason to suppose that her worthy parents would have cause to object to the match. My politics, which might have scared most people of their standing, merely interested the ex-commissioner and were wholly indifferent to his wife. But still it was satisfactory to think that Lena would shortly come of age, and that our joint means would be sufficient to enable us to ignore any probable obstacles. Old Mr. Matthews’s legacy had removed the last formidable barrier.

Two years before I had the good fortune to meet the family, on that memorable occasion when I was so hurriedly summoned from Egypt. The promenade deck of a P. and O. steamer offers boundless facilities for forming friendships, and during the brief interval which bridged my start from Suez and arrival at London, I was not slow in harvesting these advantages to the full. Old Mr. Northerton was returning home after serving his time in the Indian Civil Service, and with him were his wife, his two sons, and an only daughter. My singular interest in the family hinged mainly on the latter, a charming young girl of some eighteen summers. What that interest culminated in I have already said. It only remains to add that the cordial relations set up between the family and myself were never allowed to drop. The two sons were now serving on the Indian Staff Corps, but I corresponded with them ever and anon, and even reckoned the younger among my numerous socialist proselytes. Old Northerton was well aware of this, and though himself a Liberal of the old school, had no reproach for the teacher. After all a “sub” reading Karl Marx under the punkahs of Dum-Dum was scarcely a formidable convert.

A short walk carried me to the terrace, and ere long I was being warmly greeted by the only three available members of the family. Mrs. Northerton was too busy with her guests to pay me much attention, so after a few explanations and regrets for the spoilt trip, I was borne off in charge of the genial commissioner.

“Well, how go your election prospects?” he said, as cheerily as if my programme favoured his class.

“Not as well as I could wish. They say I am too moderate for the constituency. You know, of course, that Lawler, a ‘blood and thunder’ tub-thumper, is standing against me in the interests of the extreme party.”

“So I hear, but I should scarcely have thought he would have stood a chance.”

“On the contrary, I assure you he speaks for a numerous and very ugly party—a party which arrears of legislation have done as much as anything to create. Talking of this, I am not at all sure that we may not have trouble before long. I shall do my best to have the peace kept, but there’s no knowing to what the more reckless agitators may drive the mob.”

“There I agree with you, sir,” broke in an acute-looking old gentleman with spectacles; “but how do you reconcile that opinion with your own doctrines? How can you speak and write for socialism when you grumble at its practical enforcement? You state that you oppose revolution, but is a constitutional settlement of the problem possible?”

“Why not? You must remember that a large section of us socialists is against revolution. Looking back at the graduated nature of the transition between feudalism and modern capitalism, these men would meditate, if possible, a similar though perhaps more rapid transition between modern capitalism and socialism. Any sudden metamorphosis of society would, they believe, breed appalling evils. I am quite of this way of thinking myself.”

My interlocutor laughed. He evidently thought me a reasonable enough creature for my kind. The commissioner remarked that it was a pity that all the party were not of my way of thinking.

“But,” I added, “I have no hesitation in saying that if I thought a revolution would pay, for revolution I would declare myself. It is only a question of cost complicated by dangers of reaction and anarchy. The consideration which weighs most with me is the difficulty of organizing and legislating at a time when panic and brutality would be rampant. I know no men competent to stand at the helm in such tempests. Even with civil peace to help us, a settlement would require, to my thinking, years of patient labour. Mere revolutionary conventions, with some ready-made constitution and brand-new panaceas for suffering, would be impotent.”

“Impotent,” echoed the old gentleman. “By the way, you have not answered my question.”

“The object, sir, of my agitation is to force the projected reforms on public attention, and so to secure that most important of allies, an effective mob-backing. But let me add that once elected to Parliament I am prepared to stand by any Government, Tory or Radical, in supporting the cause of order. We contend that should the revolutionary socialists or the anarchists initiate a crusade in the streets, they must take the consequences of their temerity.”

“Well said,” observed the ex-commissioner. “I notice in this regard that some very disquieting rumours are afloat. Not only are many of the East and South London workers becoming dangerous, but these miscreants, the anarchists, are moving. You remember the fiendish massacre ten years back when Hartmann blew up the bridge?”

“Rather.”

“Well, the police have had information that this wretch is not dead after all. At the present moment he is believed to be in England stirring up more mischief.”

“The deuce he is!” cried the old gentleman. “I hope they will run him to earth.”

At this point our colloquy was broken off by Lena, who sailed gracefully through the crowd.

“I want you for a moment, Mr. Stanley. A friend of mine, Mrs. Gryffyn, is very anxious to make your acquaintance. She’s mad about land law reform and women’s suffrage.”

The old gentleman grinned and Mr. Northerton eyed me pityingly. There was no escape from the inquisitor. “Why on earth couldn’t you spare me this, Lena?” I whispered. “I want a talk with you all alone, not an hour with this virago.”

“Oh, it’s all right. I shall keep you company, and as she is going soon we shall be able to get into a quiet nook and have a long chat.”

The ordeal over, I had the luxury of a tête-à-tête with my fiancée, and excellent use I made of the limited time at my disposal. I was very fond of Lena, who was not only a charmingly pretty girl, but, thank goodness! sympathized most cordially with the bulk of my political opinions. She never of course mixed with the peculiar circles I frequented, but dearly loved to follow my reports of the movements which they represented. The only person remotely connected with them she knew was Mrs. Hartmann, to whose house I had brought her in the hope that the old lady might find a friend. Lena was often to be seen in the little parlour at Islington, and knew probably more about the poor widow’s troubles than any one else. As her parents gave her complete freedom of action, she had plenty of opportunities for cultivating the acquaintance. After our private confidences had been duly exchanged, the conversation naturally drifted to this topic. I was anxious to know about the old lady’s welfare, and casually mentioned the rumour which concerned her son. “Had it reached her ears?”

LENA WANTS ME.

“I am sure I don’t know,” said Lena; “she seemed in marvellously good spirits when I saw her last, but she made no allusion whatever to the subject. How could she, when you come to think of it? It is all very well rejoicing over a prodigal son’s return, but this son was a fiend, and would be much better lying quiet at the bottom of the sea, where people imagined him.”

“But you forget, dear, that he was her only son, and always good to her.”

