s

■

ROBERT C ROM IE

Author of 'A Plunge tiiio S

A NEW MESSIAH

A NEW MESSIAH

BY

ROBERT CROMIE

AUTHOR OF

A CRACK OF DOOM," " A PLUNGE INTO SPACE," "A ROMANCE OF POISONS," ETC., ETC.

SECOND EDITION

LONDON DIGBY, LONG & CO.

1 8 Bouverie Street, Fleet Street, E.C.

1903

CONTENTS

CHAP.

I. A CURIOUS COUNTRY HOUSE

II. A TERRIBLE ALTERNATIVE .

III. THE VENGEANCE OF THE VEHM.

IV. ANOTHER VICTIM . V. THE FORBIDDEN ROOM

VI. THE DAWN OF LIBERTY

VII. THE NEW VEHMGERICHTE

VIII. A CHIEF OF POLICE .

IX. GREEK JOINS GREEK .

X. THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND

XI. CRUCIFY HIM ! CRUCIFY HIM ! .

XII. IN THE GREAT DEEP .

XIII. VAN RANNSLER'S FATE

XIV. THE MAN WHO WAS TAKEN ALIVE XV. PEACE — AND WAR

PAGK

9

28

43

57

73

91

106

120

136

152

171

179

195

212

226

8

CONTENTS

CHAP.

XVI. PLIGHT

XVII. CAPTUEED .

XVIII. IN A STRANGE LAND .

XIX. A DUEL TO THE DEATH

XX. THE DEAD SLEEP DEEP

PAGE

. 243 . 264 . 279 . 295 . 310

CHAPTER I

A CURIOUS COUNTRY HOUSE

The trees whined drearily as the breeze in- creased and the withered foliage came fluttering down, sometimes in single twirling spots of yellow, bronze, or brown ; sometimes tumul- tuously when the Angel of Death that was in the frosty air breathed on it as he passed. Many times a belated chestnut frond would let go its grip, and hurtle awkwardly across the twilight sky, like a bat out for his first flight, and blinded by the last of the evening afterglow. And always the wind droned most lonesomely through the waving branches aloft, barer by every blast, and, swirling round the great trunks beneath, rustled the dying leaves.

A young fellow and a young girl strolled to and fro on the shaven sward. From their animated manner and cheerfully frivolous con-

9

10 A NEW MESSIAH

versation, they were both apparently gifted with a good store of the optimism of youth. Their chatter was as irresponsible and inconse- quent as the cawing of the homing rooks — and as satisfying to themselves. In its way, the scene might be called idyllic, but there was a tragic element in it. It was the opening scene, simple as it was, in a tragedy. A man was looking on — watching it. In his hands the tragic element was in good keeping

This man was well dressed, of medium height, squarely built. Leaning lazily against an oak tree with a mammoth trunk, he was a noticeable figure in the rustic scene. But even when he walked in Regent Street, or strolled in the Park, this man did so with an air that claimed attention. Once you saw him you saw no one else — only a crowd. There was a curiously evanescent expression on his interesting face as he stood there leaning against the tree. His eyes changed according to the fitful tenor of his mind, with catlike facility. They were tender, anxious, angry, even ferocious in turn. His well-groomed appearance, the slender white fingers with which he stroked his strong chin, his dis-

A CUKIOUS COUNTRY HOUSE H

tinguished manner, even the cut of his once jet black and now grey-streaked hair marked him for what the average man would describe in a word — aristocrat ! He was something more than that. '

For some minutes, Leslie Zietsman watched the young people saunter back and forth on the lawn, with what might have seemed an indolent interest. But his interest in them was far from indolent. The girl was his daughter, Nell ; the young fellow, Dick Beres- ford, was almost her only companion of her own age, or anything much nearer it than her father's. Why her circle of friendship should be so small, he himself only knew. It cer- tainly was not owing to any want of attrac- tiveness in the girl herself. As she and her friend turned in their walk, and moved away from him, Zietsman muttered :

"They are young and thoughtless — care will come soon enough. They like each other — and are glad. They may love each other, and be happy — for a time. They will at least be rich and greatly courted— while the money lasts. While the money lasts! Faugh! While Money lasts ! "

12 A NEW MESSIAH

The last enigmatical clause was added with a vehemence which almost carried the speaker's voice to those who had so innocently aroused his temper. After he had spoken, Zietsman waited for a moment irresolute. Then he flung away violently the end of the cigar he had been smoking, and went into his house. His manner at the moment was as singular as his monologue.

It was a curious country house this, some twenty miles from London. Outwardly it was remarkable for its splendid conservatories and fine trees in the extensive grounds, and inwardly for much that must wait for the story. The master of this house spent most of his leisure (which was slight), when at home (which was seldom), in the largest of these, conservatories. This fine structure abutted a wing of the house facing directly away from the main avenue, and overlooking a secluded portion of the grounds which was kept abso- lutely private by the erection of an enormous gaol-like wall around it. The plot thus enclosed was similar in character to the rest of the domain save in one respect. In it you were cut off, not only from the household,

A CURIOUS COUNTRY HOUSE 13

but from all of the house except the particular wing to which it was attached. It was as completely isolated as though in a different county.

Zietsman went at once to this conservatory and stayed there for the remainder of the evening, with a brief interval for dinner. Like the house to which it belonged, the con- servatory was in some ways a curious variant on its type. Bright-plumaged little birds twittered and nestled in miniature forests of unfamiliar trees. Beautiful flowers from many lands rioted in rainbow hues throughout its whole extent : edelweiss from the moun- tains ; lichens from the poles ; growths from the ocean beds; — the ends of the earth had been ransacked to fill this emporium from all lati- tudes ; the depths of the sea contributed to its marvels. Neither zone nor element mattered. Herein no habitat was sacred. Geography was abolished.

This extraordinary compound was strangely lighted when the sun went down ; not by gas, nor by electricity, but by some new illuminant, beside which the handiwork of Edison and Swan was of no more account than the rush-

14 A NEW MESSIAH

light of our fathers. For here was light itself rather than its caricatures. Press a knob — up rose the sun ! Touch a button, and the daylight died ! This, in brief, was a practical application of a recent invention or discovery made by Zietsman, partly for the occupation of his leisure, but mainly with an ulterior purpose. Another more far-reaching develop- ment of the same principle had already been achieved by him, as will duly appear, but, meantime, we are in the conservatory which was in every way unique. It was here, in this storehouse of miracles, that Leslie Zietsman always retired, it was supposed, to work out the more abstruse problems of the mysterious business by which he had amassed a consider- able fortune, of the real nature of which not even his own daughter had the vaguest idea. He often did unravel difficult mental puzzles here, but on the present occasion he threw himself into a chair, lit a cigar and said p osaically enough for the most commonplace surroundings :

"They will never miss me."

He did not speak in a hurt or complaining tone, and in his voice there was now no

A CURIOUS COUNTEY HOUSE 15

vehemence. He simply spoke as though he stated an obvious fact. And he was rio-ht. The young people did not miss him, or not inconsolably. Zietsman did not read as he sat there alone, or visibly occupy himself in any way except by smoking placidly and continuously. From time to time, and always as he was lighting a fresh cigar, he glanced up leisurely at a clock set in the wall opposite to him, and muttered to himself audibly but with- out impatience. He was expecting a visitor, although the hour was late. The clock had struck nine, and the sound of the last chime was dying away when his man opened the door leading from the house, and announced : "Mr. O'Mara!"

" Very glad to see you, O Mara ; better late than never I " Zietsman said, cordially, as he arose to meet his visitor. O'Mara, an Irishman and a detective— not always a congenial profession for a full-blooded Celt — advanced with enthusiasm, and exclaimed with a brogue which age could not wither nor custom stale : " Begob, I'm on their track at last ! " O'Mara's circular face and close-cropped hair gave him a bull-dog appearance, which was all

16 A NEW MESSIAH

one would remember of him — except his eyes. Like those of his host, O'Mara's eyes were peculiar. Think of the eyes of a carnivore robbed of its kill, and you may, by exaggerating the comparison, imagine O'Mara's. They were in- human in their restless energy, incessantly asking questions and seeking answers for them. He could not, it is true, from the fold in a man's trousers describe the hotel at which he was staying, but he could make a fair guess at his character by the way they bagged at the knee.

" I am very glad to hear it," Zietsman said, warmly, in answer to O'Mara's exclamation. " But that, important as it is, will keep. How is the ' Caoutchouc Substitute ' going ? My agents have not wired as they promised."

"Going!" said O'Mara, sharply. "It isn't going. It's gone." He banged his fist on a table fitted with every contrivance a smoker could desire. " Yes, the ' Caoutchouc Sub- stitute' is gone to — er — smash. It is prac- tically taken up by your own agents."

" The wreckers again ! " Zietsman cried.

" Confound them ! " O'Mara added.

Zietsman arose from his chair and took a few steps from it, then back to it. He kept

A CURIOUS COUNTRY HOUSE 17

his eyes away from O'Mara, who watched him with a sympathy that was more than professional. The fact that Zietsman's scheme was planned fundamentally to fleece the public was a matter entirely outside the interest of the man of law. The public had not retained him in this particular business. Zietsman had.

" These miserable investors, will they never learn that the wretches who pursue us are preying on them ? "

"Not a bit of them," O'Mara interrupted. " Besides, it was your own infernal pride. You refused to square the papers — I mean advertise. Divil thank you ! What could you expect? "

" I did not advertise this, because I did not think it necessary. The prospectus should have floated itself, although it had not a title on the title-page," Zietsman said, with a touch of weariness as he resumed his seat.

" It should," O'Mara agreed, lighting a cigar. " It should have swum, but it happens to have sunk. My bit of money is gone too, so I'm on this job with a heart and a half, as the saying is. By the way, Mr. Zietsman, your tips are very in-and-out sort of prophesying.

18 A NEW MESSIAH

One day you land a man on an extraordinarily easy winner, the next you give him a non- starter. But I'll say this, you always back your own fancy."

" You will recover whatever money you have lost," Zietsman replied, coldly, " and something over before long."

" I hope so," O'Mara snapped. Then he asked, " Is it too late for business ? Like to hear where these gentlemen who wrecked the ' Caoutchouc ' meet ? Name of street, number of house, and such details ? " O'Mara ticked off the items on his fingers with relish.

"Go on," Zietsman said, after a pause, in which both men smoked silently — and watched each other. " You have a clue ? "

" I have a dozen of clues. I have a well- blazed trail. You yourself nearly had it when you sent me to Edinburgh that last journey."

11 And you found ? "

"No I didn't. I didn't find anything. I lost something there."

"Lost what?"

" I lost the trail there."

Zietsman passed the decanter, and O'Mara helped himself without demur. " And you

A CURIOUS COUNTRY HOUSE 19

tell me you have now discovered ? "

Zietsman was beginning again when O'Mara interposed.

" I have discovered that some men meet in an empty house, No. 25, John Street, Soho. It seems stretching the long arm of coincidence far to connect them with the wreckers of all the companies you have floated, promoted, financed, or whatever you call it, in the last month. But I have more than suspicion to go on. I have reasons for the opinion I have formed, and later on, I will have evidence. I am almost sure already they are your men. On Friday next, I will be quite sure — or sorry."

"Why, Friday?"

" Because I am going to grab the lot on Thursday. That is their night, or one of their nights, of meeting. By the way, Zietsman, it does seem a bit 'off' doesn't it, that the law should make such nice distinctions ; that it should be so very legal to wreck a company one way, and so grossly illegal to wreck it another. These men certainly did lift a good bit of your money, but others have done the same, in a more respectable way, of course.

20 A NEW MESSIAH

Still there doesn't really seem so much difference "

"Ethically, you mean," Zietsman corrected. " Practically, there is a great difference. The one ' operator ' goes to the House of Lords, and the other to gaol. That is a serious difference."

