Thursday's Serial: "The Thirty-Nine Steps" by John Buchan (in English) - II

 

CHAPTER II - THE MILKMAN SETS OUT ON HIS TRAVELS

I sat down in an armchair and felt very sick. That lasted for maybe five minutes, and was succeeded by a fit of the horrors. The poor staring white face on the floor was more than I could bear, and I managed to get a table-cloth and cover it. Then I staggered to a cupboard, found the brandy and swallowed several mouthfuls. I had seen men die violently before; indeed I had killed a few myself in the Matabele War; but this cold-blooded indoor business was different. Still I managed to pull myself together.

I looked at my watch, and saw that it was half-past ten. An idea seized me, and I went over the flat with a small-tooth comb. There was nobody there, nor any trace of anybody, but I shuttered and bolted all the windows and put the chain on the door.

By this time my wits were coming back to me, and I could think again. It took me about an hour to figure the thing out, and I did not hurry, for, unless the murderer came back, I had till about six o'clock in the morning for my cogitations.

I was in the soup—that was pretty clear. Any shadow of a doubt I might have had about the truth of Scudder's tale was now gone. The proof of it was lying under the table-cloth. The men who knew that he knew what he knew had found him, and had taken the best way to make certain of his silence. Yes: but he had been in my rooms four days, and his enemies must have reckoned that he had confided in me. So I would be the next to go. It might be that very night, or next day, or the day after, but my number was up all right.

Then suddenly I thought of another probability. Supposing I went out now and called in the police, or went to bed and let Paddock find the body and call them in the morning. What kind of a story was I to tell about Scudder? I had lied to Paddock about him, and the whole thing looked desperately fishy. If I made a clean breast of it and told the police everything he had told me, they would simply laugh at me. The odds were a thousand to one that I would be charged with the murder, and the circumstantial evidence was strong enough to hang me. Few people knew me in England; I had no real pal who could come forward and swear to my character. Perhaps that was what those secret enemies were playing for. They were clever enough for anything, and an English prison was as good a way of getting rid of me till after June 15th as a knife in my chest.

Besides, if I told the whole story, and by any miracle was believed, I would be playing their game. Karolides would stay at home, which was what they wanted. Somehow or other the sight of Scudder's dead face had made me a passionate believer in his scheme. He was gone, but he had taken me into his confidence, and I was pretty well bound to carry on his work. You may think this ridiculous for a man in danger of his life, but that was the way I looked at it. I am an ordinary sort of fellow, not braver than other people, but I hate to see a good man downed, and that long knife would not be the end of Scudder if I could play the game in his place.

It took me an hour or two to think this out, and by that time I had come to a decision. I must vanish somehow, and keep vanished till the end of the second week in June. Then I must somehow find a way to get in touch with the government people and tell them what Scudder had told me. I wished to Heaven he had told me more, and that I had listened more carefully to the little he had told me. I knew nothing but the barest facts. There was a big risk that, even if I weathered the other dangers, I would not be believed in the end. I must take my chance of that, and hope that something might happen which would confirm my tale in the eyes of the government.

My first job was to keep going for the next three weeks. It was now the 24th day of May, and that meant twenty days of hiding before I could venture to approach the powers that be. I reckoned that two sets of people would be looking for me—Scudder's enemies to put me out of existence, and the police, who would want me for Scudder's murder. It was going to be a giddy hunt, and it was queer how the prospect comforted me. I had been slack so long that almost any chance of activity was welcome. When I had to sit alone with that corpse and wait on Fortune I was no better than a crushed worm, but if my neck's safety was to hang on my own wits I was prepared to be cheerful about it.

My next thought was whether Scudder had any papers about him to give me a better clue to the business. I drew back the tablecloth and searched his pockets, for I had no longer any shrinking from the body. The face was wonderfully calm for a man who had been struck down in a moment. There was nothing in the breast-pocket, and only a few loose coins and a cigar-holder in the waistcoat. The trousers held a little penknife and some silver, and the side-pocket of his jacket contained an old crocodile-skin cigar-case. There was no sign of the little black book in which I had seen him making notes. That had no doubt been taken by his murderer.

But as I looked up from my task I saw that some drawers had been pulled out in the writing-table. Scudder would never have left them in that state, for he was the tidiest of mortals. Someone must have been searching for something—perhaps for the pocket-book.

I went round the flat and found that everything had been ransacked—the inside of books, drawers, cupboards, boxes, even the pockets of the clothes in my wardrobe, and the sideboard in the dining-room. There was no trace of the book. Most likely the enemy had found it, but they had not found it on Scudder's body.

Then I got out an atlas and looked at a big map of the British Isles. My notion was to get off to some wild district, where my veldcraft would be of some use to me, for I would be like a trapped rat in a city. I considered that Scotland would be best, for my people were Scotch and I could pass anywhere as an ordinary Scotsman. I had half an idea at first to be a German tourist, for my father had had German partners, and I had been brought up to speak the tongue pretty fluently, not to mention having put in three years prospecting for copper in German Damaraland.

But I calculated that it would be less conspicuous to be a Scot, and less in a line with what the police might know of my past. I fixed on Galloway as the best place to go. It was the nearest wild part of Scotland, so far as I could figure it out, and from the look of the map was not overthick with population.

A search in Bradshaw informed me that a train left St Pancras at seven-ten, which would land me at a Galloway station in the late afternoon. That was well enough, but a more important matter was how I was to make my way to St. Pancras, for I was pretty certain that Scudder's friends would be watching outside. This puzzled me for a bit; then I had an inspiration, on which I went to bed and slept for two troubled hours.

I got up at four and opened my bedroom shutters. The faint light of a fine summer morning was flooding the skies, and the sparrows had begun to chatter. I had a great revulsion of feeling, and felt a God-forgotten fool.

My inclination was to let things slide, and trust to the British police taking a reasonable view of my case. But as I reviewed the situation I could find no arguments to bring against my decision of the previous night, so with a wry mouth I resolved to go on with my plan. I was not feeling in any particular funk; only disinclined to go looking for trouble, if you understand me.

I hunted out a well-used tweed suit, a pair of strong-nailed boots, and a flannel shirt with a collar. Into my pockets I stuffed a spare shirt, a cloth cap, some handkerchiefs, and a tooth-brush. I had drawn a good sum in gold from the bank two days before, in case Scudder should want money, and I took fifty pounds of it in sovereigns in a belt which I had brought back from Rhodesia. That was about all I wanted. Then I had a bath, and cut my moustache, which was long and drooping, into a short stubbly fringe.

Now came the next step. Paddock used to arrive punctually at seven-thirty and let himself in with a latch-key. But about twenty minutes to seven, as I knew from bitter experience, the milkman turned up with a great clatter of cans, and deposited my share outside my door. I had seen that milkman sometimes when I had gone out for an early ride. He was a young man about my own height, with an scrubby moustache, dressed in a white overall. On him I staked all my chances.

