Kitabı oku: «The Fall of a Nation», sayfa 15

CHAPTER XXXVIII

VIRGINIA had just dressed in dead black for her visit to the palace of the Governor-General on the Heights. Waldron insisted on sending a state automobile. The machine was at the door with liveried flunkies standing in stiff servant attitudes.

A slender Italian woman passed them with a listless stare and rang the bell of the Holland house.

Virginia answered. She had seen the somber figure from the window.

“Angela!” she cried in surprise.

“Si. Signorina, I may see – you?”

“Yes” – was the quick, sympathetic answer.

The drooping figure shambled to a seat and dropped.

“Tell me – what has happened?” Virginia urged.

“You see the papers?”

“About the riots on the East Side – yes – the people were very foolish – ”

The woman leaned close – her breath coming in deep quivering draughts.

“They kill my bambino – signorina! The shell tore his little heart all out – see! I bring the flag he wore – all red with blood. And now I come to you – you speak so grand, I want my revenge – ”

She paused, strangled with emotion.

“I keep this flag and I love it too! I will kill and kill and kill! You will tell me how? They kill your father – they kill your brother – you tell me, Signorina! We fight now – you and me – we fight for this flag – is it not so?”

She held in her hand the blood-stained emblem.

Virginia took the stricken mother in her arms and sobbed with her.

“Come with me,” she said in low tones, leading the way to the sitting-room in the rear. She closed the doors, and pressed Angela to her knees.

Into the ears of the kneeling woman she whispered an oath.

“You swear?”

“By the mother of God and all the Saints!” came the quick answer.

For ten minutes Virginia gave instructions in tones so low that they could not be heard even by the keenest ear at her door.

There was a light of wild joy in the swarthy face as she rose.

“Now – I live – I breathe – Signorina! Si – si. I understand! I take the little organ and monkey. I go. I see all the people. I whisper to those I trust. We meet. I go again to West Side and do the same. I go everywhere and I tell you. Si – si. I live again!”

She threw her arms about Virginia, held her in silence and left with quick, eager step – the light of purpose flashing in her dark eyes.

CHAPTER XXXIX

THE Governor-General received Virginia in royal state. His manner was gracious and genial. He led her to a seat in his great library and closed the doors. The royal guard took his stand outside.

“I told you, Miss Holland,” he began eagerly, “that I had high ambitions. You see that I am a man of my word. Of course, the thing that happened was inevitable. It was written in the book of Fate. Had I not seized the reins – another would. Conditions made my coup possible. For the excesses of the Imperial Conquering Army I have no words in palliation. Such is war. Had I known the peril of your father and mother, I assure you I would have hurried to their rescue – you believe me when I say this?”

“I am sure of it, now,” she answered promptly.

“I hurried to Babylon the moment I learned that the defense had collapsed and our troops were victorious – ”

He paused and leaned closer.

“I want to apologize for the unpardonable blunder I made the last time we met in this house. I did not realize then how deeply and madly I love you. In anguish I learned it too late. But I have bided my time. I have lived to prove my devotion in the hour of your peril and I have only begun what I wish to do for you – ”

Again he paused, his eyes devouring her pensive beauty.

“I had rather win you than rule the Empire that’s mine. I would win as a man woos and wins the one woman he loves – you believe me when I say this?”

“Yes,” was the frank reply. “I believe now that you are in dead earnest.”

“Good. I don’t ask if you love me. I know that you do not. I do not ask you to marry me immediately. I know that I must first win your regard. I prize you all the more for this reason – ”

“Man-like, of course,” Virginia interrupted with a smile.

“First, I wish to pay you personally the highest tribute a man in my position can give to any man or women. I am going to offer you the second highest place in the Empire next to mine. Your fortune has disappeared in the wreck of war. You shall rebuild it tenfold through the work I shall place in your hands. My first ambition now is really to pacify the mind of the States. It can be done through our women.

“I appeal to your reason. Here is the situation. The last hope of successful rebellion has been stamped out. The millions of America, completely disarmed, are helpless to resist our army of occupation. I wish, not only to complete the crushing of the last hope of insurrection; it is my ambition to convince the people that the central monarchical and aristocratic form of government is the only natural order of life and therefore a divine law.

“The quick intuitions of women have been always more open to this truth than the more brutal and anarchistic male mind. Women have always been the bulwark of aristocracy and imperial monarchy. Man is an anarchist – woman a royalist by instinct.