" All the same," O'Mara persisted, " it's six of one and half-a-dozen of the other."

"The positions, indeed, might often be reversed with great propriety," Zietsman said, airily, and deftly turned the conversation from that phase of the subject.

They sat for another hour discussing the possible capture and other matters unconnected with it. Then O'Mara got up, threw his cloak — which he had brought in with him — carelessly over his shoulders, and said, with an emphasis which suggested that the iteration was intentional :

" About these John Street men ! Last time you nearly put me on the right track. This time there will be no mistake. My ar- rangements are complete. The men are mine."

" I hope so," Zietsman said, slowly ; " but it would be a pity to spoil everything by being

A CURIOUS COUNTRY HOUSE 21

in too great a hurry. Take my advice and — er — let your plan mature."

" My plan's matured," O'Mara answered, positively, and left the conservatory. A man — the same who had shown him in — was waiting in an adjoining anteroom to see him out. As the strong light from the open door of the conservatory fell full on this man's face O'Mara started suddenly, and stepped back. The man moved imperceptibly into a shadow thrown by a dwarfed Japanese tree, and the detective said with a laugh :

" Begob, Johnson, you gave me a start."

" I am not very well to-day, sir," Johnson explained, suavely ; " and in the strong light I am afraid my face is rather ghastly."

" Ghastly is not the word, Johnson. c Ghostly ' is nearer it, but not quite right, either," O'Mara rattled out. " It's something curiously suggestive — er — illusive about your face Johnson, that bothers me, and I hate to be puzzled by a face. Professional interest, you know, Johnson, purely professional. Your face interests me. I'll think it over. Good- night ! "

Johnson bowed Mr. O'Mara out with correct

22 A NEW MESSIAH

impassivity and closed the door with, as it were, lingering regret. Then he went back to the conservatory and had a little talk with his master. When this was over, Zietsman went quickly up the main staircase, and on his way looked into a room which was called the library, but which was more like a stock- broker's office than a storehouse of literature. Prospectuses were there in lieu of portfolios, and great heaps of share lists instead of books. A telephone instrument was out of place in a chamber usually sacred to the classics. The fire had burnt low. Before the remains of it a young girl sat cosily curled up in an arm- chair and fast asleep. The book which had proved a sufficient soporific lay open on her lap. Her dark hair fell in a silky mass over her bosom. Her long lashes and well marked brows showed black against the clear com- plexion of her face. It is not given to many to look attractive when asleep. This girl was one of the happy exceptions. Her dreams must have been pleasant. A soft tenderness was on the sleeping face. A thousand little loves played in the red curves of her parted lips. To-night she was the sweetest child.

A CUKIOUS COUNTRY HOUSE 23

To-morrow — but who knows what a day may bring forth. Time is cruel. Time is always in a hurry. And sometimes we would rather wait.

As Zietsman stood looking down at the sleeping girl a wonderful change passed over his face, altering its expression so absolutely as to render him in appearance literally a new man. There was more than tenderness in his eyes — tenderness and remorse, perhaps despair. The clenched fingers of his clasped hands were painfully interlaced ; his attitude was that of a man torn by intense mental anguish and counter purposes. At last he whispered, in a hoarse grasp :

" Ah Nellie, Nellie — and I would have died for you ! "

Then he put aside his emotion, or the appearance of it, and gently awakened the girl. She started with a nervous cry, but when she recognized her disturber, she said with relief:

" Why, dad, you frightened me. I thought it was a burglar."

" Nellie, you must not sit up in this way," Zietsman remonstrated ; " you must be off to bed at once instead of catching cold here."

24 A NEW MESSIAH

" Very well, I'll go on one condition," Nell promised, " that you don't sit up here either. It's horrible the way you lock yourself up in this room night after night, with these hateful financial papers. Besides, I really believe you go to sleep. Last night I knocked at the door ever so often and you never answered."

" You must not do that again, Nell," Zietsman said, almost sharply. Then he added hastily, in his usual manner with her : "I was experimenting in what I might call the higher Finance, and did not wish to be dis- turbed. The way of the company promoter is hard," he added, with a mirthless laugh.

" You were just asleep, that was all," Nell protested.

" But, Nell, you really must not disturb me here again — er — of course I heard you last night. When I lock this door it means, ' no admittance,' on or off business. It really does."

"I wish you would not sit up so late at night, and so many nights," Nell persisted a little irrelevantly. " You are getting quite old — not, of course, really old — I mean old looking, this last year."

A CURIOUS COUNTRY HOUSE 25

" Which is a pity — but you must not scold me to-night. I am tired — or worried."

" Scold you ! The idea ! " Her disclaimer was playfully cut short and further remon- strance postponed.

An hour later, when the house was still, a man with snow-white hair — a very old man — stole out of it with as much caution as if he had robbed it. He went by a curious way, too. Having entered the library and locked the door after him, he fumbled for a moment at a massive bookcase standing in a corner of the room. After many intricate devices he released a confining- lever and moved the heavy piece of furniture easily and noise- lessly back on a hinge. A corridor was thereby exposed, and as the old man entered this passage the bookcase swung to again silently and fastened itself automatically as firmly as before.

The corridor was at first in absolute dark- ness, but the old man carried a lamp which, when he had shot back the shutters, showed him sufficient light to see his way. He went down many steep steps and then walked quickly along a fairly level, concrete-walled

26 A NEW MESSIAH

passage which dipped under the foundations of the house and outside ran for a considerable distance under ground. The exit door from this was opened by a repetition of the hocus- pocus at the book-case, and the old man emerged from the corridor in a garden-house situated in the specially enclosed grounds and some score of yards distant from the house itself. There the old man put out his lamp and went cautiously by an over-grown path through the shrubbery to a little gate in the high wall.

Passing through this gate, the old man made his way with a facility that suggested familiarity among some still denser wood to a main road. This was not the highway off which the avenue to the house ran, nor was there indeed much similarity in the two roads, although the distance between them was not great. Slight as that distance was, the whole character of the landscape was widely different. On one side it was strictly suburban, notwith- standing its distance from town. On the other, the open country stretched out for miles. Also, on the one road a heavy traffic was in constant movement, while on the other

A CURIOUS COUNTRY HOUSE 27

nearly an unbroken solitude prevailed. Here, on this lonely road a cab was waiting. The driver was not only awake but on the alert. It was a strange place to expect a fare.

Into this cab the decrepit old man climbed with the feebleness of age. He seated himself with painstaking care, lest his old bones should suffer, and the cab was immediately driven off at speed on the way to London town.

CHAPTER II

A TERRIBLE ALTERNATIVE

Next morning Zietsman was late for breakfast. He usually kept shocking hours. Nell saw with anxiety that the grey streaks in his hair were showing more plainly than ever, and that the crow's-feet under his eyes were more deeply graven than she had thought. Certainly, her protest of the previous night had not been made too soon. Her father was ageing fast. That truth admitted no denial. It was too obvious. Under the circumstances it was heartless, she told herself, to think of young Beresford's visit, a daily duty which was always promised beforehand with as much earnestness as if it had been preceded by a long series of defaults. Under ordinary circumstances of course such agreeable reflection would have been pardonable — but her father was looking far from well.

28

A TERRIBLE ALTERNATIVE 29

During the day the brain -weary financier brightened noticeably, and when the afternoon and Dick Beresford arrived simultaneously, he appeared to be almost in his usual health. Dick and Nell spent the evening out of doors as was their custom, so Zietsman was un- disturbed at his studies in the library, to which he retired early. He had important business to discharge. This was Wednes- day, and on the next night O'Mara's coup was to be brought off. The nefarious syndicate which had certainly wrecked his last, and had most probably wrecked many of his prior well-considered schemes for the transference of other people's money to his own banking account — this syndicate's days were numbered. O'Mara had as much evidence as would convict the whole gang of various criminal con- spiracies.

Nell could not induce the solitary librarian to come to dinner that evening, but although this gave her some concern, it must be admitted that she and Beresford got on very well without him. This was their first tite-d-tete meal, and in the agreeable

30 A NEW MESSIAH

amenities of that novel experience they found much to interest them. Altogether, they bore the absence of the master of the house with considerable fortitude. Their con- versation had no particular narrative value, save for one biographical interlude which may be given.

" Isn't it strange, Nellie," (they had got so far) said Beresford, when in another room they had drawn their chairs up to the fire, and within a measurable distance of each other, " we know each other so little, yet know each other so well ? Sounds paradoxical, doesn't it ? "

" What does it matter how it sounds, when it's true ? " said Nell.

" All the same," Beresford continued, " I think we should tell each other at least who we individually are now that we are getting such — er — chums."

" J think it would be very desirable," Nell agreed with great solemnity, " now that we are such — er — chums."

" Then here goes," Beresford began deter- minedly. " I live, as you know, over the way — five miles over the way. My mother

&

A TERRIBLE ALTERNATIVE 31

is an invalid, who does not go out, and does not receive. That you also know, likewise that I have passed my final in medicine. Now for more light on this interesting subject ! My uncle is a retired Indian officer, who lives in Brighton as best he can, seeing he has no liver. He proposes that I should go for a voyage round the world, and then settle down in a practice here, for both of which he is willing to pay, so it's not for me to object. I have no other near relations in this country, a few cousins in Australia, and — that's all ! "

" My name's Nellie — Eleanor Evelyn Ziets- man, in full. We are not foreigners, although ' Zietsman ' has a foreign look about it. My father kept me at school, until I was practically, if politely, turned out of it as past the age-limit at the place. After that, we have lived here when we are at home. My father is — is something in the city. It is some- thing bringing in plenty of money, which is not a bad thing in moderation. But it is killing him with anxiety, which is horrible. We seem to spend an awful lot of money — I don't know how; and live very retired — I don't

32 A NEW MESSIAH

know why. And I think that's really all there is to say on my side."

Thereon the conversation changed to Beres- ford's voyage round the world, and similar extensive subjects of an impersonal nature, so we need not follow it. When it was over, and her partner in it gone — after many false starts — Nell went to look for her father, but found that, although he had spent some time in the conservatory, he had not remained there very long, and it was believed he had returned to the library. Here, Nell did not care to intrude in view of the warning she had so recently received. Then with a touch of regret for sending her "chum" away so early, only to discover that her father did not desire her society, she went to her room, and finding some scrappy notes she had received from Beresford, on various shadowy pretexts, she read them all over again very carefully, lest any important matters mentioned in them might have heen overlooked.

Late that night the singular old gentleman again left Beechmount by the same singular and devious route. He met his cab at the same place, got into it with the same feeble-

A TERRIBLE ALTERNATIVE 33

ness of great age, and drove off at the same smart pace on the road to London. Five miles city-ward this cab was driven, and then pulled up. The old gentleman stepped down, said something to his driver in a low voice, and dismissed him without the formality of a fee. It seemed therefore that the cab- man's job was a permanency, or that he trusted his fare. A hundred yards further on, another cab awaited the aged but now more active traveller. In this he drove right into the city. He paid this cab- man off on the Embankment, and, calling a hansom, drove to the neighbourhood of Soho.

Very late that night, or very early next morning, for the midnight hour was past, a man so well muffled as to be almost dis- guised, stopped at the door of 25, John Street. There was nothing surreptitious about his movements, and his gait would have been recognised anywhere, by anyone who had ever noticed it. Zietsman's particular swing, it could not be called a swagger, was unmis- takeable. He opened the door with a latch- key, and went into the house. There was

34 A NEW MESSIAH

no one in the hall, but apparently he was not expecting any one there, for he passed on quickly with a strange confidence of movement, considering the house and the locality. He certainly knew his way. The stairs creaked audibly as he went up the worm-eaten steps, and sometimes there was a crunch of rotten wood as he trod on a mouldering patch. Up and up he went to the garret at last, and there knocked in a peculiar way on a closed door. A rough voice bade him enter. He did so.

