"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 cactaceae, 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 371/2 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."