“The American democracy was only an accident of time and space. The oceans are now the King’s highway and he owns them by right of eminent domain. Democracy can never survive this bringing of the ends of the earth together. Democracy cannot live because when brought face to face with the monarchical form it is not worthy to live. The United States of America gave the human race the one supreme example of a weak, corrupt and contemptible government. The like of it was never known before in the history of man.

“Democracy is a disease – a form of crowd egomania which drives millions of people mad with the insane delusion that they have been called of God to do something for which they are utterly unfitted.

“All government worthy of the name must be conducted by a few brilliant minds – divine leaders – presided over by a supreme leader whom we call emperor or king. This is true in so-called democracies. The people only pretend to govern – imagine that they govern. They do not. A few master minds and brutal wills do it for them. Hence the system of bosses whose foul record we have ended forever.

“No nation can have an art or literature unless monarchical and aristocratic – America has never had a literature. It will have one only when its conscious life is reincarnated in the soul of a sovereign who takes his crown from God, not man.

“The people of this country were never fit to govern themselves. They got the kind of government they deserved. In Central Europe government has long been reduced to a science. Their cities are clean – their life as orderly as the movement of the stars.

“The monarchical form of government only can answer the questions of Socialism. Germany did this a generation ago. When the world-war came the Socialists were as loyal to the Emperor as the proudest prince of the blood.

“The conquest of America has been the best thing that could have happened. Its battles were of minor importance. Had not a powerful Imperial government come to our rescue we would have been deluged in blood by a second French Revolution within this generation.

“The noblest minds in this country have felt this for years. They have gradually been turning in disgust from our corrupt legislatures, our corrupt courts, our corrupt municipalities, our rotten boroughs, our corrupt Congress. I tell you this to show you that I have been led by no weak or vulgar ambition into a betrayal of the liberties of a people. I believe in what I have done – believe in it with every ounce of my manhood. We owe the progress of the human race to aristocracy, not democracy. Democracy is the great leveler of the world – the destructive force that presses humanity downward and backward. Aristocracy is the inspiring power that leads, uplifts, creates and beckons onward and upward.

“All the achievements of thought and science are by the chosen few. The herd merely eats and sleeps and reproduces its kind. But for the pressure from their superiors the masses would all lapse to elemental savagery within a few brief generations – ”

Waldron stopped suddenly and gazed on the placid waters of the Hudson.

Virginia watched him with genuine astonishment. He had revealed a new side of his strong character. She had not dreamed that his philosophy of life had been so logically wrought. She had not believed since his betrayal of his country that he had a philosophy of life at all.

“You astonish me beyond measure,” she said at last.

He smiled coldly.

“I understand. You did not think me capable of such sweeping thoughts or such close reasoning – confess it!”

“It’s true, I didn’t – ”

“You know now that I am in earnest in my political ambitions also?”

“I’m thoroughly convinced – ”

“Good! You are a woman of rare intelligence and high ambitions. It is therefore easy for me to speak, now that you know that I am sincere – ”

He held her gaze in a moment’s searching silence.

“I may trust you now I’m sure with a secret that is not a secret if I should be accused. You will know that I mean something very definite when I say that this nation is too great, its resources too exhaustless to remain forever a conquered province of Imperial Europe. Am I not right?”

“At least I hope so,” was the diplomatic reply.

“Exactly,” Waldron answered confidentially. “In other words the day will come when a political leader of supreme genius will win the utter loyalty and confidence of the soldiers who hold these millions in hand. The man who does that will ascend a throne in Washington in a palace worthy of a Continental Empire washed by two oceans – you understand?”

“I see!” Virginia breathed.

“Remember then, dear young lady, that I am your servant from today. If I have high ambitions and glorious dreams for my people and my country, I dream new glories for you – ”

“And the commission you would offer me?” she asked steadily.

“That you organize the women of America into loyal legions who will sustain the government against the possible forces of anarchy and rebellion. If you will consider the offer I will place unlimited money at your command. The old régime is gone forever. You can help me now to organize a nobler one on its ruins.”

“And my reward?”

“I shall lay at your feet all that I am and have and ever hope to be. I offer it now without condition if you will accept my hand in marriage – ”

“Your commission I accept at once,” was the prompt reply. “If I succeed we shall meet on terms more nearly equal.”

Waldron sprang to his feet, seized her hand and kissed it.

Could we have seen the expression of her white face when his lips touched her flesh he would not have smiled as he led her to the waiting car.

CHAPTER XL

THE jails were crowded with our leading statesmen. The President and his Cabinet had been transferred to Fort Warren at Boston before the Capitol was destroyed.