" You are late, Mr. Chairman," the same rough voice said, harshly, as Zietsman entered the room.

" That is my business," Zietsman answered, coldly. He took his place immediately at the head of a plain deal table, where it seemed the seat had been reserved for him. On this table, and all over the room, on chairs, side-tables, and on the floor, prospectuses of public companies were lying promiscuously, in an untidy litter. There were only four other men in the room at the time, but from the unoccupied chairs, it was evident that the company was unusually small. In fact,

A TERRIBLE ALTERNATIVE 35

it was only the chiefs — the inner circle of the society — who were present.

Two of these were in appearance ordinary City men. They were really extraordinary City men. Their faces were as well known in the back streets of " Change " as that of the speaker in the House of Commons. They were perhaps the most efficient company wreckers in the world — swindlers with, at least, a European reputation. One of the other two, he who had spoken, was a coarse, sensual-looking, and in every way repellent man. He is easily introduced. He had many times oifended Society, and in consequence Society had wisely put him under restraint — for a time. Thereafter Society had unwisely turned him adrift to fend for himself, with no resource save to prey on it. He was doing so. The fourth was only a rascal on the make, a gentleman beginning to go wrong, and taking an interest in it. On the table, a shaded and shabby oil-lamp shed a poor light and pungent fumes over the apartment. Bad as this light was, it showed where the plaster had fallen in places from the walls and the sloped ceiling

36 A NEW MESSIAH

of the wretched room. Altogether, it was the last place in the world, and the last company, in which one would expect to find a cultured suburban gentleman, with a taste for company promoting, and the higher finance.

" Is it all right ? " Zietsman asked, abruptly.

" Yes, it is all right," the heavy-faced man answered shortly, and not in the best humour.

" What do we draw ? "

" Twenty thousand."

" Pah ! It should have been four times that. It's not so very right then in that direction, and it's all wrong in another."

" All wrong ! ' the four men exclaimed in chorus.

" Yes, all wrong. That idiot, O'Mara, is not so easily fooled as I thought. He has happened on our real trail at last — by chance, probably. He will be here to-morrow."

" Here to-morrow ! "

Down in the street below there was a crash that shook the house.

" He is here to-night ! " Zietsman could be imperturbable when he tried, but he flinched for a second as he said this.

A TERRIBLE ALTERNATIVE 37

" Heavens ! What is that ? " the heavy- faced man gulped, with a fat gasp.

" It's the street door burst in," Zietsman answered, now as cool as if he were receiving company in his own house. The fat man partially collapsed. The other three looked at their chief steadily. They were courageous men, and in addition they had a belief as strong as faith that while Zietsman was with them their courage would not be too severely tried. They were wrong for once. There are cracks in the best creed.

" The door inside is stronger," Zietsman went on hastily. " It will stop them for some minutes, unless they have a blasting charge. I did not think O'Mara would be here to-night. We must get away. You must get away. Get out somehow ! Get on the roof ! Get anywhere ! I can deal with O'Mara by myself, but not if you are here."

To this Hemmingway, the fat man, said half-heartedly :

" What do we care about the police any more than you ? These " — indicating the litter of prospectuses — " would not incriminate us. If they did where do you come in ? "

38 A NEW MESSIAH

" When you get out," Zietsman snarled His eyes were ugly. His expression had altered at the first note of danger till his best friend, if he had one, would hardly have recognized him. He said suddenly and savagely to Hemmingway : "I could have you hanged, and you know it. And you, you fool, you do not even know my name."

Hemmingway's blotchy face went white in curious patches. He was not prepared for Zietsman's sudden fury. He had never before seen him in the ferocious mood. He was overmatched as well as unnerved. But he did not give in without a word. It cost him dear. He went over to Zietsman and said in a low voice so that the others should not hear :

" I know more than you think. And I will tell more than you expect — when it suits myself."

" I shall remember that," Zietsman answered, without looking at him.

While this wrangle was going on, the other men waited with a stolid patience for Zietsman's action. The futility of any ordinary attempt at flight was too obvious to stand a

A TERRIBLE ALTERNATIVE 39

moment's examination. So they did nothing with the best possible grace, and waited on their leader. He did not keep them long. Placing a chair on one of the side-tables which he had moved directly under the skylight in the roof, he said quietly, but decisively, for there was not a moment to lose :

" You had better chance it, gentlemen. The inside door won't stand long if they hew on it like that, and our side exit is already in their hands." Great hammering could be heard far down on the ground floor. To Hemmingway, Zietsman cautioned : " You are not active, so be careful. You may lose your life if you do get out ; but you are certain to lose your liberty if you don't."

All but Hemmingway got through the sky- light without much trouble. The fat man had a harder job to get his big body out. Besides, he strongly objected to leave even the temporary security of the garret for the immediate danger of the roof. He had an excellent head for brandy, but a poor one for climbing ; and many a mountaineer would have hesitated at this venture. It was a terrible alternative, but it was too late now

40 A NEW MESSIAH

to flinch from it, for the door below was burst in with a great crash, and there was the sound of many feet running up the stairs. He was already nearly out. Another moment and he was on the roof — and sorry for it.

Willie Penrose, the youngest man of the party, had, as has been suggested, still some conscience left. He was waiting to help Hemmingway up to the apex of the roof where the other two had scrambled. As the second pair crawled up the sloping roof Hemming- way's nerve gave way utterly. He slipped downward a couple of feet and caught hold of Penrose who was keeping close to him.

" For God's sake let me go ! " Penrose cried.

The men above shuddered, but did not stir.

" You'll drag us both down if you hold me like that. Let me go and I'll help you up." But Penrose might as well have pleaded in ten fathoms of water with a man who could not swim. Worse than that, he was talking to a man in the most dangerous stage of temporary insanity, a maniac, mad with fear — murderous and suicidal.

" Come down ! ' Hemmingway whispered.

A TERRIBLE ALTERNATIVE 41

" Down — down ! ' He clutched Penrose's throat with his right hand, and, putting his full weight on the strain, twisted his victim head downward toward the eave.

The men above shut their eyes and held on hard where they were.

Penrose did not plead any more. He cupped his hands instinctivelv like suckers on the smooth slates and strove desperately to hold on. But they still slipped slowly down. The perspiration broke in beads on the young fellow's forehead. His breath came in great gulps. Their slow progress was once, in some unaccountable way, arrested, but before Penrose could cry out for Zietsman's help his fast paralysing hands let go, and they slipped again. Half the street below was now in their view. A little more and they were staring — perpendicularly down.

" It will be a long drop," Hemmingway said, in a conversational tone.

Penrose groaned once, then held his breath.

" Excuse me if I pain you, but I wish to make sure that you will come with me," Hemmingway added, and clutched Penrose by the throat more tightly still.

42 A NEW MESSIAH

The men above heard the maniac jabber. But what could they do ?

Penrose gasped with the choking grip on his throat, and fought hard to hold on. The street lamps seemed an abysmal depth down. A midge in a great-coat stalked to and fro — pretending it was a policeman. They would be over in a moment. And then !

Penrose's foot caught on a rafter where a damaged slate had given way under them as they were slipping down. There was a chance of life yet. It would have been impossible to drag himself back if the maniac had main- tained his choking grip. But Hemmingway's hysteria seemed to pass with this chance of life, in so far at least that he lay still, and did not hinder if he did not help his own rescue.

They got back at last. How they did it Penrose never really knew. He regained normal consciousness to find himself holding on to a shaky chimney, and Hemmingway sitting astride the coping and chattering some imbecile gibberish.

CHAPTER III

THE VENGEANCE OF THE VEHM

O'Mara left some of his men to search the lower rooms of the house while he himself, with the remainder, made their way with speed to the garret in which Zietsman was waiting for them. They found him with a sheaf of prospectuses in his hands. He did not seem surprised to see them, and if he was pleased they thought he disguised his satis- faction very well. His manner was frankly indifferent.

" Good night, O'Mara ! " Zietsman said, coolly. " You don't wait to be asked to come in, or knock, or any of that ceremonious nonsense. You don't even wait for the front door to be opened. You just walk in — and bring it with you."

" In the name of heaven, Zietsman, what are you doing here ? " O'Mara stammered. He took a chair and sat down as if he were

43

44 A NEW MESSIAH

paying an afternoon visit. He really did not know what he was doing for a full minute.

" I am going over these," Zietsman answered, throwing the papers on the table. " I see they have been on our track longer than we thought — since the beginning, indeed." He looked sharply at the policemen and then towards O'Mara. The detective asked his men to step outside the room and wait on the landing. Zietsman pushed the door to after them and went on carelessly : " What I said was good enough for your men. It is hardly good enough for you."

" Hardly," O'Mara agreed, drily.

" Quite so. You meant to make a raid here. I wanted to get some information here. You could, no doubt, have sent the gang, if you had caught them, to penal servitude. I wanted to find out from them how the thing was done. It would, I suppose, have been your duty to warn them that anything they said would be used as evidence against them, and so forth. It would have been my business to get all they knew from them and let them go to— er — Spain without further interference.

THE VENGEANCE OF THE VEHM 45

" If you convicted a score of men, or a hundred, what difference would it make to me ? You would have discharged your duty. What do I care about you or your duty when my own purpose — the purpose for which, directly or indirectly, I employed you — is not furthered ? The ends of justice ? Justice be hanged. I want the money these men have robbed me of, or the money their fellows will continue to rob me of. You hunted them down, I will admit. And possibly my inter- ference has been ill-timed. If so, it's my own loss. Anyhow, the birds have flown."

"So it seems. How did you get through that inside door in the passage which we had to burst in ? ': O'Mara asked. His face was now a mask as impenetrable as that of the man to whom he spoke. In the stress of circumstances the question was utterly un- foreseen by Zietsman. It did not, however, stagger him for a moment.

" If I told you that, O'Mara, you would know as much as I do. I have a way of my own of getting through doors ; and my way is not your way."

" It is not," O'Mara said, stolidly.

46 A NEW MESSIAH

"No," said Zietsman, "it is not." He did not add another word, pending O'Mara's next move. He had not long to wait.

" You allowed me to tell you I was coming here to-morrow night and did not think it necessary to inform me that you proposed to forestall me ? "

" I had not formed that purpose at the time," Zietsman explained. " But we need not argue the matter further. It seems as if we have made a mess of it between us. Perhaps I should not have come at all. And you will forgive me if I say I don't think you should have come — the way you have come. They will hardly trouble this place again when they find the front door off its hinges, and the — er — other little structural alterations you have made in the premises. Oh, Scotland Yard ! " Zietsman cried in a boisterous tone, as he pulled on his overcoat, "The evil that you have done will long live after you."

" How did you propose to communicate with the Yard if the gang had turned up ? " O'Mara asked, in the same frigid voice he had used since he recovered from the shock

THE VENGEANCE OF THE VEHM 47

of meeting Zietsman. " Would you have surrounded them and taken them prisoners as my illustrious countryman did the seven French ? '

" Something simpler would have served," Zietsman answered, drawing on his gloves.

On this O'Mara arose, and stood with his back to the door. It was an act of unconscious caution on his part, for the policemen on the landing would have prevented an escape if it had been attempted. Zietsman observed O'Mara's movement but paid no attention to it. He went over to a corner of the room where some ramshackle remnants of furniture had been piled. These he threw aside and discovered thereby a telephone instrument, evidently newly fitted to the wall.

" I have had this place specially connected with the Yard," Zietsman said, lazily, " for this special business. It is strictly irregular, of course, but even the official mind is amenable to circumstances — some circumstances. Don't ask me, just at the moment how I managed it. It is too long a story to tell you now. Some day, I may inflict it on you "

" I will put up with the infliction for the

48 A NEW MESSIAH

sake of the information," O'Mara snapped. " Go on. You interest me extremely."

