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Cæsar's Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century

by Ignatius Donnelly · English · Gutenberg #5155 · 574,866 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Cæsar's Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century

Author: Ignatius Donnelly


        
Release date: February 1, 2004 [eBook #5155]
                Most recently updated: September 10, 2012

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5155

Credits: Produced by Norm Wolcott


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CÆSAR'S COLUMN: A STORY OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY ***




Produced by Norm Wolcott










[Redactor's note: In this one of his last books Donnelly presages
later futurist works such as "Brave New World" and "1984". The
original scans and OCR were provided by Mr. J.B. Hare; for further
information about Donnelly and this book see
http://www.sacred-texts.com/utopia/cc/index.htm. There is only one
footnote marked {fn1.} ]

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                            CÆSAR'S COLUMN

                  A Story of the Twentieth Century.

                        BY IGNATIUS DONNELLY.

                              writing as

                       EDMUND BOISGILBERT, M.D.

                      Chicago, F.J. Shulte & Co.

                                [1890]

----------------------------------------------------------------------

                          TABLE OF CONTENTS


                  To the Public

       I          THE GREAT CITY

       II.        MY ADVENTURE

       III.       THE BEGGAR'S HOME

       IV.        THE UNDER-WORLD

       V.         ESTELLA WASHINGTON

       VI.        THE INTERVIEW

       VII.       THE HIDING-PLACE

       VIII.      THE BROTHERHOOD

       IX.        THE POISONED KNIFE

       X.         PREPARATIONS FOR TO-NIGHT

       XI.        HOW THE WORLD CAME TO BE RUINED

       XII.       GABRIEL'S UTOPIA

       XIII.      THE COUNCIL OF THE OLIGARCHY

       XIV.       THE SPY'S STORY

       XV.        THE MASTER OF "THE DEMONS"

       XVI.       GABRIEL'S FOLLY

       XVII.      THE FLIGHT AND PURSUIT

       XVIII.     THE EXECUTION

       XIX.       THE MAMELUKES OF THE AIR

       XX.        THE WORKINGMEN'S MEETING

       XXI.       A SERMON OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

       XXII.      ESTELLA AND I

       XXIII.     MAX'S STORY-THE SONGSTRESS

       XXIV.      MAX'S STORY CONTINUED--THE JOURNEYMAN PRINTER

       XXV.       MAX'S STORY CONTINUED--THE DARK SHADOW

       XXVI.      MAX'S STORY CONTINUED--THE WIDOW AND HER SON

       XXVII.     MAX'S STORY CONTINUED--THE BLACKSMITH SHOP

       XXVIII.    MAX'S STORY CONCLUDED--THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS

       XXIX.      ELYSIUM

       XXX.       UPON THE HOUSE-TOP

       XXXI.      "SHEOL"

       XXXII.     THE RAT-TRAP

       XXXIII.    "THE OCEAN OVERPEERS ITS LIST"

       XXXIV.     THE PRINCE GIVES HIS LAST BRIBE

       XXXV.      THE LIBERATED PRISONER

       XXXVI.     CÆSAR ERECTS HIS MONUMENT

       XXXVII.    THE SECOND DAY

       XXXVIII.   THE FLIGHT

       XXXIX.     EUROPE

       XL.        THE GARDEN IN THE MOUNTAINS

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_"The true poet is only a masked father-confessor, whose special
function it is to exhibit what is dangerous in sentiment and
pernicious in action, by a vivid picture of the
consequences."--Goethe._

                            To the Public

It is to you, O thoughtful and considerate public, that I dedicate
this book. May it, under the providence of God, do good to this
generation and posterity!

I earnestly hope my meaning, in the writing thereof, may not be
misapprehended.

It must not be thought, because I am constrained to describe the
overthrow of civilization, that I desire it. The prophet is not
responsible for the event he foretells. He may contemplate it with
profoundest sorrow. Christ wept over the doom of Jerusalem.

Neither am I an anarchist: for I paint a dreadful picture of the
world-wreck which successful anarchism would produce.

I seek to preach into the ears of the able and rich and powerful the
great truth that neglect of the sufferings of their fellows,
indifference to the great bond of brotherhood which lies at the base
of Christianity, and blind, brutal and degrading worship of mere
wealth, must--given time and pressure enough--eventuate in the
overthrow of society and the destruction of civilization.

I come to the churches with my heart filled with the profoundest
respect for the essentials of religion; I seek to show them why they
have lost their hold upon the poor,--upon that vast multitude, the
best-beloved of God's kingdom,--and I point out to them how they may
regain it. I tell them that if Religion is to reassume her ancient
station, as crowned mistress of the souls of men, she must stand, in
shining armor bright, with the serpent beneath her feet, the champion
and defender of mankind against all its oppressors.

The world, to-day, clamors for deeds, not creeds; for bread, not
dogma; for charity, not ceremony; for love, not intellect.

Some will say the events herein described are absurdly impossible.

Who is it that is satisfied with the present unhappy condition of
society? It is conceded that life is a dark and wretched failure for
the great mass of mankind. The many are plundered to enrich the few.
Vast combinations depress the price of labor and increase the cost of
the necessaries of existence. The rich, as a rule, despise the poor;
and the poor are coming to hate the rich. The face of labor grows
sullen; the old tender Christian love is gone; standing armies are
formed on one side, and great communistic organizations on the other;
society divides itself into two hostile camps; no white flags pass
from the one to the other. They wait only for the drum-beat and the
trumpet to summon them to armed conflict.

These conditions have come about in less than a century; most of them
in a quarter of a century. Multiply them by the years of another
century, and who shall say that the events I depict are impossible?
There is an acceleration of movement in human affairs even as there
is in the operations of gravity. The dead missile out of space at
last blazes, and the very air takes fire. The masses grow more
intelligent as they grow more wretched; and more capable of
cooperation as they become more desperate. The labor organizations of
to-day would have been impossible fifty years ago. And what is to
arrest the flow of effect from cause? What is to prevent the coming
of the night if the earth continues to revolve on its axis? The fool
may cry out: "There shall be no night!" But the feet of the hours
march unrelentingly toward the darkness.

Some may think that, even if all this be true, "Cæsar's Column"
should not have been published. Will it arrest the moving evil to
ignore its presence? What would be thought of the surgeon who, seeing
upon his patient's lip the first nodule of the cancer, tells him
there is no danger, and laughs him into security while the roots of
the monster eat their way toward the great arteries? If my message be
true it should be spoken; and the world should hear it. The cancer
should be cut out while there is yet time. Any other course

"Will but skin and film the ulcerous place, While rank corruption,
mining all beneath, infects unseen."

Believing, as I do, that I read the future aright, it would be
criminal in me to remain silent. I plead for higher and nobler
thoughts in the souls of men; for wider love and ampler charity in
their hearts; for a renewal of the bond of brotherhood between the
classes; for a reign of justice on earth that shall obliterate the
cruel hates and passions which now divide the world.

If God notices anything so insignificant as this poor book, I pray
that he may use it as an instrumentality of good for mankind; for he
knows I love his human creatures, and would help them if I had the
power.

                              CHAPTER I

                            THE GREAT CITY

[This book is a series of letters, from Gabriel Weltstein, in New
York, to his brother, Heinrich Weltstein, in the State of Uganda,
Africa.]

NEW YORK, Sept. 10, 1988

My Dear Brother:

Here I am, at last, in the great city. My eyes are weary with gazing,
and my mouth speechless with admiration; but in my brain rings
perpetually the thought: Wonderful!--wonderful!--most wonderful!

What an infinite thing is man, as revealed in the tremendous
civilization he has built up! These swarming, laborious, all-capable
ants seem great enough to attack heaven itself, if they could but
find a resting-place for their ladders. Who can fix a limit to the
intelligence or the achievements of our species?

But our admiration may be here, and our hearts elsewhere. And so from
all this glory and splendor I turn back to the old homestead, amid
the high mountain valleys of Africa; to the primitive, simple
shepherd-life; to my beloved mother, to you and to all our dear ones.
This gorgeous, gilded room fades away, and I see the leaning hills,
the trickling streams, the deep gorges where our woolly thousands
graze; and I hear once more the echoing Swiss horns of our herdsmen
reverberating from the snow-tipped mountains. But my dream is gone.
The roar of the mighty city rises around me like the bellow of many
cataracts.

New York contains now ten million inhabitants; it is the largest city
that is, or ever has been, in the world. It is difficult to say where
it begins or ends: for the villas extend, in almost unbroken
succession, clear to Philadelphia; while east, west and north noble
habitations spread out mile after mile, far beyond the municipal
limits.

But the wonderful city! Let me tell you of it.

As we approached it in our air-ship, coming from the east, we could
see, a hundred miles before we reached the continent, the radiance of
its millions of magnetic lights, reflected on the sky, like the glare
of a great conflagration. These lights are not fed, as in the old
time, from electric dynamos, but the magnetism of the planet itself
is harnessed for the use of man. That marvelous earth-force which the
Indians called "the dance of the spirits," and civilized man
designated "the aurora borealis," is now used to illuminate this
great metropolis, with a clear, soft, white light, like that of the
full moon, but many times brighter. And the force is so cunningly
conserved that it is returned to the earth, without any loss of
magnetic power to the planet. Man has simply made a temporary loan
from nature for which he pays no interest.

Night and day are all one, for the magnetic light increases
automatically as the day-light wanes; and the business parts of the
city swarm as much at midnight as at high noon. In the old times, I
am told, part of the streets was reserved for foot-paths for men and
women, while the middle was given up to horses and wheeled vehicles;
and one could not pass from side to side without danger of being
trampled to death by the horses. But as the city grew it was found
that the pavements would not hold the mighty, surging multitudes;
they were crowded into the streets, and many accidents occurred. The
authorities were at length compelled to exclude all horses from the
streets, in the business parts of the city, and raise the central
parts to a level with the sidewalks, and give them up to the
exclusive use of the pedestrians, erecting stone pillars here and
there to divide the multitude moving in one direction from those
flowing in another. These streets are covered with roofs of glass,
which exclude the rain and snow, but not the air. And then the wonder
and glory of the shops! They surpass all description. Below all the
business streets are subterranean streets, where vast trains are
drawn, by smokeless and noiseless electric motors, some carrying
passengers, others freight. At every street corner there are electric
elevators, by which passengers can ascend or descend to the trains.
And high above the house-tops, built on steel pillars, there are
other railroads, not like the unsightly elevated trains we saw
pictures of in our school books, but crossing diagonally over the
city, at a great height, so as to best economize time and distance.

The whole territory between Broadway and the Bowery and Broome Street
and Houston Street is occupied by the depot grounds of the great
inter-continental air-lines; and it is an astonishing sight to see
the ships ascending and descending, like monstrous birds, black with
swarming masses of passengers, to or from England, Europe, South
America, the Pacific Coast, Australia, China, India and Japan.

These air-lines are of two kinds: the anchored and the independent.
The former are hung, by revolving wheels, upon great wires suspended
in the air; the wires held in place by metallic balloons,
fish-shaped, made of aluminium, and constructed to turn with the wind
so as to present always the least surface to the air-currents. These
balloons, where the lines cross the oceans, are secured to huge
floating islands of timber, which are in turn anchored to the bottom
of the sea by four immense metallic cables, extending north, south,
east and west, and powerful enough to resist any storms. These
artificial islands contain dwellings, in which men reside, who keep
up the supply of gas necessary for the balloons. The independent
air-lines are huge cigar-shaped balloons, unattached to the earth,
moving by electric power, with such tremendous speed and force as to
be as little affected by the winds as a cannon ball. In fact, unless
the wind is directly ahead the sails of the craft are so set as to
take advantage of it like the sails of a ship; and the balloon rises
or falls, as the birds do, by the angle at which it is placed to the
wind, the stream of air forcing it up, or pressing it down, as the
case may be. And just as the old-fashioned steam-ships were provided
with boats, in which the passengers were expected to take refuge, if
the ship was about to sink, so the upper decks of these air-vessels
are supplied with parachutes, from which are suspended boats; and in
case of accident two sailors and ten passengers are assigned to each
parachute; and long practice has taught the bold craftsmen to descend
gently and alight in the sea, even in stormy weather, with as much
adroitness as a sea-gull. In fact, a whole population of air-sailors
has grown up to manage these ships, never dreamed of by our
ancestors. The speed of these aerial vessels is, as you know, very
great--thirty-six hours suffices to pass from New York to London, in
ordinary weather. The loss of life has been less than on the
old-fashioned steamships; for, as those which go east move at a
greater elevation than those going west, there is no danger of
collisions; and they usually fly above the fogs which add so much to
the dangers of sea-travel. In case of hurricanes they rise at once to
the higher levels, above the storm; and, with our increased
scientific knowledge, the coming of a cyclone is known for many days
in advance; and even the stratum of air in which it will move can be
foretold.

I could spend hours, my dear brother, telling you of the splendor of
this hotel, called _The Darwin_, in honor of the great English
philosopher of the last century. It occupies an entire block from
Fifth Avenue to Madison Avenue, and from Forty-sixth Street to
Forty-seventh. The whole structure consists of an infinite series of
cunning adjustments, for the delight and gratification of the human
creature. One object seems to be to relieve the guests from all
necessity for muscular exertion. The ancient elevator, or "lift," as
they called it in England, has expanded until now whole rooms, filled
with ladies and gentlemen, are bodily carried up from the first story
to the roof; a professional musician playing the while on the
piano--not the old-fashioned thing our grandmothers used, but a huge
instrument capable of giving forth all sounds of harmony from the
trill of a nightingale to the thunders of an orchestra. And when you
reach the roof of the hotel you find yourself in a glass-covered
tropical forest, filled with the perfume of many flowers, and bright
with the scintillating plumage of darting birds; all sounds of
sweetness fill the air, and many glorious, star-eyed maidens, guests
of the hotel, wander half seen amid the foliage, like the houris in
the Mohammedan's heaven.

But as I found myself growing hungry I descended to the dining-room.
It is three hundred feet long: a vast multitude were there eating in
perfect silence. It is considered bad form to interrupt digestion
with speech, as such a practice tends to draw the vital powers, it is
said, away from the stomach to the head. Our forefathers were
expected to shine in conversation, and be wise and witty while
gulping their food between brilliant passages. I sat down at a table
to which I was marshaled by a grave and reverend seignior in an
imposing uniform. As I took my seat my weight set some machinery in
motion. A few feet in front of me suddenly rose out of the table a
large upright mirror, or such I took it to be; but instantly there
appeared on its surface a grand bill of fare, each article being
numbered. The whole world had been ransacked to produce the viands
named in it; neither the frozen recesses of the north nor the
sweltering regions of the south had been spared: every form of food,
animal and vegetable, bird, beast, reptile, fish; the foot of an
elephant, the hump of a buffalo, the edible bird-nests of China;
snails, spiders, shell-fish, the strange and luscious creatures
lately found in the extreme depths of the ocean and fished for with
dynamite; in fact, every form of food pleasant to the palate of man
was there. For, as you know, there are men who make fortunes now by
preserving and breeding the game animals, like the deer, the moose,
the elk, the buffalo, the antelope, the mountain sheep and goat, and
many others, which but for their care would long since have become
extinct. They select barren regions in mild climates, not fit for
agriculture, and enclosing large tracts with wire fences, they raise
great quantities of these valuable game animals, which they sell to
the wealthy gourmands of the great cities, at very high prices.

I was perplexed, and, turning to the great man who stood near me, I
began to name a few of the articles I wanted. He smiled complacently
at my country ignorance, and called my attention to the fact that the
table immediately before me contained hundreds of little knobs or
buttons, each one numbered; and he told me that these were connected
by electric wires with the kitchen of the hotel, and if I would
observe the numbers attached to any articles in the bill of fare
which I desired, and would touch the corresponding numbers of the
knobs before me, my dinner would be ordered on a similar mirror in
the kitchen, and speedily served. I did as he directed. In a little
while an electric bell near me rang; the bill of fare disappeared
from the mirror; there was a slight clicking sound; the table parted
in front of me, the electric knobs moving aside; and up through the
opening rose my dinner carefully arranged, as upon a table, which
exactly filled the gap caused by the recession of that part of the
original table which contained the electric buttons. I need not say I
was astonished. I commenced to eat, and immediately the same bell,
which had announced the disappearance of the bill of fare, rang
again. I looked up, and the mirror now contained the name of every
state in the Republic, from Hudson's Bay to the Isthmus of Darien;
and the names of all the nations of the world; each name being
numbered. My attendant, perceiving my perplexity, called my attention
to the fact that the sides of the table which had brought up my
dinner contained another set of electric buttons, corresponding with
the numbers on the mirror; and he explained to me that if I would
select any state or country and touch the corresponding button the
news of the day, from that state or country, would appear in the
mirror. He called my attention to, the fact that every guest in the
room had in front of him a similar mirror, and many of them were
reading the news of the day as they ate. I touched the knob
corresponding with the name of the new state of Uganda, in Africa,
and immediately there appeared in the mirror all the doings of the
people of that state--its crimes, its accidents, its business, the
output of its mines, the markets, the sayings and doings of its
prominent men; in fact, the whole life of the community was unrolled
before me like a panorama. I then touched the button for another
African state, Nyanza; and at once I began to read of new lines of
railroad; new steam-ship fleets upon the great lake; of large
colonies of white men, settling new States, upon the higher lands of
the interior; of their colleges, books, newspapers; and particularly
of a dissertation upon the genius of Chaucer, written by a Zulu
professor, which had created considerable interest among the learned
societies of the Transvaal. I touched the button for China and read
the important news that the Republican Congress of that great and
highly civilized nation had decreed that English, the universal
language of the rest of the globe, should be hereafter used in the
courts of justice and taught in all the schools. Then came the news
that a Manchurian professor, an iconoclast, had written a learned
work, in English, to prove that George Washington's genius and moral
greatness had been much over-rated by the partiality of his
countrymen. He was answered by a learned doctor of Japan who argued
that the greatness of all great men consisted simply in opportunity,
and that for every illustrious name that shone in the pages of
history, associated with important events, a hundred abler men had
lived and died unknown. The battle was raging hotly, and all China
and Japan were dividing into contending factions upon this great
issue.

Our poor ignorant ancestors of a hundred years ago drank alcohol in
various forms, in quantities which the system could not consume or
assimilate, and it destroyed their organs and shortened their lives.
Great agitations arose until the manufacture and sale of alcoholic
beverages was prohibited over nearly all the world. At length the
scientists observed that the craving was based on a natural want of
the system; that alcohol was found in small quantities in nearly
every article of food; and that the true course was to so increase
the amount of alcohol in the food, without gratifying the palate, as
to meet the real necessities of the system, and prevent a decrease of
the vital powers.

It is laughable to read of those days when men were drugged with
pills, boluses and powders. Now our physic is in our food; and the
doctor prescribes a series of articles to be eaten or avoided, as the
case may be. One can see at once by consulting his "vital-watch,"
which shows every change in the magnetic and electric forces of the
body, just how his physical strength wanes or increases; and he can
modify his diet accordingly; he can select, for instance, a dish
highly charged with quinine or iron, and yet perfectly palatable;
hence, among the wealthier classes, a man of one hundred is as common
now-a-days as a man of seventy was a century ago; and many go far
beyond that point, in full possession of all their faculties.

I glanced around the great dining-room and inspected my neighbors.
They all carried the appearance of wealth; they were quiet, decorous
and courteous. But I could not help noticing that the women, young
and old, were much alike in some particulars, as if some general
causes had molded them into the same form. Their brows were all
fine--broad, square, and deep from the ear forward; and their jaws
also were firmly developed, square like a soldier's; while the
profiles were classic in their regularity, and marked by great
firmness. The most peculiar feature was their eyes. They had none of
that soft, gentle, benevolent look which so adorns the expression of
my dear mother and other good women whom we know. On the contrary,
their looks were bold, penetrating, immodest, if I may so express it,
almost to fierceness: they challenged you; they invited you; they
held intercourse with your soul.

The chief features in the expression of the men were incredulity,
unbelief, cunning, observation, heartlessness. I did not see a good
face in the whole room: powerful faces there were, I grant you; high
noses, resolute mouths, fine brows; all the marks of shrewdness and
energy; a forcible and capable race; but that was all. I did not see
one, my dear brother of whom I could say, "That man would sacrifice
himself for another; that man loves his fellow man."