I went into the darkened smoking-room where the rays of morning light were beginning to creep through the shutters. There I breakfasted off a whisky-and-soda and some biscuits from the cupboard. By this time it was getting on for six o'clock. I put a pipe in my pocket and filled my pouch from the tobacco jar on the table by the fireplace. As I poked into the tobacco my fingers touched something hard,and I drew out Scudder's little black pocket-book.

That seemed to me a good omen. I lifted the cloth from the body and was amazed at the peace and dignity of the dead face. "Good-bye, old chap," I said; "I am going to do my best for you. Wish me well wherever you are."

Then I hung about in the hall waiting for the milkman. That was the worst part of the business, for I was fairly choking to get out of doors. Six-thirty passed, then six-forty, but still he did not come. The fool had chosen this day of all days to be late.

At one minute after the quarter to seven I heard the rattle of the cans outside. I opened the front door, and there was my man, singling out my cans from a bunch he carried and whistling through his teeth. He jumped a bit at the sight of me.

"Come in here a moment," I said. "I want a word with you." And I led him into the dining-room.

"I reckon you're a bit of a sportsman," I said, "and I want you to do me a service. Lend me your cap and overall for ten minutes, and here's a sovereign for you."

His eyes opened at the sight of the gold, and he grinned broadly. 'Wot's the gyme?" he asked.

"A bet," I said. "I haven't time to explain, but to win it I've got to be a milkman for the next ten minutes. All you've got to do is to stay here till I come back. You'll be a bit late, but nobody will complain, and you'll have that quid for yourself."

"Right-o!" he said cheerily. "I ain't the man to spoil a bit of sport. 'Ere's the rig, guv'nor."

I stuck on his flat blue hat and his white overall, picked up the cans, banged my door, and went whistling downstairs. The porter at the foot told me to shut my jaw, which sounded as if my make-up was adequate.

At first I thought there was nobody in the street. Then I caught sight of a policeman a hundred yards down, and a loafer shuffling past on the other side. Some impulse made me raise my eyes to the house opposite, and there at a first-floor window was a face. As the loafer passed he looked up, and I fancied a signal was exchanged.

I crossed the street, whistling gaily and imitating the jaunty swing of the milkman. Then I took the first side street, and went up a left-hand turning which led past a bit of vacant ground. There was no one in the little street, so I dropped the milk-cans inside the hoarding and sent the cap and overall after them. I had only just put on my cloth cap when a postman came round the corner. I gave him good morning and he answered me unsuspiciously. At the moment the clock of a neighbouring church struck the hour of seven.

There was not a second to spare. As soon as I got to Euston Road I took to my heels and ran. The clock at Euston Station showed five minutes past the hour. At St. Pancras I had no time to take a ticket, let alone that I had not settled upon my destination. A porter told me the platform, and as I entered it I saw the train already in motion. Two station officials blocked the way, but I dodged them and clambered into the last carriage.

Three minutes later, as we were roaring through the northern tunnels, an irate guard interviewed me. He wrote out for me a ticket to Newtown Stewart, a name which had suddenly come back to my memory, and he conducted me from the first-class compartment where I had ensconced myself to a third-class smoker, occupied by a sailor and a stout woman with a child. He went off grumbling, and as I mopped my brow I observed tu my companions in my broadest Scots that it was a sore job catching trains. I had already entered upon my part.

"The impidence o' that guard!" said the lady bitterly. "He needit a Scotch tongue to pit him in his place. He was complainin' o' this wean no haein' a ticket and her no fower till August twelvemonth, and he was objectin' to this gentleman spittin'."

The sailor morosely agreed, and I started my new life in an atmosphere of protest against authority. I reminded myself that a week ago I had been finding the world dull.

 

 

CHAPTER III - THE ADVENTURE OF THE LITERARY INNKEEPER

I had a solemn time travelling north that day. It was fine May weather, with the hawthorn flowering on every hedge, and I asked myself why, when I was still a free man, I had stayed on in London and not got the good of this heavenly country. I didn't dare face the restaurant car, but I got a luncheon basket at Leeds, and shared it with the fat woman. Also I got the morning's papers, with news about starters for the Derby and the beginning of the cricket season, and some paragraphs about how Balkan affairs were settling down and a British squadron was going to Kiel. When I had done with them I got out Scudder's little black pocket-book and studied it. It was pretty well filled with jottings, chiefly figures, though now and then a name was printed in. For example, I found the words "Hofgaard," "Luneville," and "Avocado" pretty often, and especially the word "Pavia."

Now I was certain that Scudder never did anything without a reason, and I was pretty sure that there was a cipher in all this. That is a subject which has always interested me, and I did a bit at it myself once as intelligence-officer at Delagoa Bay during the Boer War. I have a head for things like chess and puzzles, and I used to reckon myself pretty good at finding out ciphers. This one looked like the numerical kind where sets of figures correspond to the letters of the alphabet, but any fairly shrewd man can find the clue to that sort after an hour or two's work, and I didn't think Scudder would have been content with anything so easy. So I fastened on the printed words, for you can make a pretty good numerical cypher if you have a key word which gives you the sequence of the letters. I tried for hours, but none of the words answered.

Then I fell asleep and woke at Dumfries just in time to the slow Galloway train. There was a man on the platform whose looks I didn't like, but he never glanced at me, and when I caught sight of myself in the mirror of an automatic ma- chine, I didn't wonder. With my brown face, my old tweeds and my slouch I was the very model of one of the hill farmers who were crowding into the third-class carriages.

I travelled with half a dozen in an atmosphere of shag and clay pipes. They had come from the weekly market, and their mouths were full of prices. I heard accounts of how the lambing had gone up the Cairn and the Deuch and a dozen other mysterious waters. Above half the men had lunched heavily and were highly flavoured with whisky, but they took no notice of me. We rumbled slowly into a land of little wooded glens and then to a great, wide moorland place, gleaming with lochs, with high, blue hills showing northwards.

About five o'clock the carriage had emptied and I was left alone as I had hoped. I got out at the next station, a little place whose name I scarcely noted, set right in the heart of a bog. It reminded me of one of those forotten little stations in the Karroo. An old station-master was digging in his garden, and with his spade over his shoulder sauntered to the train, took charge of a parcel and went back to his potatoes. A child of ten received my ticket, and I emerged on a white road that straggled over the brown moor.

It was a gorgeous spring evening, with every hill showing as clear as a cut amethyst The air had the queer rooty smell of bogs, but it was as fresh as mid-ocean, and it had the strangest effect on my spirits. I actually felt light-hearted. I might have been a boy out for a spring holiday tramp, instead of a man of thirty-seven, very much wanted by the police. I felt just as I used to feel when I was starting for a big trek on a frosty morning on the high veld. If you believe me, I swung along that road whistling. There was no plan of campaign in my head, only just to go on and on in this blessed honest-smelling hill country, for every mile put me in better humour with myself.