" So glad ! " Zietsman remarked, carelessly and resumed : " I had to get the landlord's consent here, too, but that was easier. He charged liberally for it, however, and might have kept my secret better. He must have — er — acquainted his regular tenants. Sort of esprit de corps, I assume. He is certainly the greatest ruffian of them all. Better ring up the Yard to see if the special wire has been well and truly laid."

O'Mara rang on the instrument and was answered directly.

" Who are you ? " O'Mara called.

" Ask me another," came back to him. " Who are you ? "

" Peter O'Mara, at 25, John Street,"

" Peter the Great ! "

" No. Peter O'Mara," the detective, said, crossly. He was in no humour for the slightest levity. Through the instrument came :

'* My remark was intended as a compliment. This is the Criminal Investigation Department, Scotland Yard. You've got them ? "

" No, I've missed them. Did you know

THE VENGEANCE OF THE VEHM 49

there was another man in this ? And if so, why wasn't I informed ? "

" He was only a harmless crank. We paid no attention to him."

" You were quite right ; which remark is intended as a sarcasm," O'Mara said, bitterly, and replaced the receiver with a smack.

"Will you answer me one question, Mr. Zietsman ? What's your game ? I am — directly or indirectly — your confidential agent, you know. What is the real meaning of all this tomfoolery ? "

" Current fiction ! " Zietsman answered, with a shrug. " At the moment, no one can over- look this branch of liberal education. One might as well ignore gambling at Monte Carlo, or golf at St. Andrew's, as the curri- culum of the amateur detective in this interesting city. Any further questions ? "

" Not at present," O'Mara said, and passed out.

When the sound of the receding footsteps had died away on the creaking stairs, and the men who had occupied the commanding, but otherwise undesirable, point of view from

50 A. NEW MESSIAH

the roof were dragged back through the skylight, Zietsman remarked, languidly :

" It was a close call that."

" Too close for us," one of the City men said shortly, as he helped to bandage an ugly tear on his friend's hand. "We have been considering our positions while you were interviewing your detective associate, and we have come to the result that this is not quite our line of business. So you will take our resignations as from to-night, if you please."

" I will," said Zietsman, " and if I didn't please I wouldn't take them."

Penrose was still very white. He had, by no means, recovered from the recent shock. Hemmingway was absolutely livid. The latter poured out a glass of raw spirits from a flask, but his hand shook so he could hardly raise the tumbler to his lips. When he did manage this the glass clattered uncannily against his chattering teeth. Fortified for a few moments and then half dazed by the liquor, Hemmingway proposed an immediate retreat, and his suggestion was quickly acted on. " Resignation," he said, thickly, as they prepared to go, " hardly describes the position,

THE VENGEANCE OF THE VEHM 51

nor disband — dispersed by the police is nearer the mark, but even that is better than arrested by the police." He laughed vacuously at his own obviously accurate remark and when halfway through his hilarity stopped abruptly and burst out crying. He was still very hysterical.

Zietsman was the last to leave the room. Before following his friends, or associates, he went to the telephone which, though still uncovered, had not been noticed by the others. What he said into the instrument was there- fore heard by no one but himself— and the man at the other end of the wire. It was a short, but important message, and it had a far-reaching influence on the future careers of the extra- ordinary City men whose resignations had been recently accepted. The men all left the house by an alley which led out in another street some distance from that by which O'Mara had entered it, where indeed he had still a number of men posted on the watch. As Zietsman and his party were hurrying along this foetid quagmire, Hemmingway lagged behind. His slow waddle was not a speedy gait at best and where the "going"

52 A NEW MESSIAH

was so unconscionably heavy, it was the worst possible means of transit. Approaching the street which by comparison might be called a thoroughfare, Penrose noticed that the com- pany was a man short, and drew Zietsman's attention to the absentee.

" Which reminds me," Zietsman said enig- matically, and then added : " Push on to the street. I'll go back for Hemmingway and drag him on. You have had your share of him, Penrose, for one night "

" A number of nights," Penrose corrected.

" And it would not be fair to give you another turn with him. Wait for me — I mean us— at the corner. But don't show yourself in the street. You, gentlemen — to the resigned members — I will not detain further. You are free from this moment. You can go, if you wish, straight to Scotland Yard with a full account of this night's proceedings. But it is only fair to tell you that — er — in fact, you are expected there. They will be, so to speak, waiting up for you."

" What do you mean ? ' one of the men asked through his set teeth. " How do you know that we've been informed on ? "

THE VENGEANCE OF THE VEHM 53

" I know it because I informed on you myself. I did so before leaving our committee room. I have had a telephone fitted up there, which, I noticed, escaped your attention. Good-night ! "

Zietsman went back up the alley and the others hurried on towards the street, two of them swearing at length and with emphasis. Penrose said nothing.

" Well, lazybones, can't you get up a bit more speed than that ? ' Zietsman said, in a friendly voice, when he encountered Hemming- way groping his way, ankle-deep in the mud. " Take my arm, and I'll give you a tow."

Hemmingway put out his left arm which was nearest Zietsman, and muttered crossly :

" Here, take hold of me and haul me on. It has been quite an interesting night out, all things considered." He stopped and said passionately, " It's the last for me at all events."

" It is ! " said Zietsman.

Zietsman raised the arm outstretched to him as though to get a firm grip of it. He held it up a moment and, passing his free hand under it, did something which caused

54 A NEW MESSIAH

Hemming way to start violently and then sit down in the mud in which he had been stand- ing. Hemmingway pressed both his hands convulsively to his side ; cleared his throat once or twice in an unconvincing way as though he wished to speak but had forgotten what he wanted to say. Then he sank down on his side, turned over on his face, and lay still.

" Where's Hemmingway ? ' Penrose whis- pered, when Zietsman joined him — alone.

" He's all right, come on ! ':

" They hurried on for many streets without further speech, and at last Zietsman hailed a belated hansom. In this they drove to the Embankment. They alighted there and walked a hundred yards before Zietsman spoke. He stopped suddenly and said :

" Steady ! Wait a minute. It is as I expected. • I was followed to No. 25, and there's the man talking to the cabby who was to wait for me here." Continuing in the staccato sentences in which he was speaking, Zietsman gave Penrose his orders : "Remain here in the shadow. I am certain to be followed. This isn't a man of O'Mara's.

THE VENGEANCE OF THE VEHM 55

His men are probably after us too. We must dodge this fellow if we can't out-drive him. He is sure to have a cab. There it is. You can scarcely see it from here. When my man drops his whip and stops, you slip in. They need not know there are two of us. I do not wish them to know that there are two of us. Understand ? "

Penrose assented and took his place. Ziets- man walked on openly ; hailed his hansom with apparent unconcern ; got into it and drove back toward Penrose's hiding place. At this point the cab stopped as arranged, and the cabman ofot down from his seat and went back a few paces looking for the whip which he had dropped according to his instructions. He was nearly run over by another cab which was following at a furious pace. Before the strong language used by both cabmen had subsided, Penrose was in the first hansom along with Zietsman. The pursuers must then be engaged only on a tracking down ex- pedition, for if they intended any immediate action they could not have had a better oppor- tunity. Thus the race began.

"About Hemmingway!" Penrose said, as

56 A NEW MESSIAH

soon as they were bowling along at the best pace the horse could show. " You did not tell me how you got rid of him."

" I did not."

" You said you were going to bring him along."

" I did. But you see I did not bring him along. In short, and to dismiss an uninterest- ing subject, Hemmingway had ceased to be useful to me. From a remark he let fall be- fore you took him out on the roof I gathered that it was his intention to become dangerous to me. There could, of course, be only one end to that."

" What on earth do you mean ? What happened to him ? "

The answer was short :

" The Vengeance of the Vehm ! "

CHAPTER IV

ANOTHER VICTIM

Zietsman's driver tried several smart tricks to elude the pursuers, but they would not be shaken off. They stuck closely to the chase, and the interminable lines of lamps and suburban avenues were still with them when the foremost horse began to show distress. No doubt the following horse must be equally hard pressed, but he was not worse, for no alteration in the pace made the least difference to the length of the lead. The streets at last were behind them, the terraces followed, and even the villas became slowly fewer and farther between. Yet the pursuit still kept on, not a yard was gained, nor a chance of easing the foaming horse further than what was afforded by the macadam under his hoofs instead of the paving of the streets. The rattle and clatter of the two horses and cabs, which had crashed through silent thoroughfares with a riot that

57

58 A NEW MESSIAH

made many a sleepy policeman stare, was now reduced to a more melodious hum on a road dulled with the mud of recent rain, A thick crust coated the racing cabs ; the hedges went past in two vague lines of con- tinuous but ragged shadows ; the cold night wind rushed refreshingly in the faces of the excited travellers. But whenever the first horse broke from the hard trot into a harder gallop the second horse did the same, until the cabs rocked like boats on a beam sea. At last after a hard fight they neared the place where Zietsman had another cab waiting, and this, he thought, must surely bring a change.

The driver of the leading cab was then told that he had only another mile to go, and a good road, so he flogged his horse again into a gallop, and the animal, an old racer, seemed to grasp the meaning of the spurt for which he had been asked. It meant that the race had yet to be won — which it would be hardly reasonable to suppose could interest him. But it also meant, to the best of his recollection of the old days on the flat, that the race was nearly over — and that was cheerful news. He

ANOTHER VICTIM 59

stretched himself out with a colourable cari- cature of his old form and made that hansom cab spin. A faint streak of dawn broadened in the east, and the darkness was lifting all round. There was not light enough yet to have driven with any accuracy on a difficult or crowded highway, but this road was good and there was neither man, beast, nor vehicle on it, as far ahead as the driver could see. Of what may have been beyond that not very distant limit he had no idea. But he gave the horse a slack rein, and the length of his lash ; balanced himself as well as he could on his swaying seat, and took his chance.

The fresh horse was waiting at the appointed place, which fortunately for those who were trying to escape — was round a sharp bend in the road. Zietsman and Penrose jumped down from one cab and into the other smartly, and the race began again. There were now three in it, with about a hundred yards between each. The driver of the empty cab in the middle slowed down according to orders, and allowed himself to be gradually overtaken. The last cab soon drew level with him, and the drivers of these two walked their blown horses and

60 A NEW MESSIAH

exchanged irrelevant observations on the regrettable indiscretions of each other's parents. The police who were in the last cab, never suspected that the man they wanted, or whose place of abode they wanted, was now rattling along behind a fresh horse a mile ahead. It was an easy win after all.

It was nearly daylight when this cab got to Beechmount. Zietsman dismissed the man on the back road, and led the way through the wood to the postern gate in the high wall. Penrose, who had not seen the place before, followed without comment. He knew Ziets- man's often irritable disposition too well to worry him with inconsequent questions, and his own brain was still in a whirl from what he had undergone that night. He had become indifferent to such a commonplace as going round by a back door to a man's house when the front gate was open. He had temporarily lost the faculty of surprise. Thus, without the interchange of a sentence, the two men passed into Zietsman's grounds ; into the garden house ; into the corridor connecting it with the house itself; and finally faced each other

ANOTHER VICTIM 61

in the library — still silent. Zietsman was the first to speak.

"I shall show you your room now. I am rather tired. I wish to have a long talk with you in the morning."

" I wish to have a short talk with you now," Penrose said, resolutely.

" No, no ; I tell you I am tired. What you want to say will keep a few hours."

" It won't keep five minutes. It's about Hemmingway. I understand that you are connected in some way with this atrocious assassination society, the New Vehmgerichte as they call themselves. You were always full of surprises but this beats all previous experiences and some of them were sufficiently outrageous. Now about this man, Hem- mingway ; I take it that you murdered him ? "

"'Killed' is the term. You are verv careless in your language."

" If you don't like my language you can leave it. What I want to know is this. If Hemmingway threatened you — I thought I overheard something like that— so that you found it necessary to — murder him, was

62 A NEW MESSIAH

it quite worth my while to hold on to him on the roof at the risk of my own life ? "

" I understood it was he who held on to you f

" Well, have it so. But I did try to save 1m.