I could not but think how universal and irresistible must have been
the influences of the age that could mold all these Men and women
into the same soulless likeness. I pitied them. I pitied mankind,
caught in the grip of such wide-spreading tendencies. I said to
myself: "Where is it all to end? What are we to expect of a race
without heart or honor? What may we look for when the powers of the
highest civilization supplement the instincts of tigers and wolves?
Can the brain of man flourish when the heart is dead?"

I rose and left the room.

I had observed that the air of the hotel was sweeter, purer and
cooler than that of the streets outside. I asked one of the
attendants for an explanation. He took me out to where we could
command a view of the whole building, and showed me that a great
canvas pipe rose high above the hotel, and, tracing it upwards, far
as the eye could reach, he pointed out a balloon, anchored by cables,
so high up as to be dwarfed to a mere speck against the face of the
blue sky. He told me that the great pipe was double; that through one
division rose the hot, exhausted air of the hotel, and that the
powerful draft so created operated machinery which pumped down the
pure, sweet air from a higher region, several miles above the earth;
and, the current once established, the weight of the colder
atmosphere kept up the movement, and the air was then distributed by
pipes to every part of the hotel. He told me also that the hospitals
of the city were supplied in the same manner; and the result had
been, be said, to diminish the mortality of the sick one-half; for
the air so brought to them was perfectly free from bacteria and full
of all life-giving properties. A company had been organized to supply
the houses of the rich with his cold, pure air for so much a thousand
feet, as long ago illuminating gas was furnished.

I could not help but think that there was need that some man should
open connection with the upper regions of God's charity, and bring
down the pure beneficent spirit of brotherly love to this afflicted
earth, that it might spread through all the tainted hospitals of
corruption for the healing of the hearts and souls of the people.

This attendant, a sort of upper-servant, I suppose, was quite
courteous and polite, and, seeing that I was a stranger, he proceeded
to tell me that the whole city was warmed with hot water, drawn from
the profound depths of the earth, and distributed as drinking water
was distributed a century ago, in pipes, to all the houses, for a
fixed and very reasonable charge. This heat-supply is so uniform and
so cheap that it has quite driven out all the old forms of
fuel--wood, coal, natural gas, etc.

And then he told me something which shocked me greatly. You know that
according to our old-fashioned ideas it is unjustifiable for any
person to take his own life, and thus rush into the presence of his
Maker before he is called. We are of the opinion of Hamlet that God
has "fixed his canon 'gainst self-slaughter." Would you believe it,
my dear brother, in this city they actually facilitate suicide! A
race of philosophers has arisen in the last fifty years who argue
that, as man was not consulted about his coming into the world, he
has a perfect right to leave it whenever it becomes uncomfortable.
These strange arguments were supplemented by the economists, always a
powerful body in this utilitarian land, and they urged that, as men
could not be prevented from destroying themselves, if they had made
up their minds to do so, they might just as well shuffle off the
mortal coil in the way that would give least trouble to their
surviving fellow-citizens. That, as it was, they polluted the rivers,
and even the reservoirs of drinking-water, with their dead bodies,
and put the city to great expense and trouble to recover and identify
them. Then came the humanitarians, who said that many persons, intent
on suicide, but knowing nothing of the best means of effecting their
object, tore themselves to pieces with cruel pistol shots or knife
wounds, or took corrosive poisons, which subjected them to agonizing
tortures for hours before death came to their relief; and they argued
that if a man had determined to leave the world it was a matter of
humanity to help him out of it by the pleasantest means possible.
These views at length prevailed, and now in all the public squares or
parks they have erected hand some houses, beautifully furnished, with
baths and bedrooms. If a man has decided to die, he goes there. He is
first photographed; then his name, if he sees fit to give it, is
recorded, with his residence; and his directions are taken as to the
disposition of his body. There are tables at which he can write his
farewell letters to his friends. A doctor explains to him the nature
and effect of the different poisons, and he selects the kind he
prefers. He is expected to bring with him the clothes in which he
intends to be cremated. He swallows a little pill, lies down upon a
bed, or, if he prefers it, in his coffin; pleasant music is played
for him; he goes to sleep, and wakes up on the other side of the
great line. Every day hundreds of people, men and women, perish in
this way; and they are borne off to the great furnaces for the dead,
and consumed. The authorities assert that it is a marked improvement
over the old-fashioned methods; but to my mind it is a shocking
combination of impiety and mock-philanthropy. The truth is, that, in
this vast, over-crowded city, man is a drug,--a superfluity,--and I
think many men and women end their lives out of an overwhelming sense
of their own insignificance;--in other words, from a mere weariness
of feeling that they are nothing, they become nothing.

I must bring this letter to an end, but before retiring I shall make
a visit to the grand parlors of the hotel. You suppose I will walk
there. Not at all, my dear brother. I shall sit down in a chair;
there is an electric magazine in the seat of it. I touch a spring,
and away it goes. I guide it with my feet. I drive into one of the
great elevators. I descend to the drawing-room floor. I touch the
spring again, and in a few moments I am moving around the grand
salon, steering myself clear of hundreds of similar chairs, occupied
by fine-looking men or the beautiful, keen-eyed, unsympathetic women
I have described. The race has grown in power and loveliness--I fear
it has lost in lovableness.

Good-by. With love to all, I remain your affectionate brotherly

Gabriel Weltstein.

                              CHAPTER II.

                             MY ADVENTURE

My Dear Heinrich:

I little supposed when I wrote you yesterday that twenty four hours
could so completely change my circumstances. Then I was a dweller in
the palatial Darwin Hotel, luxuriating in all its magnificence. Now I
am hiding in a strange house and trembling for my liberty;--but I
will tell you all.

Yesterday morning, after I had disposed by sample of our wool, and
had called upon the assayer of ores, but without finding him, to show
him the specimens of our mineral discoveries, I returned to the
hotel, and there, after obtaining directions from one of the clerks
at the "Bureau of Information," I took the elevated train to the
great Central Park.

I shall not pause to describe at length the splendors of this
wonderful place; the wild beasts roaming about among the trees,
apparently at dangerous liberty, but really inclosed by fine steel
wire fences, almost invisible to the eye; the great lakes full of the
different water fowl of the world; the air thick with birds
distinguished for the sweetness of their song or the brightness of
their plumage; the century-old trees, of great size and artistically
grouped; beautiful children playing upon the greensward, accompanied
by nurses and male servants; the whole scene constituting a holiday
picture. Between the trees everywhere I saw the white and gleaming
statues of the many hundreds of great men and women who have adorned
the history of this country during the last two hundred years--poets,
painters, musicians, soldiers, philanthropists, statesmen.

After feasting my eyes for some time upon this charming picture of
rural beauty, I left the Park. Soon after I had passed through the
outer gate,-guarded by sentinels to exclude the ragged and wretched
multitude, but who at the same time gave courteous admission to
streams of splendid carriages,--I was startled by loud cries of "Look
out there!" I turned and saw a sight which made my blood run cold. A
gray-haired, hump-backed beggar, clothed in rags, was crossing the
street in front of a pair of handsome horses, attached to a
magnificent open carriage. The burly, ill-looking flunkey who, clad
in gorgeous livery, was holding the lines, had uttered the cry of
warning, but at the same time had made no effort to check the rapid
speed of his powerful horses. In an instant the beggar was down under
the hoofs of the steeds. The flunkey laughed! I was but a few feet
distant on the side-walk, and, quick as thought, I had the horses by
their heads and pushed them back upon their haunches. At this moment
the beggar, who had been under the feet of the horses, crawled out
close to the front wheels of the carriage; and the driver, indignant
that anything so contemptible should arrest the progress of his
magnificent equipage, struck him a savage blow with his whip, as he
was struggling to his feet. I saw the whip wind around his neck; and,
letting go the horses' heads, who were now brought to a stand-still,
I sprang forward, and as the whip descended for a second blow I
caught it, dragged it from the hand of the miscreant, and with all my
power laid it over him. Each blow where it touched his flesh brought
the blood, and two long red gashes appeared instantaneously upon his
face. He dropped his lines and shrieked in terror, holding his hands
up to protect his face. Fortunately a crowd had assembled, and some
poorly dressed men had seized the horses' heads, or there would have
been a run-away. As I raised my hand to lash the brute again, a
feminine shriek reached my ears, and I became aware that there were
ladies in the open barouche. My sense of politeness overcame in an
instant my rage, and I stepped back, and, taking off my hat, began to
apologize and explain the cause of the difficulty. As I did so I
observed that the occupants of the carriage were two young ladies,
both strikingly handsome, but otherwise very unlike in appearance.
The one nearest me, who had uttered the shrieks, was about twenty
years of age, I should think, with aquiline features, and black eyes
and hair; every detail of the face was perfect, but there was a bold,
commonplace look out of the bright eyes. Her companion instantly
arrested all my attention. It seemed to me I had never beheld a more
beautiful. and striking countenance. She was younger, by two or three
years, than her companion; her complexion was fairer; her long golden
hair fell nearly to her waist, enfolding her like a magnificent,
shining garment; her eyes were blue and large and set far apart; and
there was in them, and in the whole contour of the face, a look of
honesty and dignity, and calm intelligence, rarely witnessed in the
countenance of woman. She did not appear to be at all alarmed; and
when I told my story of the driver lashing the aged beggar, her face
lighted up, and she said, with a look that thrilled me, and in a soft
and gentle voice: "We are much obliged to you, sir; you did perfectly
right."

I was about to reply, when I felt some one tugging fiercely at my
coat, and turning around, I was surprised to find that the beggar was
drawing me away from the carriage by main force. I was astonished
also at the change in his appearance. The aspect of decrepitude had
disappeared, a green patch that I had noticed covering one of his
eyes had fallen off, and his black eyes shone with a look of command
and power that was in marked contrast with his gray hair, his crooked
back, and his rags.

"Come," he said, in a hoarse whisper, "come quickly, or you will be
arrested and cast into prison."

"What for?" I asked.

"I will tell you hereafter--look!"

I looked around me and saw that a great crowd had collected as if by
magic, for this city of ten millions of people so swarms with
inhabitants that the slightest excitement will assemble a multitude
in a few minutes. I noticed, too, in the midst of the mob, a
uniformed policeman. The driver saw him also, and, recovering his
courage, cried out, "Arrest him--arrest him." The policeman seized me
by the collar. I observed that at that instant the beggar whispered
something in his ear: the officer's hand released its hold upon my
coat. The next moment the beggar cried out, "Back! Back! Look out!
Dynamite!" The crowd crushed back on each other in great confusion;
and I felt the beggar dragging me off, repeating his cry of
warning--"Dynamite! Dynamite!"--at every step, until the mob
scattered in wild confusion, and I found myself breathless in a small
alley. "Come, come," cried my companion, "there is no time to lose.
Hurry, hurry!" We rushed along, for the manner of the beggar inspired
me with a terror I could not explain, until, after passing through
several back streets and small alleys, with which the beggar seemed
perfectly familiar, we emerged on a large street and soon took a
corner elevator up to one of the railroads in the air which I have
described. After traveling for two or three miles we exchanged to
another train, and from that to still another, threading our way
backward and forward over the top of the great city. At length, as if
the beggar thought we had gone far enough to baffle pursuit, we
descended upon a bustling business street, and paused at a corner;
and the beggar appeared to be looking out for a hack. He permitted a
dozen to pass us, however, carefully inspecting the driver of each.
At last he hailed one, and we took our seats. He gave some whispered
directions to the driver, and we dashed off.

"Throw that out of the window," he said.

I followed the direction of his eyes and saw that I still held in my
hand the gold-mounted whip which I had snatched from the hand of the
driver. In my excitement I had altogether forgotten its existence,
but had instinctively held on to it.

"I will send it back to the owner," I said.

"No, no; throw it away: that is enough to convict you of highway
robbery."

I started, and exclaimed:

"Nonsense; highway robbery to whip a blackguard?"

"Yes. You stop the carriage of an aristocrat; you drag a valuable
whip out of the hand of his coachman; and you carry it off. If that
is not highway robbery, what is it? Throw it away."

His manner was imperative. I dropped the whip out of the window and
fell into a brown study. I occasionally stole a glance at my strange
companion, who, with the dress of extreme poverty, and the gray hair
of old age, had such a manner of authority and such an air of
promptitude and decision.

After about a half-hour's ride we stopped at the corner of two
streets in front of a plain but respectable-looking house. It seemed
to be in the older part of the town. My companion paid the driver and
dismissed him, and, opening the door, we entered.

I need not say that I began to think this man was something more than
a beggar. But why this disguise? And who was he?

                             CHAPTER III.

                          THE BEGGAR'S HOME

The house we entered was furnished with a degree of splendor of which
the external appearance gave no prophecy. We passed up the stairs and
into a handsome room, hung around with pictures, and adorned with
book-cases. The beggar left me.

I sat for some time looking at my surroundings, and wondering over
the strange course of events which had brought me there, and still
more at the actions of my mysterious companion. I felt assured now
that his rags were simply a disguise, for he entered the house with
all the air of a master; his language was well chosen and correctly
spoken, and possessed those subtle tones and intonations which mark
an educated mind. I was thinking over these matters when the door
opened and a handsome young gentleman, arrayed in the height of the
fashion, entered the room. I rose to my feet and began to apologize
for my intrusion and to explain that I had been brought there by a
beggar to whom I had rendered some trifling service in the street.
The young gentleman listened, with a smiling face, and then,
extending his hand, said:

"I am the beggar; and I do now what only the hurry and excitement
prevented me from doing before--I thank you for the life you have
saved. If you had not come to my rescue I should probably have been
trampled to death under the feet of those vicious horses, or sadly
beaten at least by that brutal driver."

The expression of my face doubtless showed my extreme astonishment,
for he proceeded:

"I see you are surprised; but there are many strange things in this
great city. I was disguised for a particular purpose, which I cannot
explain to you. But may I not request the name of the gentleman to
whom I am under so many obligations? Of course, if you have any
reasons for concealing it, consider the question as not asked."

"No," I replied, Smiling, "I have no concealments. My name is Gabriel
Weltstein; I live in the new state of Uganda, in the African
confederation, in the mountains of Africa, near the town of Stanley;
and I am engaged in sheep-raising, in the mountains. I belong to a
colony of Swiss, from the canton of Uri, who, led by my grandfather,
settled there. seventy years ago. I came to this city yesterday to
see if I could not sell my wool directly to the manufacturers, and
thus avoid the extortions of the great Wool Ring, which has not only
our country but the whole world in its grasp; but I find the
manufacturers are tied hand and foot, and afraid of that powerful
combination; they do not dare to deal with me; and thus I shall have
to dispose of my product at the old price. It is a shameful state of
affairs in a country which calls itself free."

"Pardon me for a moment," said the young gentleman, and left the
room. On his return I resumed:

"But now that I have told you who I am, will you be good enough to
tell me something about yourself?"

"Certainly," he replied, "and with pleasure. I am a native of this
city; my name is Maximilian Petion; by profession I am an attorney; I
live in this house with my mother, to whom I shall soon have the
pleasure of introducing you."

"Thank you," I replied, still studying the face of my new
acquaintance. His complexion was dark, the eyes and hair almost
black; the former very bright and penetrating; his brow was high,
broad and square; his nose was prominent, and there was about the
mouth an expression of firmness, not unmixed with kindness.
Altogether it was a face to inspire respect and confidence. But I
made up my mind not to trust too much to appearances. I could not
forget the transformation which I had witnessed, from the rags of the
ancient beggar to this well-dressed young gentleman. I knew that the
criminal class were much given to such disguises. I thought it better
therefore to ask some questions that might throw light upon the
subject.

"May I inquire," I said, "what were your reasons for hurrying me away
so swiftly and mysteriously from the gate of the Park?"

"Because," he replied, "you were in great danger, and you had
rendered me a most important service. I could not leave you there to
be arrested, and punished with a long period of imprisonment,
because, following the impulse of your heart, you had saved my life
and scourged the wretch who would have driven his horses over me."

"But why should I be punished with a long term of imprisonment? In my
own country the act I performed would have received the applause of
every one. Why did you not tell me to throw away that whip on the
instant, so as to avoid the appearance of stealing it, and then
remain to testify in my behalf if I had been arrested?"

"Then you do not know," he replied, "whose driver it was you
horsewhipped?"

"No," I said; "how should I? I arrived here but yesterday."

"That was the carriage of Prince Cabano, the wealthiest and most
vindictive man in the city. If you had been taken you would have been
consigned to imprisonment for probably many years."

"Many years," I replied; "imprisoned for beating an insolent driver!
Impossible. No jury would convict me of such an offense."

"Jury!" he said, with a bitter smile; "it is plain to see you are a
stranger and come from a newly settled part of the world, and know
nothing of our modern civilization. The jury would do whatever Prince
Cabano desired them to do. Our courts, judges and juries are the
merest tools of the rich. The image of justice has slipped the
bandage from one eye, and now uses her scales to weigh the bribes she
receives. An ordinary citizen has no more prospect of fair treatment
in our courts, contending with a millionaire, than a new-born infant
would have of life in the den of a wolf."

"But," I replied, rather hotly, "I should appeal for justice to the
public through the newspapers."

"The newspapers!" he said, and his face darkened as he spoke; "the
newspapers are simply the hired mouthpieces of power; the devil's
advocates of modern civilization; their influence is always at the
service of the highest bidder; it is their duty to suppress or
pervert the truth, and they do it thoroughly. They are paid to
mislead the people under the guise of defending them. A century ago
this thing began, and it has gone on, growing worse and worse, until
now the people laugh at the opinions of the press, and doubt the
truth even of its reports of occurrences."

"Can this be possible?" I said.

"Let me demonstrate it to you," he replied, and, stepping to the
wall, he spoke quietly into a telephone tube, of which there were a
number ranged upon the wall, and said:

"Give me the particulars of the whipping of Prince Cabano's coachman,
this afternoon, at the south gate of Central Park."

Almost immediately a bell rang, and on the opposite wall, in What I
had supposed to be a mirror, appeared these words:

                     _From the Evening Guardian:_

                          A HORRIBLE OUTRAGE!

            HIGHWAY ROBBERY!--ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD!

     This afternoon, about three o'clock, an event transpired at
     the south gate of Central Park which shows the turbulent
     and vicious

     spirit of the lower classes, and reinforces the demand we
     have so often made for repressive measures and a stronger
     government.

     As the carriage of our honored fellow-citizen Prince
     Cabano, containing two ladies, members of his family, was
     quietly entering the Park, a tall, powerful ruffian,
     apparently a stranger, with long yellow hair, reaching to
     his shoulders, suddenly grasped a valuable gold-mounted
     whip out of the hands of the driver, and, because he
     resisted the robbery, beat him across the face, inflicting
     very severe wounds. The horses became very much terrified,
     and but for the fact that two worthy men, John Henderson of
     5222 Delavan Street, and William Brooks of 7322 Bismarck
     Street, seized them by the head, a terrible accident would
     undoubtedly have occurred. Policeman number B 17822 took
     the villain prisoner, but he knocked the guardian of the
     law down and escaped, accompanied by a ragged old fellow
     who seemed to have been his accomplice. It is believed that
     the purpose of the thieves was to rob the occupants of the
     carriage, as the taller one approached the ladies, but just
     then his companion saw the policeman coming and gave him
     warning, and they fled together. Prince Cabano is naturally
     very much incensed at this outrage, and has offered a
     reward of one thousand dollars for the apprehension of
     either of the ruffians. They have been tracked for a
     considerable distance by the detectives; but after leaving
     the elevated cars all trace of them was suddenly and
     mysteriously lost. The whip was subsequently found on Bomba
     Street and identified. Neither of the criminals is known to
     the police. The taller one was quite young and fairly well
     dressed, and not ill-looking, while his companion had the
     appearance of a beggar, and seemed to be about seventy
     years of age. The Chief of Police will pay liberally for
     any information that may lead to the arrest of the robbers.

"There," said my companion, "what do you think of that?"