“That’s true, but look at the blood on his hands. By the bye, Mrs. Hartmann once told me the whole story. Hartmann, you know, was educated for the profession of an engineer, and was always looked on as a prodigy of intellectual vigour. Whatever he did he did well, and as he came into a considerable fortune when of age, a brilliant career was predicted for him. Mrs. Hartmann says that at that time she never knew he had any other interests than those of his calling, but it appears from later discoveries that when twenty-three years of age he made the acquaintance of a German exile, one Schwartz, a miscreant of notorious opinions and character. This man gradually inspired him with a hatred of the whole fabric of society, and the end of it was that he became an anarchist. That Hartmann was deeply in earnest seems perfectly clear. He sacrificed to his aim, position, comfort, reputation, his studies—in short, everything. He regarded civilization as rotten from top to foundation, and the present human race as ‘only fit for fuel.’ Schwartz was a pessimist, and his pupil became one of an even deeper dye.”

“But what was his ultimate aim?”

“He thought, like some eighteenth-century writers, that man must revert to simpler conditions of life and make a new start. He hoped, so his mother says, that his example would fire the minds of others, and so topple over the very pedestals of governments and law. It was absurd, he held, for a few men to war against society, but, he added, the affection he laboured under was catching. He trusted that one day London and the great cities of Europe would lie in ruins.”

“But,” I interposed, “this is fanaticism, or rather madness. It is a disease bred by an effete form of civilization. Is this all the wily anarchist plotted for?”

“Well, it’s a pretty large ‘all,’ is it not? By the way, he had one persistent craze, the belief in some invention which was one day to place society at his mercy.”

“So? Awkward that for society.”

We talked for some time longer, when I called my appointment to mind, and tearing myself away from my kind friends sallied forth into the street. It was not easy to refuse the ex-commissioner’s invitation to dinner in view of Burnett’s dismal parlour at Stepney. Still I was not a little interested in his guest, and anxious, so far as was possible, to keep Burnett himself out of mischief. Hitherto he had been a mere theorist with a very kindly side, and there seemed no reason why, with care, he should not remain one. But he required, so I thought, watching. With these thoughts uppermost in my mind I hailed a hansom, and ordered the driver to drop me in the East End in a road running hard by the anarchist’s house.

I can recall my entrance into that parlour most vividly. Burnett had let me in with his usual caution. Whisking off my coat I followed him to the parlour. There was a bright fire burning in the grate, and the gleam of the flames—the only light in the room—lit up a whisky-bottle and some glasses on the table, and ever and anon revealed the rude prints on the walls and the rough deal shelves heaped with books. Everything smelt of the practical. In the place of the Louis XIV. furniture of the Northertons’ only a wooden table and some three or four deal chairs met the eye, the sole article rejoicing in a cushion being a rudely-carved sofa in the corner. The single window, I noticed, was carefully curtained and barred. Stepping toward the mantelpiece Burnett struck a match, and proceeded to light a couple of candles which crowned that dusty eminence.

I then saw to my surprise that we were not alone. On a chair by the left-hand corner of the fire sat an elderly man apparently of the higher artisan class. His face was most unprepossessing. There was a bull-dog’s obstinacy and attachment about it, but the eyes were unspeakably wicked and the mouth hard and cruel. I diagnosed it at once as that of a man whose past was best unread, whose hand had in dark by-ways been persistently raised against his fellowmen. It takes time to analyze this impression, but originally it seized me in a moment. I was prejudiced, accordingly, at the outset, but judge of my astonishment and disgust when Burnett cried, “Here, Schwartz, is my old pal Stanley.” It was the shameless miscreant known as the shadow of Hartmann!

Coldly enough I took the proffered hand. So this was the fanatic supposed to be long ago dead. One felt like abetting a murderer.

“Stanley seems startled,” laughed Burnett. “He is not much accustomed to high life. Come, man, acknowledge you had a surprise.”

The meeting was half of my seeking, and decency after all forbade openly expressed dislike. Besides, Schwartz was in practice only what Burnett was in theory, and what possibly even I and other moderates might become at a pinch.

“I confess,” I replied, “I was taken somewhat aback. It is seldom the sea gives up its dead, and one does not meet celebrities like Herr Schwartz every day.”

Schwartz laughed grimly. I could see he was pleasantly tickled. Monstrous conceits sprout from the shedding of blood. He seemed to chuckle that he, outcast and rebel, had hurled so many of his fellows into nothingness. If this was the man, what of the master?

“Fill up your glass, Stanley,” and Burnett pushed the whisky across the table. “Sit down and ask what questions you like.”

Schwartz looked me carefully over. “You say again that you answer for this friend,” he muttered to Burnett.

“As I would for myself.”

“It is well.”

“Hartmann is alive then,” I ventured, “after all?”

“Very much so,” put in Burnett. “The most he got was a wetting. He and Schwartz were picked up by a fishing-boat and carried to Dieppe. Hence they made their way to Switzerland, where they have been for some years. Hartmann had money, Schwartz devotion. Money bred money—they grew rich, and they will yet lead anarchy to triumph, for at last, after long years of danger, delay, and disappointment, the dream of Hartmann is realized!”

My companions exchanged meaning glances. Evidently they were in high spirits.

“And the deputy, the socialist, will he join us?” cried Schwartz. “He will have no struggles, no dangers; he will tread capital underfoot; he will raise his hand, and fortresses will rattle around him.”

Both the anarchists broke into renewed laughter. I was tired of hyperbole and wished to get at the facts. But do what I would my men refused to be “squeezed.” For a long time I could only glean from them that Hartmann was in London, and plotting mischief on some hitherto unimagined scale. At last I grew irritated at the splutter.

“Nonsense, Herr Schwartz, nonsense! Stir a step worth the noting and the very workers will rise and crush you. I tell you your notions are fantastic, your campaign against society maniacal. How can a few scattered incendiaries or dynamiters, ceaselessly dodging the law, hope to defy a state? The thing is ridiculous. As well match a pop-gun against a Woolwich infant.”

“My friend speaks of a struggle such as one man might wage against a mob in the street. It is not for this that Hartmann has plotted so long. It is not to be shot by soldiers or hunted by police that he will once more shake this city. Do you wish to guess his weapon? Take this piece of stuff in your hand, and tell me what you think of it.”