" Why should you weary me and worry me with this ? Why didn't you let him drop into the street ? It would have saved trouble — later." Zietsman spoke very harshly. His livid face was haggard. Normally handsome, it was not now a pleasant sight. Many a man would have shrunk from it. Penrose was not yet done with it, and would not give up until he had said his say.

"I suppose if I, too, had fallen into the street "

" You would certainly have been killed. Existence would still have been possible for mankind — and me. If that sounds rude blame yourself."

" And if this sounds rude, you can blame yourself. When I heard how handsomely you dished Hibbert and Forbes (the extraordinary City men) I thought I could not follow a

ANOTHER VICTIM

63

better model, so I did a little informing on my own — about Hemmingway."

" Zietsman's haggard face hardened in a flash. Penrose did not flinch. He stood his ground and held his head up.

" This is rather interesting. What did you do ? " Zietsman asked, quietly — too quietly.

" I sent a card to O'Mara telling him to search that blind alley for Hemmingway's body."

" How did you send it ? "

" I gave it and a sovereign to the man who drove us out of London. He will be at O'Mara's address by this time."

" Dear me, is that all ? " Zietsman said, with so pointed an affectation of relief that a closer observer than Penrose would have suspected the relief was not wholly affected. Zietsman searched one pocket and then another care- lessly, as one will feel for a trivial coin or a tradesman's bill (matters easily mislaid) ; and presently found what he sought. He threw a coin and a card on the table and said, languidly : " There is your sovereign and your card."

" It is certainly my card," Penrose muttered,

64 A NEW MESSIAH

picking it up, " the card which I gave to the

man."

" The card which you gave to my man," Zietsman corrected He went on in a voice that was almost sympathetic : "I am rather sorry about this. But I had really no alter- native. You know they will find that Hemmingway was stabbed with a dagger, for they will find the dagger itself. It has on one side of the hilt, the motto of ' The New Vehmgerichte.' The blade is almost an exact copy of the historic weapon."

" It is making history," Penrose commented.

" Our motto is on one side of the dagger. Your name is on the other."

'■ My name Penrose gasped with staring eyeballs.

" Yes. We always do this to throw the police off the trail. The man whose name is on the dagger can always prove an alibi — or nearly always prove it. I am doubtful about your's, however. I am afraid the dagger and that cab drive will be connected. A man was seen escaping -one man escaping. You remember the police who followed us only saw one man get into the cab ? But get to

ANOTHER VICTIM 65

bed and have a good sleep. You will want all your wits about you to-morrow. Put the whole thing meantime out of your mind — yes, this is your room — or you will have only night- mares instead of sleep. It isn't any good — comfortable room, isn't it ? — dreaming of your alibi. What we have to do — lovelv view in the early morning — is to prove it — if it can be proved. Good-night ! or Good morning ! "

Zietsman had scarcely closed the door when he re-opened it and said, impressively :

" By the way, don't get wandering about in your sleep. There is a room in this wing in which I should not like you to awake from a somnambulistic tour. And you would not like it either. Good-night again, and don't forget what I have just told you."

What he had just said troubled Penrose not at all. Such a triviality was easily for- gotten in what had preceded it. And that returned with new force as soon as he was alone. "The Vehmgerichte, the Vehm- gerichte ! " he groaned as he writhed in the bed. " The most wanton murderers since the Middle Ages ! They have reduced murder to more than a fine art; they have made it an

5

V

66 A NEW MESSIAH

exact science. I shall be hanged for the death of Hemmingway, or assassinated if I tell the truth about it and incur its vengeance — 'the Vengeance of the Vehm,' as he said. And I am another victim. Oh, my God! what is this thing that I have done ? Why did I ever associate with this man — this monster, Zietsman — I have

sold myself body and soul — I — I " and so

on, writhing and tossing in mental anguish.

A strange thing happened to Penrose when the torture had become almost insupportable. He fell sound asleep and had a refreshing rest. How much this may have been owing to absolute physical exhaustion, and how much to a powder, which Zietsman mixed in a glass of wine he had made him swallow, it is not necessary to determine. But the morning came all too soon, and with it the knowledge of his hopeless position, and his helplessness to better it. He thought long, and thought hard, and in the end he came to a decision, which was so obvious he might have reached it sooner. He expressed his thought aloud as he stepped out of bed :

" Zietsman is the only human being who can save me — if he will ? "

ANOTHER VICTIM 67

" Of course he will," Zietsman himself interposed, in an agreeable voice, as he opened the door, and entered the room. So admirably was his appearance timed to fit the words he might almost have been listening on the landing.

" Certainly I will save you — if you make it worth my while," Zietsman continued as cheerfully as if he had come into the room to announce breakfast. " But of course you will make it worth my while."

" It doesn't seem as if I had much choice," Penrose remarked not very cheerfully. " You took some pains to cut off my retreat."

" I did," Zietsman agreed. " It was, as I hinted, necessary for various reasons." He poured out a draught, and offered it to Penrose, saying, " Drink that off. It will pull you together. It isn't poison."

" I wish it was," Penrose answered shortly, and tossed off the drink. For a short time he was almost disappointed to find it was not fatal. Later, when his strength increased, and his spirits rose somewhat, he was glad it was both harmless and invigorating. You must not suppose, however, that even then

68 A NEW MESSIAH

he felt on intimate terms with his physician. That he should speak to such a man at all — and speak before long courteously, if not cordially — would have puzzled him- self, if he had chanced to think of it. But he was temporarily incapable of normal thought.

The two men breakfasted by themselves, in a room overlooking a wide lawn kept so carefully that there was not at first a trace on it of the leaves which must have fallen overnight. But as they sat over their meal, little points of russet and gold flickered on the still air, and then, where they fell, stippled the green sward. The majesty of the great ancestral trees, which spread their giant arms across the lawn, gave it the appearance of a corner in a park, or some grand domain, wherein an old abbey, or its ruins, might shelter secure from the blasts of centuries.

" These old trees," Zietsman said dreamily, in answer to a listless question from his guest, " date back to the mists of history. They must have been well grown in the good old days, when England was Merry England ;

ANOTHEE VICTIM 69

when witches were properly sought out, and correctly drowned ; and men and women were roasted alive for a matter of opinion ; and the thumbscrew and the rack testified to the glory of the Lord."

It was not an exhilarating speech. Penrose, whose appetite was slight, pushed away his plate with a gesture of disgust which was hardly well-mannered. Zietsman himself ate sparingly, and his guest might feast or starve as he pleased. That was his host's method of hospitality at all times, and it fitted the present case exactly. Nor was Penrose worried either to talk about his perilous position, or refrain from talking about it. If he did speak of it, Zietsman said a few words reassuringly. If he changed the subject, Zietsman made no objection. With one adjunct of the meal, Penrose would gladly have dispensed — the man who served it. That this man broke no plates, moved noiselessly, always seemed to be where he was wanted, and never where he was not ; that he was altogether an ideal servant did not weigh with Penrose. He disliked the man, — why, he could not tell intelligibly.

V

70 A NEW MESSIAH

That the man had picked up some subordinate tricks of movement, manner, and even speech hitherto associated only with Zietsman himself should not have been surprising, and was not without precedent. Characters like Zietsman unintentionally, and often unconsciously, stamp their own personality more or less vividly on most of the humanity which surrounds them. Nevertheless, Penrose disliked the man who waited at table, with or without reason. The man of course noticed nothing. How could he ? — a serving man !

When they had finished breakfast, or the pretence at it, Zietsman led the way to the lawn, offered his cigar case, and then for the first time took the initiative in speaking of the dreadful event of the previous night.

" I am going to town," he said, in the easy manner which is usually the accom- paniment of a good conscience. " I shall keep absolutely clear of financial business for some time, but I have other matters as important to attend to — if that were possible," he added with a rather bitter smile. " I shall be away most of the day, and probably have news for you in the evening. Keep

>>

ANOTHER VICTIM 71

up your heart, and don't leave the grounds — or this portion of them. The man who waited on us at breakfast will get you every- thing you require. It will be safer so."

" That man gives me the creeps," Penrose said irrelevantly.

" What, Johnson ? Nonsense ! "

" It may be nonsense. There doesn't seem much sense in anything lately. Anyhow, if you go to town, I wish you would take Johnson with you. He gets on my nerves. You might as well take him out of this, and let me have peace — while it lasts."

"Johnson is indispensable — to me," Ziets- man replied, coldly, " and necessary — to you."

The incident was closed.

"Before you go, Zietsman, will you answer me a couple of questions ? " Penrose pleaded, as his mysterious host turned to leave him.

" It depends," Zietsman answered with a smile.

They walked a few steps on the gravelled path.

"It is only to relieve my mind. You surely don't take pleasure in unnecessary cruelty."

V

72 A NEW MESSIAH

" You may assume that." They turned again, and retraced their steps.

"Then tell me why you were so anxious to implicate me in this murder — oh, curse it, I mean — er — killing — last night, and this morning you seem not unwilling to get me out of it."

" I will tell you — but not now."

" Was it true then, what you said about the dagger having my name on it ? " Again the sentry-go on the path was paced.

" Quite true."

" It will be the first thing they will look for, when they find the man — the thing he was killed with."

" I should not be surprised if it was the first thing they looked for."

Penrose made a gesture of despair.

" But they might not find it, you know," Zietsman added, and changed the subject. Shortly afterwards he left the house in haste, and Penrose to the cheerless comfort of his own company.

CHAPTER V

THE FOKBIDDEN ROOM

Penrose spent a miserable morning wandering round the portion of the grounds to which he had been warned to keep. His nervous system had been seriously upset by the events of the previous night, but even that tragic memory, he found, was almost sup- portable, in comparison with the strain of waiting and waiting for he knew not what. He fancied that hidden eyes were watching him from every shrub ; every tree-trunk had a potential policeman behind it ; and at last, his nerves in rags, his heart thumping as if it would burst, he came on what he had so vividly foreseen. A man was brushing some dead leaves on a bye-path. His whole bearing, the tender, not to say lazy way in which he swept up the fallen leaves ; the

73

s.

74 A NEW MESSIAH

overdone familiarity with the handling of his brush ; the very angle of the crook in his back might easily have imposed on a casual observer, but not on a man with Penrose's quickened perceptivity. With that lightning-like induction by which the mind, under stress of circumstance, will, in far- fetched fiction, tear the heart out of a mystery, and in prosaic fact leap to a wrong conclusion, he summed up the man before him. A gardener forsooth ! A policeman in disguise ! The man, of course, was really a gardener, and the shock with which Penrose discovered his own induction to be wrong, was useful in so far as it nearly made him laugh, and thus relieved the strain on his nerves — for a couple of minutes. But before long he was hard at it again, locating a Vehmgerichte assassin in every clump of underwood, deducing a detective from every bush. He had fretted himself into a distressing state, when Johnson intervened, with the announcement of lunch. Penrose could not eat. It occurred to him, however, that if he could make even the poorest pretence at food, it would give him an excuse to drink. And he was so far run

THE FORBIDDEN ROOM 75

down by this time, that he must find some form of relief, whether deleterious, or other- wise.

Johnson did what slight service was necessary at table, and by way of distraction Penrose observed the man more closely than he had hitherto done, and tried to analyse more intimately his own feelings towards him. There was really nothing in Johnson's appearance, to justify the extra- ordinary repulsion which Penrose felt. His manner was as near perfection as possible. He was neither obsequious nor familiar, neither unduly servile nor offensively in- dependent. But this made no difference to Penrose, who shrank with an animal-like intuition whenever the faultless serving-man came near him. Where had he seen the man as well as his mannerisms before ? Had he ever seen him before ? If not, how explain the curious feeling of personal grievance against a man he had never seen before ? And so on, until he decided the whole question in the only sensible way — he himself was over- wrought, and hypersensitive, and there was an end to it.