I need not say that I was paralyzed with this adroit mingling of fact
and falsehood. I realized for the first time the perils of my
situation. I was a stranger in the great city, without a friend or
acquaintance, and hunted like a felon! While all these thoughts
passed through my brain, there came also a pleasing flash of
remembrance of that fair face, and that sweet and gentle smile, and
that beaming look of gratitude and approval of my action in whipping
the brutal driver. But if my new acquaintance was right; if neither
courts nor juries nor newspapers nor public opinion could be appealed
to for justice or protection, then indeed might I be sent to prison
as a malefactor, for a term of years, for performing a most righteous
act. If it was true, and I had heard something of the same sort in my
far-away African home, that money ruled everything in this great
country; and if his offended lordship desired to crush me, he could
certainly do so. While I was buried in these reflections I had not
failed to notice that an electric bell rang upon the side of the
chamber and a small box opened, and the young gentleman advanced and
took from the box a sheet of tissue paper, closely written. I
recognized it as a telegram. He read it carefully, and I noticed him
stealing glances at me, as if comparing the details of my appearance
with something written on the paper. When he finished he advanced
toward me, with a brighter look on his face, and, holding out his
hand, said:

"I have already hailed you as my benefactor, my preserver; permit me
now to call you my friend."

"Why do you say so?" I asked.

"Because," he replied, "I now know that every statement you made to
me about yourself is literally true; and that in your personal
character you deserve the respect and friendship of all men. You look
perplexed. Let me explain. You told me some little time since your
name and place of residence. I belong to a society which has its
ramifications all over the world. When I stepped out of this room I
sent an inquiry to the town near which you reside, and asked if such
a person as you claimed to be lived there; what was his appearance,
standing and character, and present residence. I shall not shock your
modesty by reading the reply I have just received. You will pardon
this distrust, but we here in the great city are suspicious, and
properly so, of strangers, and even more so of each other. I did not
know but that you were in the employment of the enemies of our
society, and sought to get into my confidence by rendering me a
service,--for the tricks to which the detectives resort are infinite.
I now trust you implicitly, and you can command me in everything."

I took his hand warmly and thanked him cordially. It was impossible
to longer doubt that frank and beaming face.

"But," I said, "are we not in great danger? Will not that hackman,
for the sake of the reward, inform the police of our whereabouts?"

"No!" he said; "have no fears upon that score. Did you not observe
that I permitted about a dozen hacks to pass me before I hailed the
one that brought us here? That man wore on his dress a mark that told
me he belonged to our Brotherhood. He knows that if he betrays us he
will die within twenty-four hours, and that there is no power on
earth could save him; if he fled to the uttermost ends of the earth
his doom would overtake him with the certainty of fate. So have no
uneasiness. We are as safe here as if a standing army of a hundred
thousand of our defenders surrounded this house."

"Is that the explanation," I asked, "of the policeman releasing his
grip upon my coat?"

"Yes," he replied, quietly.

"Now," said I, "who is this Prince Cabano, and how does he happen to
be called Prince? I thought your Republic eschewed all titles of
nobility."

"So it does," he replied, "by law. But we have a great many titles
which are used socially, by courtesy. The Prince, for instance, when
he comes to sign his name to a legal document, writes it Jacob
Isaacs. But his father, when he grew exceedingly rich and ambitious,
purchased a princedom in Italy for a large sum, and the government,
being hard up for money, conferred the title of Prince with the
estate. His son, the present Isaacs, succeeded, of course, to his
estates and his title."

"'Isaacs," I said, "is a Jewish name?"

"Yes," he replied, "the aristocracy of the world is now almost
altogether of Hebrew origin."

"Indeed," I asked, "how does that happen?"

"Well," he replied, "it was the old question of the survival of the
fittest. Christianity fell upon the Jews, originally a race of
agriculturists and shepherds, and forced them, for many centuries,
through the most terrible ordeal of persecution the history of
mankind bears any record of. Only the strong of body, the cunning of
brain, the long-headed, the persistent, the men with capacity to live
where a dog would starve, survived the awful trial. Like breeds like;
and now the Christian world is paying, in tears and blood, for the
sufferings inflicted by their bigoted and ignorant ancestors upon a
noble race. When the time came for liberty and fair play the Jew was
master in the contest with the Gentile, who hated and feared him.

"They are the great money-getters of the world. They rose from
dealers in old clothes and peddlers of hats to merchants, to bankers,
to princes. They were as merciless to the Christian as the Christian
had been to them. They said, with Shylock: 'The villainy you teach me
I will execute; and it shall go hard but I will better the
instruction.' The 'wheel of fortune has come full circle;' and the
descendants of the old peddlers now own and inhabit the palaces where
their ancestors once begged at the back doors for secondhand clothes;
while the posterity of the former lords have been, in many cases,
forced down into the swarming misery of the lower classes. This is a
sad world, and to contemplate it is enough to make a man a
philosopher; but he will scarcely know whether to belong to the
laughing or the weeping school--whether to follow the example of
Democritus or Heraclitus."

"And may I ask," I said, "what is the nature of your society?"

"I cannot tell you more at this time," he replied, "than that it is a
political secret society having a membership of millions, and
extending all over the world. Its purposes are the good of mankind.
Some day, I hope, you may learn more about it. Come," he added, "let
me show you my house, and introduce you to my mother."

Touching a secret spring in the wall, a hidden door flew open, and we
entered a small room. I thought I had gotten into the dressing-room
of a theater. Around the walls hung a multitude of costumes, male and
female, of different sizes, and suited for all conditions of life. On
the table were a collection of bottles, holding what I learned were
hair dyes of different colors; and there was also an assortment of
wigs, beards and mustaches of all hues. I thought I recognized among
the former the coarse white hair of the quondam beggar. I pointed it
out to him.

"Yes," he said, with a laugh, "I will not be able to wear that for
some time to come."

Upon another table there was a formidable array of daggers, pistols
and guns; and some singular-looking iron and copper things, which he
told me were cartridges of dynamite and other deadly explosives.

I realized that my companion was a conspirator. But of what kind? I
could not believe evil of him. There was a manliness and kindliness
in his face which forbade such a thought; although the square chin
and projecting jaws and firm-set mouth indicated a nature that could
be most dangerous; and I noticed sometimes a restless, wild look in
his eyes.

I followed him into another room, where he introduced me to a
sweet-faced old lady, with the same broad brow and determined, but
gentle, mouth which so distinguished her son. It was evident that
there was great love between them, although her face wore a troubled
and anxious look, at times, as she regarded him. It seemed to me that
she knew he was engaged in dangerous enterprises.

She advanced to me with a smile and grasped both my hands with her
own, as she said:

"My son has already told me that you have this day rendered him and
me an inestimable service. I need not say that I thank you with all
my heart."

I made light of the matter and assured her that I was under greater
obligations to her son than he was to me. Soon after we sat down to
dinner, a sumptuous meal, to which it seemed to me all parts of the
world had contributed. We had much pleasant conversation, for both
the host and hostess were persons of ripe information. In the old
days our ancestors wasted years of valuable time in the study of
languages that were no longer spoken on the earth; and civilization
was thus cramped by the shadow of the ancient Roman Empire, whose
dead but sceptered sovereigns still ruled the spirits of mankind from
their urns. Now every hour is considered precious for the
accumulation of actual knowledge of facts and things, and for the
cultivation of the graces of the mind; so that mankind has become
wise in breadth of knowledge, and sweet and gentle in manner. I
expressed something of this thought to Maximilian, and he replied:

"Yes; it is the greatest of pities that so noble and beautiful a
civilization should have become so hollow and rotten at the core."

"Rotten at the core!" I exclaimed, in astonishment; "what do you
mean?"

"What I mean is that our civilization has grown to be a gorgeous
shell; a mere mockery; a sham; outwardly fair and lovely, but
inwardly full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. To think that
mankind is so capable of good, and now so cultured and polished, and
yet all above is cruelty, craft and destruction, and all below is
suffering, wretchedness, sin and shame."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"That civilization is a gross and dreadful failure for seven-tenths
of the human family; that seven-tenths of the backs of the world are
insufficiently clothed; seven-tenths of the stomachs of the world are
insufficiently fed; seven-tenths of the minds of the world are
darkened and despairing, and filled with bitterness against the
Author of the universe. It is pitiful to think what society is, and
then to think what it might have been if our ancestors had not cast
away their magnificent opportunities--had not thrown them into the
pens of the swine of greed and gluttony."

"But," I replied, "the world does not look to me after that fashion.
I have been expressing to my family my delight at viewing the vast
triumphs of man over nature, by which the most secret powers of the
universe have been captured and harnessed for the good of our race.
Why, my friend, this city preaches at every pore, in every street and
alley, in every shop and factory, the greatness of humanity, the
splendor of civilization!"

"True, my friend," replied Maximilian; "but you see only the surface,
the shell, the crust of life in this great metropolis. To-morrow we
will go out together, and I shall show you the fruits of our modern
civilization. I shall take you, not upon the upper deck of society,
where the flags are flying, the breeze blowing, and the music
playing, but down into the dark and stuffy depths of the hold of the
great vessel, where the sweating gnomes, in the glare of the
furnace-heat, furnish the power which drives the mighty ship
resplendent through the seas of time. We will visit the
_Under-World_."

But I must close for tonight, and subscribe myself affectionately
your brother,

Gabriel

                              CHAPTER IV.

                            THE UNDER-WORLD

My Dear Heinrich:

Since I wrote you last night I have been through dreadful scenes. I
have traversed death in life. I have looked with my very eyes on
Hell. I am sick at heart. My soul sorrows for humanity.

Max (for so I have come to call my new-found friend) woke me very
early, and we breakfasted by lamp-light.

Yesterday he had himself dyed my fair locks of a dark brown, almost
black hue, and had cut off some of my hair's superfluous length. Then
he sent for a tailor, who soon arrayed me in garments of the latest
fashion and most perfect fit. Instead of the singular-looking
mountaineer of the day before, for whom the police were diligently
searching, and on whose head a reward of one thousand dollars had
been placed (never before had my head been valued so highly), there
was nothing in my appearance to distinguish me from the thousands of
other gallant young gentlemen of this great city.

A carriage waited for us at the door. We chatted together as we drove
along through the quiet streets.

I asked him:

"Are the degraded, and even the vicious, members of your Brotherhood?"

"No; not the criminal class," he replied, "for there is nothing in
their wretched natures on which you can build confidence or trust.
Only those who have fiber enough to persist in labor, under
conditions which so strongly tend to drive them into crime, can be
members of our Brotherhood."

"May I ask the number of your membership?"

"In the whole world they amount to more than one hundred millions."

I started with astonishment.

"But amid such numbers," I said, "there must certainly be some
traitors?"

"True, but the great multitude have nothing to tell. They are the
limbs and members, as it were, of the organization; the directing
intelligence dwells elsewhere. The multitude are like the soldiers of
an army; they will obey when the time comes; but they are not taken
into the councils of war."

A half hour's ride brought us into the domain of the poor.

An endless procession of men and women with pails and
baskets--small-sized pails and smaller baskets--streamed along the
streets on their way to work. It was not yet six o'clock. I observed
that both men and women were undersized, and that they all very much
resembled each other; as if similar circumstances had squeezed them
into the same likeness. There was no spring to their steps and no
laughter in their eyes; all were spare of frame and stolid or
hungry-looking. The faces of the middle-aged men were haggard and
wore a hopeless expression. Many of them scowled at us, with a look
of hatred, as we passed by them in our carriage. A more joyless,
sullen crowd I never beheld. Street after street they unrolled before
us; there seemed to be millions of them. They were all poorly clad,
and many of them in rags. The women, with the last surviving instinct
of the female heart, had tried to decorate themselves; and here and
there I could observe a bit of bright color on bonnet or apron; but
the bonnets represented the fashions of ten years past, and the
aprons were too often frayed and darned, and relics of some former,
more opulent owners. There were multitudes of children, but they were
without the gambols which characterize the young of all animals; and
there was not even the chirp of a winter bird about them; their faces
were prematurely aged and hardened, and their bold eyes revealed that
sin had no surprises for them. And every one of these showed that
intense look which marks the awful struggle for food and life upon
which they had just entered. The multitude seemed, so far as I could
judge, to be of all nations commingled--the French, German, Irish,
English--Hungarians, Italians, Russians, Jews, Christians, and even
Chinese and Japanese; for the slant eyes of many, and their
imperfect, Tartar-like features, reminded me that the laws made by
the Republic, in the elder and better days, against the invasion of
the Mongolian hordes, had long since become a dead letter.

What struck me most was their incalculable multitude and their
silence. It seemed to me that I was witnessing the resurrection of
the dead; and that these vast, streaming, endless swarms were the
condemned, marching noiselessly as shades to unavoidable and
everlasting misery. They seemed to me merely automata, in the hands
of some ruthless and unrelenting destiny. They lived and moved, but
they were without heart or hope. The illusions of the imagination,
which beckon all of us forward, even over the roughest paths and
through the darkest valleys and shadows of life, had departed from
the scope of their vision. They knew that to-morrow could bring them
nothing better than today--the same shameful, pitiable, contemptible,
sordid struggle for a mere existence. If they produced children it
was reluctantly or unmeaningly; for they knew the wretches must tread
in their footsteps, and enter, like them, that narrow, gloomy,
high-walled pathway, out of which they could never climb; which began
almost in infancy and ended in a pauper's grave--nay, I am wrong, not
even in a pauper's grave; for they might have claimed, perhaps, some
sort of ownership over the earth which enfolded them, which touched
them and mingled with their dust. But public safety and the demands
of science had long ago decreed that they should be whisked off, as
soon as dead, a score or two at a time, and swept on iron tram-cars
into furnaces heated to such intense white heat that they dissolved,
crackling, even as they entered the chamber, and rose in nameless
gases through the high chimney. That towering structure was the sole
memorial monument of millions of them. Their graveyard was the air.
Nature reclaimed her own with such velocity that she seemed to grudge
them the very dust she had lent them during their wretched
pilgrimage. The busy, toiling, rushing, roaring, groaning universe,
big with young, appeared to cry out: "Away with them! Away with them!
They have had their hour! They have performed their task. Here are a
billion spirits waiting for the substance we loaned them. The spirits
are boundless in number; matter is scarce. Away with them!"

I need not tell you, my dear brother, of all the shops and factories
we visited. It was the same story everywhere. Here we saw
exemplified, in its full perfection, that "iron law of wages" which
the old economists spoke of; that is to say, the reduction, by
competition, of the wages of the worker to the least sum that will
maintain life and muscular strength enough to do the work required,
with such little surplus of vitality as might be necessary to
perpetuate the wretched race; so that the world's work should not end
with the death of one starved generation. I do not know if there is a
hell in the spiritual universe, but if there is not, one should
certainly be created for the souls of the men who originated, or
justified, or enforced that damnable creed. It is enough, if nothing
else, to make one a Christian, when he remembers how diametrically
opposite to the teaching of the grand doctrine of brotherly love,
enunciated by the gentle Nazarene, is this devil's creed of cruelty
and murder, with all its steadily increasing world-horrors, before
which to-day the universe stands appalled.

Oh! the pitiable scenes, my brother, that I have witnessed! Room
after room; the endless succession of the stooped, silent toilers;
old, young; men, women, children. And most pitiable of all, the
leering, shameless looks of invitation cast upon us by the women, as
they saw two well-dressed men pass by them. It was not love, nor
license, nor even lust; it was degradation,--willing to exchange
everything for a little more bread. And such rooms--garrets,
sheds--dark, foul, gloomy; overcrowded; with such a stench in the
thick air as made us gasp when entering it; an atmosphere full of
life, hostile to the life of man. Think, my brother, as you sit upon
your mountain side; your gentle sheep feeding around you; breathing
the exquisite air of those elevated regions; and looking off over the
mysterious, ancient world, and the great river valleys leading down
to the marvelous Nile-land afar,--land of temples, ruins,
pyramids,--cradle of civilization, grave of buried empires,--think, I
say, of these millions condemned to live their brief, hopeless span
of existence under such awful conditions! See them as they eat their
mid-day meal. No delightful pause from pleasant labor; no brightly
arrayed table; no laughing and loving faces around a plenteous board,
with delicacies from all parts of the world; no agreeable interchange
of wisdom and wit and courtesy and merriment. No; none of these.
Without stopping in their work, under the eyes of sullen
task-masters, they snatch bites out of their hard, dark bread, like
wild animals, and devour it ravenously.{fr. 1}

Toil, toil, toil, from early morn until late at night; then home they
swarm; tumble into their wretched beds; snatch a few hours of
disturbed sleep, battling with vermin, in a polluted atmosphere; and
then up again and to work; and so on, and on, in endless, mirthless,
hopeless round; until, in a few years, consumed with disease, mere
rotten masses of painful wretchedness, they die, and are wheeled off
to the great

I asked one of the foremen what wages these men and women received.
He told me. It seemed impossible that human life could be maintained
upon such a pittance. I then asked whether they ever ate meat. "No,"
he said, "except when they had a rat or mouse" "A rat or mouse!" I
exclaimed. "Oh yes," he replied, "the rats and mice were important
articles of diet,--just as they had been for centuries in China. The
little children, not yet able to work, fished for them in the sewers,
with hook and line, precisely as they had done a century ago in
Paris, during the great German siege. A dog," he added, "was a great
treat. When the authorities killed the vagrant hounds there was a big
scramble among the poor for the bodies."

I was shocked at these statements; and then I remembered that some
philosopher had argued that cannibalism had survived almost to our
own times, in the islands of the Pacific Ocean, because they had
contained no animals of large size with which the inhabitants could
satisfy the dreadful craving of the system for flesh-food; and hence
they devoured their captives.

"Do these people ever marry?" I inquired.

"Marry!" he exclaimed, with a laugh; "why, they could not afford to
pay the fee required by law. And why should they marry? There is no
virtue among them. No," he said, "they had almost gotten down to the
condition of the Australian savages, who, if not prevented by the
police, would consummate their animal-like nuptials in the public
streets."

Maximilian told me that this man was one of the Brotherhood. I did
not wonder at it.

From the shops and mills of honest industry, Maximilian led me--it
was still broad daylight--into the criminal quarters. We saw the wild
beasts in their lairs; in the iron cages of circumstance which
civilization has built around them, from which they too readily break
out to desolate their fellow-creatures. But here, too, were the
fruits of misgovernment. If it were possible we might trace back from
yonder robber and murderer--a human hyena--the long ancestral line of
brutality, until we see it starting from some poor peasant of the
Middle Ages, trampled into crime under the feet of feudalism. The
little seed of weakness or wickedness has been carefully nursed by
society, generation after generation, until it has blossomed at last
in this destructive monster. Civilization has formulated a new
variety of the genus _homo_--and it must inevitably perpetuate its
kind.

The few prey on the many; and in turn a few of the many prey upon
all. These are the brutal violators of justice, who go to prison, or
to the scaffold, for breaking through a code of laws under which
peaceful but universal injustice is wrought. If there were enough of
these outlaws they might establish a system of jurisprudence for the
world under which it would be lawful to rob and murder by the rule of
the strong right hand, but criminal to reduce millions to
wretchedness by subtle and cunning arts; and, hoity-toity, the
prisons would change their tenants, and the brutal plunderers of the
few would give place to the cultured spoilers of the many.

And when you come to look at it, my brother, how shall we compare the
conditions of the well-to-do-man, who has been merely robbed of his
watch and purse, even at the cost of a broken head, which will heal
in a few days, with the awful doom of the poor multitude, who from
the cradle to the grave work without joy and live without hope? Who
is there that would take back his watch and purse at the cost of
changing places with one of these wretches?

And who is there that, if the choice were presented to him, would not
prefer instant death, which is but a change of conditions, a flight
from world to world, or at worst annihilation, rather than to be
hurled into the living tomb which I have depicted, there to grovel
and writhe, pressed down by the sordid mass around him, until death
comes to his relief?

And so it seems to me that, in the final analysis of reason, the
great criminals of the world are not these wild beasts, who break
through all laws, whose selfishness takes the form of the bloody
knife, the firebrand, or the bludgeon; but those who, equally
selfish, corrupt the foundations of government and create laws and
conditions by which millions suffer, and out of which these murderers
and robbers naturally and unavoidably arise.

But I must bring this long letter to a conclusion, and subscribe
myself, with love to all,

Your affectionate brother,
Gabriel

                              CHAPTER V.