As he spoke he rummaged his pockets and produced a small plate, apparently of silvery grey metal, of about two square inches of surface, and one-tenth of an inch or so in thickness. I examined it carefully.

“Now take this steel knife and hammer and test its hardness and texture.” I did so. Burnett looked on knowingly.

“Well, it is extremely tough and hard, for I can make no impression. What it is, however, I can’t say.”

“But its weight, its weight!” said Burnett.

I must have changed colour. “Why, it is as light or lighter than cardboard. What an extraordinary combination of attributes!”

“Extraordinary indeed! It is the grandest of Hartmann’s strokes! But you cannot guess its use?”

I shook my head.

“Well, suppose you try to think it out between now and Saturday night, when I will promise to introduce you to the inventor himself.”

“What, Hartmann?”

“Yes; let us see, you address a meeting down at Turner’s Hall in this quarter on Saturday. I will be in the audience, and we will beard the captain in company. Midnight, Kensington Gardens, by the pond to the left as you enter from the Queen’s Road—that is the rendezvous. Come, are you ready? I think I may tell you that you will run no risks, while at any rate you will see something strange beyond compare.”

“YOU CANNOT GUESS ITS USE?”

I hesitated, the mystery was deepening, and to confront and “have it out” with the celebrated, if hateful, anarchist, would be interesting. And these queer hints too?

“Yes, I’m your man; but we must have no companions—for obvious reasons.”

Burnett nodded. Shortly afterwards the obnoxious German took his departure and left us to ourselves. I am not sure that he quite trusted my intentions, for the dread of the police spy was ever present with him.

We two talked on till midnight. On rising to go I made a final effort to “squeeze” the anarchist.

“Come, John, it’s no use playing the mystery man any longer. I shall know everything by Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning. You trust me with your other secrets, trust me with this; at any rate, a three days’ interval can’t make much difference.”

Burnett thought a moment, stepped to his shelves, and took down a work of somewhat antique binding. It was from the pen of a nineteenth-century savant of high repute in his day.[^[1]] Slowly, and without comment, he read me the following passage:—“Yet there is a real impediment in the way of man navigating the air, and that is the excessive weight of the only great mechanical moving powers hitherto placed at his disposal. When science shall have discovered some moving power greatly lighter than any we yet know, in all probability the problem will be solved.”

[1]. Duke of Argyll, Reign of Law.

The silvery grey substance had solved it!

CHAPTER III.
A MOTHER’S TROUBLES.

A raw London morning is a terrible foe to romance—visions that have danced elf-like before the view on the foregoing night tend to lose their charm or even to merge themselves wholly in the commonplace. So it was with me. When I came down to breakfast and reviewed the situation calmly, I was ready to laugh at my faith in what seemed the wild vagaries of Schwartz and Burnett. The memory of the queer little parlour and its queerer tenants had lost its over-night vividness and given place to a suspicion that either I or my hosts had indulged too freely in whisky. The little plate, however, was still in my possession, and this very tangible witness sufficed, despite a growing scepticism, to give me pause. “A striking discovery no doubt,” was my verdict, “but the dream of Hartmann, as Burnett calls it, is not so easily realized.” Still I should know all—if anything worth the mention was to be known—on Saturday night if I showed up at the odd trysting-place named by Burnett—a trysting-place which at that hour meant a scramble over palings, and a possible trouble with the police. But these things were trifles. All things considered, I should do well to present myself with or without Burnett, for the boasted aëronef apart, the threats of the anarchists had begun to perplex me mightily, and the wish to meet their notorious leader, the so terrible son of my old friend Mrs. Hartmann, was not to be summarily exorcised.

I had passed the morning in study. Luncheon over, I jotted down some notes for my speech on the following Saturday. Next, I sent Lena a note promising to look in on Sunday afternoon, sallied out with it to the post, and then ensconced myself in an omnibus which was plying in the direction of Islington. Whither was I bound? For the house of my friend Mrs. Hartmann, whom, as already mentioned, I had not seen for some time, and whose conversation just now might be fraught with peculiar interest. Had the son as yet seen the mother? Had any inkling of these vaguely discussed new plots reached her? Had she any clue to the mystery tapped over-night? Questions such as these surged up in dozens, and I determined, if possible, to feel my way to their answers.

It was late in the afternoon when I reached Mrs. Hartmann’s modest villa in Islington. The maid who admitted me said that she was not at home, having gone to visit a sick child in the neighbourhood. She expected her back to tea, and meanwhile perhaps I would like to wait. There was clearly no resource open to me but to do so, and entering the narrow hall I was shown into a drawing-room, simply but withal not uncomfortably furnished. The bay window which lighted the apartment looked on to a neat grass-plot diversified by some small but well-kept parterres.

There was little within to catch the eye. Exploring the walls I came across a shelf full of musty books, mathematical and engineering text-books, and a variety of treatises on political economy and the sciences, evidently mementos of the son! While glancing through some and noting the numerous traces of careful study, the thought struck me that the photograph of their misguided possessor might also be accessible. I had been many times in the room before, but had never been favoured with the old lady’s confidences on the score of her son. The wound caused by his crime was ever green, and I, at least, was not cruel enough to disturb it. However, being now left alone I resolved to consult her albums, which, at any rate, might serve to while away the hour. Loosening the clasp of one that lay near to hand, I turned over its leaves rapidly. As a rule, I dislike collections of this sort; there is a prosiness peculiar to albums which forbids incautious research. But here the hunt was of interest. True, there were mediocre denizens in plenty, shoals of cousins, sisters, and aunts, hordes of nonentities whom Burnett would have dubbed only “fit for fuel,” but there was discoverable one very satisfactory tenant—a loose photograph marked on the back, “R. Hartmann, taken when twenty-three years of age,” just about the time of the celebrated bridge incident.

It was the face of a young man evidently of high capacity and unflinching resolution. A slight moustache brushed the upper lip, and set off a clear-cut but somewhat cruel mouth. A more completely independent expression I never saw. The lineaments obscured by time defied accurate survey, but the general effect produced was that they indicated an arbitrary and domineering soul, utterly impatient of control and loftily contemptuous of its kind.