The Honorable Plato Barker, for reasons deemed sufficient by the Governor-General, was placed in the United States penitentiary at Albany. In spite of his mania for peace, Waldron thoroughly mistrusted him. His passion for oratorical leadership he knew to be insatiate. What fool scheme he might advocate in secret could not be guessed. In vain Barker offered to take the iron-clad Imperial oath. Waldron was deaf to all entreaties even when the petition was borne to him by the officer of the army who had captured the silver-tongued leader and made him a scullion. Villard, the Commanding General, had allowed Barker to deliver Sunday lectures to his soldiers on harmless themes of Chautauqua fame. The Commander had grown to like the orator as a harmless sort of court jester. He was particularly fond of his illustrations and jokes. He declared that Barker had missed his calling – he should have been an evangelist or a clown.

Failing to release his favorite captive the General interceded to save his reason.

Barker could not endure the silence to which he had been doomed. His mind began to break under the strain. He was saved from madness by an order which permitted him to preach to the prisoners on Sunday.

His first discourse was on “The Extraordinary Food Value of Grape Juice.”

The men who were living on bread and water didn’t like it.

The lecture was interrupted by an incipient riot. He was compelled to drop the subject and stick to historical religion. He switched to a discourse on Saul of Tarsus, which was well received. It in no way mocked the appetites of his hearers.

Pike proved to be another proposition for his captor. He became so peevish and sullen that his taskmaster went out of his way to make his life unendurable. The bow-legged Commander not only continually repeated Pike’s former expressions on the dangers of being armed and the wickedness of being prepared for defense in the presence of the preacher while he danced attendance as a waiter at his headquarters, but he added insult to injury at last by forcing the advocate of peace to become an expert shot by daily target practice.

When Waldron ordered the doughty cavalry leader to St. Louis, he dragged Pike with him to continue his systematic torture. He piled the last straw on the little man’s back the day after their arrival in the new quarters by ordering him to don the uniform of the Emperor, join a firing squad and shoot a deserter.

The preacher refused point blank. To have his fun the General ordered two guardsmen to bring the rebel to his room and force him into the uniform – his horse was standing at the door saddled and ready to gallop to the field and watch Pike faint at the ordeal.

The General roared with laughter when he finally stood forth arrayed in the brown uniform of the army. The guardsmen in their shirtsleeves were laughing too. He had struggled manfully to prevent the outrage and they had only drawn the clothes on him by main force. It took the hostler at the door finally to win the contest.

“Cheer up, Cuthbert, you’ll soon be dead!” the officer cried.

The boys roared.

With a sudden panther leap Pike was on the General, snatched his automatic from his belt, shot him dead and killed the three men before they recovered from the shock.

With a second leap he was on the waiting horse and calmly galloped through the camp before the guards discovered the incident.

He found his way to General Hood’s headquarters in the Sierra Nevadas and reported for duty.

“Keep your uniform!” Hood laughed. “We’ll need it for scout work.”

“Sure I’ll keep it,” the preacher snapped – “and use it myself, sir! I’ll show them that my name’s Pike – not Piker!”

The General despatched him to the Coast on an important and dangerous mission.

CHAPTER XLI

VIRGINIA HOLLAND’S conversion to the open advocacy of the principles of monarchy and aristocracy was Waldron’s first sensation in the campaign in which he began to destroy the American conception of liberty.

Her confession of faith was a liberal outline of the ideals which the Governor-General had proclaimed in his library. Waldron was elated at his complete triumph.

Her brief statement and appeal to the women of America to support her movement of loyalty he ordered printed in every newspaper in the country. It duly appeared on the front pages, accompanied by a portrait of the distinguished young convert.

Her first year’s engagements in organizing the Woman’s Imperial Legion of Honor covered the principal cities of every state.

Her appeal had been received by the women of America with secret rage, amazement and horror. The Government had commanded their attendance on her lectures. Her reception at first had been cold and formal. But her magnetic personality turned the tide. Within a month there was no hall large enough in America to hold the breathless throngs of women who hung on her words. And strangest of all, they cheered her with an enthusiasm that amazed Waldron.

His agents reported this enthusiasm with oft-repeated praise of her uncanny genius.

The secret of her popularity they had not dreamed. In each town she took into her confidence but one woman on whose love for country she could depend with absolute certainty. This woman she swore in secret to organize an inner circle whose name to them was the Daughters of Jael. The spies who followed her tour to report to the Governor-General never reached this inner circle. In it were taken under solemn oath those whose love for liberty was a religion.