In a roadside planting I cut a walking stick of hazel, and presently struck off the highway up a by-path which followed the glen of a brawling stream. I reckoned that I was still far ahead of any pursuit,, and for that night might please myself. It was some' hours since I had tasted food, and I was getting' very hungry when I came to a herd's cottage set in a nook beside a waterfall. A brown-faced woman was standing by the door, and greeted me with the kindly shyness of moorland places. When I asked for a night's lodging she said I was welcome to the "bed in the loft," and very soon she set before me a hearty meal of ham and eggs, scones, and thick sweet milk. At the darkening her man came in from the hills, a lean giant who in one step covered as much ground as three paces of ordinary mortals. They asked no questions, for they had the perfect breeding of all dwellers in the wilds, but I could see they set me down as some kind of dealer, and I took some trouble to confirm their view. I spoke a lot about cattle, of which my host knew little, and I picked up from him a good deal about the local Galloway markets, which I tucked away in my memory for future use. At ten I was nodding in my chair, and the 'bed in the loft' received a weary man who never opened his eyes till five o'clock set the little homestead a-going once more.

They refused any payment, and by six I had breakfasted and was striding southwards again. My notion was to return to the railway line a station or two farther on than the place where I had alighted yesterday and to double back. I reckoned that that was the safest way, for the police would naturally assume that I was always making farther from London in the direction of some western port. I thought I had still a good bit of a start, for, as I reasoned, it would take some hours to fix the blame on me, and several more to identify the fellow who got on board the train at St. Pancras.

It was the same jolly, clear spring weather, and I simply could not contrive to feel careworn. Indeed, I was in better spirits than I had been for months. Over a long ridge of moorland I took my road, skirting the side of a high hill which the herd had called Cairnsmore of Fleet. Nestling curlews and plovers were crying everywhere and the links of green pasture by the streams were dotted with young lambs. All the slackness of the past months was slipping from my bones and I stepped out like a four-year-old. By and by I came to a swell of moorland which dipped to the vale of a little river, and a mile away in the heather I saw the smoke of a train.

The station, when I reached it, proved to be ideal for my purpose. The moor surged up around it and left room only for the single line, the slender siding, a waiting-room, an office, the station-master's cottage, and a tiny yard of gooseberries and sweet-william. There seemed no road to it from anywhere, and to increase the desolation the waves of a tarn lapped on their grey granite beach half a mile away. I waited in the deep heather till I saw the smoke of an east-going train on the horizon. Then I approached the tiny booking-office and took a ticket for Dumfries.

The only occupants of the carriage were an old shepherd and his dog—a wall-eyed brute that I mistrusted. The man was asleep and on the cushions beside him was that morning's Scotsman. Eagerly I seized on it, for I fancied it would tell me something.

There were two columns about the Portland Place murder, as it was called. My man Paddock had given the alarm and had the milkman arrested. Poor devil, it looked as if the latter had earned his sovereign hardly; but for me he had been cheap at the price, for he seemed to have occupied the police the better part of the day. In the stop-press news I found a further installment of the story. The milkman had been released, I read, and the true criminal, about whose identity the police were reticent, was believed to have got away from London by one of the northern lines. There was a short note about me as the owner of the flat. I guessed the police had stuck that in as a clumsy contrivance to persuade me that I was unsuspected.

There was nothing else in the paper, nothing about foreign politics or Karolides or the things that had interested Scudder. I laid it down, and found that we were approaching the station at which I had got out yesterday. The potato-digging station-master had been gingered up into some activity, for the west-going train was waiting to let us pass and from it had descended three men who were asking him questions. I supposed that they were the local police who had been stirred up by Scotland Yard and had traced me as far as this one-horse siding. Sitting well back in the shadow I watched them carefully. One of them had a book and took down notes. The old potato-digger seemed to have turned peevish, but the child who had collected my ticket was talking volubly. All the party looked out across the moor where the white road departed. I hoped they were going to take up my tracks there

As we moved away from that station my companion woke up. He fixed me with a wandering glance, kicked his dog viciously, and inquired where he was. Clearly he was very drunk.

'That's what comes o' bein' a teetotaller,' he observed in bitter regret.

I expressed my surprise that in him I should have met a blue-ribbon stalwart.

'Ay, but I'm a strong teetotaller,' he said pugnaciously. 'I took the pledge last Martinmas, and I havena touched a drop o' whisky sinsyne. Not even at Hogmanay, though I was sair temptit.'

He swung his heels up on the seat, and burrowed a frowsy head into the cushions.

'And that's a' I get,' he moaned. 'A heid better than hell fire, and twae een lookin' different ways for the Sabbath.'

'What did it?' I asked.

'A drink they ca' brandy. Bein' a teetotaller I keepit off the whisky, but I was nip-nippin' a' day at this brandy, and I doubt I'll no be weel for a fortnicht.'

His voice died away into a stutter, and once more laid its heavy hand on him.

My plan had been to get out at some station down the line, hut the train suddenly gave me a better chance, for it came to a standstill at the end of a culvert which spanned a brawling porter-coloured river. I looked out and saw that every carriage window was closed and no human figure appeared in the landscape. So I opened the door, and dropped quickly into the tangle of hazels which edged the line.

It would have been all right but for that infernal dog. Under the impression that I was decamping with its master's belongings, it started to bark and all but got me by the trousers. This woke up the herd who stood bawling at the carriage door in the belief that I had committed suicide. I crawled through the thicket, reached the edge of the stream, and in cover of the bushes put a hundred yards or so behind me. Then from my shelter I peered back, and saw that the guard and several passengers gathered round the open carriage door and stared in my direction. I could not have made a more public departure if I had left with a bugler and a brassband.

Happily the drunken herd provided a diversion. He and his dog, which was attached by a rope to his waist, suddenly cascaded out of the carriage, landed on their heads on the track, and rolled some way down the bank towards the water. In the rescue which followed, the dog bit somebody, for I could hear the sound of hard swearing. Presently they had forgotten me, and when after a quarter of a mile's crawl I ventured to look back, the train had started again and was vanishing in the cutting.

I was in a wide semi-circle of moorland, with the brown river as radius, and the high hills forming the northern circumference. There was not a sign or sound of a human being, only the plashing water and the interminable crying of curlews. Yet, oddly enough, for the first time I felt the terror of the hunted on me. It was not the police that I thought of, but the other folk, who knew that I knew Scudder's secret and dared not let me live. I was certain that they would pursue me with a keenness and vigilance unknown to the British law, and that once their grip closed on me I should find no mercy.