                          ESTELLA WASHINGTON

My Dear Heinrich:

One morning after breakfast, Max and I were seated in the library,
enjoying our matutinal cigars, when, the conversation flagging, I
asked Maximilian whether he had noticed the two young ladies who were
in the Prince of Cabano's carriage the morning I whipped the driver.
He replied that he had not observed them particularly, as he was too
much excited and alarmed for my safety to pay especial attention to
anything else; but he had seen that there were two young women in the
barouche, and his glance had shown him they were both handsome.

"Have you any idea who they were?" I asked after a pause, for I
shrank from revealing the interest I took in one of them.

"No," said he, indifferently; "probably a couple of the Prince's
mistresses."

The word stung me like an adder; and I half rose from my chair, my
face suffused and my eyes indignant.

"Why, what is the matter?" asked Maximilian; "I hope I have said
nothing to offend you."

I fell back in my chair, ashamed of the exhibition of feeling into
which I had been momentarily betrayed, and replied:

"Oh, no; but I am sure you are wrong. If you had looked, for but a
moment, at the younger of the two, you would never have made such a
remark."

"I meant no harm," he answered, "but the Prince is a widower; he has
a perfect harem in his palace; he has his agents at work everywhere
buying up handsome women; and when I saw two such in his carriage, I
naturally came to the conclusion that they were of that character."

"Buying up women!" I exclaimed; "what are you talking about? This is
free America, and the twentieth century. Do you dream that it is a
Mohammedan land?"

"It isn't anything half so good," he retorted; "it is enslaved
America; and the older we grow the worse for us. There was a golden
age once in America--an age of liberty; of comparatively equal
distribution of wealth; of democratic institutions. Now we have but
the shell and semblance of all that. We are a Republic only in name;
free only in forms. Mohammedanism--and we must do the Arabian prophet
the justice to say that he established a religion of temperance and
cleanliness, without a single superstition--never knew, in its worst
estate, a more complete and abominable despotism than that under
which we live. And as it would be worse to starve to death in sight
of the most delicious viands than in the midst of a foodless desert,
so the very assertions, constantly dinned in our ears by the hireling
newspapers, that we are the freest people on earth, serve only to
make our slavery more bitter and unbearable. But as to the buying up
of women for the harems of the wealthy, that is an old story, my dear
friend. More than a century ago the editor of a leading journal in
London was imprisoned for exposing it. The virtuous community
punished the man who protested against the sin, and took the sinners
to its loving bosom. And in this last century matters have grown
every day worse and worse. Starvation overrides all moralities; the
convictions of the mind give way to the necessities of the body. The
poet said long ago:

                        "'Women are not
     In their best fortunes strong, but want will perjure
     The ne'er-touched vestal.'

"But he need not have confined this observation to women. The
strongest resolves of men melt in the fire of want like figures of
wax. It is simply a question of increasing the pressure to find the
point where virtue inevitably breaks. Morality, in man or woman, is a
magnificent flower which blossoms only in the rich soil of
prosperity: impoverish the land and the bloom withers. If there are
cases that seem to you otherwise, it is simply because the pressure
has not been great enough; sufficient nourishment has not yet been
withdrawn from the soil. Dignity, decency, honor, fade away when man
or woman is reduced to shabby, shameful, degrading, cruel
wretchedness. Before the clamors of the stomach the soul is silent."

"I cannot believe that," I replied; "look at the martyrs who have
perished in the flames for an opinion."

"Yes," he said, "it is easy to die in an ecstasy of enthusiasm for a
creed, with all the world looking on; to exchange life for eternal
glory; but put the virgin, who would face without shrinking the
flames or the wild beasts of the arena, into some wretched garret, in
some miserable alley, surrounded by the low, the ignorant, the vile;
close every avenue and prospect of hope; shut off every ennobling
thought or sight or deed; and then subject the emaciated frame to
endless toil and hopeless hunger, and the very fibers of the soul
will rot under the debasing ordeal; and there is nothing left but the
bare animal, that must be fed at whatever sacrifice. And remember, my
dear fellow, that chastity is a flower of civilization. Barbarism
knows nothing of it. The woman with the least is, among many tribes,
mostly highly esteemed, and sought after by the young men for
wedlock."

"My dear Maximilian," I said, "these are debasing views to take of
life. Purity is natural to woman. You will see it oftentimes among
savages. But, to recur to the subject we were speaking of. I feel
very confident that the younger of those two women I saw in that
carriage is pure. God never placed such a majestic and noble
countenance over a corrupt soul. The face is transparent; the spirit
looks out of the great eyes; and it is a spirit of dignity,
nobleness, grace and goodness."

"Why," said he, laughing, "the barbed arrow of Master Cupid, my dear
Gabriel, has penetrated quite through all the plates of your
philosophy."

"I will not confess that," I replied; "but I will admit that I would
like to know something more about that young lady, for I never saw a
face that interested me half so much."

"Now," said he, "see what it is to have a friend. I can find out for
you all that is known about her. We have members of our society in
the household of every rich man in New York. I will first find out
who she is. I will ask the Master of the Servants, who is a member of
our Brotherhood, who were the two ladies out riding at the time of
our adventure. I can communicate with him in cipher."

He went to the wall; touched a spring; a door flew open; a receptacle
containing pen, ink and paper appeared; he wrote a message, placed it
in an interior cavity, which connected with a pneumatic tube, rang a
bell, and in a few minutes another bell rang, and he withdrew from a
similar cavity a written message. He read out to me the following:

"The elder lady, Miss Frederika Bowers; the younger, Miss Estella
Washington; both members of the Prince of Cabano's household."

"Estella Washington," I repeated; "a noble name. Can you tell me
anything about her?"

"Certainly," he replied; "we have a Bureau of Inquiry connected with
our society, and we possess the most complete information, not only
as to our own members, but as to almost every one else in the
community of any note. Wait a moment."

He opened the same receptacle in the wall, wrote a few words on a
sheet of paper, and dispatched it by the pneumatic tube to the
central office of that district, whence it was forwarded at once to
its address. It was probably fifteen minutes before the reply
arrived. It read as follows:

     Miss ESTELLA WASHINGTON.--Aged eighteen. _Appearance_:
     Person tall and graceful; complexion fair; eyes blue; hair
     long and golden; face handsome. _Pedigree_: A lineal
     descendant of Lawrence Washington, brother of the first
     President of the Republic. _Parents_: William Washington
     and Sophia, his wife. Father, a graduate of the University
     of Virginia; professor of Indo-European literature for ten
     years in Harvard University. Grandfather, Lawrence
     Washington, a judge of the Supreme Court of the United
     States for fifteen years. Sophia, mother of Estella, _née_
     Wainwright, an accomplished Greek and Sanscrit scholar,
     daughter of Professor Elias Wainwright, who occupied the
     chair of psychological science in Yale College for twenty
     years. Families of both parents people of great learning
     and social position, but not wealthy in any of the
     branches. _History_: Father died when Estella was eight
     years old, leaving his family poor. Her mother, after a
     hard struggle with poverty, died two years later. Estella,
     then ten years old, was adopted by Maria, widow of George
     Washington, brother of Estella's father, who had
     subsequently married one Ezekiel Plunkett, who is also
     dead. Maria Plunkett is a woman of low origin and sordid
     nature, with a large share of cunning; she lives at No.
     2682 Grand Avenue. She had observed that Estella gave
     promise of great beauty, and as none of the other

     relatives put in a claim for the child, she took possession
     of her, with intent to educate her highly, improve her
     appearance by all the arts known to such women, and
     eventually sell her for a large sun, to some wealthy
     aristocrat as a mistress; believing that her honorable
     descent would increase the price which her personal charms
     would bring. On the 5th day of last month she sold her, for
     $5,000, to the Master of the Servants of the so-called
     Prince of Cabano; and she was taken to his house. Estella
     who is quite ignorant of the wickedness of the world, or
     the true character of her aunt, for whom she entertains a
     warm feeling of gratitude and affection, believes that she
     is to serve as lady-companion for Miss Frederika Bowers,
     the favorite mistress of the Prince, but whom Estella
     supposes to be his niece.

You can imagine, my dear brother--for you have a kind and sensitive
heart, and love your wife--the pangs that shot through me, and
distorted my very soul, as I listened to this dreadful narrative. Its
calm, dispassionate, official character, while it confirmed its
truth, added to the horrors of the awful story of crime! Think of it!
a pure, beautiful, cultured, confiding girl, scarcely yet a woman,
consigned to a terrible fate, by one whom she loved and trusted. And
the lurid light it threw on the state of society in which such a
sacrifice could be possible! I forgot every pretense of indifference,
which I had been trying to maintain before Maximilian, and, springing
up, every fiber quivering, I cried out:

"She must be saved!"

Maximilian, too, although colder-blooded, and hardened by contact
with this debased age, was also stirred to his depths; his face was
flushed, and he seized me by the hand. He said:

"I will help you, my friend."

"But what can we do?" I asked.

"We should see her at once," he replied, "and, if it is not yet too
late, carry her away from that damnable place, that house of hell,
and its devilish owner, who preys on innocence and youth. We have one
thing in our favor: the Master of the Servants, who bought Estella,
is the same person who answered my first message. He belongs, as I
told you, to our Brotherhood. He is in my power. He will give us
access to the poor girl, and will do whatever is necessary to be
done. Come, let us go!"

Those thin, firm lips were more firmly set than ever; the handsome
eyes flashed with a fierce light; he hurried for an instant into his
secret room.

"Take this magazine pistol," he said, "and this knife," handing me a
long bowie-knife covered with a handsome, gold-embossed sheath; "we
are going into a den of infamy where everything is possible. Never
unsheathe that knife until you are compelled to use it, for a scratch
from it is certain and instant death; it is charged with the most
deadly poison the art of the chemist has been able to produce; the
secret is known only to our Brotherhood; the discoverer is an Italian
professor, a member of our society."

                              CHAPTER VI.

                            THE INTERVIEW

Mounting to one of the electrical railroads, we were soon at the
house of the Prince. Passing around to the servants' entrance of the
palace, Maximilian sent in his card to the Master of the Servants,
who soon appeared, bowing deferentially to my friend. We were ushered
into his private room. Maximilian first locked the door; he then
examined the room carefully, to see if there was any one hidden
behind the tapestry or furniture; for the room, like every part of
the palace, was furnished in the most lavish and extravagant style.
Satisfied with his search, he turned to Rudolph, as the Master of the
Servants was called, and handed him the message he had received,
which gave the history of Estella.

"Read it," he said.

Rudolph read it with a troubled countenance.

"Yes," he said, "I am familiar with most of the facts here stated,
and believe them all to be true. What would you have me do?"

"First," said Maximilian, "we desire to know if Estella is still in
ignorance of the purpose for which she was brought here."

"Yes," he replied; "Frederika is jealous of her, as I can see, and
has contrived to keep her out of the Prince's sight. She has no
desire to be supplanted by a younger and fairer woman."

"God be praised for that jealousy," exclaimed Maximilian. "We must
see Estella; can you manage it for us?"

"Yes," he said, "I will bring her here. I know she is in the palace.
I saw her but a few moments since. Wait for Me." "Stop," said
Maximilian, "have you the receipt for the $5,000 signed by Mrs.
Plunkett?"

"No; but I can get it."

"Do so, pray; and when you bring her here introduce me to her as Mr.
Martin, and my friend here as Mr. Henry. She may refuse our
assistance, and we must provide against the revenge of the Prince."

"I will do as you command," replied Rudolph, who acted throughout as
if he felt himself in the presence of a superior officer.

As we sat waiting his return I was in a state of considerable
excitement. Delight, to know that she was still the pure angel I had
worshiped in my dreams, contended with trepidation as I felt I must
soon stand in her presence.

The door opened and Rudolph entered; behind him came the tall form of
the beautiful girl I had seen in the carriage: she seemed to me
fairer than ever. Her eyes first fell upon me; she started and
blushed. It was evident she recognized me; and I fancied the
recognition was not unpleasant to her. She then turned to Maximilian
and then to Rudolph, who introduced us as we had requested. I offered
her a chair. She sat down, evidently astonished at such an interview,
and yet entirely mistress of herself. After a moment's pause,--for
Maximilian, as he told me afterwards, was too bewildered with her
splendid beauty to speak,--she said, in a sweet and gentle voice:

"Mr. Rudolph tells me that you desire to speak to me on matters of
importance."

At a sign from Maximilian Rudolph closed and locked the door. She
started, and it seemed to me that her eyes turned to me with more
confidence than to either of the others.

"Miss Washington," said Maximilian, "it is true we desire to speak
with you on matters of the greatest moment to yourself. But we shall
say things so surprising to you, so harsh and cruel, so utterly in
conflict with your present opinions, that I scarce know how to begin."

She had grown paler during this speech, and I then said:

"Be assured that nothing but the profound respect we feel for you,
and the greatest desire to serve you, and save you from ruin, could
have induced us to intrude upon you."

Her face showed her increasing alarm; she placed her hand on her
heart, as if to still its beatings, and then, with constrained
dignity, replied:

"I do not understand you, gentlemen. I do not know what the dangers
are to which you allude. Can you not speak plainly?"

"My friend here, Mr. Henry," said Maximilian, looking at me, "you
have, I perceive, already recognized."

"Yes," she said, with another blush, "if I am not mistaken, he is the
gentleman who saved the life of a poor beggar, some days since, and
punished, as he deserved, our insolent driver. Miss Frederika, the
Prince's niece, has, at my request, refused since that time to permit
him to drive us when we go out together, as we often do. I am glad to
thank you again," she said, with a charmingly ingenuous air, "for
your noble act in saving that poor man's life."

"It was nothing," I said, "but if the service was of any value it has
been a thousand times repaid by your kind words."

"You can easily imagine," said Maximilian, "that my friend here,
after that interview, was naturally curious to find out something
about you."

She blushed and cast down her eyes; and the thought flashed across my
mind that perhaps she had been likewise curious to find out something
about me.

"I am a member," said Maximilian, "of a secret society. We have a
'Bureau of Inquiry' whose business it is to collect information, for
the use of the society, concerning every person of any note. This
information is carefully tabulated and preserved, and added to from
day to day; so that at any moment it is subject to the call of our
officers. When my friend desired to know something about you" (here
the blue, wondering eyes were cast down again), "I sent a message to
our Bureau of Inquiry, and received a reply which I have here. I fear
to show it to you. The shock will be too great to learn in a moment
the utter baseness of one in whom you have trusted. I fear you have
not the courage to endure such a blow; and at the same time I know of
no better way to communicate to your purity and innocence the
shocking facts which it is my duty to disclose."

Estella smiled, and reached forth her hand for the paper with the
dignity of conscious courage and high blood.

"Let me read it," she said; "I do not think it can tell me anything I
cannot endure."

Maximilian delivered the paper into her hand. I watched her face as
she read it. At first there was a look of wonder at the minuteness of
the knowledge of her family which the paper revealed; then the
interest became more intense; then the eyebrows began to rise and the
blue eyes to dilate with horror; then an expression of scorn swept
over her face; and as she read the last word she flung the paper from
her as if it had been a serpent, and rising up, yes, towering, a
splendid image of wrath, she turned upon us and cried out:

"This is a base falsehood! A cowardly trick to wound me! A shameful
attempt to injure my dear aunt."

And, wheeling around on Rudolph, her eyes blazing, she said:

"Unlock that door! I shall reveal at once to the Prince this attack
on his good name and Miss Frederika. How dare you bring these men
here with such falsehoods?"

Rudolph, alarmed for himself, hung his head in silence. He was
trembling violently.

"Rudolph," said Maximilian, solemnly, "I call upon you, by the oath
you have taken, to say to this lady whether or not the contents of
that paper are true."

"I believe them to be true," responded Rudolph, in a low tone.

It was wonderful to see the fine indignation, the keen penetration
that shone in Estella's eyes, as she looked first at Rudolph and then
at Maximilian.

"Rudolph," said Maximilian, "by the oath you have taken, tell Miss
Washington whether or not you paid $5,000 to her aunt, Maria
Plunkett, for the purchase of her body, as set forth in that paper."

"It is true," replied Rudolph, in the same low tone.

"It is false!" cried Estella,--and yet I thought there was that in
her tone which indicated that the hideous doubt had begun to enter
her soul.

"Rudolph," said Maximilian, "tell this lady whether you took a
receipt from her aunt for the money you paid for her."

"I did," replied Rudolph.

"Miss Washington," said Maximilian, like a lawyer who has reached his
crucial question, for he was a trained attorney, "would you recognize
your aunt's signature if you saw it?"

"Certainly."

"You have often seen her write?"

"Yes; hundreds of times."

"Have you any reason to distrust this good man, Rudolph? Do you not
know that in testifying to the truth he runs the risk of his own
destruction?"

"Yes, yes," she said, and there was a wild and worried look in her
eyes.

"Read the receipt, Rudolph," said Maximilian.

Rudolph read, in the same low and almost trembling tones, the
following:

     NEW YORK, August 5th, 1988.--Received of Matthew Rudolph,

     for the Prince of Cabano, the sum of five thousand dollars,
     in consideration of which I have delivered to the said
     Prince of Cabano the body of my niece, Estella Washington;
     and I hereby agree, as the custodian of the said Estella
     Washington, never to demand any further payment, from the
     said Prince of Cabano, on account of my said niece, and
     never to reclaim her; and I also pledge myself never to
     reveal to any of the relatives of the said Estella
     Washington her place of residence.

     (Signed)                Maria Plunkett.

As he finished reading Estella seized the receipt quickly out of his
hands, and fixed her eyes eagerly upon the signature. In a moment she
became deadly pale, and would have fallen on the floor, but that I
caught her in my arms--(oh, precious burden!)--and bore her to a
sofa. Rudolph brought some water and bathed her face. In a few
minutes she recovered consciousness. She looked at us curiously at
first, and then, as memory returned to her, an agonized and
distraught look passed over her features, and I feared she would
faint again. I held some water to her lips. She looked at me with an
intense look as I knelt at her side. Then hey eyes passed to
Maximilian and Rudolph, who stood respectfully a little distance from
her. The tears flowed down her face. Then a new thought seemed to
strike her, and she rose to a sitting posture.

"It cannot be true. My aunt could not do it. You are strangers to me.
It is a conspiracy. I will ask Frederika."

"No! no!" said Rudolph; "not Frederika; it would not be to her
interest to tell you the truth. But is there any one of the servants
in whom you have more confidence than all the others?"

"Yes," she said, "there is Mary Callaghan, an honest girl, if there
is one anywhere. I think she loves me; and I do not believe she would
deceive me."

"Then," said Rudolph, "you shall send for her to come here. None of
us shall speak to her lest you might think we did so to prompt her.
We will hide behind the tapestry. Dry your tears; ring for a servant,
and request Mary to come to you, and then ask her such questions as
you choose."

This was done, and in a few moments Mary appeared--an honest, stout,
rosy-cheeked Irish girl, with the frank blue eyes and kindly smile of
her people.

"Mary," said Estella, "you have always been kind to me. Do you love
me sufficiently to tell me the truth if I ask you some questions?"

"Sure, and you may do so, my dear," said Mary.

"Then, Mary, tell me, is Frederika the Prince of Cabano's niece?"

"Niver a drop's blood to him," replied Mary.

"What is she doing in his house, then?" asked Estella.

"Sure, it would be as much as my place is worth, ma'am, to answer
that question; and hard enough it is for an honest girl to get a
place now-a-days. If it hadn't been for Barney McGuiggan, who married
my brother's sister-in-law, and who is own cousin to Mr. Flaherty,
the butler's second assistant, I couldn't have got the place I have
at all, at all. And if I said a word against Miss Frederika, out I
would go, and where would I find another place?"

"But, Mary, if you speak the truth no harm shall follow to you. I
shall never repeat what you say. I do not ask out of idle curiosity,
but much depends on your answer."

"Indeed, ma'am," replied Mary, "if you weren't as innocent as ye're
purty, you would have found out the answer to your own question long
ago. Faith, an' don't everybody in the house know she's"--here she
approached, and whispered solemnly in her ear--"she's the Prince's
favorite mistress?"

Estella recoiled. After a pause she said:

"And, Mary, who are the other young ladies we call the Prince's
cousins--Miss Lucy, Miss Julia and the rest?"