V

76 A NEW MESSIAH

After some half-hearted efforts, Penrose gave up the attempt to eat, but he drew liber- ally on the decanter. Fortified, temporarily, thereby, he went back to the grounds, and made bold to smoke. He did not really wish to smoke, but he must pass the time away somehow, and it helped to naturalize the abnormal situation. So, lighting a cigar, and walking past the detective-gardener of set purpose to enjoy the improvement in his own nerves, he commenced to explore leisurely the limits of his liberty.

The grounds were surrounded on all sides, so far as he could see, by the high boundary wall, through which he had passed with Zietsman on the previous night. The portion of these to which he was confined, was walled off separately, as has been described, and overlooked only by one wing of the house — that in which he had slept, and had had his meals. At one end of this wing, the enormous conservatory — more like that of a public Botanical Garden than the " bit of glass" belonging to a private house- arrested his attention. He must have seen this sooner, only that on leaving the house

THE FORBIDDEN ROOM 77

in the morning, he had walked away from it with his head bent, his eyes downcast, his wits wool-gathering. The size and appearance of the conservatory now struck him with surprise. One of the doors, he found, was unlocked. He opened it, and went in. While he is exploring, a brief reference may be made to the Society, of which he stood in unaffected terror.

The New Vehmgerichte at this time was fast making a name for itself in the records of European and Transatlantic crime. As to the real motives of the Society, only the wildest surmises were current. Its foundation, organization, membership, all these were mystery. But its actions were sufficiently atrocious to startle the most stolid and shock the most reckless. Murder so wanton and unprovoked had never been done before, except by maniacs. And certainly, never before had maniacs displayed such impenetrable ingenuity in hiding themselves, while advertising their crimes. These crimes were all curiously alike in that respect. So far from the slightest attempt being made to cover their transgressions these criminals

78 NEW MESSIAH

boasted of them. Their victims were always done to death in some place so public, or by some means so barbarous, or were persons of such prominence, that there was no chance of the deed's being overlooked, if the doer of it was never traced. The last of these three conditions was almost always fulfilled, that of the quality of the victim. No matter where the man was murdered, or how he was murdered, he was nearly always a prominent man, often a man of world-wide reputation, whether for good or evil did not seem to matter. The victim must be well known : how he was known was a matter for himself. This terrible Society had published its sinister name — The New Vehmgerichte — around the world. No genius had been able to discover its secret : no police were able to cope with it : no nation was free from it. It had declared war upon Society, and was waging it literally to the death. The victorious general home from a great killing ; the humane statesman engaged in remedial legislation ; the princely spendthrift dissi- pating his own fortune ; the Trust King- collecting the fortunes of others ; every man

THE FORBIDDEN ROOM 79

whose name was known three blocks away from his own street door, went with good cause in fear of it. You can judge then, of the feelings and fears of a young fellow like Penrose, when he found himself in the toils of such a body, and apparently under the immediate sur- veillance of one of its most ferocious, if polished, agents.

The temperature inside the conservatory was higher than was at first agreeable, but Penrose found that in a few minutes one became accustomed to it, and did not suffer from it. This was partly owing to the quality of the air, the temperature of which was regulated by what may be called natural instead of artificial means. It was warmed by true solar heat instead of mere furnaces or steam pipes. Whilst speculating on the extraordinary nature of the place into which he had drifted by chance, Penrose suddenly became aware of something more interesting than even this most extraordinary con- servatory.

She was picking a bunch of splendid blooms, too gorgeous for the aesthete who sometimes confuses decayed optic nerves with esoteric

80 A NEW MESSIAH

culture. She had a basket nearly full of flowers and was heaping it up. She was good looking, had a very winning expression, and was very neatly dressed. It was also all too evident that she was Leslie Zietsman's daughter; but that could not be helped. Penrose came forward, mumbled something by way of introducing himself and asked if he might assist. Anything in the nature of a distraction would have been welcome to him, as we know, and what more delightful form could any distraction assume. Nell bowed and said pleasantly that she hoped he was better.

" Oh, yes," Penrose answered " as well as I am likely to be." The last clause was added in an inaudible "aside."

" I am very glad. My father was anxious about you this morning ? "

" He is very kind," Penrose said coldly. The reference was not happy.

" I always think," Nell went on with a pardonable and pretty enthusiasm, " that he troubles himself far too much about people, many of whom never thank him for his kindness — Oh, gracious, I don't mean you ! ' Nell's sudden dismay and the little ripple of

THE FORBIDDEN ROOM 81

laughter following it brightened Penrose's face somewhat, but he said gloomily enough :

" Mr. Zietsman is far too generous." On which he immediately changed the subject — for a few moments.

The girl gave him the basket to hold, as he wanted to do something for civility's sake, and clipped more of the great blossoms which were hanging overhead. While she was doing so, Penrose had time to recognise a new feature, to him, in Zietsman's complex character. He had evidently retained his daughter's respect as well as love. Nell was too frankly sincere to be doubted for a moment. Was it the fatal fascination which the greatest criminal so often possesses for the most innocent ? Or was the girl too — no, no, that was unthinkable. These reflections were interrupted by Nell who said, still harping on a topic which was dear to her :

" Some people don't believe my father to be nearly so tender-hearted a man as he really is."

" You surprise me," Penrose protested, with a wan smile. He did not again try to turn her from the subject which he would have gladly forgotten.

82 A NEW MESSIAH

" But, of course, they do not know him properly," she continued, in all innocence.

"Indeed they do— not." The last word came slowly.

" Those who really know him "

" Hope to see him hanged," Penrose reflected.

" Know his real worth."

" They do," he agreed.

" Are you one of those who know my father very well, Mr. Penrose ? "

" I may say that I am," he admitted.

" Ah, then you will understand him better than the others ; the outsiders ! "

" Yes, I think I understand him better than most. I have had — er — exceptional oppor- tunities for studying him."

" It is very good of you to speak so kindly," the girl said, with a grateful touch of colour in

her face.

" Don't mention it," Penrose deprecated, drily. Then he went on more positively. " Believe me, Miss Zietsman, if you yourself knew as much about your father as I do you would understand that— er — I have said too little, rather than too much."

THE FORBIDDEN ROOM 83

" I am sure from the way you speak you understand him thoroughly."

" I shouldn't like to say quite that," Penrose reflected. By this time the heaped basket was incapable of holding another bunch, so Nell took it from him and turned to go into the house.

" Won't you come ? ' she asked.

" If you wish it," he answered.

" Well, of course, if you don't wish " she

was beginning when she seemed to recollect an instruction, and broke off. Then she added with a playful, shy look, which sent him tingling. " I forgot, you are practically an invalid and so must be humoured and "

" Coaxed ! ' he suggested, tentatively.

" Coaxed ! ' she repeated. " And — and — "

" Petted ! " he ventured boldly.

At this they both laughed, and he noticed that her eyes were even finer than he thought at first.

" We'll waive the petting — for the present," the girl said, with another playfully roguish look, "and consider the coaxing, coaxed. The immediate question is — Are you coming in ? "

V

84 A NEW MESSIAH

" The immediate answer is that I am practically an invalid — and very weak. Will you — take my arm ? "

She hesitated for a moment — and took his arm. He noticed that her hands were exquisitely shaped, and that, although she was not noticeably tall, she walked with a splendid carriage, and that her figure was perfect. Passing into the house he pretended to walk very feebly for the fun of having her make believe to assist him. And this made them laugh again, so when they reached the large room off which the conservatory opened, Nell released her hand, which he was keeping with the privilege of extreme indisposition, and said gaily :

" A short walk if a merry one ! "

" I wish it had been a thousand miles," Penrose cried, with enthusiasm, " A thousand miles — er — in a thousand hours. I wish we had "

" The evening papers : Just arrived ! ' Johnson announced, deferentially, coming into the room from the hall.

" Mr. Penrose ! You are really ill ! " Nell cried in distress. " While I have been chaffing

THE FORBIDDEN ROOM 85

stupidly. I did not know, indeed, I did not know."

Her sympathy was lost. He hardly heard what she said.

" Only a passing spasm. Almost gone already," he stammered. " Think I'll go and lie down for half an hour."

" Do please. That will be best. Johnson will go with you. Is there anything you would care for 1 "

" Nothing. At least, just a glass of wine. And to pass the time I'll borrow one of those papers."

She handed him the whole parcel and with this he went straight to his room. Then, locking the door after him, he sat down on his bed, unfolded a paper with trembling hands and read in letters an inch long the headlines :

" Another Horrible Murder." " The Vehm- gerichte Assassination Society Again."

He put down the paper and stretched himself on the bed — physically sick. The man, Johnson, came to the door and knocked, but Penrose begged him to go away, saying he wanted nothing except to rest an hour undisturbed. Johnson mumbled something

86 A NEW MESSIAH

about Miss Zietsman's compliments — very- sorry — hoped Mr. Penrose would feel better — and went away. Left to himself, Penrose remained for a time perfectly stupefied ; all sentient thought was abandoned. But sub- consciously his brain must have been at work. For after some hours prostration he arose and said aloud in that curious new habit of soliloquy which was growing on him in the stress of events :

"I must get out of this house no matter what happens. Zietsman is keeping me bottled up here to produce me when it suits him. I'll go now and take my chance."

It was easier to say this than do it, for when he switched on the light and looked at his watch he found that the time was near midnight — not a very convenient hour to make his way out of that confused labyrinth of staircases and corridors and semi-detached wings. But there was nothing to be gained by standing there thinking of how he would go. He must go at once ; he must at least make the attempt. He switched off the light and left the room, closing the door carefully after him lest it should be set a-clashing by

THE FORBIDDEN ROOM 87

untimely draughts and so draw attention to his escape. The house was in darkness, and silent. He crept downstairs feeling his way cautiously.

After many failures he found the front door ; and found it locked, and the key gone. Then he journeyed rather aimlessly, and with a fluttering heart, up one set of stairs, and down another ; reversed the direction many times, until at last, in a long corridor on the ground floor, far from the inhabited portion of the house, he landed on another locked door. This, could he have opened it, would, he believed, have given him his freedom. But he could not open it, so he had, wearily, to retrace once more his steps.

It was now that for the first time a weird thought, which had long been struggling for existence in his brain, took definite shape. His reason, the evidence of his senses, told him that he had been so far alone. But that mysterious sensation of sceptical faith, of unbelieving belief to which all imaginative minds are susceptible — that other entity to which the mind itself is as subordinate and as subservient as are the muscles of the body

88 THE NEW MESSIAH

to the mind — that told him with chilling emphasis, he was not alone.

Overwhelmed with this new and in- describable dread, Penrose came slowly back along the passage. His groping fingers had some time before fallen by a curious and convenient chance on a small lamp. He kept turning the light from this over his shoulder, at the pall of darkness which was closing in after him — following him. He struggled against the terror he knew must soon overcome him, but his efforts were useless. That terror, once established is, as all men know, not the less immediate because it is impalpable. The dew was heavy on his forehead, and he had to clench his teeth to keep them from chattering, as he walked slowly on — that nameless thing still following. His resolution gave way under the super- natural influences which barred his escape, and when he reached the foot of a staircase, he said to himself with a gasp :

" I'll go back to my room. This — thing — this house will kill me."

It would not now be easy to find his room. It proved impossible. "If I could

THE FORBIDDEN ROOM 89

only get at a bell ! " he muttered to himself, " I would ring someone up, if I wakened the whole house — including Johnson." The name stuck in his throat, and he shivered. Then, careless where he was going, so that he got back to that portion of the house in which at least people lived, he passed up this flight of stairs. One door was slightly open, and a light came from it. ' At last ! " he gasped, standing a moment on the threshold, to get his breath. Two or three great breaths he drew, and then he pushed open the door, and went into the room.