I was carefully conning the face when I heard the garden-gate creak on its hinges, a sound followed by the rattle of a latch-key in the lock of the front door. Mrs. Hartmann had returned. Passing into the room, she met me with a pleasant smile which showed up in curious contrast to the look of depression so familiar to me of yore. I interpreted that brightness in an instant. Hartmann had returned, and had paid her the visit of one raised from the dead. But of his terrible designs, of his restless hatred of society, he had clearly told her nothing.

Hers was an expressive face, and the shadows upon it were few enough to warrant that inference. Probably he had smoothed over the past and fooled her with some talk of a reformed life and a changed creed. It is so easy for an only son to persuade a mother—particularly when he rises after long years from a supposed grave.

“Well, Mr. Stanley, you are the last person I expected to see. I heard you were to be in Paris to-day.”

“So, my dear Mrs. Hartmann, I was, but the Northertons, you see, have returned, and I had hoped to have done some touring with the old gentleman.”

“Or perhaps with Miss Lena. No, don’t look so innocent, for she tells me more than you think. But what of this return? I had a note from her when she was in Paris, but she said nothing about it?”

“Some will business,” I explained. “You will be glad to hear she comes in for £5000 by it.”

“A nice little nest-egg to begin house-keeping upon. I think, Mr. Stanley, you two young people ought to do very well.”

“I hope so,” I said, foregoing useless secrecy—what a chatterbox Lena could be! “At any rate I see no very dangerous rocks ahead at present.”

THE PHOTOGRAPH.

The conversation wandered for some time among various topics, when I mentioned that I had been looking over the album.

“And very stupid work you must have found it,” she said.

“Oh, it kept me busy while waiting. By the way, one of the photographs is loose,” and I handed her that of her son, this time with the face upwards. The ruse was effective, and the conversation took the desired course.

“Have you never seen that face before? It is that of Rudolf, my misguided son, of whom you must have heard. Poor boy! Ten years have rolled by since his death.”

Admirably cool this mother; she at least was not to be “squeezed” offhand. But my watched-for chance had come.

“My dear Mrs. Hartmann, he is alive, and you know it. Two days ago he was in this very house.” I had drawn my bow at a venture, but the shaft served me well. The coup was decisive. The old lady’s face betrayed complete discomfiture mingled with obvious signs of alarm. She made no attempt to contradict me. “What!” she stammered out at length. “Are you also in the secret? Are you, too, one of——”

“No,” I replied bluntly, anticipating her meaning. “I have never met your son, though I know something perhaps of his movements. But believe me you may trust me as you would yourself. He was a dynamitard, but he is your son, and that is enough for me. Rest assured of my silence.”

Her distress visibly abated.

“Thanks, many thanks. I feel I can rely on you—even to lend him a helping hand should the time ever come. Ah! he is a changed man, an entirely changed man. A bright future may await him even now across the sea. But this visit to me—so sudden, so brief—I fear lest it may cost him dear. You, a private man, have found it out; why may not the lynx-eyed police also? It is terrible, this suspense. How can I be sure that he is safe at this moment?”

“Oh, as to that, happily I can reassure you. Your son is safe enough—nay, as safe as the most anxious mother could desire. How or where I cannot say, but I have it on the best possible authority. In fact, only last night I heard as much from the lips of one who should surely know—Michael Schwartz himself!”

“That evil genius! Is he too in London? Ah! if he is content, all is well. No tigress ever watched better over her cub than Schwartz over my son. Would his likings had blown elsewhere! That man was my son’s tutor in vice. But for him Rudolf might have been an honour to his country. And what is he now? An outlaw, in the shadow of the gallows,”—and she hid her face in her handkerchief and wept bitterly. I waited patiently till the tempest was over, putting in a soothing phrase here and there and painting black white with the zeal of a skilful casuist. One need not be too scrupulous when sufferers such as this are concerned.

“He has told you nothing of his movements?” I remarked cautiously.

“Nothing, except that he was leaving shortly for Hamburg, whence he was to proceed immediately to New York. Some months later on I may join him there, but for the present all is uncertain.” One more deception of Hartmann’s, but a kindly one; obviously it was better not to disturb the illusions which the old lady thus fondly cherished—her reformed son, his prospective honourable life, the vision of a lasting reunion abroad. Were she to suspect that mischief was again being plotted by the anarchist, what a cruel scattering of her hopes would follow!

I assured her that the chances were all in her son’s favour, and that once in America he could set at naught all possibilities of discovery. Meanwhile, I had become aware that nothing of importance to my quest was to be drawn from Mrs. Hartmann. Her son's meteoric visit, prompted by some gleam of noble sentiment, had evidently left her ignorant of his new inhuman plottings. Ere long I rose to leave, not, however, without having promised that, should Hartmann ever cross my path, I would stand by him for her sake in a possible hour of danger. Under what circumstances I was to meet this extraordinary man—how absurd then my poor well-meant promise of assistance was to appear—will be manifest from the ensuing narrative.

CHAPTER IV.
FUGITIVES FROM THE LAW.

On Saturday evening I addressed a stormy meeting at Stepney.

Since I bade adieu to Mrs. Hartmann much had occurred to rouse the sleeping tigers in the country. Riots had been reported from many great towns, while handbills of the most violent sort were being thrust on the workers of London. Revolutionary counsels had been long scattered by a thousand demagogues, and it appeared now that the ingathering of the harvest was nigh. A renewal of anarchist outrages had terrorized the well-to-do and fanned the extremists into vehemence. A terrible explosion was reported from Kensington, three houses, including that of the Home Secretary, Mr. Baynton, having been completely wrecked, while ten of their inmates had been killed and some fourteen more or less severely injured. A disastrous catastrophe had been narrowly averted from the Mansion House. It may be imagined, therefore, that it was with a grave face that I ascended the platform that evening; my course being rendered so difficult by reason of the extremists—on the one hand by the Conservatives, who, to my thinking, were perpetuating the conditions whence anarchy drew its breath, namely, a wretched proletariat exploited by capital; on the other by the extreme socialists, who despaired of effective advance by way of ordinary parliamentary reforms. Both parties were strongly represented that night, and, political feeling running so high, the prospect of an orderly meeting seemed shadowy. I had some unpleasant truths to press home, and was not to be deterred from this duty.