"Ivery one of them's the same. It's just as I told Hannah, the cook's
scullion; I didn't belave ye knew a word of what was going on in this
house. And didn't I tell her that Miss Frederika was contriving to
kape you out of the Prince's sight.; and that was the rason she took
you out riding for hours ivery day, and made you sleep in a remote
part of the palace; for if the Prince ever clapped his two ougly eyes
upon you it would be all up wid Madame Frederika."

I could see from where I was hidden that Estella grasped the back of
a chair for support, and she said in a low voice:

"You may go, Mary; I am much obliged to you for your friendship and
honesty."

We found her sitting in the chair, with her hands over her face,
sobbing convulsively. At last she looked around upon us and cried out:

"Oh my God! What shall I do? I am sold--sold--a helpless slave. Oh,
it is horrible!"

"You will never be without friends while we live," I said, advancing
to her side.

"But I must fly," she cried out, "and how--where?"

"My dear Miss Washington," said Maximilian, in his kindest tones, "I
have a dear mother, who will be glad to welcome you as her own child;
and in our quiet home you can remain, safe from the power of the
Prince, until you have time to think out your future course of life;
and if you conclude to remain with us forever you will be only the
more welcome. Here is Rudolph, who will vouch for me that I am an
honorable man, and that you can trust yourself to me with safety."

"Yes," said Rudolph; "Maximilian Petion is the soul of honor. His
simple word is more than the oath of another."

"Then let us fly at once," said Estella.

"No," replied Rudolph, "that would not do; this house is guarded and
full of spies. You would be followed and reclaimed."

"What, then, do you advise?" asked Maximilian.

"Let me see," replied the old man, thinking; "this is Thursday. On
Monday night next the members of 'the government' have their meeting
here. There will be a number of visitors present, and more or less
confusion; more guards will be necessary also, and I can contrive to
have one of the Brotherhood act as sentinel at the door which opens
into a hall which connects with this room; for you see here is a
special entrance which leads to a stairway and to the door I speak
of. I will procure a gentleman's dress for Miss Estella; she is tall
and will readily pass in the dark for a man. I will secure for you a
permit for a carriage to enter the grounds. You will bring a close
carriage and wait with the rest of the equipages, near at hand. But I
must have some one who will accompany Miss Estella from this room to
the carriage, for I must not show myself."

I stepped forward and said, "I will be here."

"But there is some danger in the task," said Rudolph, looking at me
critically. "If detected, your life would pay the forfeit."

"I would the danger were ten times as great," I replied. Estella
blushed and gave me a glance of gratitude.

"There is one difficulty I perceive," said Maximilian.

"What is that?" asked Rudolph.

"I hesitate about leaving Miss Washington exposed to the danger of
remaining four days longer in this horrible house."

"I will look after that," replied Rudolph. "She had better pretend
ill health, and keep her room during that time. It is on an upper
floor, and if she remains there the danger will be very slight that
the Prince will see her."

"Miss Washington," I said, handing her the dagger which Max had given
me, "take this weapon. It is poisoned with the most deadly virus
known to the art of man. A scratch from it is certain death. Use it
to defend yourself if assailed."

"I know how I shall use it in the last extremity," she said,
meaningly.

"Better," I replied, "purity in death than degradation in life."

She thanked me with her eyes, and took the dagger and hid it in her
bosom.

"There is one other matter," said Rudolph to Max; "the meeting next
Monday night is to be a very important one, I think, from certain
indications. It is called to prepare for an expected outbreak of the
people. It would be well that some reliable person should be present,
as heretofore, who can report to you all that occurs. If you can send
me a discreet man I can hide him where I have before hidden our
brethren."

"Why could I not serve the purpose?" I said. "I will be here anyhow;
and as I would have to remain until the gathering broke up, I might
just as well witness the proceedings."

"He is not one of us," said Rudolph, doubtfully.

"No," replied Max; "but I will vouch for his fidelity with my life."

"Then be it so," said Rudolph. "Let Miss Washington withdraw by the
farther door; and after a reasonable delay we will pass through into
a communicating series of rooms, and I will then show your friend
where he is to be concealed."

                             CHAPTER VII.

                           THE HIDING-PLACE

I had seen something of the magnificence of this age, and of the
splendor of its lordly habitations; but I was not prepared for the
grandeur of the rooms through which Rudolph led me. It would be
impossible to adequately describe them. We moved noiselessly over
carpets soft and deep as a rich sward, but tinted with colors and
designs, from the great looms of the world, beside which the
comparison of nature's carpets seemed insignificant. We passed up
great winding stairs, over which, it seemed to me, three carriages
might have been driven abreast; we were surrounded at every step by
exquisite statuary and royal paintings; our course led through great
libraries where the softened light fell on the endless arrays of
richly-bound books. But they were as dead intelligence under the
spell of a magician. No pale students sat at the tables here,
availing themselves of the treasures which it had taken generations
to assemble, and some of which could scarcely be found elsewhere. Men
and women passed and repassed us; for the house was so full of
servants that it seemed like a town in itself. Here and there were
quiet-looking watchmen, who served the place of police in a great
city, and whose duty it was to keep watch and ward over the
innumerable articles which everywhere met the eye--costly books,
works of art, bronzes, jeweled boxes, musical instruments, small
groups of exquisite statuary, engravings, curios, etc., from all
quarters of the earth. It represented, in short, the very profligacy
and abandon of unbounded wealth. Each room seemed to contain a king's
ransom. I could not help but contrast this useless and extravagant
luxury, which served no purpose but display and vanity, with the
dreadful homes and working-places of the poor I had visited the day
before. And it seemed to me as if a voice pierced my heart, crying
out through all its recesses, in strident tones, "How long, O Lord,
how long?" And then I thought how thin a crust of earth separated all
this splendor from that burning hell of misery beneath it. And if the
molten mass of horror should break its limitations and overflow the
earth! Already it seemed to me the planet trembled; I could hear the
volcanic explosions; I could see the sordid flood of wrath and hunger
pouring through these halls; cataracts of misery bursting through
every door and window, and sweeping away all this splendor into
never-ending blackness and ruin. I stood still, lost in these
engrossing reflections, when Rudolph touched me on the arm, and led
the way through a great hall, covered with ancestral portraits, into
a magnificent chamber. In the center stood a large table, and around
it about two score chairs, all made of dark tropical wood. It was
like the council chamber of some great government, with the throne of
the king at one end.

"This," said Rudolph, in a solemn whisper, "this is where they meet.
This is the real center of government of the American continent; all
the rest is sham and form. The men who meet here determine the
condition of all the hundreds of millions who dwell on the great land
revealed to the world by Columbus. Here political parties, courts,
juries, governors, legislatures, congresses, presidents are made and
unmade; and from this spot they are controlled and directed in the
discharge of their multiform functions. The decrees formulated here
are echoed by a hundred thousand newspapers, and many thousands of
orators; and they are enforced by an uncountable army of soldiers,
servants, tools, spies, and even assassins. He who stands in the way
of the men who assemble here perishes. He who would oppose them takes
his life in his hands. You are, young man, as if I had led you to the
center of the earth, and I had placed your hand upon the very pivot,
the well-oiled axle, upon which, noiselessly, the whole great globe
revolves, and from which the awful forces extend which hold it all
together."

I felt myself overawed. It was as if mighty spirits even then
inhabited that dusky and silent chamber; hostile and evil spirits of
whom mankind were at once the subjects and the victims. I followed
Rudolph on tiptoe as he advanced to the end of the room.

"Here," he said, entering through a wide arch "is a conservatory
which is constantly kept supplied and renewed, from the hot-houses of
the palace, with the most magnificent flowers. The only humanizing
trait the Prince seems to possess is an affection for flowers. And he
especially loves those strange Mexican and South American plants, the
_cactaceæ_, which unite the most exquisite flowers to the most
grotesque and repulsive forms, covered with great spear-like spines,
and which thrive only in barren lands, and on the poorest soil. I
have taken advantage of the presence of these plants to construct the
hiding-place about which I spoke to you. Here are some which are
fifteen feet high. They touch the ceiling of the room. Around them I
have arranged a perfect hedge or breast-work of smaller plants of the
same family, growing in large boxes. Nothing could penetrate through
this prickly wall; and I have united the boxes by hooks and staples
on the inside. There is, however, one which a strong man can move
aside; and through the opening thus formed he can crawl to the center
of the barricade, and, having replaced the hooks, it would be almost
impossible to reach him; while he could not be seen unless one were
immediately over him and looked down upon him. Then between him and
the council room I have arranged a screen of flowers, which will hide
you when you stand up, while between the blossoms you can see
everything with little risk of being seen. But in case you should be
detected you will observe behind you a window, which, as the weather
is warm, I shall leave open. On the outside is a great ivy vine that
will bear your weight. You will have to dare the spines of the cacti
behind you; make a great leap to the window and take your chances of
escaping the fusillade of pistol shots, by flying in the darkness,
into the garden. I will show you the grounds so that you will not be
lost in them, if you get that far. If caught, you will have to
pretend to be a burglar who entered at the window for purposes of
plunder. It would do you no good to inculpate me, for it would doom
us both to instant death as spies; while a supposed burglar would be
simply turned over to the law and punished by a term of imprisonment.
I give you these instructions although I hope there will be no
necessity for them. This hiding-place has been several times used,
and the deepest secrets of the aristocracy revealed to our
Brotherhood, without detection; and if you are prudent and careful
there will be little to fear. The council will meet at eight o'clock;
at half past seven it will be my duty to see that the rooms are in
order, and to make sure that there are no spies or intruders on the
premises, and to so report in person to the Prince, and deliver him
the key of the outer door. I shall cover your dress with the garments
of one of the household servants, and take you with me to help make
that last examination; and, watching an opportunity, you will slip
into the hiding-place; having first taken off the disguise I have
lent you, which we will hide among the plants. You must be armed and
prepared for every emergency. I will meet you in the garden at half
past six; before we part I will furnish you with a key to an outer
gate, by which you can enter. As soon as the council has broken up, I
will return to the room and again disguise you in the servant's
dress. The Prince always entertains his guests with a lunch and
champagne before they separate.

"In the meantime I will bring Estella to my room; you can then pass
out together and boldly advance to your carriage. You will first have
to agree with Maximilian where it will stand; and the guard at the
door will show you to it. When once in it, drive like the wind. You
must arrange with Maximilian as to what is to be done in case you
find you are followed, for in that event it will not do to drive
directly to his house. You must enter the house of some one of the
Brotherhood and pass rapidly through it, with Miss Washington, to a
carriage that will be in waiting in a rear street. And you must be
prepared with one or more such subterfuges, for you are dealing with
men of terrible power and cunning, whose arms reach everywhere; and
on the night of their councils--and in fact upon all other
nights--the place abounds with spies. Come with me and I will show
you the garden and how to enter it."

I was struck with the intelligence, sagacity and executive capacity
of the man; and I said to him:

"How comes it that you, holding such a position of trust and power,
where your compensation must be all you can ask, are, at the same
time, a member of a society which, if I understand aright, threatens
to overturn the existing order of things. You are not driven to
rebellion by want or oppression."

"No," he said; "I was educated at Heidelberg; I come of a wealthy
family; but in my youth, while an enthusiastic lover of liberty and
humanity, I became a member of a German branch of this now universal
Brotherhood. I had my dreams, as many have, of reforming the world.
But my membership, by a strange accident, became known, and I was
forced to fly in disgrace, discarded by my relatives, to America.
Here I lived in great poverty for a time, until the Brotherhood came
to my assistance and secured me a servant's place in this house. I
have gradually risen to my present position. While I am not so
enthusiastic as I once was, nor so sanguine of the good results of
the promised revolution of the _proletariat_, I have nevertheless
seen enough within these walls to show me the justice of our cause
and the necessity for Some kind of reformation. I could not draw back
now, if I desired to; and I do not know that I would if I could. We
are all moving together on the face of the torrent, and whither it
will eventually sweep us no one can tell. But come," he added, "to
the garden, or our long conversation may be noticed, and arouse
suspicion."

                            CHAPTER VIII.

                            THE BROTHERHOOD

I cannot give you, my dear brother, a detailed account of every day's
occurrences, although I know that your love for me would make every
incident of interest to you. I shall, however, jot down my
reflections on sheets, and send them to you as occasion serves.

The more I have seen, and the more I have conversed with Maximilian,
the more clearly I perceive that the civilized world is in a
desperate extremity. This Brotherhood of Destruction, with its
terrible purposes and its vast numbers, is a reality. If the ruling
class had to deal only with a brutalized peasantry, they might, as
they did in other ages, trample them into animal-like inability to
organize and defend themselves. But the public school system, which,
with the other forms of the Republic, is still kept up, has made, if
not all, at least a very large percentage of the unhappy laboring
classes intelligent. In fact, they are wonderfully intelligent; their
organizations have been to them clubs, debating societies and
legislatures. And you know that all the greatest minds of the earth
have come out of the masses, if not directly, at least after one or
two removes. The higher aristocracy have contributed but very few to
the honored catalogue of men of pre-eminent genius. And therefore you
will not be surprised to hear that in these great organizations there
have arisen, from among the very laborers, splendid orators, capable
organizers, profound students of politics and political economy,
statesmen and masterly politicians. Nature, which knows no limit to
her capacity for the creation of new varieties, and, dealing with
hundreds of millions, has in numerable elements to mingle in her
combinations, has turned out some marvelous leaders among these poor
men. Their hard fortunes have driven out of their minds all
illusions, all imagination, all poetry; and in solemn fashion they
have bent themselves to the grim and silent struggle with their
environment. Without imagination, I say, for this seems to me to be a
world without a song.

And it is to the credit of these great masses that they are keen
enough to recognize the men of ability that rise up. among them, and
even out of their poor, hard-earned resources to relieve them of the
necessity for daily toil, that they may devote themselves to the
improvement of their minds, and the execution of the great tasks
assigned them. There is no doubt that if the ruling classes had been
willing to recognize these natural leaders as men of the same race,
blood, tongue and capacity as themselves, and had reached down to
them a helping and kindly hand, there might have been long since a
coming together of the two great divisions of society; and such a
readjustment of the values of labor as would, while it insured
happiness to those below, have not materially lessened the enjoyments
of those above. But the events which preceded the great war against
the aristocracy in 1640, in England; the great revolution of 1789, in
France; and the greater civil war of 1861, in America, all show how
impossible it is, by any process of reasoning, to induce a privileged
class to peacefully yield up a single tittle of its advantages. There
is no bigotry so blind or intense as that of caste; and long
established wrongs are only to be rooted out by fire and sword. And
hence the future looks so black to me. The upper classes might reform
the world, but they will not; the lower classes would, but they
cannot; and for a generation or more these latter have settled down
into a sullen and unanimous conviction that the only remedy is
world-wide destruction. We can say, as one said at the opening of the
Cromwellian struggle, "God help the land where ruin must reform!" But
the proletariat are desperate. They are ready, like the blind Samson,
to pull down the pillars of the temple, even though they themselves
fall, crushed to death amid the ruins; for

     "The grave is brighter than their hearths and homes."

I learn from Maximilian that their organization is most perfect.
Every one of their hundred millions is now armed with one of the
newest improved magazine rifles. The use of the white powder reduces
very much the size of the cartridges; the bullets are also much
smaller than they were formerly, but they are each charged with a
most deadly and powerful explosive, which tears the body of the
victim it strikes to pieces. These small cartridges are stored in the
steel stock and barrel of the rifles, which will hold about one
hundred of them; and every soldier therefore carries in his hand a
weapon almost equal to the old-time Gatling or Armstrong gun.

The mode in which these guns were procured shows the marvelous nature
of the organization and its resources. Finding that the cost of the
guns was greatly increased by the profits of the manufacturer and the
middleman, and that it was, in fact, very doubtful whether the
government would permit them to purchase them in any large
quantities, they resolved to make them for themselves. In the depths
of abandoned coal mines, in the wildest and most mountainous part of
Tennessee, they established, years ago, their armories and foundries.
Here, under pretense of coal-mining and iron-working, they brought
members of their Brotherhood, workmen from the national gun-works;
and these, teaching hundreds of others the craft, and working day and
night, in double gangs, have toiled until every able-bodied man in
the whole vast Brotherhood, in America and Europe, has been supplied
with his weapon and a full accompaniment of ammunition. The cost of
all this was reduced to a minimum, and has been paid by each member
of the Brotherhood setting aside each week a small percentage of his
earnings. But, lest they should break out permaturely,{sic} before
the leaders gave the word, these guns have not been delivered
directly to their owners, but to the "commanders of tens," as they
are called; for the Brotherhood is divided into groups of ten each;
and it is the duty of these commanders to bury the weapons and
ammunition in the earth in rubber sacks, furnished for the purpose,
and only to deliver them when the signal comes to strike. In the
meantime the men are trained. with sticks in all the evolutions of
soldiers. You can see how cunning is all this system. A traitor
cannot betray more than nine of his fellows, and his own death is
certain to follow. If the commander of a squad goes over to the
enemy, he can but deliver up nine men and ten guns, and perhaps
reveal the supposed name of the one man who, in a disguise, has
communicated with him from the parent society. But when the signal is
given a hundred million trained soldiers will stand side by side,
armed with the most efficient weapons the cunning of man is able to
produce, and directed by a central authority of extraordinary
ability. Above all this dreadful preparation the merry world goes on,
singing and dancing, marrying and giving in marriage, as thoughtless
of the impending catastrophe as were the people of Pompeii in those
pleasant August days in 79, just before the city was buried in
ashes;--and yet the terrible volcano had stood there, in the
immediate presence of themselves and their ancestors, for
generations, and more than once the rocking earth had given signal
tokens of its awful Possibilities.

If I believed that this wonderful Brotherhood was capable of anything
beyond destruction, I should not look with such terror as I do upon
the prospect. But after destruction there must come construction--the
erection of law and civilization upon the ruins of the present order
of things. Who can believe that these poor brutalized men will be
capable, armed to the teeth with deadly weapons, and full of
passions, hates and revenges, to recreate the slaughtered society? In
civilized life the many must work; and who among these liberated
slaves will be ready to lay down their weapons and take up their
tasks? When the negroes of San Domingo broke out, in that
world-famous and bloody insurrection, they found themselves, when
they had triumphed, in a tropical land, where the plentiful bounties
of nature hung abundant supplies of food upon every tree and shrub.
But in the temperate regions of America and Europe these vast
populations can only live by great toil, and if none will toil all
must starve; but before they starve they will slay each other, and
that means universal conflict, savagery, barbarism, chaos.

I tremble, my brother, I tremble with horror when I think of what is
crawling toward us, with noiseless steps; couchant, silent,
treacherous, pardlike; scarce rustling the dry leaves as it moves,
and yet with bloodshot, glaring eyes and tense-drawn limbs of steel,
ready for the fatal spring. When comes it? To-night? To-morrow? A
week hence? Who can say?

And the thought forever presses on me, Can I do nothing to avert this
catastrophe? Is there no hope? For mankind is in itself so noble, so
beautiful, so full of all graces and capacities; with aspirations
fitted to sing among the angels; with comprehension fitted to embrace
the universe! Consider the exquisite, lithe-limbed figures of the
first man and woman, as they stood forth against the red light of
their first sunset--fresh from the hand of the Mighty One--His
graceful, perfected, magnificent thoughts! What love shines out of
their great eyes; what goodness, like dawn-awakened flowers, is
blooming in their singing hearts! And all to come to this. To this! A
hell of injustice, ending in a holocaust of slaughter.

God is not at fault. Nature is not to blame. Civilization, signifying
increased human power, is not responsible. But human greed,--blind,
insatiable human greed,--shallow cunning; the basest, stuff-grabbing,
nut-gathering, selfish instincts, these have done this work! The rats
know too much to gnaw through the sides of the ship that carries
them; but these so-called wise men of the world have eaten away the
walls of society in a thousand places, to the thinness of
tissue-paper, and the great ocean is about to pour in at every
aperture. And still they hoot and laugh their insolent laugh of
safety and triumph above the roar of the greedy and boundless waters,
just ready to overwhelm them forever.