The apartment was plainly, but comfortably furnished. A fire still smouldered in the grate, although the hour was very late. On the table a few books were scattered. The room was lighted from the ceiling, as all the rooms were, and by the same solar light, which shone rather than burned. An easy chair was drawn back a little distance from the hearth, and — the sensation of a steel wire twisted round his heart, caused the intruder's breath again to stop — there was some one, or some thing, sitting in the chair. The extreme top of a head,

V

90 ANEW MESSIAH

or what seemed to be a head, just showed above the chair-back, and moved in a slow rhythm. And there was a sound of soft but unnatural breathing, a low, guttural sound, as of a candle which had burned unattended deep into the socket of its holder.

Penrose put his lamp down on the table. It touched an ill-balanced book, which fell with a thump of crushed leaves. The sound from the chair changed into a low wheeze, like a cross between a churchyard cough and an asthma risen from the dead ; the wheezing stopped, — and then, what was seated there, slowly, leaning heavily on each arm of the chair, arose — and faced round.

" My God ! " Willie Penrose screamed, and fell forward senseless on the floor.

CHAPTER VI

THE DAWN OF LIBERTY

When Penrose recovered consciousness, not from his first sleep after his visit to the forbidden room, but from the severe illness of which it was the exciting cause, he found Zietsman at his bedside. An invalid now by more than courtesy, he was still weak and completely bewildered as to where he was and in what condition. Unhappily for him that knowledge would soon arrive. Meantime he had a brief respite.

" Well," said Zietsman, in a soothing voice, " Better at last ? "

" Better — better — then I have been ill ? " " Yes, you have been very ill indeed. But you are better now, and will soon be well. Don't worry."

Events slowly began to shape themselves in the sick man's misty brain and out of the

91

92 THE NEW MESSIAH

clouds which were still hanging over it, one terrible and inevitable thought loomed up, very nebulous at first but growing in distinct- ness with distressing rapidity.

" What is it ? '; Zietsman asked, encourag- ingly. It was better that the invalid should ask even awkward questions than brood. In- trospection was the worst possible mental state for him.

" Who has been attending me ? " Penrose asked presently, in a weak voice.

" I have," Zietsman replied. " I hope you don't think I called in our local doctor to listen to all the nonsense you talked about precipices, and house-roofs and — er — murdered men and "

" And "

" A room in this house into which I forbade you to go. You remember that ? "

" I do."

" I told you you would be sorry if you disobeyed me. You did so and you are sorry," Zietsman said, holding up his hand in warning. Penrose must not talk too much. But the invalid would not be restrained until he explained :

THE DAWN OF LIBERTY 93

"I did not do it willingly." He buried his head in the pillow and went on with a shudder, " I was trying to get out. I could not help it."

" So you have told me a hundred times. You need not go over the whole rhyme again. It's done now and can't be helped. You won't go wandering over this house again by yourself in the middle of the night "

" Such a house ! " Penrose moaned, " in such a place ! "

"The house and the place are admirably suited," Zietsman remonstrated, in an in- dulgent tone. " What would you have ? Ought I to remove from this locality where my next neighbour knows nothing of my business, and cares nothing for it, and set up in some remote region where the aborigines would be afraid to mention my house by day if even partially sober ; and would never dare to pass it at night unless hopelessly drunk ? But I mustn't tire you. Get well as soon as you can, and so get up, and then you will get out. The mere thought of that makes you feel better, doesn't it ? "

" It does," Penrose answered quickly and

V

94 THE NEW MESSIAH

submissively. He was still so weak that he was very obedient. " To get out ! " he whispered to himself. "Away from here — away — away ! '

" He'll do now, Johnson. We can leave him for awhile," Zietsman said, gently, as though he spoke of an ailing child.

Johnson, who had been sitting in a bay window so that Penrose could not see him, got up without speaking and left the room with his master. They locked the door after them.

Penrose had ample time before he was allowed out to reconsider his extraordinary position from every possible point of view. This contemplation added nothing to his knowledge of it, or his restoration to health. His own previous history was so simple, a few words will indicate it. He had found himself in London at three or four-and-twenty possessed of more money than he knew how judiciously to dispose of, and unembarrassed with any near relatives. He made haste to dispose of the money injudiciously, and easily got rid of it and the esteem as well as ac- quaintance of his distant relatives. He had

THE DAWN OF LIBERTY 95

no natural bent for dissipation, but acquired a taste for it without inconvenience. It is said that good habits can be as easily formed as bad habits. But that, it is to be feared, is only an amiable dialectic. In its initial stages at all events the way of the transgressor is not very hard ; indeed, it is usually rather agreeable than otherwise for the first few miles. Penrose certainly found the broad road an attractive promenade after he had got his journey properly started. Thereafter the narrow way became an increasingly repellent and dingy avenue, and when he first met Zietsman he was blocked by the notice boards "no thoroughfare" in both — the one for want of cash and the other for want of inclination.

Zietsman simplified matters in so far as the broad road was concerned. The barrier, with his assistance, was removed and Penrose was soon going gaily along it as before. In most of the more shady financial schemes, or frauds, which Zietsman carried out success- fully, Penrose acted as an informal private secretary. The duties were not arduous, if distinctly disreputable, and the pay, or the

96 A NEW MESSIAH

loot was considerable. Penrose frankly dis- liked the situation and always meant to throw it up after the next big dividend — and went on meaning it. The story is too familiar to bear repetition. Briefly, the way was very broad, the down gradient very steep and the pace proportionately rapid.

Only once had Penrose ventured to ask his employer, as it were, what was at the bottom of the hill. To this question he got no satis- factory reply. So impatiently, indeed, had he been answered that he persisted with some temper on this occasion :

" If I don't get to like this job something better I mean to chuck it."

" When you choose," Zietsman retorted.

" Perhaps I'd better go now ? "

" Very well, you can go now — to jail."

As that was not provided for in the draft of Penrose's application for the position he occupied, he asked with an earnestness which could hardly be denied :

Why did you ever employ me in this sort of work, Zietsman ? "

" To which that gentleman answered suc- cinctly :

THE DAWN OF LIBERTY 97

" Because you have neither nerves nor brains."

That was the whole of the only confidential, or quasi confidential consultation Penrose ever had with his chief. It did not encourage fresh enquiries and so the subject was per- manently, if tacitly dropped. Now, lying on a sick bed— he had leisure to review it — and regret many things. He had no doubt been a fool in rather a large way, and more than once — but it must be said it was in ignorance — he had connived at crime, also in a fairly large way. Still, he felt he had never done anything quite foolish enough or quite wrong enough to deserve the calamitous condition in which he was now placed. It did not improve anything by thinking on it.

When he was convalescent, Penrose was recommended — or permitted - outdoor exercise in the reserved grounds. His strength came back quickly owing to an originally good constitution and the circumstance that he had not yet had sufficient time, if an excellent opportunity, to wreck it. The first day he walked out was a delight in which, for a little while, he forgot a great deal he did

V

98 A NEW MESSIAH

not wish to remember. Winter was approach- ing, but doing so in a leisurely fashion. The air was still mild, although the last leaves had fallen. A small bird, heartened by the bright morning, scraped its bill on a twig by way of tuning up, and ventured on a few notes in memory of the Spring. Big clouds were drifting with slow dignity across an azure sky. A domesticated rabbit sat up and ob- served him carefully as he approached its pasture.

"It is too much ! ' the convalescent mur- mured, tremulously. He was still not very strong. " This air, the beautiful woods, all this happiness ! "

There was a little more of the last in store. It was supplied by Miss Zietsman, who came down a side path, stopped, and enquired after his health with that feminine solicitude which a man must be getting over a serious illness to appreciate at its full weight and worth. It was the last drop in his brimming cup, and Penrose had to steady himself before he could answer.

Nell was genuinely shocked at the change in his appearance. The last, and first, time

THE DAWN OF LIBERTY 99

she saw him he was rather a fine looking young fellow, whose naturally open countenance, although wearing a strangely anxious ex- pression (at the beginning of their interview), had not yet been sicklied o'er by the pale cast of late hours and bad company. Now, he was hollow-cheeked, shrunken, far too tall for his weight, a poor substitute for his former self, almost a protest against her own radiant health. Her sympathy was unaffected. She was really sorry for him — and let him know it. When they had exchanged a few suitable commonplaces, Nell said warmly,

" I am so glad you are getting strong. You know we are leaving immediately. I felt quite anxious about you — you really would have been the worse of travelling while so weak."

" I don't understand," Penrose exclaimed, blankly. " Travel ! Where am I supposed to be travelling to ? "

" That is what I cannot tell you. My father is getting so reserved. He just tells me now that such a thing must be done — and it is done. A little time ago he would have told me why it must be done. It is

X

100 A NEW MESSIAH

hateful to think that he is beginning to have such trivial secrets from me. But," she laughed and threw her head back with a pretty air of authority, " I mean to find out what these mysterious secrets are." She was plainly trying to rouse him, or interest him.

He felt grateful for the effort he knew she was making on his behalf, but the subject did not lend itself readily to raillery, and he could only answer lugubriously :

" I am afraid you won't."

" I won't be happy until I do," she per- sisted.

" You will never be happy afterwards," Penrose objected more gloomily still. A moment afterwards he could have kicked himself for his gaucherie. He jerked out hastily, hardly thinking of what he was saying, so that he said something : " I mean, it is always unwise to pry into matters that are kept from us, from motives of friendship or affec- tion. Of course, your father does not really keep anything from you, except his business. Naturally he does not wish you to be worried about it."

THE DAWN OF LIBEKTY 101

" Do you know, Mr. Penrose," the girl said, now very serious, " I sometimes almost hope his business affairs are going badly "

" I sincerely hope so, too," Penrose re- flected.

"And I am sure that the best thing he could do would be to give the whole thing up while there is time to get out of it."

" If you could only persuade him to do that," Penrose cried, " what an amount of misery you might save — yourself. I mean, of course, that it must make you unhappy to see him worried and — er — overworked and

overanxious."

Nell, thinking that his agitation proceeded from the effects of his recent illness, and that the subject was unfairly distressing him, changed it easily. They were soon walking in the long avenue and chatting comfortably, considering that one of them was really anxious about her father's peace of mind, and the other in unaffected fear for his life. But if there is really a time and place for every- thing, then this was no place for funereal anticipations, so Penrose decided to close his

V

102 A NEW MESSIAH

mind to what he did not wish to remember, and clasp it with a clasp. Thus they walked slowly along the tree-roofed avenue and exchanged very pleasantly slight confidences, forgetting, as humanity will at times, its most serious engagements. And surely these two were seriously placed ; for one was practically engaged to be married and the other nearly sure to be hanged.

While these two in the old woods without were so innocently employed, indoors some men were putting the last polish on their plans for murder on the most wholesale scale the history of the world presents — private murder at least ; not, of course, to be likened to the magnificent slaughter necessary in the manu- facture of a great hero, the elucidation of an obscure point of dogma, or any of the sublimely ridiculous aberrations of mankind.

" Johnson ! ' Zietsman called sharply from the door of the conservatory. The man was engaged with some plants which required attention. He left his work and answered, automatically :

" Yes, sir."

" There is — er — a new man to be here to-

THE DAWN OF LIBEKTY 103

night." As he spoke Zietsman turned and went into an adjacent room. The man followed. His livid face may have gone a shade greener, or it may have been the peculiar light in which he stood as he once explained to O'Mara. He answered steadily :

"Very well, sir. Is the left wing — is — is — it — required ? "

" Yes. It is necessary."