I looked back, but there was nothing in the landscape. The sun glinted on the metals of the line and the wet stones in the stream, and you could not have found a more peaceful sight in the world. Nevertheless I started to run. Crouching low in the runnels of the bog, I ran till the sweat blinded my eyes. The mood did not leave me till I had reached the rim of mountain and flung myself panting on a ridge high above the young waters of the brown river.

From my vantage-ground I could scan the whole moor right away to the railway line and to the south of it where green fields took the place of heather. I have eyes like a hawk, but I could see nothing moving in the whole countryside. Then I looked east beyond the ridge and saw a new kind of landscape—shallow green valleys with plentiful fir plantations and the faint lines of dust which spoke of highroads. Last of all I looked into the blue May sky, and there I saw that which set my pulses racing. Low down in the south a monoplane was climbing into the heavens. I was as certain as if I had been told that that aeroplane was looking for me, and that it did not belong to the police. For an hour or two I watched it from a pit of heather. It flew low along the hill-tops and then in narrow circles back over the valley up which I had come. Then it seemed to change mind, rose to a great height and flew away back to the south.

I did not like this espionage from the air, and I began to think less well of the countryside I had chosen for a refuge. These heather hills were no sort of cover if my enemies were in the sky, and I must find a different kind of sanctuary. I looked with more satisfaction to the green country beyond the ridge for there I should find woods and stone houses.

About six in the evening I came out of the moorland to a white ribbon of road which wound up the narrow vale of a lowland stream. As I followed it, fields gave place to bent, the glen became a plateau, and presently I had reached a kind of pass, where a solitary house smoked in the twilight. The road swung over a bridge and leaning on the parapet was a man.

He was smoking a long clay pipe and studying the water with spectacled eyes. In his left hand was a small book with a finger marking the place. Slowly he repeated—

 

"As when a Gryphon through the wilderness,

With winged step, o'er hill and moory dale

Pursues the Arimaspian."

 

He jumped round as my step rung on keystone, and I saw a pleasant, sunburnt, boyish face.

"Good evening to you," he said gravely. "It's a fine night for the road."

The smell of wood smoke and of some savoury roast floated to me from the house. "Is that place an inn?" I asked.

"At your service," he said politely. "I am the landlord, sir, and I hope you will stay the night, for to tell you the truth I have had no company for a week."

I pulled myself up on the parapet of the bridge and filled my pipe. I began to detect an ally.

"You've young to be an innkeeper," I said.

"My father died a year ago and left me the business. I live there with my grandmother. It's a slow job for a young man, and it wasn't my choice of profession."

"Which was?"

He actually blushed. "I want to write books," he said.

"And what better chance could you ask?" I cried. "Man, I've often thought that an innkeeper would make the best story-teller in the world."

"Not now," he said eagerly. "Maybe in the old days when you had pilgrims and ballad-makers and highwaymen and mail-coaches on the road; but not now. Nothing comes here but motor-cars full of fat women, who stop for lunch, and a fisherman or two in the spring, and the shooting tenants in August. There is not much material to be got out of that. I want to see life, to travel the world, and write things like Kipling and Conrad. But the most I've done yet is to get some verses printed in Chambers's Journal.'

I looked at the inn standing golden in the sunset against the brown hills.

'I've knocked a bit about the world, and I wouldn't despise such a hermitage. D'you think that adventure is found only in the tropics or among gentry in red shirts? Maybe you're rubbing shoulders with it at this moment.'

'That's what Kipling says,' he said, his eyes brightening, and he quoted some verse about 'Romance bringing up the nine-fifteen'.

'Here's a true tale for you then,' I cried, 'and a month from now you can make a novel out of it.'

Sitting on the bridge in the soft May gloaming I pitched him a lovely yarn. It was true in essentials, too, though I altered the minor details. I made out that I was a mining magnate from Kimberley, who had a lot of trouble with I. D. B. and had shown up a gang. They had pursued me across the ocean and had killed my best friend and were now on my tracks.

I told the story well, though I say it who shouldn't. I pictured a flight across the Kalahari to German Africa, the crackling, parching days, the wonderful blue-velvet nights. I described an attack on my life on the voyage home, and I made a really horrid affair of the Portland Place murder.

"You've looking for adventure," I cried. "Well, you've found it here. The devils are after me, and the police are after them. It's a race that I mean to win."

"By God," he whispered, drawing his breath in sharply, "it is all pure Rider Haggard and Conan Doyle."

"You believe me," I said gratefully.

"Of course I do," and he held out his hand. "I believe everything out of the common. The only thing to distrust is the normal."

He was very young, but he was the man for my money.

"I think they're off my track for the moment, but I must lie close for a couple of days. Can you take me in?"

He caught my elbow in his eagerness and drew me towards the house. "You can lie as snug here as if you were in a moss-hole. I'll see that nobody blabs, either. And you'll give me some more material about your adventures?"

As I entered the inn porch I heard from far off the beat of an engine. There silhouetted against the dusky west was my friend, the monoplane.

He gave me a room at the back of the house with a fine outlook over the plateau and he made me free of his own study, which was stacked with cheap editions of his favourite authors. I never saw the grandmother, so I guessed she was bed-ridden. An old woman called Margit brought me my meals, and the innkeeper was around me at all hours. I wanted some time to myself, so I invented a job for him. He had a motor bicycle, and I sent him off next morning for the daily paper, which usually arrived with the post in the late afternoon. I told him to keep his eyes skinned, and make note of any strange figures he saw, keeping a special sharp lookout for motors and aeroplanes. Then I sat down in real earnest to Scudder's note-book.

He came back at midday with the Scotsman There was nothing in it except some further evidence of Paddock and the milkman, and a repetition of yesterday's statement that the murderer had gone north. But there was a long article, reprinted from the Times, about Karolides and the state of affairs in the Balkans, though there was no mention of any visit to England. I got rid of the innkeeper for the afternoon, for I was getting very warm in my search for the cipher.

As I told you, it was a numerical cipher, and by an elaborate system of experiments I had pretty well discovered what were the nulls and stops. The trouble was the key word, and when I thought of the odd million words he might have used I felt pretty hopeless. But about three o'clock I had a sudden inspiration.

The name Julia Czechenyi flashed across my memory. Scudder had said it was the key to the Karolides business and it occurred me to try it on his cipher.

It worked. The five letters of "Julia" gave me the position of the vowels. A was J, the tenth letter of the alphabet, and so represented by X in the cipher. E was U = XXI and so on. "Czechenyi" gave me the numerals for the principal consonants. I scribbled that scheme on a bit of paper and sat down to read. Scudder's pages.

In half an hour I was reading with a whitish face and fingers that drummed on the table. I glanced out of the window and saw a big touring-car coming up the glen towards the inn. It drew up at the door and there was the sound of people alighting. There seemed to be two of them, men in acquascutums and tweed caps.