Full of these thoughts, which will not permit me to sleep at night,
and which haunt my waking hours, I have gone about, for some days,
accompanied by Maximilian, and have attended meetings of the
workingmen in all parts of the city. The ruling class long since
denied them the privilege of free speech, under the pretense that the
safety of society required it. In doing so they have screwed down the
safety-valve, while the steam continues to generate. Hence the men
meet to discuss their wrongs and their remedies in underground
cellars, under old ruined breweries and warehouses; and there, in
large, low-roofed apartments, lighted by tallow candles, flaring
against the dark, damp, smoky walls, the swarming masses assemble, to
inflame each other mutually against their oppressors, and to look
forward, with many a secret hint and innuendo, to that great day of
wrath and revenge which they know to be near at hand--

     "And with pale lips men say,
     To-morrow, perchance to-day,
     Enceladus may arise!"

But as any member is permitted to bring in a friend--for these are
not meetings of the Brotherhood itself, but simply voluntary
gatherings of workmen,--and as any man may prove a traitor, their
utterances are guarded and enigmatical.

More than once I have spoken to them in these dim halls; and while
full of sympathy for their sufferings, and indignant as they
themselves can be against their oppressors, I have pleaded with them
to stay their hands, to seek not to destroy, but to reform. I preach
to them of the glories of civilization; I trace its history backward
through a dozen eras and many nations; I show them how slowly it
grew, and by what small and gradual accretions; I tell them how
radiantly it has burst forth in these latter centuries, with such
magnificent effulgence, until today man has all nature at his feet,
shackled and gyved, his patient logman. I tell them that a ruffian,
with one blow of his club, can destroy the life of a man; and that
all the doctors and scientists and philosophers of the world, working
together for ages, could not restore that which he has so rudely
extinguished. And so, I say to them, the civilization which it has
taken ten thousand years to create may be swept away in an hour; and
there shall be no power in the wit or wisdom of man to reestablish it.

Most of them have listened respectfully; a few have tried to answer
me; some have mocked me. But it is as if one came where grouped
convicts stood, long imprisoned, who heard--with knives in their
hands--the thunderous blows of their friends as they battered down
the doors of their prison-house, and he should beg them not to go
forth, lest they should do harm to society! They will out, though the
heavens and the earth came together! One might as well whisper to
Niagara to cease falling, or counsel the resistless cyclone, in its
gyrating and terrible advance, to have a care of the rose-bushes.

                              CHAPTER IX.

                          THE POISONED KNIFE

When we returned home, on Sunday evening, Max found the receptacle in
the wall which communicated with the pneumatic-tube system standing
open. In it he found a long communication in cipher. He read a few
lines with a startled look and then said:

"Here is important news, Gabriel. It is written in one of the ciphers
of the Brotherhood, which I will translate to you. The number is that
of Rudolph--the number it is addressed to is my own. We know each
other in the Brotherhood, not by our names, but by the numbers given
us when we became members. Listen:

"From number 28,263 M 2, to No. 160,053 P 4. Dated this 7:9, from the
house of the condemned, No. 826 B."

"That," said Maximilian, "means the Prince Cabano." He continued to
read:

"Startling events have occurred since I saw you. The former favorite
mistress of 826 B, who was displaced by Frederika, is a French girl,
Celestine d'Aublay. She resented her downfall bitterly, and she hates
Frederika with the characteristic vehemence of her race. She learned
from the talk of the servants that a new victim--Estella--had been
brought into the house, a girl of great beauty; and that Frederika
was trying to prevent 826 B from seeing her. A sudden thought took
possession of her mind; she would overthrow Frederika just as she
herself had been overthrown. Yesterday, Saturday afternoon, she
watched for 826 B in the hallways and chambers. The snuffling old
wretch has a fashion of prying around in all parts of the house,
under the fear that he is being robbed by the servants; and it was
not long until Celestine encountered him. She threw herself in his
way.

"'Well, little one,' he said, chucking her under the chin, 'how have
you been? I have not seen your pretty face for a long time.'

"'Indeed,' said she, 'you care very little now for my pretty face, or
that of any one else, since you have your new toy, Estella.'

"'Estella!' he repeated, 'who is Estella?'

"'Come, come,' she said laughing; 'that will not do! Master Rudolph
brings into the house a young girl of ravishing beauty, and weeks
afterwards you ask me who she is! I am not to be deceived that way. I
know you too well.'

"'But really,' he replied, 'I have not seen her. This is the first I
have ever heard of her. Who is she?'

"'Her name is Estella Washington,' replied Celestine; 'she is about
eighteen years old.'

"'Estella Washington,' he said respectfully; 'that is a great name.
What is she like?'

"'I have told you already,' was the reply, 'that she is of
magnificent beauty, tall, fair, stately, graceful and innocent.,

"'Indeed, I must see her.'

"He hurried to his library and rang my bell.

"'Rudolph,' he said, when I appeared, 'who is this Estella Washington
that you brought into the house some weeks since? Celestine has been
telling me about her. How comes it I have never seen her?'

"My heart came into my mouth with a great leap; but I controlled my
excitement and replied:

"'My lord, I reported to you the fact of the purchase some time
since, and the payment of $5,000 to an aunt of Estella.'

"'True,' he said, 'I remember it now; but I was much occupied at the
time. How comes it, however, that she has been in the house and I
have never seen her?'

"I determined not to betray Frederika, and so I replied:

"'It must have been by accident, your lordship; and, moreover,
Estella is of a very quiet, retiring disposition, and has kept her
room a great part of the time since she came here.'

"'Go to her and bring her here,' he said.

"There was no help for it; so I proceeded to Estella's room.

"'Miss Washington,' I said, 'I have bad news for you. The Prince
desires to see you!'

"She rose up, very pale.

'''My God,' she said, 'what shall I do?'

"And then she began to fumble in the folds of her dress for the knife
your friend gave her.

"'Be calm and patient,' I said; 'do nothing desperate. On the night
after next your friend will come for you. We must delay matters all
we can. Keep your room, and I will tell the Prince that you are too
sick to leave your bed, but hope to be well enough to pay your
respects to him to-morrow afternoon. We will thus gain twenty-four
hours' delay, and we may be able to use the same device again
to-morrow.'

"But she was very much excited, and paced the room with hurried
steps, wringing her hands. To calm her I said:

"'You are in no danger. You can lock your door. And see, come here,'
I said, and, advancing to one of the window sills, I lifted it up and
disclosed, neatly coiled within it, a ladder of cords, with stout
bamboo rounds. 'As a last resort,' I continued, 'you can drop this
out of the window and fly. All the rooms in this older part of the
palace are furnished with similar fire-escapes. You see that yellow
path below us; and there beyond the trees you may perceive a part of
the wall of the gardens; that path terminates at a little gate, and
here is a key that will unlock it. Study the ground well from your
windows. Your escape would, however, have to be made by night; but as
you would run some risk in crossing the grounds, and, when you passed
the gate, would find yourself in the midst of a strange world,
without a friend, you must only think of flight as your last resource
in the most desperate extremity. We must resort to cunning, until
your friends come for you, on Monday night. But be patient and
courageous. Remember, I am your friend, and my life is pledged to
your service.'

"She turned upon me, and her penetrating eyes seemed to read my very
soul.

"'How,' she said, 'can I trust you? You are a stranger to me. Worse
than that, you are the hired instrument of that monster--that dealer
in flesh and blood. You bought me and brought me here; and who are
your friends? They too are strangers to me. Why should I believe in
strangers when the one whom I loved, and in whom I placed
unquestioning trust, has betrayed me, and sold me to the most
dreadful fate?'

"I hung my head.

"'It chances,' I replied, humbly, 'that the instruments of vice may
sometimes loathe the work they do. The fearful executioner may,
behind his mask, hide the traces of grief and pity. I do not blame
you for your suspicions. I once had aspirations, perhaps as high, and
purity of soul nearly as great as your own. But what are we? The
creatures of fate; the victims of circumstances. We look upon the
Medusa-head of destiny, with its serpent curls, and our wills, if not
our souls, are turned into stone. God alone, who knows all, can judge
the heart of man. But I am pledged, by ties the most awful, to a
society which, however terrible its methods may be, is, in its grand
conceptions, charitable and just. My life would not be worth a day's
purchase if I did not defend you. One of your friends stands high in
that society.'

"'Which one is that?' she asked eagerly.

"'The smaller and darker one,' I replied.

"'Can you tell me anything about the other?' she asked, and a slight
blush seemed to mantle her face, as if she were ashamed of the
question.

"'Very little,' I replied; 'he is not a member of our Brotherhood;
but he is a brave man, and the friend of Mr. Maximilian can not be a
bad man.'

"'No,' she said, thoughtfully; 'he is of a good and noble nature, and
it is in him I trust.'

"'But,' said I, 'I must leave you, or the Prince will wonder at my
long absence.'

"As I took my departure I heard her locking the door behind me. I
reported to the Prince that Miss Washington was quite ill, and
confined to her bed, but that she hoped to do herself the honor of
calling upon him the next day. He looked glum, but assented. Upon
leaving him, I called upon Frederika and requested her to come to my
room. In a few moments she appeared. After seating her I said:

"'Miss Frederika, will you pardon me if I ask you a few questions
upon matters of importance to both of us?'

"'Certainly,' she replied.

"'In the first place,' I said, 'you regard me as your friend, do you
not? Have I not always shown a disposition to serve you?'

"She replied with some pleasant smiles and assurances of friendship.

"'Now let me ask you another question,' I continued. 'Do you
entertain friendly sentiments to Miss Estella?"

"'Indeed I do,' she replied; 'she is a sweet-tempered, innocent and
gentle girl.'

"'I am glad to hear it,' I said; 'did you know that the Prince has
discovered her, and has just sent me for her?'

"Her large black eyes fairly blazed.

"'Who has told him of her?' she asked, fiercely, and her voice rose
high and shrill.

"'Your enemy, Miss Celestine,' I replied. 'I suspected as much,' she
said.

"''I need not tell you,' I said, 'that Celestine's motive was to
supplant and humble you.'

"'I understand that,' she replied, and her hands twitched nervously,
as if she would like to encounter her foe.

"'Now let me ask you another question,' I continued. 'Would you not
be glad to see Estella safely out of this house?'

"'Indeed I would,' she replied, eagerly.

"'If I place my life in your hands, will you be true to me?' I asked.

"She took me earnestly by the hand, and replied:

"'Neither in life nor in death will I betray you.,

"'Then,' said I, 'I will tell you that Estella has friends who are as
anxious to get her away from this place as you are. They have
arranged to come for her on Monday night next. You must help me to
protect her from the Prince in the meantime, and to facilitate her
escape when the time comes.'

"'I will do so,' she said; 'tell me what I can do now?'

"'Make yourself very entertaining to the Prince,' I replied, 'and
keep his thoughts away from the stranger. Estella pleads sickness and
keeps her room; and we may be able to protect her in that way until
the fateful night arrives. And remember,' I said, touching her upon
the breast and looking earnestly into her eyes, for I have little
faith in such natures, 'that I am a member of a great secret society,
and if any mishap were to happen to me, through your agency, your own
life would pay the immediate forfeit.'

"She shrank back affrighted, and assured me again of her good faith.
And as she desires to be quit of Estella, I think she will not betray
us."

"SUNDAY EVENING, seven o'clock.

"I resume my narrative. I have gone through dreadful scenes since I
laid down my pen.

"This afternoon about five o'clock the Prince rang for me.

"'Bring Estella,' he said.

"I went at once to her room. I found her looking paler than usual.
She had the appearance of one that had not slept.

"'Estella,' I said, 'the Prince has again sent for you. I shall
return and make the same excuse. Do not worry--all will be well. We
are one day nearer your deliverance.'

"I returned and told the Prince that Estella was even worse than the
day before; that she had a high fever; and that she apologized for
not obeying his summons; but that she hoped by to-morrow to be well
enough to pay her respects to him.

"He was in one of his sullen fits. I think Frederika had been
overdoing her blandishments, and he had become suspicious; for he is
one of the most cunning of men.

"'Frederika is behind this business,' he said.

"'Behind what business, my lord?' I asked.

"'This sickness of Estella. Bring her to me, ill or well,' he
replied; 'I want to see her.'

"He was in no humor to be trifled with; and so I returned to my room
to think it over. I saw that Estella would have to barricade herself
in her room. How could she support life in the meantime? The first
requisite was, therefore, food. I went at once to Michael, the cook's
assistant, who is a trusty friend of mine, and secured from him,
secretly and under a pledge of silence, food enough to last until the
next night. I hurried to Estella, told her of her danger, and gave
her the basket of provisions. I instructed her to lock her door.

"'If they break it in,' I said, 'use your knife on the first man that
touches you. If they send you food or drink, do not use them. If they
attempt to chloroform you, stop up the pipe with soap. If the worst
comes to the worst, use the rope-ladder. If you manage to get outside
the garden gate, call a hack and drive to that address.' Here I gave
her your direction on a small piece of tissue paper. 'If you are
about to be seized, chew up the paper and swallow it. Do not in any
event destroy yourself,' I added, 'until the last desperate extremity
is reached; for you have a powerful organization behind you, and even
if recaptured you will be rescued. Good-by.'

"She thanked me warmly, and as I left the room I heard her again lock
the door.

"I returned to the Prince, and told him that Estella had said she was
too ill to leave her room, and that she refused to obey his summons.
Unaccustomed to contradiction, especially in his own house, he grew
furious.

"'Call the servants,' he shouted; 'we will see who is master here!'

"A few of the men came running; Frederika entered with them; some of
the women followed. We proceeded up stairs to Estella's door. The
Prince shook it violently.

"'Open the door,' he cried, 'or I will break it down.'

"I began to hope that he would rush to the doom he has so long
deserved.

"The calm, steady voice of Estella was now heard from within the
room; speaking in a high and ringing tone:

"'I appeal to my country. I demand the right to leave this house. I
am an American citizen. The Constitution of the United States forbids
human slavery. My fathers helped to found this government. No one has
the right to sell me into the most hideous bondage. I come of a great
and noble race. I demand my release.'

"'Come, come, open the door,' cried the Prince, flinging himself
against it until it quivered.

"The voice of Estella was heard again, in solemn tones:

"'The man who enters here dies!'

"The cowardly brute recoiled at once, with terror on every feature of
his face.

"'Who will break down that door,' he asked, 'and bring out that woman?

"There was a dead silence for a moment; then Joachim, a
broad-shouldered, superserviceable knave, who had always tried to
ingratiate himself with the Prince by spying upon the rest of the
servants and tattling, stepped forward, with an air of bravado, and
said, 'I will bring her out.'

"'Go ahead,' said the Prince, sullenly.

"Joachim made a rush at the door; it trembled and creaked, but did
not yield; he moved farther back, drew his breath hard, and,--strong
as a bull,--went at it with a furious rush; the lock gave way, the
door flew open and Joachim sprawled upon the floor. I could see
Estella standing back near the window, her right arm was raised, and
I caught the glitter of something in her hand. In an instant Joachim
was on his feet and approached her; I saw him grasp her; there was a
slight scuffle, and the next moment Joachim rushed out of the room,
pale as death, with his hand to his breast, crying out:

"'Oh! my God! she has stabbed me.'

"He tore open his shirt bosom, and there upon his hairy breast was a
bloody spot; but the knife had struck the breastbone and inflicted
only a shallow flesh-wound. Joachim laughed, replaced his shirt, and
said:

"'Ah! I might have known a girl's hand could not strike a deadly
blow. I will bring her out, my lord. Get me a rope.'

"He turned toward me, as he spoke; but on the instant I saw a sharp
spasm contract his features; he clapped his hand to his heart; a look
of surprise and then of terror came over his face.

"'Oh, my God!' he cried, 'I am poisoned.'

"The most awful shrieks I ever heard broke from him; and the next
moment his limbs seemed to lose their strength, and he fell in a heap
on the floor; then he rolled over and over; mighty convulsions swept
through him; he groaned, cried, shrieked, foamed at the mouth; there
was a sudden snorting sound, and he stiffened out and was dead.

"We fell back appalled. Then in the doorway appeared the figure of
Estella, her blue eyes bright as stars, her long golden hair falling
like a cloak to her waist, the red-tipped knife in her hand; she
looked like a Gothic priestess--a Vala of Odin--with the reeking
human sacrifice already at her feet. The blood of a long line of
heroic ancestors thrilled in her veins. Stepping over the dead body,
already beginning to swell and grow spotted with many colors, like a
snake, she advanced toward the Prince, who stood in his
dressing-gown, trembling, and nearly as bloated, pale and hideous as
the wretched Joachim.

"'Is it you,' she said--'you, the dealer in human flesh and blood,
that has bought me? Come to me, and take possession of your
bond-woman!'

"With a cry of terror the Prince turned his back and fled as fast as
his legs would carry him, while all the rest of us followed
pell-mell. At the end of the hall is a large iron door, used for
protection in case of fire.

"'Quick,' shrieked the Prince, 'lock the door! lock the door!'

"This was done, and he stopped to pant and blow in safety. When he
had recovered his breath, he cried out:

"'Send for the police! We will have her chloroformed.'

"I touched Frederika on the arm;--she followed me into an open room.

"'Tell him,' I whispered to her, quickly, 'tell him that if he calls
in the police there will have to be an inquest over the dead body of
Joachim; there may be questions asked that will be hard to answer.
The girl will have to be taken off to be tried for murder, and he
will lose her. If he attempts to use chloroform she will stab herself
with the poisoned knife. Tell him you will drug her food with
narcotics; that hunger will eventually compel her to eat; and that
when she sleeps she may be made a prisoner, and the knife taken away
from her.'

"The quick-witted girl saw the force of these suggestions, and ran
after her paramour. She succeeded in her mission. He fears the coming
outbreak, whispers of which are now heard everywhere. He has recalled
the order for the police. He stipulates, however--for he is
suspicious of Frederika, and fears treachery--that he is to drug the
food himself and see it placed in the room; and he has stationed two
trusty guards at the door of Estella's chamber, who are to be changed
every eight hours, and who are instructed that, whenever they think
she is asleep, one of them is to notify him; and carpenters will then
quietly cut the door from its hinges, and they will enter, disarm her
and make her a prisoner. Estella, I find, has barricaded her door
with her bedstead and the rest of the furniture. If she sleeps she
will wake with any attempt to enter the room; but she is not likely,
in her present state of high-wrought excitement, to sleep at all; and
she will not touch the drugged food sent in to her. I have arranged
with Frederika, who has great authority in the house, that on Monday
night the two watchmen shall be furnished with some refreshment
containing morphine; and when they are sound asleep, and the Prince
busy with his guests, she or I will go to the room, carrying
Estella's masculine disguise, and then bring her to my room, where
she will join your friend.

"I do not think she is in any present danger. The poisoned knife is
her safeguard. The whole household, after witnessing its terrible
potency, fear it as they would the fangs of a rattlesnake. It was a
lucky thought that left it with her.

"If your friend does not fail us, all will be well.

    "Farewell.

28,263 M 2."

I need not tell you, my dear Heinrich, that we both followed this
narrative with the most rapt attention and the most intense feeling.

"Brave girl!" I cried, when Maximilian stopped reading, "she is worth
dying for." "Or living for," said he, "which is better still. How she
rose to the occasion!"

"Yes," I said, "that was blood."

"There is as good stuff in the ranks," he replied, "as ever came out
of them. The law of heredity is almost as unreliable as the law of
variation. Everything rises out of the mud, and everything goes back
into it."

"Do you think," I asked, after a pause, "that she will be safe until
to-morrow night? Should I not go to her at once? Could I not see
Rudolph and have her descend the rope-ladder, and I meet her and
bring her here?"

"No," he replied, it is now too late for that; it is midnight. You
can place full faith in Rudolph; his penetration and foresight are
extraordinary. He will not sleep until Estella is out of that house;
and his busy brain will be full of schemes in the meantime. The best
thing we can do now is to go to bed and prepare, by a good long
sleep, for the excitements and dangers of to-morrow night. Do not
fear for Estella. She has ceased to be a child. In an hour she has
risen to the full majesty of her womanhood."

                              CHAPTER X.

                      PREPARATIONS FOR TO-NIGHT

The next morning I found Maximilian in conference with a stranger; a
heavily-built, large-jawed, uncommunicative man. As I was about to
withdraw my friend insisted that I should sit down.