Before rising to speak I glanced anxiously around the hall, and imagine my feelings when I found that Burnett was missing. This breach of his engagement was ominous. That he had a hand in the outrages was possible—his tone had of late been most threatening, and the influence of Schwartz was malefic—though the supposition was one I did not like to entertain. At any rate he might well have been suspected of complicity, and forced to seek refuge in flight. It was with a heavy heart that I obeyed the behest of the chairman and rose to address the meeting.

What I said matters little. Severe condemnation of the outrages, a sharp critique of the individualist—Conservative groups, an appeal for unity and order in our agitation, were the points upon which I laid emphasis. I had spoken for about half-an-hour when my audience refused to let me proceed. Previously to this, interruptions had been frequent, but now a violent uproar arose, the uproar led to a fight, and a rush was made for the platform, which, albeit gallantly defended, was speedily enough stormed. I had the pleasure of knocking over one ruffian who leapt at me brandishing a chair, but a brutal kick from behind sent me spinning into the crush by the steps. Severely cuffed and pommelled, I was using my fists freely when the gas was suddenly turned off, and the struggle being summarily damped, I managed somehow to get into the street.

And now came the exciting business of the night. In the mass of shouting enthusiasts outside it was useless to look for Burnett. I determined, therefore, to track him down to his own quarters. Passing back into the committee-room I hastily scribbled some rather indignant lines to my chairman, and then pulling my hat over my eyes elbowed my way through the press.

By the time I got clear of the street I was considerably flushed and heated, and the rate at which I was going by no means conduced to refresh me. After ten minutes’ sharp walk I plunged down the narrow street where Burnett’s house lay, and a few seconds later had kicked back the gate and marched up to the door. I was startled to find it ajar. Burnett was so habitually cautious that I knew something must be amiss. Pushing it slowly open I stole noiselessly into the passage and glanced through the keyhole of the door which led into the little parlour. It was well I had not tramped in. Two policemen and a man in plain clothes were standing round a hole in the floor, and the whole apartment was strewn with prized-up planks. On a chair close by was a heap of retorts, bottles, and canisters, while three ugly-looking bombs lay on the hearthstone.

Burnett, then, had really been mixed up in these outrages, and the police were on his trail, if indeed they had not already arrested him. And what about my own position? The best thing for me was to make off in a trice, for the entanglements, troubles, and disgrace in which capture there would plunge me were too appalling to contemplate. Instantly I glided to the door, and gently—this time—revolving the gate, slipped out hurriedly into the street. Fortunately there was no one on watch, or my arrest would have been speedy. As it was I rapidly gained the main street and was soon lost in the broad stream of pedestrians.

Having still three hours before me, I turned into a confectioner’s, and over a substantial tea endeavoured to think the matter out. That I was furious with Burnett goes without saying. Only his fanatical theories separated him to my mind from the common murderer. But that he should be caught was a thought utterly revolting, for I had liked the man warmly, and had owed my life to his pluck. No; our friendship must cease henceforth, but it was at least my duty to warn him, if still at large, of the discovery. But how? There was only one course open to me. Outrages or no outrages, police or no police, I must be present at the meeting in the park that night. It was quite possible that Burnett, ignorant of the search made at his house, might be still strolling about London, a prize for the first aspiring police-officer who should meet him. Yes, I would go and chance meeting the group, for I should mention that the exact spot for the rendezvous was unknown to me. All I knew was that it was somewhere near the pond to the left as you enter from the Queen’s Road. The best thing I could think of was to idle outside the park, until I could climb the palings unnoticed.

The sky was overcast with clouds, and so far the project was favoured. Hazardous as was the affair, my resolution was speedily made and fortified. Leaving the shop I sallied out for a stroll and passed the remaining interval as best I could. Then I called for a hansom, and, leaping in, ordered the driver to take me to the Marble Arch. He demurred at first, saying the journey was too much for his horse at that time of night, but his scruples were silenced by the offer of a half-sovereign for his pains. The mute objections of his steed were quashed with a sharp cut of the whip, and I was whirled swiftly on to an adventure which was to beggar the wildest creations of romance.

At the Marble Arch I dismissed the cab and walked briskly along the Hyde Park side in the direction of Notting Hill. I had gone some few hundred yards when a hansom sped by me rapidly, and a well-known face within it flashed on my vision like a meteor. It was Burnett, of all persons! Shouting and waving my stick I rushed wildly in chase of the vehicle, and, by dint of desperate efforts, succeeded at last in stopping it. As I approached the window, the trap flew up. “Drive on, man, drive on, never mind,” growled a hoarse voice, and I heard the click of a revolver. “Here I am,” I said, getting on the step and rapping the window just as the man was about to whip up. Burnett stared. “What, you here!” he said, flinging apart the leaves. “Come in quick. I don’t know who may be behind.” I mounted in a trice, and the cab flew on faster than ever.

“Look here,” I said, breathlessly, “I have come to warn you. The police are on your track.”

“I know it, my boy,” he rejoined, “but I think they have some way to run yet. No fear. I leave London in an hour.”

What was the man talking of—was he raving, or boasting, or what?

“Hi, stop!” We got out, and the cab rolled away complacently.

“Now over the palings,” cried Burnett. “You will see Hartmann?”

“Yes, for an instant.” The demon of curiosity was urgent, and the coast seemed clear.

“All right. Come, sharp.”

It was no easy task for me, tired as I was, but with the help of my companion I got through it somehow.

A SALVO OF CRACKS OF REVOLVERS.

“Hallo! Look!” A second cab (probably informed by ours) was bearing down rapidly with two occupants, one of whom stood excitedly on the steps. “Detectives! We’re spotted!” I leapt to the ground desperately. Heavens! where had my curiosity landed me?

“Put your best leg foremost and follow me,” yelled Burnett, and his revolver flashed in the gas-light.

In my foolish excitement I obeyed him. As we rushed along I heard the men leap out and their boots clink on the iron of the palings. I felt like the quarry of the wild huntsman of German legend. If arrested in such a plight, and in such company, a deluge of disgrace, if not worse, awaited me. I ran like a deer from a leopard, but I felt I could not hold out very long at so break-neck a speed.

“Keep—your—pecker—up,” shouted Burnett brokenly. “Hartmann—is—waiting.”

“To be arrested with us,” was my thought, or was more murder imminent? God! how I cursed my foolhardiness and useless sacrifice!