Ten minutes later the innkeeper slipped into the room, his eyes bright with excitement.

"There's two chaps below looking for you," he whispered. "They're in the dining-room having whiskys and sodas. They asked about you and said they had hoped to meet you here. Oh I and they described you jolly well, down to your boots and shirt I told them you had been here last night and had gone off on a motor bicycle this morning, and one of the chaps swore like a navvy."

I made him tell me what they looked like. One was a dark-eyed, thin fellow with bushy eyebrows, the other was always smiling and lisped in his talk. Neither was any kind of foreigner; on this my young friend was positive.

I took a bit of paper and wrote these words in German as if they were part of a letter:

". . . Black Stone. Scudder had got on to this, but he could not act for a fortnight. I doubt if I can do any good now, especially as Karolides is uncertain about his plans. But if Mr. T. advises I will do the best I . . ."

I manufactured it rather neatly, so that it looked like a loose page of a private letter.

"Take this down and say it was found in my bedroom and ask them to return it to me if they overtake me."

Three minutes later I heard the car begin to move, and peeping from behind the curtain, caught sight of the two figures. One was slim, the other was sleek; that was the most I could make of my reconnaissance.

The innkeeper appeared in great excitement. "Your paper woke them up," he said gleefully. "The dark fellow went as white as death and cursed like blazes, and the fat one whistled and looked ugly. They paid for their drinks with half a sovereign and wouldn't wait for change."

"Now I'll tell you what I want you to do," I said. "Get on your bicycle and go off to Newtown Stewart to the chief constable. Describe the two men, and say you suspect them of having had something to do with the London murder. You can invent reasons. The two will come back, never fear. Not to-night, for they'll follow me forty miles along road, but first thing to-morrow morning. Tell the police to be here bright and early."

He set off like a docile child, while I worked at Scudder's notes. When he came back we dined together and in common decency I had to let him pump me. I gave him a lot of stuff about lion hunts and the Matabele War, thinking all the while what tame businesses these were compared to this I was now engaged in. When he went to bed I sat up and finished Scudder. I smoked in chair till daylight, for I could not sleep.

About eight next morning I witnessed the arrival of two constables and a sergeant. They put their car in a coach-house under the innkeeper's instructions and entered the house. Twenty minutes later I saw from my window a second car come across the plateau from the opposite direction. It did not come up to the inn, but stopped two hundred yards off in the shelter of a patch of wood. I noticed that its occupants carefully reversed it before leaving it. A minute or two later I heard their steps on die gravel outside the window. My plan had been to lie hid in my bedroom, and see what happened. I had a notion that, if I could bring the police and my other more dangerous pursuers together, something might work out of it to my advantage. But now I had a better idea. I scribbled a line of thanks to my host, opened the window and dropped quietly into a gooseberry bush. Unobserved I crossed the dike, crawled down the side of a tributary burn, and won the highroad on the far side of the patch of trees. There stood the car, very spick and span in the morning sunlight, but with the dust on her which told of a long Journey. I started her, jumped into the chauffeur's seat, and stole gently out on to the plateau. Almost at once the road dipped so that I lost sight of the inn, but the wind seemed to bring me the sound of angry voices.

Wednesday's Good Reading: “The Voyage of Snedgus and Mac Ríagla “ by unknown writer (translated into English by Whitley Stokes)

 

1. The Men of Ross were under great oppression after the decease of Domnall son of Aed son of Ainmire; and this was the cause of their oppression. When Ireland was taken by Mael Coba's sons after Domnall, Domnall's sons, even Donnchad and Fiacha, were in the sovranty of Cenél Conaill and the  p.17 Men of Ross—Donnchad over Tirconnell and Fiacha over the Men of Ross.

 

2. Great was their oppression under Fiacha, for neither weapon nor coloured raiment 3  was allowed to any of them (and they felt this the more) since they had never before that been subject to a king; and exceeding was the soreness of their servitude.

 

3. A year was Fiacha in sovranty over them. At the end of the year comes Fiacha to Boynemouth, and the Men of Ross are summoned to him. He said to them: “Do service still more”.

“We cannot do more”, say they.

Said he to them: “Let each and all of you put your spittle on my palm”.

It was put, and thus was the spittle half of it (composed) of blood.

 

4. Then he said: “Your service is not proper yet, for all the spittle is not blood. Cast the hills into the hollows that they may be (level) land. Plant trees in the plains that they may be forests!”

 

5. It was then that a deer passed near them. All the king's household go after the deer. Then the Men of Ross took his own weapons from the kin, for none of them had a weapon, and so they killed him.

 

6. That deed was evil in his brother Donnchad's eyes, and he came and took them all prisoners, and puts them into one house to be burnt alive.

 

7. Then he himself said: “It is not meet for me to do this deed without counsel from my soulfriend, from Colombcille.”

 

8. So he sends messengers to Colombcille. And Snédgus and Mac Riagla come from Colombcille, having (this) counsel for Donnchad, to wit, to cast sixty couples of the men of Ross; on the sea, and that God would pass His judgment upon them.

 

9. Small boats are given to them, and they are set upon the sea, and men go to watch them, so that they should not return.

 

10. Then Snédgus and Mac Riagla turn back to go to Iona, to Colombcille.

 

11. As they were in their coracle they bethought them of wending with their own consent into the outer ocean on a pilgrimage, even as the sixty couples had gone, though these were not with their own consent.

 

12. So they turn right-hand-wise; and wind wafts them for a while north-westwards into the outer ocean.

 

13. After a space of three days a longing of great thirst seizes them, insomuch that they could not endure it.

 

14. It was then that Christ took pity on them, and brings them to a stream well-tasting like new milk, and therewith they are satisfied. They render thanks to God and say: “Let us leave our voyage to God, and let us put our oars into our boat.” And thereafter their voyage was left alone, and their oars were put into their boat; and after they arrived, then said the poet:

 

15. Then they are sent to another island, with a fence of silver over the midst thereof, and a fish-weir therein; and that weir was a … plank of silver, and against the weir huge salmon were leaping. Bigger than a bull-calf was each of these salmon, and thereof they were satisfied.

 

16. Thereafter they voyaged to another island, and in that island they found many warriors with heads of cats upon them. One Gaelic champion was therein, and he came down to the strand and made them welcome, and said to them: “Of the men of the Gael am I” he said. “We came here  p.21 a boat's crew, and thereof remaineth none save me alone. They were martyrised by the outlanders who inhabit this island”. And he puts food for them (the clerics) into the boat, and they leave a blessing and take a blessing.