The Daughters of Jael comprised only the wisest women leaders, and with them the strongest and most beautiful girls in the glory of youth from twenty to thirty years of age.

They were taught in secret two things – to keep their lithe young bodies hard and sun-tanned and learn to wield a steel knife whose blade was eight inches long, slender and keen. When a million had been sworn and trained the order would come to strike for freedom. The rank and file knew nothing of this purpose. Only their leaders knew. Each had sworn to lay their souls and bodies a free offering on their country’s altar and to obey their commander’s word as the law of God.

It was two years from the beginning before Virginia ventured to meet her lover in a deep mountain gorge of the inner Sierras.

Their embrace was long and silent. They spoke at last in low, half-articulate sounds that only love could hear and know.

When the first wave of emotion had spent itself, she asked him eagerly:

“Your last invention – the aerial torpedo?”

“A failure like the rest!” he answered sadly. “Great inventions that revolutionize warfare have all required years to perfect – the iron-clad a generation, the submarine ten years, the aeroplane ten years. They required the genius of hundreds in their experiments and the lives of thousands. The hope of miraculous inventions in an hour of crisis is only the vain dream of the novelist. We have ceased to hope for such deliverance. We are training men to master the already perfected mechanism of the submarine – thousands of them. Lake, the inventor, is an admiral. We have a model at work six thousand feet above the sea. I command the Eagle’s Nest, the camp on a great mountain plateau where we are training thousands of aviators. On another peak among the stars we are teaching men to use the range finders and swing big guns to strike a target at twelve miles. Most important of all we are teaching each and every man how to use cold steel at close range – ”

“You fully accept my scheme then?” she interrupted.

“As an inspiration of God! The staff has tested it with a hundred hostile suppositions. It is sure to win if you can train a million girls to co-operate with us in the uprising, win to our cause one man in ten in the Imperial Army, and wield a knife with deadly power. The only question is, can you get those girls?”

“I have them already – ”

“A million?”

“And more – I had to stop. I could have sworn another million.”

“We will be ready in three months – ”

“You can have four – ”

“You have fixed the date?”

“Yes. There can be but one – the Emperor’s birthday – ”

Vassar clasped Virginia in his arms.

“Dearest – you’re inspired – I swear it!”

“I have positive assurance,” she went on eagerly, “that our girls have already won more than two hundred thousand soldiers of the enemy who will join us the night we strike. Every officer will be in his cups that night. A Belshazzar’s feast, with Waldron as their toastmaster!”

“And not merely in New York – “ he added, “but in every city in America – on every ship – in every aviation hangar and on board every submarine – once their guns are in our hands – !”

“We’ll take them – never fear – “ she cried.

“If we can only get our hands on half their rifles, half their machine guns, half the ships and half the aircraft we’ll win! The fiends of hell never fought as we shall fight! We’ll get them too – “ he stopped overwhelmed with emotion. “It’s the knife at close quarters in the dark, man to man, muscle and steel, and dauntless hearts, that will turn the trick. How little we’ve traveled after all our boasted science! All your girls will have to do is to get them drunk that night, rally your converts, strike down the outer guards – smuggle in a few guns and we’ll do the rest.

“We’ll give your men more than half their rifles,” Virginia promised. “And what’s more we will put their trained artillerymen, aviators and submarine experts out of commission to a man that night. We will detail two girls for each of these men – there’ll be no blunder – ”

“There’s just one thing I don’t like – “ he broke in with clenched fists.

“Yes, I know, my lover!” she smiled.

“You’ve got to make love to those brutes, flatter and cajole them for weeks. You are risking what we hold more precious than life – ”

“We have sworn to give as God has given us – all – ”

“I don’t like it – I don’t like it!” he protested bitterly.

She slipped her arms about his neck. Her eyes sought his with yearning in their depths.

“Never speak or think that thought of me again, my own,” she whispered. “I, too, know how to die as well as you. This is the third and last lesson we shall teach the Daughters of Jael before the Day dawns! Those who give their honor will scorn the cheaper gift of life. The new sun will rise on a clean and glorious womanhood, redeemed by sorrow and humbled by a divine passion for country we could learn in no other school but this!”

She held him at arm’s length and slowly slipped her hands from his and waved him back.

“No more – until the Day dawns!”

“Until the Day dawns, my love!” he breathed tenderly.

She leaped on her pony and galloped into the solemn night alone – to deliver her orders to the Daughters of Jael for their third and final lesson.