"We have been making the necessary arrangements for next Monday
night," he said. "The probabilities are great that we may be followed
when we leave the house, and traced. It will not do to go, as Rudolph
suggested, to the residence of any friend, and pass through it to
another carriage. The Oligarchy would visit a terrible vengeance on
the head of the man who so helped us to escape. I have instructed
this gentleman to secure us, through an agent, three empty houses in
different parts of the city, and he has done so; they stand in the
center of blocks, and have rear exits, opening upon other streets or
alleys, at right angles with the streets on which the houses stand.
Then in these back streets he is to have covered carriages with the
fleetest horses he can obtain. Our pursuers, thinking we are safely
housed, may return to report our whereabouts to their masters.
Estella being missed the next day, the police will visit the house,
but they will find no one there to punish; nothing but curtains over
the windows."

"But," said I, "will they not follow the carriage that brought us
there, and thus identify its owner and driver, and force them to tell
who employed them?"

"Of course; I have thought of that, and provided for it. There are
members of the Brotherhood who have been brought from other cities in
disguise, and three of these will have another carriage, which,
leaving the Prince's grounds soon after we do, will pursue our
pursuers. They will be well armed and equipped with hand-grenades of
dynamite. If they perceive that the spies cannot be shaken off, or
that they propose to follow any of our carriages to their stables, it
will be their duty to swiftly overtake the pursuers, and, as they
pass them, fling the explosives under the horses' feet, disabling or
killing them. It will take the police some time to obtain other
horses, and before they can do so, all traces of us will be lost. If
necessary, our friends will not hesitate to blow up the spies as well
as the horses."

"But," I suggested, "will they not identify the man who rented the
houses?"

Maximilian laughed.

"Why," said he, "my dear Gabriel, you would make a conspirator
yourself. We will have to get you into the Brotherhood. We are too
old to be caught that way. The man who rented the houses has been
brought here from a city hundreds of miles distant; he was thoroughly
disguised. As soon as he engaged the buildings, and paid one month's
rent in advance for each, he left the city; and before to-morrow
night he will be home again, and without his disguise; and he could
never be suspected or identified as the same man. And," he added, "I
do not propose that you shall go into that lion's den unsupported. We
will have twenty of the Brotherhood, under Rudolph's management,
scattered through the household, as servants; and three hundred more
will be armed to the teeth and near at hand in the neighborhood; and
if it becomes necessary they will storm the house and burn it over
the villians' heads, rather than that you or Estella shall come to
harm."

I pressed his hand warmly, and thanked him for his care of me, and of
one so dear to me.

He laughed. "That is all right," he said; "good and unselfish men are
so scarce in this world that one cannot do too much for them. We must
be careful lest, like the dodo and the great auk, the breed becomes
extinct."

"But," said I, "may not the Oligarchy find you out, even here?"

"No," he replied, "my identity is lost. Here I live, in my real
appearance, under a false name. But I have a house elsewhere, in
which I dwell disguised, but under my real name, and with an unreal
character. Here I am a serious, plotting conspirator; there I am a
dissipated, reckless, foolish spendthrift, of whom no man need be
afraid. It chanced that after certain events had occurred, of which I
may tell you some day, I did not return home for several years; and
then I came for revenge, with ample preparations for my own safety. I
resumed my old place in society with a new appearance and a new
character. That personage is constantly watched by spies; but he
spends his time in drunkenness and deeds of folly; and his enemies
laugh and say, 'He will never trouble us; he will be dead soon.' And
so, with the real name and the unreal appearance and character in one
place, and a false name, but the real appearance and character, in
another, I lead a dual life and thwart the cunning of my enemies, and
prepare for the day of my vengeance."

His eyes glowed with a baleful light as he spoke, and I could see
that some great injustice, "like eager droppings into milk," had
soured an otherwise loving and affectionate nature. I put my hand on
his and said:

"My dear Max, your enemies are my enemies and your cause my cause,
from henceforth forever."

His face beamed with delight, as he replied:

"I may some day, my dear Gabriel, hold you to that pledge."

"Agreed," I responded; "at all times I am ready."

He gave his agent a roll of money, and with mutual courtesies they
separated.

                              CHAPTER XI.

                    HOW THE WORLD CAME TO BE RUINED

We were uneasy, restless, longing for the night to come. To while
away the time we conversed upon subjects that were near our hearts.

I said to Maximilian while he paced the room:

"How did this dreadful state of affairs, in which the world now finds
itself, arise? Were there no warnings uttered by any intelligent men?
Did the world drift blindly and unconsciously into this condition?"

"No," said Maximilian, going to his library; "no; even a hundred
years ago the air was full of prophecies. Here," he said, laying his
hand upon a book, is _The Century Magazine_, of February, 1889; and
on page 622 we read:

     For my own part, I must confess my fears that, unless some
     important change is made in the constitution of our voting
     population, _the breaking strain upon our political system
     will come within half a century_. Is it not evident that
     our present tendencies are in the wrong direction? The
     rapidly increasing use of money in elections, for the
     undisguised purchase of votes, and the growing disposition
     to tamper with the ballot and the tally-sheet, are some of
     the symptoms. . . . Do you think that you will convince the
     average election officer that it is a great crime to cheat
     in the return of votes, when he knows that a good share of
     those votes have been purchased with money? No; the
     machinery of the election will not be kept free from fraud
     while the atmosphere about the polls reeks with bribery.
     _The system will all go down together_. In a constituency
     which can be bribed all the forms of law tend swiftly to
     decay.

"And here," he said, picking up another volume, "is a reprint of the
choicest gems of _The North American Review_. In the number for
March, 1889, Gen. L. S. Bryce, a member of Congress, said:

     We live in a commercial age--not in a military age; and the
     shadow that is stealing over the American landscape
     partakes of a commercial character. In short, _the shadow
     is of an unbridled plutocracy_, caused, created and
     cemented in no slight degree by legislative, aldermanic and
     congressional action; _a plutocracy that is far more
     wealthy than any aristocracy that has ever crossed the
     horizon of the world's history, and one that has been
     produced in a shorter consecutive period_; the names of
     whose members are emblazoned, not on the pages of their
     nation's glory, but of its peculations; who represent no
     struggle for their country's liberties, but for its boodle;
     no contests for Magna Charta,{sic} but railroad charters;
     and whose octopus-grip is extending over every branch of
     industry; a plutocracy which controls the price of the
     bread that we eat, the price of the sugar that sweetens our
     cup, the price of the oil that lights us on our way, the
     price of the very coffins in which we are finally buried; a
     plutocracy which encourages no kindly relation between
     landlord and tenant, which has so little sense of its
     political duties as even to abstain from voting, and which,
     in short, by its effrontery, is already causing the
     unthinking masses to seek relief in communism, in
     single-taxism, and in every other ism, which, if ever
     enforced, would infallibly make their second state worse
     than the first.

"And here are hundreds of warnings of the same kind. Even the
President of the United States, in that same year, 1889, uttered this
significant language:

     Those who use unlawful methods, if moved by no higher
     motive than the selfishness that prompted them, may well
     stop and inquire, What is to be the end of this?

"Bishop Potter, of New York, in the national ceremonies, held April
30, 1889, which marked the centennial anniversary of the first
inauguration of George Washington, spoke of the plutocracy, which had
already reached alarming proportions, and expressed his doubts
whether the Republic would ever celebrate another centennial.
Afterwards, in explaining his remarks, he said:

     When I speak of this as the era of the plutocrats, nobody
     can misunderstand me. Everybody has recognized the rise of
     the money power. Its growth not merely stifles the
     independence of the people, but the blind believers in this
     omnipotent power of money assert that its liberal use
     condones every offense. The pulpit does not speak out as it
     should. These plutocrats are the enemies of religion, as
     they are of the state. And, not to mince matters, I will
     say that, while I had the politicians in mind prominently,
     there "are others." I tell you I have heard the corrupt use
     of money in elections and the sale of the sacred right of
     the ballot openly defended by ministers of the gospel. I
     may find it necessary to put such men of the sacred office
     in the public pillory.

"And Bishop Spalding, of Peoria, Illinois, about the same time, said:

     Mark my words, the saloon in America has become a public
     nuisance. The liquor trade, by meddling with politics and
     corrupting politics, has become a menace and a danger.
     Those who think and those who love America and those who
     love liberty are going to bring this moral question into
     politics more and more; also this question of bribery, this
     question of lobbying, this question of getting measures
     through state and national legislatures by corrupt means.
     They are going to be taken hold of. Our press, which has
     done so much to enlighten our people, which represents so
     much that is good in our civilization, must also be
     reformed. It must cease to pander to such an extent to the
     low and sensual

     appetites of man. My God, man is animal enough! You don't
     want to pander to his pruriency! You don't want to pander
     to the beast that is in him. . . . Our rich men--and they
     are numerous, and their wealth is great--their number and
     their wealth will increase--but our rich men _must do their
     duty or perish_. I tell you, in America, we will not
     tolerate vast wealth in the hands of men who do nothing for
     the people.

"And here is a still more remarkable article, by Dr. William Barry,
in _The Forum_ for April, 1889. He speaks of--

     The concrete system of capitalism; which in its present
     shape is not much more than a century old, and goes back to
     Arkwright's introduction of the spinning-jenny in
     1776--that notable year--as to its hegira or divine epoch
     of creation.

"And again he says:

     This it is that justifies Von Hartmann's description of the
     nineteenth century as "the most irreligious that has ever
     been seen;" this and not the assault upon dogma or the
     decline of the churches. There is a depth below atheism,
     below anti-religion, and into that the age has fallen. It
     is the callous indifference to everything which does not
     make for wealth. . . . What is eloquently described as "the
     progress of civilization," as "material prosperity," and
     "unexampled wealth," or, more modestly, as "the rise of the
     industrial middle class," becomes, when we look into it
     with eyes purged from economic delusions, the creation of a
     "lower and lowest" class, without land of their own,
     without homes, tools or property beyond the strength of
     their hands; whose lot is more helplessly wretched than any
     poet of the Inferno has yet imagined. Sunk in the mire of
     ignorance, want and immorality, they seem to have for their
     only gospel the emphatic words attributed to Mr. Ruskin:
     "If there is a next world they _will_ be damned; and if
     there is none, they are damned already." .--- Have all
     these things come to pass that the keeper of a whisky-shop
     in California may grow rich on the spoils of drunken miners,

     and great financiers dictate peace and war to venerable
     European monarchies? The most degraded superstition that
     ever called itself religion has not preached such a dogma
     as this. It falls below fetichism. The worship of the
     almighty dollar, incarnate in the self-made capitalist, is
     a deification at which Vespasian himself, with his "_Ut
     puto, deus fio_," would stare and gasp.

"And this remarkable article concludes with these words of prophecy:

     The agrarian difficulties of Russia, France, Italy,
     Ireland, and of wealthy England, show us that ere long the
     urban and the rural populations will be standing in the
     same camp. They will be demanding the abolition of that
     great and scandalous paradox whereby, though production has
     increased three or four times as much as the mouths it
     should fill, those mouths are empty. The backs it should
     clothe are naked; the heads it should shelter, homeless;
     the brains it should feed, dull or criminal, and the souls
     it should help to save, brutish. Surely it is time that
     science, morality and religion should speak out. A great
     change is coming. It is even now at our doors. Ought not
     men of good will to consider how they shall receive it, so
     that its coming may be peaceable?

"And here," Max added, "is the great work of Prof. Scheligan, in
which he quotes from _The Forum_, of December, 1889, p. 464, a
terrible story of the robberies practiced on the farmers by railroad
companies and money-lenders. The railroads in 1882 took, he tells us,
one-half of the entire wheat crop of Kansas to carry the other half
to market! In the thirty-eight years following 1850 the railroad
interest of the United States increased 1580 per cent.; the banking
interest 918 per cent., and the farming interest only 252 per cent. A
man named Thomas G. Shearman showed, in 1889, that 100,000 persons in
the United States would, in thirty years, at the rate at which wealth
was being concentrated in the hands of the few, own _three-fifths of
all the property of the entire country_. The _American Economist_
asserted, in 1889, that in twenty-five years the number of people in
the United States who owned their own homes had fallen from
five-eighths to three-eighths. A paper called _The Progress_, of
Boston, in 1889, gave the following significant and prophetic figures:

     The eloquent Patrick Henry said: "We can only judge the
     future by the past."

     Look at the past:

     When Egypt went down 2 per cent. of her population owned 97
     per cent. of her wealth. The people were starved to death.

     When Babylon went down 2 per cent. of her population owned
     all the wealth. The people were starved to death.

     When Persia went down 1 per cent. of her population owned
     the land.

     When Rome went down 1,800 men owned all the known world.

     There are about 40,000,000 people in England, Ireland and
     Wales, and 100,000 people own all the land in the United
     Kingdom.

     For the past twenty years the United States has rapidly
     followed in the steps of these old nations. Here are the
     figures:

     In 1850 capitalists owned 37½ per cent. of the nation's
     wealth.

     In 1870 they owned 63 percent.

"In 1889, out of 1,500,000 people living in New York City, 1,100,000
dwelt in tenement-houses.

"At the same time farm-lands, east and west, had fallen, in
twenty-five years, to one-third or one-half their cost. State
Assessor Wood, of New York, declared, in 1889, that, in his opinion,
'in a few decades _there will be none but tenant farmers in this
State_.'

"In 1889 the farm mortgages in the Western States amounted to three
billion four hundred and twenty-two million dollars."

"Did these wonderful utterances and most significant statistics," I
asked, "produce no effect on that age?"

"None at all," he replied. "'Wisdom cries in the streets, and no man
regards her.' The small voice of Philosophy was unheard amid the
blare of the trumpets that heralded successful knavery; the rabble
ran headlong to the devil after gauds and tinsel."

"Have there been," I asked, "no later notes of warning of the coming
catastrophe?"

"Oh, yes," he replied; "ten thousand. All through the past century
the best and noblest of each generation, wherever and whenever they
could find newspapers or magazines that dared to publish their
utterances, poured forth, in the same earnest tones, similar
prophecies and appeals. But in vain. Each generation found the
condition of things more desperate and hopeless: every year
multiplied the calamities of the world. The fools could not see that
a great cause must continue to operate until checked by some higher
power. And here there was no higher power that desired to check it.
As the domination and arrogance of the ruling class increased, the
capacity of the lower classes to resist, within the limits of law and
constitution, decreased. Every avenue, in fact, was blocked by
corruption. juries, courts, legislatures, congresses, they were as if
they were not. The people were walled in by impassable barriers.
Nothing was left them but the primal, brute instincts of the animal
man, and upon these they fell back, and the Brotherhood of
Destruction arose. But no words can tell the sufferings that have
been endured by the good men, here and there, who, during the past
century, tried to save mankind. Some were simply ostracised from
social intercourse with their caste; others were deprived of their
means of living and forced down into the ranks of the wretched; and
still others"--and here, I observed, his face grew ashy pale, and the
muscles about his mouth twitched nervously--"still others had their
liberty sworn away by purchased perjury, and were consigned to
prisons, where they still languish, dressed in the hideous garb of
ignominy, and performing the vile tasks of felons." After a pause,
for I saw he was strangely disturbed, I said to him:

"How comes it that the people have so long submitted to these great
wrongs? Did they not resist?"

"They did," he replied; "but the fruit of the tree of evil was not
yet ripe. At the close of the nineteenth century, in all the great
cities of America, there was a terrible outbreak of the workingmen;
they destroyed much property and many lives, and held possession of
the cities for several days. But the national government called for
volunteers, and hundreds of thousands of warlike young men, sons of
farmers, sprang to arms: and, after several terrible battles, they
suppressed the revolution, with the slaughter of tens of thousands of
those who took part in it; while afterwards the revengeful Oligarchy
sent thousands of others to the gallows. And since then, in Europe
and America, there have been other outbreaks, but all of them
terminated in the same way. The condition of the world has, however,
steadily grown worse and worse; the laboring classes have become more
and more desperate. The farmers' sons could, for generations, be
counted upon to fight the workmen; but the fruit has been steadily
ripening. Now the yeomanry have lost possession of their lands; their
farms have been sold under their feet; cunning laws transferred the
fruit of their industry into the pockets of great combinations, who
loaned it back to them again, secured by mortgages; and, as the
pressure of the same robbery still continued, they at last lost their
homes by means of the very wealth they had themselves produced. Now a
single nabob owns a whole county; and a state is divided between a
few great loan associations; and the men who once tilled the fields,
as their owners, are driven to the cities to swell the cohorts of the
miserable, or remain on the land a wretched peasantry, to contend for
the means of life with vile hordes of Mongolian coolies. And all this
in sight of the ruins of the handsome homes their ancestors once
occupied! Hence the materials for armies have disappeared. Human
greed has eaten away the very foundations on which it stood. And of
the farmers who still remain nearly all are now members of our
Brotherhood. When the Great Day comes, and the nation sends forth its
call for volunteers, as in the past, that cry will echo in desolate
places; or it will ring through the triumphant hearts of savage and
desperate men who are hastening to the banquet of blood and
destruction. And the wretched, yellow, under-fed coolies, with
women's garments over their effeminate limbs, will not have the
courage or the desire or the capacity to make soldiers and defend
their oppressors."

"But have not the Oligarchy standing armies?" I asked.

"Yes. In Europe, however, they have been constrained, by inability to
wring more taxes from the impoverished people, to gradually diminish
their numbers. There, you know, the real government is now a coterie
of bankers, mostly Israelites; and the kings and queens, and
so-called presidents, are mere toys and puppets in their hands. All
idea of national glory, all chivalry, all pride, all battles for
territory or supremacy have long since ceased. Europe is a banking
association conducted exclusively for the benefit of the bankers.
Bonds take the place of national aspirations. To squeeze the wretched
is the great end of government; to toil and submit, the destiny of
the peoples.

"The task which Hannibal attempted, so disastrously, to subject the
Latin and mixed-Gothic races of Europe to the domination of the
Semitic blood, as represented in the merchant-city of Carthage, has
been successfully accomplished in these latter days by the cousins of
the Phœnicians, the Israelites. The nomadic children of Abraham
have fought and schemed their way, through infinite depths of
persecution, from their tents on the plains of Palestine, to a power
higher than the thrones of Europe. The world is to-day Semitized. The
children of Japhet lie prostrate slaves at the feet of the children
of Shem; and the sons of Ham bow humbly before their august dominion.

"The standing armies of Europe are now simply armed police; for, as
all the nations are owned by one power--the money power--there is no
longer any danger of their assaulting each other. But in the greed of
the sordid commercial spirit which dominates the continent they have
reduced, not only the numbers, but the pay of the soldiers, until it
is little better than the compensation earned by the wretched
peasantry and the mechanics; while years of peace and plunder have
made the rulers careless and secure. Hence our powerful association
has spread among these people like wild-fire: the very armies are
honeycombed with our ideas, and many of the soldiers belong to the
Brotherhood.

"Here, in America, they have been wise enough to pay the soldiers of
their standing army better salaries; and hence they do not so readily
sympathize with our purposes. But we outnumber them ten to one, and
do not fear them. There is, however, one great obstacle which we have
not yet seen the way to overcome. More than a century ago, you know,
dirigible air-ships were invented. The Oligarchy have a large force
of several thousands of these, sheathed with that light but strong
metal, aluminium; in popular speech they are known as _The Demons_.
Sailing over a hostile force, they drop into its midst great bombs,
loaded with the most deadly explosives, mixed with bullets; and,
where one of these strikes the ground, it looks like the crater of an
extinct volcano; while leveled rows of dead are strewed in every
direction around it. But this is not all. Some years since a French
chemist discovered a dreadful preparation, a subtle poison, which,
falling upon the ground, being heavier than the air and yet
expansive, rolls, 'like a slow blot that spreads,' steadily over the
earth in all directions, bringing sudden death to those that breathe
it. The Frenchman sold the secret of its preparation to the Oligarchy
for a large sum; but he did not long enjoy his ill-gotten wealth. He
was found dead in his bed the next day, poisoned by the air from a
few drops of his own invention; killed, it is supposed, by the
governments, so that they would possess forever the exclusive
monopoly of this terrible instrument of slaughter. It is upon this
that they principally rely for defense from the uprisings of the
oppressed people. These air-ships, 'the Demons,' are furnished with
bombs, loaded with this powerful poison; and, when an outbreak
occurs, they sail, like great, foul birds, dark-winged and terrible,
over the insurgents; they let fall a single bomb, which inspires such
terror in the multitude that those not instantaneously killed by the
poison fly with the utmost speed; and the contest is at an end. We
have long labored to bring the men who arm these air-ships, and who
manufacture this poison, into our organization, but so far without
success. The Oligarchy knows their value, and pays them well. We
have, however, bribed one or two of their men, not themselves in the
secret, but who have inspired the others to make demand after demand
upon the government for increased pay, knowing that they held
everything in their power. The Oligarchy has been constrained to
yield to these demands, which have only led, under our inspiration,
to still greater claims; and it is our hope that before long the
rulers will refuse to go farther in that direction; and then, in the
discontent that will inevitably follow, the men will yield to our
approaches. It will be the old story over again--the army that was
called in to defend effete Rome at last took possession of the empire
and elected the emperors. This is the fate that cruelty and injustice
ultimately bring upon their own heads--they are devoured by their
instruments. As Manfred says:

     "'The spirits I have raised abandon me;
     The spells that I had recked of torture me.'"