 

17. Thereafter the wind wafts them to an island wherein was a great tree with beautiful birds (on its branches). Atop of it was a great bird with a head of gold and with wings of silver; and he tells them tales of the beginning of the world, and tells them of Christ's birth from Mary Virgin, and of His Baptism and His Passion and His Resurrection. And he tells tidings of Doom; and then all the birds used to beat their sides with their wings, so that showers of blood dropt out of their sides for dread of the signs of Doom. “Communion and Creature” was that blood. And the bird bestows on the clerics a leaf of the leaves of that tree, and the size of the hide of a large ox was that leaf. And the bird told the clerics to take that leaf and place it on Colombcille's altar. So that is Colombcille's flabellum to-day. In Kells it is.

 

18. Melodious was the music of those birds singing psalms and canticles, praising the Lord. For they were the birds of the Plain of Heaven, and neither trunk nor leaf of that tree decays.

 

19. Thereafter the clerics bade farewell to the birds, and they voyage to a fearful land, wherein dwelt men with heads of hounds, with manes of cattle upon them. By God's command, a cleric came to them out of the island to succour them, for they were in danger there, without food; and he gives them fish and wine and wheat.

 

20. Thereafter they voyage till they reached a land wherein dwelt men with heads of swine upon them; and they … and they had great bands of reapers reaping the corn in the midst of the summer.

 

21. Afterwards they went thence in their boat, and sing their psalms, and pray to God, till they reached a land wherein  p.23 dwelt a multitude of men of the Gael; and the women of the island straightway sang a sianan to them, and the clerics deemed it melodious.

“Sing you still”, saith the cleric, he said; “here is the sianan of Ireland!”. “Let us go, O clerics!” say the women, “to the house of the King of the island, for therein we (leg. ye) shall have welcome and refreshment.”

 

22. The women and the clerics enter the house; and the king made the clerics welcome, and they put away their weariness there, and he asked them: “What is your race, O clerics?” “Of the men of Ireland are we”, say the clerics, “and of Colombcille's community.” “How fares it in Ireland?” he said, “and how many sons of Domnall are alive?” saith the King. The cleric answered: “Three sons of Domnall's are alive; and Fiacha son of Domnall fell by the Men of Ross, and for that deed sixty couples of them were set on the sea. That tale is true for you, O clerics! It is I that killed the son of the King of Tara, and we it is that were set on the sea. And well for us was that, for we shall abide here till the Judgment shall come; for good are we without sin, without wickedlness, without … of our crime. Good is the island wherein we arc, for in it are Elijah and Enoch, and noble is the dwelling wherein is Elijah.”

 

23. And he made the clerics very welcome, and said: “There are in this land two lakes, a lake of water and a lake of fire, and they would have come long ago over Ireland had not Martin and Patrick been praying for them (the Irish).”

“We would fain see Enoch”, say the clerics.

“He is in a secret place until we shall all go to the battle, on the Day of Judgement.”

 

24. Thereafter they voyage from that land, and were in  p.25 the roaring waves 4  of the sea for a long time, until great relief came to them from God, for they were weary. And they beheld a great lofty island, and all therein was delightful and hallowed.

 

25. Good was the King that abode in the island, and he was holy and righteous; and great was his host, and noble was the dwelling of that King, for there were a hundred doors in that house, and an altar at every door, and a priest at every altar offering Christ's Body.

 

26. So the clerics entered that house, and each of them (host and guests) blessed the other; and thereafter the whole of the great host, both woman and man, went to communion at the Mass.

 

27. Then wine is dealt out to them, and the king saith to the clerics: “Tell the men of Ireland,” he said, “that a great vengeance is about to fall on you. Foreigners will come over sea and inhabit half the island; and they will lay siege to you. 5  And this is what brings that vengeance upon them (the Irish), the great neglect they shew to God's Testament and to His teaching. A month and a year you shall be at sea, and youshall arrive safely; and (then) tell all your tidings to the men of Ireland.”

 

 

 

Tuesday's Serial: “The Messiah of the Cylinder” by Victor Rousseau (in Englsih) - XI

 

CHAPTER XVII -THE CHAPEL UNDERGROUND

In the subterranean chapel, lit by rushlights that sent the shadows scurrying and made fantastically unreal the eager faces and the dissolving groups that clustered now around me, now around David, and again gathered about the tall old bishop with his peasant’s face and child’s eyes, David told them my tale, and then in turn told me the legend that I had brought so wonderfully to fulfillment.

The more bewildered I appeared, the stronger grew their faith, for the legend foretold that I was to come unknown to myself, and with no expectation of my own mission. They saw the cylinder, and there was none who doubted.

There were some thirty men and women present, of whom a dozen formed an inner council which had already formulated the plans for the new government. Some were delegates from outlaw bands in the recesses of the forests, some, like David, fugitives from the government bureaux and three or four, Paul among them, those who had most recently escaped from the defectives’ shops. There were representatives of various trades, who had come from London at imminent risk, intending to return:  one from the traffic guild I noticed in particular, a giant of a man with a black beard as crisp as an Assyrian king’s, who said that, at his signal, his guild would rise and fling themselves, to a man, upon the Guard.

It was a touching reunion. Two generations had gone by while men remained in ignorance of all that we and our ancestors had known: popular freedom, public rights, liberty to choose their trades, the sanctity of family life, and, above all, the absence of the galling inquisition and atrocious tyranny of Science run mad.

The elder men remembered with horror the period of the revolutions, in which a man would have given all that he had for life and bread. They regarded the epoch that had preceded this as the dark age of the world, much, I think, as we, in our turn, looked back upon the freer age before the Reformation. They had a misty tradition of a century in which men starved, in which the rich oppressed the poor and the poor dwelled in foul, sunless tenements and dressed in rags.

That tradition was true, and of the Moyen Age, before these things, of course they knew nothing. Now all had bread to eat, and light and air; but they lived in a world with neither hope nor joy, resource nor initiative, nor happiness in labor, in which one cherished the home ties furtively, while over their children always hung the menace of the defectives’ workshops, or the horrors of the Temple. And on them preyed the privileged caste of whites, taking toll of their daughters, lording it as judges and bureau bosses, in the name of Science emanating from a madman’s brain.

I began to gather, to my relief, that only the very ignorant believed that the Messiah would be a supernatural being. There was superstition enough hidden in the hearts of all, for faith, denied, creeps in, in strange guises; but the world awaited, rather, the inevitable leader who must come to set free a people grown over-ripe for freedom. For the horrors of the new civilization had reached the point where men had grown reckless of life. Everywhere was the anticipation of the approaching change, and even Sanson must have seen that neither his Guard nor his great Ray artillery could save his crumbling power. Science had overplayed her part when she had bankrupted human hearts.

Everywhere the deep sense of intolerable wrong was spreading. And although not even the very old remembered the time when Christianity was a living faith, yet the hopes of all hinged on it. There was no other hope for the world but the same Light that lit the darkness in the most shameful days of Rome’s high civilization. So they had enrolled themselves beneath that ancient banner of human freedom; dozens had died under torture rather than disclose the hiding place of their treasured Scriptures—of such parts as had come down to them, rewritten in the new syllabic characters. There was a rich harvest to come from many a martyr’s blood.