“Here—we are—at last!” cried my companion, looking back over his shoulder. “One—effort—more.”

Half dizzy with fear and fatigue I made a despairing sprint, when, my foot striking a root, I was hurled violently to the ground. All I remember is seeing two dusky forms rushing up, and Burnett hurriedly wheeling round. Then from some unknown spot broke a salvo of cracks of revolvers. A heavy body fell bleeding across my face, and almost at once consciousness left me.

CHAPTER V.
A STRANGE AWAKENING.

Where was I? I seemed to be escaping from the throes of some horrible dream, and that too with a headache past endurance. I stretched out my right hand and it struck something cold and hard. I opened one eye with an effort, and I saw three men bending over me as one sees spectres in a nightmare. Slowly there was borne upon me the sound of voices, and then the cruel remembrance of that struggle. I was in a police cell, and might have to expiate my misfortunes with shame or even death. Who was to believe my tale? Horrified at the thought, I gave utterance to a deep groan.

“There’s not much up with your pal, Jack,” said one of the spectres aforesaid; “give him some more whisky; he’s hit his head and got knocked silly, that’s all.”

What was this? A surge of blood coursed through me. I made a supreme effort and opened both eyes fully. The light was poor, but it was enough. The face of the man nearest me was the face of Burnett, by him stood a rough-looking artisan, and, by all that is marvellous, Michael Schwartz!

“Here, take this,” said Burnett, as the rough-looking man handed him the glass, “you’ll be all right in a minute.” I drank it off mechanically and, imbued with new strength, sat bolt upright on the bench. Burnett watched me satirically as I tried to cope with the situation. By the light of a small lamp hanging in a niche over my head I saw that I was in a low small room about twelve feet square, with bare greyish-looking walls and a few slit-like openings near the ceiling which did duty, no doubt, for windows. A few chests, several chairs, and a table of the same greyish colour constituted its furniture. Almost directly opposite me was a low door through which blew gusts of chilly mist, but as to what lay beyond it I could not of course form a conjecture. Having made this rapid survey I turned in astonishment to my three stolid companions, mutely entreating some sort of clue to the mystery.

Schwartz then made an attempt to rouse me by asking how I had enjoyed my nocturnal run in the park. But I was still too surprised to answer. I was thinking how Burnett could have carried me safe away, where he could possibly have brought me, what had become of our pursuers, where the mysterious Hartmann was, who had fired the shots? These and a multitude of like riddles rendered me speechless with bewilderment. When I had more or less fully regained voice and strength I turned to Burnett, and ignoring the impish Schwartz, said curtly—

“Where on earth am I?”

“You aren’t on earth at all,” was the answer, and the three burst into a hearty laugh. “Nor in heaven,” added the speaker; “for if so neither Schwartz nor Thomas would be near you.”

“Come, a truce to humbug! Am I in London, on the river, in an anarchist’s haunt, or where?”

“I am quite serious. But if you want something more explicit, well, you are not in London but above it.”

I looked at the three wonderingly. A faint light was beginning to break on my mind. But no, the thing was impossible!

“Are you able to walk now?” said Burnett. “Come, Schwartz, you take one arm and I’ll take another. Between us we’ll give Mr. Constitutionalist a lesson. Stanley, my boy, in all your days you never saw a sight such as I am going to show you now.”

“But it is nothing to what we shall see, comrade, when the captain gives the word,” added Schwartz.

“Thank you,” I replied, “I will lean on you, Burnett. I can do without Herr Schwartz’s assistance.”

We moved across the room.

“Hist!” whispered Burnett, “don’t be nasty to the German. He’s the captain’s right hand. It was he, too, who knocked over your man just now and so saved you from trouble. Take my advice and be discreet.”

I nodded.

“But who——”

“Wait a moment and look around you.”

We had crossed the doorway and were standing in a sort of open bulwarked passage which evidently ran on for some length on either side. I stepped to the bulwarks.

“Look below,” said Burnett.

I looked long and earnestly, while Schwartz and Thomas stood silently in the background. It was a strange sight, and it was some time ere I seized its meaning. It was very dark outside, the only light being that coming through the doorway of the chamber I had just quitted. But far below, as it seemed, glittered innumerable specks like stars, a curious contrast to the inkiness of the cloudy pall above us. As I gazed down into the depths I became conscious of a dull murmur like that of whirling machinery, and forthwith detected a constant vibration of the ledge on which my elbow rested. Then, and then only, the truth rushed upon me.

I WAS BEING CARRIED OVER LONDON IN THE CRAFT OF HARTMANN THE ANARCHIST

I was being carried over London in the craft of Hartmann the Anarchist.

Horrified with my thoughts—for the potentialities of this fell vessel dazed me—I clung fiercely to Burnett’s arm.

“I am, then, on the——,” I gasped.

“Deck of the Attila,” put in Burnett. “Behold the craft that shall wreck civilization and hurl tyrannies into nothingness!”

But my gaze was fixed on those lights far below, and my thought was not of the tyrannies I had left, but of the tyranny this accursed deck might minister to. And Hartmann, they said, was remorseless.

“Yes,” growled Thomas hoarsely, “I live for the roar of the dynamite.”

Schwartz, stirred to enthusiasm, shouted a brutal parody of Tennyson.

“The dynamite falls on castle walls

And splendid buildings old in story.

The column shakes, the tyrant quakes,

And the wild wreckage leaps in glory.

Throw, comrade, throw: set the wild echoes flying;

Throw, comrade; answer, wretches, dying, dying, dying.”

If the remainder of the crew resembled this sample, I was caged in a veritable inferno. As yet, of course, I knew nothing of their numbers or feelings, but my expectations were far from being roseate.

“But, man!” I cried, turning to Burnett, “would you massacre helpless multitudes? you, who prate of tyranny, would you, also, play the rôle of tyrants?”

Before the gathering horror all my wonder at the Attila had vanished. I felt only the helpless abject dismay with which one confronts an appalling but inevitable calamity. At that moment some disaster to the aëronef would have been welcome. The masterful vice of the fanatics maddened me. Rebel, however, as I might, I was of no account. The snake that snapped at the file had more in his favour.

“We don’t argue here,” said Burnett, “we act. If you want arguments, you must wait till you see the captain. Disputes with us are useless.”