"You are right," I replied; "there is nothing that will insure
permanent peace but universal justice: that is the only soil that
grows no poisons. Universal justice means equal opportunities for all
men and a repression by law of those gigantic abnormal selfishnesses
which ruin millions for the benefit of thousands. In the old days
selfishness took the form of conquest, and the people were reduced to
serfs. Then, in a later age, it assumed the shape of individual
robbery and murder. Laws were made against these crimes. Then it
broke forth in the shape of subtle combinations, 'rings,' or
'trusts,' as they called them, corporations, and all the other
cunning devices of the day, some of which scarcely manifested
themselves on the surface, but which transferred the substance of one
man into the pockets of another, and reduced the people to slavery as
completely and inevitably as ever the robber barons of old did the
original owners of the soil of Europe."

                             CHAPTER XII.

                           GABRIEL'S UTOPIA

"But what would you do, my good Gabriel," said Maximilian, smiling,
"if the reformation of the world were placed in your hands? Every man
has an Utopia in his head. Give me some idea of yours."

"First," I said, "I should do away with all interest on money.
Interest on money is the root and ground of the world's troubles. It
puts one man in a position of safety, while another is in a condition
of insecurity, and thereby it at once creates a radical distinction
in human society."

"How do you make that out?" he asked.

"The lender takes a mortgage on the borrower's land or house, or
goods, for, we will say, one-half or one-third their value; the
borrower then assumes all the chances of life in his efforts to repay
the loan. If he is a farmer, he has to run the risk of the fickle
elements. Rains may drown, droughts may burn up his crops. If a
merchant, he encounters all the hazards of trade; the bankruptcy of
other tradesmen; the hostility of the elements sweeping away
agriculture, and so affecting commerce; the tempests that smite his
ships, etc. If a mechanic, he is still more dependent upon the
success of all above him, and the mutations of commercial prosperity.
He may lose employment; he may sicken; he may die. But behind all
these risks stands the money-lender, in perfect security. The failure
of his customer only enriches him; for he takes for his loan property
worth twice or thrice the sum he has advanced upon it. Given a
million of men and a hundred years of time, and the slightest
advantage possessed by any one class among the million must result,
in the long run, in the most startling discrepancies of condition. A
little evil grows like a ferment--it never ceases to operate; it is
always at work. Suppose I bring before you a handsome, rosy-cheeked
young man, full of life and hope and health. I touch his lip with a
single _bacillus of phthisis pulmonalis_--consumption. It is
invisible to the eye; it is too small to be weighed. judged by all
the tests of the senses, it is too insignificant to be thought of;
but it has the capacity to multiply itself indefinitely. The youth
goes off singing. Months, perhaps years, pass before the deadly
disorder begins to manifest itself; but in time the step loses its
elasticity; the eyes become dull; the roses fade from the cheeks; the
strength departs, and eventually the joyous youth is but a shell--a
cadaverous, shrunken form, inclosing a shocking mass of putridity;
and death ends the dreadful scene. Give one set of men in a community
a financial advantage over the rest, however slight--it may be almost
invisible--and at the end of centuries that class so favored will own
everything and wreck the country. A penny, they say, put out at
interest the day Columbus sailed from Spain, and compounded ever
since, would amount now to more than all the assessed value of all
the property, real, personal and mixed, on the two continents of
North and South America."

"But," said Maximilian, "how would the men get along who wanted to
borrow?"

"The necessity to borrow is one of the results of borrowing. The
disease produces the symptoms. The men who are enriched by borrowing
are infinitely less in number than those who are ruined by it; and
every disaster to the middle class swells the number and decreases
the opportunities of the helplessly poor. Money in itself is
valueless. It becomes valuable only by use--by exchange for things
needful for life or comfort. If money could not be loaned, it would
have to be put out by the owner of it in business enterprises, which
would employ labor; and as the enterprise would not then have to
support a double burden--to wit, the man engaged in it and the usurer
who sits securely upon his back--but would have to maintain only the
former usurer--that is, the present employer--its success would be
more certain; the general prosperity of the community would be
increased thereby, and there would be therefore more enterprises,
more demand for labor, and consequently higher wages. Usury kills off
the enterprising members of a community by bankrupting them, and
leaves only the very rich and the very poor; for every dollar the
employers of labor pay to the lenders of money has to come eventually
out of the pockets of the laborers. Usury is therefore the cause of
the first aristocracy, and out of this grow all the other
aristocracies. Inquire where the money came from that now oppresses
mankind, in the shape of great corporations, combinations, etc., and
in nine cases out of ten you will trace it back to the fountain of
interest on money loaned. The coral island is built out of the bodies
of dead coral insects; large fortunes are usually the accumulations
of wreckage, and every dollar represents disaster."

"Well," said Maximilian, "having abolished usury, in your Utopia,
what would you do next?"

"I would set to work to make a list of all the laws, or parts of
laws, or customs, or conditions which, either by commission or
omission, gave any man an advantage over any other man; or which
tended to concentrate the wealth of the community in the hands of a
few. And having found out just what these wrongs or advantages were,
I would abolish them _instanter_."

"Well, let us suppose," said Maximilian, "that you were not
immediately murdered by the men whose privileges you had
destroyed--even as the Gracchi were of old--what would you do next?
Men differ in every detail. Some have more industry, or more
strength, or more cunning, or more foresight, or more acquisitiveness
than others. How are you to prevent these men from becoming richer
than the rest?"

"I should not try to," I said. "These differences in men are
fundamental, and not to be abolished by legislation; neither are the
instincts you speak of in themselves injurious. Civilization, in
fact, rests upon them. It is only in their excess that they become
destructive. It is right and wise and proper for men to accumulate
sufficient wealth to maintain their age in peace, dignity and plenty,
and to be able to start their children into the arena of life
sufficiently equipped. A thousand men in a community worth $10,000 or
$50,000, or even $100,000 each, may be a benefit, perhaps a blessing;
but one man worth fifty or one hundred millions, or, as we have them
now-a-days, one thousand millions, is a threat against the safety and
happiness of every man in the world. I should establish a maximum
beyond which no man could own property. I should not stop his
accumulations when he had reached that point, for with many men
accumulation is an instinct; but I should require him to invest the
surplus, under the direction of a governmental board of management,
in great works for the benefit of the laboring classes. He should
establish schools, colleges, orphan asylums, hospitals, model
residences, gardens, parks, libraries, baths, places of amusement,
music-halls, sea-side excursions in hot weather, fuel societies in
cold weather, etc., etc. I should permit him to secure immortality by
affixing his name to his benevolent works; and I should honor him
still further by placing his statue in a great national gallery set
apart to perpetuate forever the memory of the benefactors of the
race."

"But," said Maximilian, with a smile, "it would not take long for
your rich men, with their surplus wealth, to establish all those
works you speak of. What would you do with the accumulations of the
rest?"

"Well," said I, "we should find plenty to do. We would put their
money, for instance, into a great fund and build national railroads,
that would bring the productions of the farmers to the workmen, and
those of the workmen to the farmers, at the least cost of
transportation, and free from the exactions of speculators and
middlemen. Thus both farmers and workmen would live better, at less
expense and with less toil."

"All very pretty," said he; "but your middlemen would starve.

"Not at all," I replied; "the cunning never starve. There would be
such a splendid era of universal prosperity that they would simply
turn their skill and shrewdness into some new channels, in which,
however, they would have to give something of benefit, as an
equivalent for the benefits they received. Now they take the cream,
and butter, and beef, while some one else has to raise, feed and milk
the cow."

"But," said he, "all this would not help our farmers in their present
condition--they are blotted off the land."

"True," I replied; "but just as I limited a man's possible wealth, so
should I limit the amount of land he could own. I would fix a maximum
of, say, 100 or 500 acres, or whatever amount might be deemed just
and reasonable. I should abolish all corporations, or turn them back
into individual partnerships. Abraham Lincoln, in the great civil war
of the last century, gave the Southern insurgents so many days in
which to lay down their arms or lose their slaves. In the same way I
should grant one or two years' time, in which the great owners of
land should sell their estates, in small tracts, to actual occupants,
to be paid for in installments, on long time, without interest. And
if they did not do so, then, at the end of the period prescribed, I
should confiscate the lands and sell them, as the government in the
old time sold the public lands, for so much per acre, to actual
settlers, and turn the proceeds over to the former owners."

"But, as you had abolished interest on money, there could be no
mortgages, and the poor men would starve to death before they could
raise a crop."

"Then," I replied, "I should invoke the power of the nation, as was
done in that great civil war of 1861, and issue paper money,
receivable for all taxes, and secured by the guarantee of the faith
and power of five hundred million people; and make advances to carry
these ruined peasants beyond the first years of distress--that money
to be a loan to them, without interest, and to be repaid as a tax on
their land. Government is only a machine to insure justice and help
the people, and we have not yet developed half its powers. And we are
under no more necessity to limit ourselves to the governmental
precedents of our ancestors than we are to confine ourselves to the
narrow boundaries of their knowledge, or their inventive skill, or
their theological beliefs. The trouble is that so many seem to regard
government as a divine something which has fallen down upon us out of
heaven, and therefore not to be improved upon or even criticised;
while the truth is, it is simply a human device to secure human
happiness, and in itself has no more sacredness than a wheelbarrow or
a cooking-pot. The end of everything earthly is the good of man; and
there is nothing sacred on earth but man, because he alone shares the
Divine conscience."

"But," said he, "would not your paper money have to be redeemed in
gold or silver?"

"Not necessarily," I replied. "The adoration of gold and silver is a
superstition of which the bankers are the high priests and mankind
the victims. Those metals are of themselves of little value. What
should make them so?"

"Are they not the rarest and most valuable productions of the world?"
said Maximilian.

"By no means," I replied; "there are many metals that exceed them in
rarity and value. While a kilogram of gold is worth about $730 and
one of silver about $43.50, the same weight of iridium (the heaviest
body known) costs $2,400; one of palladium, $3,075; one of calcium
nearly $10,000; one of stibidium, $20,000; while vanadium, the true
'king of metals,' is worth $25,000 per kilogram, as against $730 for
gold or $43.50 for silver."

"Why, then, are they used as money?" he asked.

"Who can tell? The practice dates back to prehistoric ages. Man
always accepts as right anything that is in existence when he is
born."

"But are they not more beautiful than other metals? And are they not
used as money because acids will not corrode them?"

"No," I replied; "some of the other metals exceed them in beauty. The
diamond far surpasses them in both beauty and value, and glass
resists the action of acids better than either of them."

"What do you propose?" he asked.

"Gold and silver," I said, "are the bases of the world's currency. If
they are abundant, all forms of paper money are abundant. If they are
scarce, the paper money must shrink in proportion to the shrinkage of
its foundation; if not, there come panics and convulsions, in the
effort to make one dollar of gold pay three, six or ten of paper. For
one hundred and fifty years _the production of gold and silver has
been steadily shrinking, while the population and business of the
world have been rapidly increasing_.

"Take a child a few years old; let a blacksmith weld around his waist
an iron band. At first it causes him little inconvenience. He plays.
As he grows older it becomes tighter; it causes him pain; he scarcely
knows what ails him. He still grows. All his internal organs are
cramped and displaced. He grows still larger; he has the head,
shoulders and limbs of a man and the waist of a child. He is a
monstrosity. He dies. This is a picture of the world of to-day, bound
in the silly superstition of some prehistoric nation. But this is not
all. Every decrease in the quantity, actual or relative, of gold and
silver increases the purchasing power of the dollars made out of
them; and the dollar becomes the equivalent for a larger amount of
the labor of man and his productions. This makes the rich man richer
and the poor man poorer. The iron band is displacing the organs of
life. As the dollar rises in value, man sinks. Hence the decrease in
wages; the increase in the power of wealth; the luxury of the few;
the misery of the many."

"How would you help it?" he asked.

"I would call the civilized nations together in council, and devise
an international paper money, to be issued by the different nations,
but to be receivable as legal tender for all debts in all countries.
It should hold a fixed ratio to population, never to be exceeded; and
it should be secured on all the property of the civilized world, and
acceptable in payment of all taxes, national, state and municipal,
everywhere. I should declare gold and silver legal tenders only for
debts of five dollars or less. An international greenback that was
good in New York, London, Berlin, Melbourne, Paris and Amsterdam,
would be good anywhere. The world, released from its iron band, would
leap forward to marvelous prosperity; there would be no financial
panics, for there could be no contraction; there would be no more
torpid 'middle ages,' dead for lack of currency, for the money of a
nation would expand, _pari passu_, side by side with the growth of
its population. There would be no limit to the development of
mankind, save the capacities of the planet; and even these, through
the skill of man, could be increased a thousand-fold beyond what our
ancestors dreamed of. The very seas and lakes, judiciously farmed,
would support more people than the earth now maintains. A million
fish ova now go to waste where one grows to maturity.

"The time may come when the slow processes of agriculture will be
largely discarded, and the food of man be created out of the chemical
elements of which it is composed, transfused by electricity and
magnetism. We have already done something in that direction in the
way of synthetic chemistry. Our mountain ranges may, in after ages,
be leveled down and turned into bread for the support of the most
enlightened, cultured, and, in its highest sense, religious people
that ever dwelt on the globe. All this is possible if civilization is
preserved from the destructive power of the ignorant and brutal
plutocracy, who now threaten the safety of mankind. They are like the
slave-owners of 1860; they blindly and imperiously insist on their
own destruction; they strike at the very hands that would save them."

"But," said Maximilian, "is it not right and necessary that the
intellect of the world should rule the world?"

"Certainly," I replied; "but what is intellect? It is breadth of
comprehension; and this implies gentleness and love. The man whose
scope of thought takes in the created world, and apprehends man's
place in nature, cannot be cruel to his fellows. Intellect, if it is
selfish, is wisely selfish. It perceives clearly that such a shocking
abomination as our present condition cannot endure. It knows that a
few men cannot safely batten down the hatches over the starving crew
and passengers, and then riot in drunken debauchery on the deck. When
the imprisoned wretches in the hold become desperate enough--and it
is simply a question of time--they will fire the ship or scuttle it,
and the fools and their victims will all perish together. True
intellect is broad, fore-sighted, wide-ranging, merciful, just. Some
one said of old that 'the gods showed what they thought of riches by
the kind of people they gave them to.' It is not the poets, the
philosophers, the philanthropists, the historians, the sages, the
scholars, the really intellectual of any generation who own the great
fortunes. No; but there is a subsection of the brain called cunning;
it has nothing to do with elevation of mind, or purity of soul, or
knowledge, or breadth of view; it is the lowest, basest part of the
intellect. It is the trait of foxes, monkeys, crows, rats and other
vermin. It delights in holes and subterranean shelters; it will not
disdain filth; it is capable of lying, stealing, trickery, knavery.
Let me give you an example:

"It is recorded that when the great war broke out in this country
against slavery, in 1861, there was a rich merchant in this city,
named A. T. Stewart. Hundreds of thousands of men saw in the war only
the great questions of the Union and the abolition of human
bondage--the freeing of four millions of human beings, and the
preservation of the honor of the flag; and they rushed forward eager
for the fray. They were ready to die that the Nation and Liberty
might live. But while their souls were thus inflamed with great and
splendid emotions, and they forgot home, family, wealth, life,
everything, Stewart, the rich merchant, saw simply the fact that the
war would cut off communication between the North and the
cotton-producing States, and that this would result in a rise in the
price of cotton goods; and so, amid the wild agitations of
patriotism, the beating of drums and the blaring of trumpets, he sent
out his agents and bought up all the cotton goods he could lay his
hands on. He made a million dollars, it is said, by this little piece
of cunning. But if all men had thought and acted as Stewart did, we
should have had no Union, no country, and there would be left to-day
neither honor nor manhood in all the world. The nation was saved by
those poor fellows who did not consider the price of cotton goods in
the hour of America's crucial agony. Their dust now billows the earth
of a hundred battlefields; but their memory will be kept sweet in the
hearts of men forever! On the other hand, the fortune of the great
merchant, as it did no good during his life, so, after his death, it
descended upon an alien to his blood; while even his wretched carcass
was denied, by the irony of fate, rest under his splendid mausoleum,
and may have found its final sepulchre in the stomachs of dogs!

"This little incident illustrates the whole matter. It is not
Intellect that rules the world of wealth, it is _Cunning_. _Muscle_
once dominated mankind--the muscle of the baron's right arm; and
Intellect had to fly to the priesthood, the monastery, the friar's
gown, for safety. Now _Muscle_ is the world's slave, and _Cunning_ is
the baron--the world's master.

"Let me give you another illustration: Ten thousand men are working
at a trade. One of them conceives the scheme of an invention, whereby
their productive power is increased tenfold. Each of them, we will
say, had been producing, by his toil, property worth four dollars and
a half per day, and his wages were, we will say, one dollar and a
half per day. Now, he is able with the new invention to produce
property worth forty-five dollars per day. Are his wages increased in
due proportion, to fifteen dollars per day, or even to five dollars
per day? Not at all. _Cunning_ has stepped in and examined the poor
workman's invention; it has bought it from him for a pittance; it
secures a patent--a monopoly under the shelter of unwise laws. The
workmen still get their $1.50 per day, and _Cunning_ pockets the
remainder. But this is not all: If one man can now do the work of
ten, then there are nine men thrown out of employment. But the nine
men must live; they want the one man's place; they are hungry; they
will work for less; and down go wages, until they reach the lowest
limit at which the workmen can possibly live. Society has produced
one millionaire and thousands of paupers. The millionaire cannot eat
any more or wear any more than one prosperous yeoman, and therefore
is of no more value to trade and commerce; but the thousands of
paupers have to be supported by the tax-payers, and they have no
money to spend, and they cannot buy the goods of the merchants, or
the manufacturers, and all business languishes. In short, the most
utterly useless, destructive and damnable crop a country can grow
is--millionaires. If a community were to send. to India and import a
lot of man-eating tigers, and turn them loose on the streets, to prey
on men, women and children, they would not inflict a tithe of the
misery that is caused by a like number of millionaires. And there
would be this further disadvantage: the inhabitants of the city could
turn out and kill the tigers, but the human destroyers are protected
by the benevolent laws of the very people they are immolating on the
altars of wretchedness and vice."

"But what is your remedy?" asked Max.

"Government," I replied; "government--national, state and
municipal--is the key to the future of the human race.

"There was a time when the town simply represented cowering peasants,
clustered under the shadow of the baron's castle for protection. It
advanced slowly and reluctantly along the road of civic development,
scourged forward by the whip of necessity. We have but to expand the
powers of government to solve the enigma of the world. Man separated
is man savage; man gregarious is man civilized. A higher development
in society requires that this instrumentality of co-operation shall
be heightened in its powers. There was a time when every man
provided, at great cost, for the carriage of his own letters. Now the
government, for an infinitely small charge, takes the business off
his hands. There was a time when each house had to provide itself
with water. Now the municipality furnishes water to all. The same is
true of light. At one time each family had to educate its own
children; now the state educates them. Once every man went armed to
protect himself. Now the city protects him by its armed police. These
hints must be followed out. The city of the future must furnish
doctors for all; lawyers for all; entertainments for all; business
guidance for all. It will see to it that no man is plundered, and no
man starved, who is willing to work."

"But," said Max, "if you do away with interest on money and thus
scatter coagulated capital into innumerable small enterprises, how
are you going to get along without the keen-brained masters of
business, who labor gigantically for gigantic personal profits; but
who, by their toll and their capital, bring the great body of
producers into relation with the great body of consumers? Are these
men not nec

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