So, then, there had filtered down through the years the faith that in 2015, or seven and thirty years after the institution of the new era, a Messiah was to arise and restore freedom to man. It had begun with the discovery of the cylinder that contained Esther’s body, somewhere about the middle of the preceding century, and after the first revolutionary outbreak.

In some manner unknown the cylinder had made its appearance in the world. At first it was believed that it contained only the embalmed body of a woman, within a case fashioned so cunningly that none could open it. But later the rumor spread that at the end of a certain time the case would open of itself, and the woman awaken and come forth.

I inferred that Sanson, in spite of Lembken’s statement to me, had obtained access to Lazaroff’s papers, and had shrewdly resolved to turn the popular legend to his own use by placing the date of the fulfillment of the prophecy. He set the cylinder within the Temple and diffused the report that, when Esther awakened, they two would rule the world together and offer immortality to man.

The cylinder had, then, first appeared about 1950. It had become the symbol of the Revolution—Freedom sleeping. It had been carried before marching armies. It had been a rallying point for the defeated. Men had fought and died over it. It had been struck by unnumbered bullets. It had been lost and regained upon a dozen battlefields. Then it had vanished with the inauguration of the reactionary régime, to appear once more, the inspiration of new hopes, when Sanson sprang to his leadership, like a god, about the year 1980.

And all this while I had been sleeping within the vault, as heedless of the passing years as Esther in her undreamed of journeyings. That I had escaped notice was due, no doubt, to the single fact that the wall of the vault had fallen in and hidden my cylinder from sight, embedded, as it was, in mud up to the neck. Those who had read of me in the papers might not have prosecuted their search hard, thinking that the cylinder had been removed already.

As the years went by an amplification of the legend had spread until it grew to be a rooted popular belief that the Messiah who was to come would issue from a second cylinder. That was the reason why neither David nor Jones, nor any in the cellar doubted me.

Old Bishop Alfred grasped my hands in his. “This is not chance, but a wonderful sign from God,” he said. “To think that while we met here you lay within that case a few feet from us! I have doubted and dreaded, as all have, but nothing can daunt me now. We shall win freedom, we shall have our two names again.”

David whispered to me that, grown a little childish with age, the poor old man longed for the day when he could assume the ancient episcopal pomp. To sign himself, Alfred London, was his life’s dream, and he had vowed that till that day came his family name should never pass his lips.

After I had heard the story we kneeled in prayer, and the Bishop read to us from the syllabic version of the Bible, as it was known. It comprised only a few portions of the Old Testament, chiefly parts of Isaiah which some scribe had thought prophetic and necessary to be saved. Of the Synoptic Gospels there existed only a few fragments, too, but there was the “Sermon on the Mount” from the “Beatitudes” to the end, and the whole of the magnificent “Gospel According to St. John,” together with most of “Acts” and “Corinthians,” debased to some extent, and containing interpolations that had crept in, but on the whole faithful to the original. Though the entire Bible has, of course, been recovered, I am convinced, and many agree with me, that the world has gained immeasurably by the removal of the scaffolding of the Temple of Truth during more than two generations. Never again will literal interpretation be placed upon Old Testament mythology, the poetic allegory of “Creation and the Fall,” or the chronology that offered the life cycles of tribes as the events of one man’s life; nor will the warrior god, Jehovah, be considered anything but an incompletely discerned aspect of the divine.

Afterward, at David’s urging, I rose to speak. I hardly knew what I should say, but, as I stood in hesitation before the meeting some Pentecostal power seemed to lay hold of me, and a torrent of impassioned words broke from my lips, till I felt all minds and hearts enkindled from the flame in mine. I spoke of the old, free world, of old, illogical, and cherished customs, preserved through centuries, uniting men in a fellowship that logic could not give; of ideals and traditions carried onward from age to age, ennobling faith and strengthening a nation’s soul; of pride of family other than that of pedigreed stock; of initiative and resourcefulness, charity and good-will for weak as well as strong; of a ruling class bound by its traditions to public service, and open to all below who had the character and gifts to enter it.

But one thing I could not explain; when Bishop Alfred, rising, incredulous that the weak should have been protected, that they aroused pity instead of wrath, inquired, if we had really had this Christian use, why we had lost it.

When I ended I came back to myself, to find that  I was standing tongue-tied before them. I heard a sigh ascend from every lip; and then they were about me, falling upon their knees, grasping my hands, imploring me to accept their service and devotion. Elizabeth was weeping happily.

“I knew, Arnold,” she said.

Then the revolutionary committee took their seats upon the benches and, while the rest gathered about them, proceeded to consider the reports brought in. It was an informal meeting, hampered by none of those rules made by democracy for the restriction of free speech, and conducted with earnestness and quiet decorum. Man after man rose up and made his report, the leaders of the guilds pledging so many, describing their enthusiasm, stating the number of Ray rods in his possession, and pledging absolute obedience to instructions.

Then I was acquainted, as succinctly as possible, with the progress of the movement. It was known that during the next few days Sanson meant to address the people in the Temple, using some anniversary celebration as his occasion. He was universally credited with the plan to effect a coup d’etat, deposing Lembken and assuming the rulership of the Federation. He had attached the Guard to him with favors and gifts, so that intense hatred existed between it and Lembken’s airscouts. There was thus a triangular contest between Sanson, Lembken, and the revolutionaries; and the fear was that, if the airscouts were split by faction, the Guard would overwhelm them and establish Sanson in Lembken’s place, making a greater tyranny still.

It was, therefore, debated whether it might be possible, as unhappily it seemed necessary, to make some terms with Lembken that should ensure Sanson’s overthrow.

“We have gained one piece of priceless information from you, Arnold,” said David. “We know now that Sanson’s plans relate to the awakening of Esther. Five days is almost too short a period for our plans to mature; yet we know that Sanson’s coup must synchronize with the opening of the cylinder. It is believed that he has actually made some discovery, not, of course, of immortality, but for prolonging life, which he intends to offer the populace, should any champion, posing as the Messiah, come forth to challenge him. That will be a test such as has never yet been made in the world’s history, the choice between liberty and immortality, so-called. And it will be difficult for the multitude to choose the former and to reject the latter.”

“If the people have the choice they will choose wisely,” said Elizabeth, from within Paul’s arm. “Have no doubt as to that.”

“How do you know?” asked David.

“Because they want the love that is their birthright,” she answered boldly, “and love knows it is immortal and does not fear death.”

I saw the committee leader smile, and there came upon his face a very affecting look. An elderly man, a member of the privileged caste, he had voluntarily laid aside the white robes of his order and taken to the forests, to organize the beginnings of the Revolution. As he spoke, the detailed scheme began to be clear to me, and I understood that the rulers of the world were matched by no mean antagonists.