So even he was becoming surly. It was natural enough, however, as a moment’s reflection showed. The alligator on land is ordinarily mild enough, in his element he is invariably a terrible monster. The “suspect” anarchist of Stepney was courteous and argumentative, but the free and independent anarchist of the Attila dogmatic and brutal. It was obviously best policy to humour him, for he alone, perhaps, might stand by me at a pinch. I endeavoured to throw oil on the troubled waters.

“You used not to mind criticism,” I urged.

“Oh no! but those days are past. Don’t take what I say unkindly, for we all mean you well. The captain will always talk, but we here are tired of it. We only exist now to act—when the word is passed. So you will consult our convenience and your own much more effectually if you drop all such homilies for the future.”

“Yes,” put in Thomas, “I had enough of it in London. Fifteen years of revolutionary socialist talking and nothing ever done! But wait a few weeks and I warrant it will be said that we here have atoned wonderfully well for arrears. Come, a glass to our captain—the destined destroyer of civilization!” The gallant three, acting on this hint, left me to digest their advice and retired within. How long I remained thinking I know not. Some one brought me a chair, but I was too abstracted to thank him. For fully an hour I must have looked down on those twinkling lights with a terror beyond the power of words to express. All was as Burnett had said. The dream of Hartmann was realized. The exile and outcast, lately sheltered from the law in the shadow of Continental cities, now enjoyed power such as a hundred Czars could not hope for. The desperadoes with him, hated by and hating society, were probably one and all devoured by lust of blood and revenge. The three I knew were all proscribed men, loathing not only the landlord and capitalist but the workers, who would most of them have rejoiced over their capture. They attacked not only the abuses and the defects but the very foundations of society. Their long-cherished thought had been to shatter the trophies of centuries. And the long-contemplated opportunity had come at last!

One resource remained. What they meant to do with me was uncertain. But my relations with Burnett and the friendship of Hartmann’s mother were sufficient to avert any apprehension of violence. My endeavour then henceforward must be to work on the mind of Hartmann, to divert this engine of mischief into as fair a course as possible, to achieve by its aid a durable and relatively bloodless social revolution, and to reap by an authority so secure from overthrow a harvest of beneficial results. Buoyed up by these brighter thoughts, I now began to find time for a more immediate interest. What of this wonderful vessel or aëronef itself? What was it built of? how was it propelled, supported, steered, manned, constructed? Rising from my chair, I felt my way along the railing forward, but found the way barred by some door or partition. As I made my way back I met Burnett, who emerged from the low door already mentioned.

“What, exploring already?” he said. “It’s no good at this hour, as you have doubtless discovered. Come inside and I’ll see you are made cosy for the night. You must want sleep, surely.”

I followed him in without a word. Passing into the chamber he pressed a spring in the wall, and a concealed door flew back revealing a dark recess. He struck a light, and there became visible a comfortable berth with the usual appurtenances of a homely cabin such as one would occupy in the second-class saloon of an ordinary ocean-going steamer.

“By the way,” I said, “you have not told me what happened in the park; I am dying to know.”

“It is easily told. When you fell, the two detectives were up in a moment. I turned round meaning to shoot, but before I emptied a barrel, crack, crack, crack, came a series of reports from aloft, and both men were settled, one spinning right across you—see, your coat is covered with blood. The explanation is that thirty feet up between the alleys of the trees floated the Attila, and Hartmann and Schwartz were indulging in a little sport. I very soon climbed up the ladder which was swinging close by the tree we were to have come to, and you were shortly afterwards hauled up in a carefully tied sheet. Why did we take you on board? I am surprised at your asking. We could not stop, and the idea of leaving you stunned, and in the compromising company of dead men, was not arguable. Would you have relished the idea of a trial as murderer and anarchist? You meant well, you see, by me, and the captain was strong in your favour. Some of the men know of you, and no one had a bad word to say—save that your theories were rather Utopian. But you may change.”

For awhile I was silent. I thought of my Utopian project. Then I said, “So far as my theories go, I will confine myself now to one remark. An air-ship may be used as well as abused.”

Burnett laughed. “That’s better! Don’t forget, however, to define your view of us to the captain. Hallo! I must be off on watch!” An electric bell tinkled sharply in the outer chamber. “Good-night.”

“Good-night.”

Just before turning in I looked closely at the basin of my wash-hand stand. It was of the same silvery grey colour which I had noted on the walls of the cabin, and which, indeed, seemed ubiquitous. A sudden thought struck me. I emptied out the water and lifted it up. Its weight seemed so absurdly small that I could hardly believe my senses. But one thing was clear. The mystery of the thin silvery grey plate was explained. It was out of such materials that the body of the Attila was fashioned. The riddle of Schwartz previously half brushed aside was at last solved completely.

As I was dropping off to sleep a novel reflection assailed me. What would Lena think of my absence to-morrow? Of this terrible night in the park she would not, of course, dream. Still——, but sleep speedily quenched my thinking.

CHAPTER VI.
ON THE DECK OF THE ‘ATTILA.’

It was late the next morning when thought and feeling came back to me, the blurred imagery of my dreams mingling strangely with the memories of the preceding night. Despite a slight headache, and a suspicion or two of giddiness, I felt as well as could be expected, and lying back snugly on my pillow began to meditate rising. For once my resolution was quick in the making. My uncle used to say that, all things considered, life was not worth the trouble of dressing. But on this particular morning it most certainly was. The apprehensions of the past night had given way to a hopeful spirit, while the interest of exploring this aëronef thrilled me through and through. I was about to spring out of the berth in readiness for the labours of the toilet when Burnett looked in through the door.

“All right! Glad to hear it. Where are we? Over the North Sea. Take my advice, and get up sharp. The captain has asked to see you. You’ll find me knocking about somewhere round here when you’re ready.”