First he alluded to the belief, already current among all the revolutionary bands, that the Federation’s troops had been overwhelmed before Tula, and that the Tsar’s forces were already pouring through Skandogermania to seize the battleplanes from the disaffected airscouts in Hamburg and Stockholm and launch them against London. It was believed that the Council must be in desperate straits to have had recourse to the moving picture lie, as worthless as the falsehood that the escaped defectives had been retaken.

What seemed to me a psychological confirmation of this report was the circumstance asserted by him, that the torture of heretics, the activities of the vivisectionists, and the weeding out of morons were proceeding with unexampled rigor. For tyranny always becomes most cruel when it approaches its downfall, by inspiring terror, to create submission.

“You have heard,” continued the old man, “how Lembken lured Arnold to the People’s House. Lembken knows who he is. Then he must be aware of Sanson’s plans and is plotting to use Arnold in a counterstroke.

“He is old and obese and pleasure-loving. But you must not forget that he rose to power by the most cunning craft, inspiring, as he undoubtedly did, the murder of Boss Rose, and buying over the airscouts. Sanson underrates the old fox, but Lembken has his ear to the ground all the while he is supposed to be roystering in his devil’s palace. Now, friends, we can despise no weapon that will aid our cause. If we have to use Lembken, as the lesser evil, in order to unite the airscouts under Hancock against Sanson—”

“Never!” shouted the black-bearded leader of the traffic guild. “He has taken—taken—taken—”

The giant broke down and covered his face with his hands.

“My daughter,” he raved, raising his face with the tears streaming down his cheeks, and clenching his enormous hands. “Only today—today—I would not desert the cause, or I should have forced my way into the People’s House and killed him—”

I thanked God, the father did not know that I had seen her in the Council Hall.

The old leader got up and put his arm about the giant’s shoulder.

“But for the sake of freedom you will consent,” he said.

The other threw back his head. “Yes—for the cause, yes,” he answered quietly, and moved away. He stood with head drooping upon his breast, like some huge statue. I understood then the strength of the enmity to the government. No Ray artillery could withstand such a wild passion as the deviltries of Science had awakened.

“I can only offer the outlines of my plan,” resumed the old man, returning to his place, “because, at such a time, we must trust as much to the spontaneous instincts of our people as to a detailed scheme which may go wrong. But it seems to me that it is essential first to enter into communication with Lembken. We will offer him his palace, perhaps, and an untroubled life hereafter. It is a hard compromise, but there seems no other way, for Sanson must be destroyed, and everything depends on Hancock.

“Five days hence, when Sanson summons the people into the Temple, as many as possible of our men will assemble there, with Ray rods beneath their tunics. Arnold will advance and challenge Sanson. We shall spring forward, seize him, possess ourselves of the cylinder, assume possession of the Temple buildings, and set up our government. Meanwhile the airscouts will take possession of the barracks and Ray artillery.”

Here I interposed. “Is this the only way?” I asked. “Are there not annual elections? Would it not be possible—”

I was unprepared for the outburst of bitter laughter that answered me.

“Do you really believe, Arnold,” asked David, “that anything can be done like that? Even in your other life, history—the history that is not taught—informs me that the election of popular representatives had become farcical, especially in the home of democracy, America, through the refusal to permit unauthorized candidacies, through the demand for large sums of money to be deposited as a preliminary, by ballots drowned with names of unknown men, representing nobody knew whom, and fifteen to twenty feet in length; by ruffians at the polls—a device much used in Rome when she started on the democratic down-grade that led to tyranny; by stuffed ballots and lying counts, and voting machines ... in short, Arnold, we have so far improved upon those crude devices that the ballot is now the strongest weapon in our masters’ hands. And when freedom has been restored it will never be seen again. We shall never count heads, except among small bodies of committees, and the days of so-called representative government will never recur so long as men remain free.”

It was evident that his words had touched their imaginations in some way unknown to me, for they sprang to their feet and cheered him wildly. I learned afterward that all the laws, the most subversive of human rights, all the most fearful promulgations of Sanson were put to the farcical test of public approbation. The democratic State had killed itself, as it always does, but the shell remained to protect the tyranny that followed, as it always does, too.

Before the noise had quite subsided, Jones, who had come in quietly, stood up in the midst of the assembly.

“The plan to seize the Ray artillery is impossible,” he said bluntly.

“Why?” demanded a dozen voices.

“Because the small Ray guns upon the battleplanes are useless against the glow paint on the Guards’ fortress, and the Guards’ great Ray artillery will pick off our battleplanes one by one as they expose their unprotected parts while evolving in the air. It is impossible to protect the parts of a plane around the solar storage batteries, because the glow rays disturb their action. Then, again, when each of our men has discharged his Ray rod, where is he to replenish it without access to the solar storage within the Guards’ fortress? Even our airplanes, with their week’s supply, have to be replenished there.”

“Hold a battleplane where we can gain access to it, so that the rods can be recharged from its supply.”

“Not practicable,” said Jones.

“If each man has three Ray rods, he can kill three of Sanson’s men.”

“But unless you take the fortress the Ray artillery can make a desert of London.”

“What would you do, then?” asked the committee leader.

“Cut the solar supply cables.”

“Twelve feet underground, in steel and concrete?”

“No. At the heart of the world’s power system,” said the airscout. “In the Vosges. It is not impossible. The Ray artillery there is not carefully guarded; the early nights are dark. Make Sanson’s Ray guns useless at a stroke, and then storm the fortress in the old way, man against man.”

I saw the face of the black-bearded leader redden with blood. “Yes!” he cried, “that is the way.”

“And then we shall have two names again and life will be free,” said Bishop Alfred, musing. “Two names, as our fathers had.”

All caught the enthusiasm. The committee leader held up his hand for silence. “Wait! Who will go?” he demanded.

“I can. I will,” replied Jones, boldly. “I was born there. My father was a Frenchman, removed to England because he cherished national aspirations. I will succeed or die there.”

“Where will you get the airplane?”

“I have it here,” said Jones, as simply as if he could produce it from his pocket.

Again the mad clamor burst forth. Jones, as the first airscout to come over, filled all with enthusiasm, and belief in our success.

“And who will go to Lembken as our emissary?” asked the committee leader presently.

“I will,” I answered.

David started toward me. “No! The risk is too great,” he cried. “We need you in the Temple on the appointed day. We need your leadership for the sake of the cause. If Lembken refuses, or tricks you, all will be lost.”

I answered rather sadly. “You forget,” I said, “that I, too, have all I hold dear at stake. For this cause, too, I shall succeed or die.”

Monday's Illustrated Word: "The Dread of Night" by Carl Wessler (in English)

 art by Luis Dominguez - letter by Joe Letterese - The Witching Hour #35 - DC Comics, October 1973.