Thoroughly alive to the situation, I was not long in getting into my clothes. But my disgust was great on finding sundry half-dried splashes of blood on my coat, a souvenir of my luckless pursuer. In the excitement and darkness I had overlooked these hideous traces which now seemed to threaten me with the brand of Cain. Throwing aside the polluted garment, I stepped into the outer chamber, my pleasure quite overcast for the moment. Burnett was there, and a hearty breakfast was awaiting me, to which I promised to do summary and sweeping justice. The room, but feebly apparent the foregoing night, was now flooded with the sunlight, but the height at which we floated rendered the air most chilly and penetrating. The silvery grey colour of the walls, floor, chairs, benches, tables, and even the dishes and mugs, wrought on me an impressive effect, curiously set off by the red cap worn by Burnett. Through the open doorway gleamed the same silvery grey livery of the flooring and bulwark of the passage already mentioned, and, framed, as it were, in silver, glowed a truly magnificent cloud-picture. This skyscape, however, was unstable, mass after mass of mist, shaped into turrets, battlements, and mountains, rolled by in picturesque splendour, bearing artistic testimony to the speed at which we or they were moving. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” said Burnett. “Here, eat your breakfast, and then I’ll show you round our cloud empire. Or perhaps you had best see the captain as soon as possible.”

I said I thought that would be best.

“But where’s your coat, man? Oh, I remember. Wait and I’ll fetch you one of mine.”

In a short time the missing garment was made good, and I was falling to with avidity:—

“How do you manage your meals and service here? Have you cooks or servants?”

“Of course not. We are anarchists, and everything depends on private initiative. Every man is as good as another, and every man is a volunteer. Later on you will be expected to bestir yourself also.”

“But how do you avoid chaos?”

“There is no chaos to avoid. Outside the engine-room and conning-tower there is little a man cannot quickly learn to do at need. We are very simple in our wants—that is part of our creed—and, consequently, have a deal of leisure. The watches are the worst part, for the captain is very particular.”

“Ah, wait a minute. What authority has he?”

“The authority of the soul of this enterprise, and its best man. We would voluntarily support him in a crisis. Five days ago a couple of Italians turned rusty. He shot both where they stood, and the men in their hearts approved of it. But he is an iron man. Wait till you see him?”

“Is any one on the Attila free to go where he likes?”

“Yes, except into the captain’s quarters. To pass there a permit is required to all except myself, Schwartz, and Thomas. The engine-room watchers pass through every three hours, and a passage runs from it to the conning-tower and magazine below. You may guess what the latter contains.”

“How many men are aboard?”

“Twenty-five, excluding ourselves. Eight are Germans, six Englishmen, four French, two Russians, one an Italian, and the others Swiss, some of those whom Hartmann employed at Berne.”

“Berne; was that where the Attila was built?”

“That’s it. Hartmann, Schwartz, and his Swiss workmen put her together. He made money there, as you know, and this was his grand investment. It was kept beautifully dark in the wooded grounds of his villa. We are going there now, so you will see the place for yourself.”

“But does any one know of the Attila?”

“No outsider probably who would be believed if he said anything. We have our friends down below, of course—never you fear—but they are mum. The hour has not yet struck, but the preparations for the festival are being merrily carried out. The Attila is a secret for the present. To avoid being seen we take every precaution possible, and never approach the ground except at night; in the daytime, well, there are clouds, and, if none, we simply mount higher, and then our colour is enough to conceal us.”

“But what if you meet a balloon?”

“Oh, there’s very little chance of that. And if there was, the balloonist might find cause to regret the meeting. But come, and I’ll take you round to the captain. He is a better spokesman than I.”

“Right you are.”

We stepped out on to the passage, and rushing to the bulwark (if I may so call it) I gazed rapturously into the abyss below. It was indeed a glorious sight. The clouds hung around and below us, but here and there through their rents flashed the blue of a waste of rolling waters. Ever and anon these gaps would be speckled with rushing sea-birds, whose cries, mellowed by the distance, broke on the ear like music. Above in the clear blue sky shone the sun at the keystone of his low winter arch, lighting up the cloud masses with a splendour words cannot describe. Far ahead through a break on my right a faint thin streak like distant land seemed visible.

“Hallo,” I cried, “look there, land!”

Burnett shaded his eyes.

“I can see nothing. Ah, yes! By Jove! who’s on watch? We ought to be rising.”

As he spoke a sudden pitch of the aëronef nearly upset us—the speed rapidly increased, and the wind became positively cutting.

“We are rising fast,” said Burnett. “See, we are leaving the cloud-bank far below us.”

But a new marvel had just caught my eye, and, clinging to the hand-rail, I gazed upwards in astonishment. The wall of the chamber behind us was continuous with the main mass of the aëronef, which, looking from where we stood, exhibited the graceful lines of a ship’s hull. Round this hull and presumably half-way up it ran the railed passage where we were standing, communicating here and there with doorways let into the grey side. Some thirty feet above us this side curved upwards and inwards so as to terminate in a flat, railed deck on which a few moving heads were just visible. But above this again rose a forest of thin grey poles running up to a vast oblong aëroplane which stretched some way beyond the hull. All these props were carefully stayed together, and those towards the bow were somewhat higher than those in the stern; provision being thus made for the inclination of the aëroplane consistently with due maintenance of the hull’s equilibrium below. In the latter part of the nineteenth century much progress had been made in experiments with aëroplanes; those of Maxim being particularly suggestive and interesting. I was, therefore, at no loss to probe the significance of this portion of the mechanism.

“The captain wishes to see you,” said Burnett, who was talking to a sullen-looking fellow by the doorway; “come along.”

I GAZED UPWARDS IN ASTONISHMENT.

He stepped briskly along the passage, and, when we had gone some fifteen yards, turned up one of the alleys. Entering behind him I came to a small court surrounded with rooms and cabins, leaving which we ascended a spiral staircase to the upper deck. Glancing hastily around I saw five or six men pacing about chatting, while from other courts below came the sounds of singing and laughter. This deck, which capped the entire hull, was no less than eighty yards in length with an extreme breadth of at least thirty-five. Broad at the stern it narrowed off to a sharp point at the bow. The props attached to the aëroplane were set in six rows, curving close together amidships where there stood a small circular citadel, evidently the stronghold of the captain. Here were mounted three or four cannon of the quick-firing sort fashioned out of the same grey substance as the Attila, but the utility of which in a vessel carrying dynamite was not immediately obvious. The citadel itself bore no outward signs of comfort. It had four square windows and a plain hole of an entrance let into bare shining walls. An exterior wall six feet high, surmounted with spikes, and having here and there a recess sheltering a machine gun, enclosed it. A fitter abode for the man I could not conceive. Sullen, isolated, and menacing, it inspired me with a vague premonitory dread.