Johnson bowed and left the room. When he was gone Zietsman struck a stage attitude and said softly ;

" Now, by St. Paul, the work goes bravely on." He threw himself into a chair with a sudden revulsion of feeling, and sat with his cheek resting on his hand — a study in de- jection ; despair personified. He sat thus for some minutes, and then arose, as if the inaction was intolerable. Then he strode to and fro in the room, muttering to himself at every measured step— always muttering. The low voice was hoarse and unnatural. His eyes were wild, blazing with the fervour and the fury which sent the Christians triumphant at the lions ; the martyrs exulting to the flames ; the Ironsides singing Psalms as they went

V

104 A NEW MESSIAH

forth to slay with the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. The low muttering became louder. He went on with suppressed but passionate vehemence :

" Ay, the work goes bravely on, and every step is steeped in blood. But the end is always nearer. The end ! Will there ever be an end ? Yes, yes ; there is finality to everything human, therefore there must be finality to this slavery that has been since the world began. But the means to end it are very terrible. What of that ? Has there ever been a forward step without its hecatomb of slaughter ? And the blood of my martyrs rises in a scarlet incense that yet will reach the throne of God and stir the slow vengeance of Omnipotence. We must slay our thousands in the Cause. Ambition has slain his tens of thousands for his sport. Oppression has been deaf to the cry that has echoed through the centuries — the long drawn agony of mankind. But at last we will burst his bonds and set his fettered free. Free ! Liberty ! Thy dawn is red upon the sky ! In thy name no man or race of men shall be spared. A thousand Christs must be crucified to gain thy triumph.

THE DAWN OF LIBERTY 105

And I — I dare to hesitate when the govern- ment of thy armies is laid upon my shoulders ! I dare to flinch because it is my hand which must point their way ! Then God strengthen my arm, for my heart will never fail ! '

CHAPTER VII

THE NEW VEHMGERICHTE

At a quarter to twelve o'clock that night, Zietsman shot back the bolts which held the movable bookcase in its place in the room which was called the library. Johnson was there at the time, and, as Zietsman made no effort at concealment, the secret passage was evidently no secret to the man. He received his last instructions from Zietsman, about the important business which was toward, without a tremor, although he had previously shown un- mistakeable agitation. Whatever his emotion may have been when he got his first order, it must now have passed, for he listened to what was said to him as unconcernedly as if the instructions given were for the guidance of the under-gardeners. As soon as Zietsman had let himself into the corridor, and the bookcase swung to on its hinge, Johnson left the room and locked the door on the outside.

106

THE NEW VEHMGEKICHTE 107

Thereupon, he went directly to the end of the disused wing, into which Penrose had wandered on the night he received the mental shock which resulted so seriously. Here Johnson came to a closed door. He did not knock, although he stood for a moment outside it, irresolute. Then he went into the room without further hesitation.

The corridor along which Zietsman passed was different in one respect from what it had been on the night he last used it. Then it was dark as Erebus ; now it was as bright as noon. There was nothing noticeable about it except the light — plain walls, concrete floor and ceiling, and no furniture or lumber whatever. At a point about half way to the exit in the garden-house there was a door in the side-wall which, notwithstanding the bright light, one might easily pass if not looking particularly for it. Zietsman stopped at this door, opened it and entered a moderately sized room, well lighted like the corridor, and floored and ceiled throughout with cement.

Five men were seated at a table in the middle of the room and talking on common- place subjects. A sixth stood with hands in

V

108 A NEW MESSIAH

his pockets in a careless attitude, and paid no attention to the conversation of the others. They ceased speaking on Zietsman's entrance, and busied themselves with batches of papers, of which one parcel lay before each. These, from the class of the paper, the manner in which each was fastened together at the left top corner, and the intentness with which it was apparently perused, might be reports — one to be presented by each delegate, if such they were.

This, without further preamble, was an assembly of the European chiefs of the New Vehmgerichte, a society which differed sharply in ceremonial from the secret branch of its prototype. No figures cloaked and masked, men answering only to numbers, not to names, were here ; no mysterious ritual ; no mutual mistrust. Everything was open and above board as in an ordinary County Court. In the new society everything was different from the old save these : both pretended to execute justice by means outside ostensible law and neither flinched, in this object, at the most lawless acts. And before the power of the new, organised law seemed as impotent — for

THE NEW VEHMGERICHTE 109

a time — as it had been before the old. But as organised law had displaced the one it was hoped it would ultimately triumph over the other, even though that other had per- verted all the resources of civilization to aid the strong hand of barbarism.

Zietsman took the presiding chair without formality, declared the meeting open, and commanded the members present to proceed to business. The man who had been standing on Zietsman's entrance took a chair, but did not draw forward to the table around which the others sat ; and across which they now handed in their reports to the chairman. These reports were curious documents. It would not be desirable to give them in extenso. The precis which Zietsman hastily made of their contents, and aiterwards read out, may only be indicated. It took some time to prepare this precis, for in all cases but one he had to translate the language and convert the figures in the money columns into British currency before any intelligible idea could be conveyed of what the total represented. These translations and conversions might easily have been prepared beforehand but that

V

110 A NEW MESSIAH

Zietsman would only deal with original docu- ments. When he had finished his rapid calculations, he read out, in a calm, distinct voice, like that of the chairman of a Railway Company or a Bank at his annual meeting :

" France, eighteen ; a hundred and ten millions. Germany, twenty-two ; one hundred and sixty-seven millions. Austria, eight ; forty millions. Itaty, ten ; sixty millions. Russia, thirteen ; a hundred and eight millions. And Great Britain, thirty-five ; two hundred and twenty millions. Or, say roughly — allow- ing for accidents which should not occur— one hundred persons in Europe, owning seven hundred millions sterling, will presently have relieved the earth of their useless and de- leterious existence. It is not much, but it is a beginning."

" A very tolerable start," the man who was holding himself aloof said, in a sarcastic voice. He spoke with a slight foreign accent, but his idiom was as British as his diction.

" And when we add the American statistics," Zietsman was going on when the same man again interposed :

" I like the word ' statistics.' "

THE NEW VEHMGERICHTE m

" We have at least a result which marks the first great assault in the war which will reconstruct human society, mould anew men's aspirations, and scatter undreamt of possi- bilities in their lives."

" It seems to me that your immediate object is to scatter a considerable amount of death amongst the lives of a large section of civilised communities," the man again interrupted. It was singular how patient Zietsman was with him. It was not always the great financier suffered interruption so benignly. He only said, with a politeness which had every appear- ance of sincerity :

" But, my dear baron, it is necessary, and — " he smiled blandly — " we have been very gentle with you, have we not ? "

" I suppose," said the baron, " you would have murdered me as you propose to murder all those whose names you have down on that preposterous list "

" That list," Zietsman interrupted, sternly, " may merit many epithets, but 'preposterous' is not one that fits it easily."

" I won't dispute the word ; call it what you please. I say that you would probably

112 A NEW MESSIAH

have murdered me as you propose to murder all those persons on that list if you had dared."

" Dared ! " Zietsman's eyes were terrible. He struck his hand with a crash on the table. " Dared ! We have dared to take you alive ! "

The baron, who had risen from his chair, sat down again with a gesture as though the point was not worth disputing. But there was a look on his face that belied his pre- tended calmness. He had, however, a dogged courage that would not allow him to give way altogether to the dictates of discretion. When he had recovered from the shock caused by Zietsman's fury, he asked bluntly :

" If not against the rules of this — er — humanitarian society of yours, might I ask, as a particular favour, why you dared, as you say, to take me alive when you propose to take so many other persons' lives ? "

" I will answer that, but do not ask too many questions," Zietsman replied, coldly. " These other persons have done us personally no harm, and against them personally we have no grievance. For all that we know they

THE NEW VEHMGERICHTE H3

may be, according to their lights, very estimable individuals. Their — er — removal is, indeed, physically repellent to us, and we gain nothing directly by their deaths. For one reason or another we can hope for no pecuniary advantage from their execution, but indirectly it is necessary — much more has been necessary, much more probably will be necessary — in order to shock public opinion so intensely that our ulterior motives may be furthered. When Society is aghast at our deeds it will listen to any alternative which may mitigate them. In other words, when men are afraid they are open to conviction. It is necessary to make the slow social organisation of our times thoroughly afraid before we can convince it of the errors of its way. Thus, we are making it afraid. So much for the others. Your case differs from theirs. We have taken you alive, not for the pleasure of your society, but because we want your money. You have, you are aware, an immense amount of money at call in London. You intended, you re- member, to take up the whole State debt of that troublesome South American Republic and make yourself President, with a better

V

114 A NEW MESSIAH

claim certainly than the man you should depose. We give you an outlet for this money, vaster in its as yet unknown potentialities, far more splendid in its immediate results, and of incalculable historic glory. We give you all that in return for your absurd gold. But, of course — " Zietsman smiled pleasantly — " It will be necessary tor us to get the money first."

" It will, and it will remain necessary," the baron said, firmly.

" You think so now, but you will change your mind later."

" We shall see," said the baron.

" Inside an hour," said Zietsman.

The baron's face was firm, but his lips were dry as he asked steadily :

" Physical torture ? "

" No ; mental ! If you refuse to draw cheques, write letters, send telegrams, in short to act as our financial chief clerk till the last pound of your money is drawn, we propose to drive you mad, or rather imbecile to the degree when hypnotic suggestion will as easily and successfully control your brain, and therefore your actions, as if the cerebration of

THE NEW VEHMGERICHTE 115

the operator was in direct contact with your own sensory nerves. In that condition you will act in all things quite as satisfactorily for us as if your brain functioning was pro- ceeding from your own volition. Then, when we have used you for our purpose we will kill you, not necessarily because we are blood- thirsty, but because it would be unsafe for us to restore your mental power, and brutal to continue you in that miserable subconscious existence. That is all we will require of you."

" Is that quite all ? " the baron asked, with a frigid sneer.

" A moment ! " Zietsman exclaimed, as a new thought struck him. " It would save you much — er — discomfort, and us very con- siderable pain, if you would join us. That would simplify all."

" You would trust me, of course ? "

" Not at present. But we would trust you after you had been initiated. No man — although we have had many suicides — no man who has been initiated has betrayed us. Have you ever considered one phase of even an every-day society like, say, the Freemasons —

V

116 A NEW MESSIAH

the preservation of the ritual ? A mason may sink to any or all manner of crime or vice — but he never tells. He may be cast off by his brethren — but he never tells. He may become unfit for human society — but, mark me, he never tells. Now if a man, once a mason is always a mason in that respect, believe me a man who is admitted to the

Yehmgericht e

" The Vehmgerichte ! " the baron gasped, wide-eyed. He staggered back till he stumbled against the wall.

" Such a man never quits it voluntarily or involuntarily save by one way," Zietsman went on, calmly. " And assuredly he never tells."

Zietsman paused a second or two in the deathly silence. The baron's breathing was like the sound of suppressed sobs. The sphinx- like faces of the men round the table showed no shadow of feeling, hardly even interest. Zietsman resumed :

" What do you say ? Will you join us ? " " The Vehmgerichte ! The Vehmgerichte ! " the baron muttered to himself, like a boy who was trying to commit an unfamiliar word to

THE NEW VEHMGERICHTE 117

memory. " So, all that assassination pro- gramme was fact, not farce ? "

" Then you elect, instead of joining us," Zietsman said, harshly, " a few lunatic months of life in which you will do every- thing you are required without knowing why you are doing it ? "

" You give me a choice in these— attractive — alternatives ? " The man's blood had begun to flow again, and he bore himself bravely.

" The alternatives are not seductive. But they are all you have to choose from. Do you join f

" I do not," the baron cried, hoarsely. " I will not voluntarily join the Vehmgerichte."

" Then there is nothing further to be said."

Zietsman touched a button at the end of a flexible tube. The light mellowed down to a soft dusk. The men at the table got up and stood to one side of the room, leaving a clear passage from the door to the opposite wall. Zietsman went across to this wall and shot back another door in what seemed to be a solid side of the chamber. An inner and smaller room was now exposed. It was lighted dimly like the larger chamber. In

118 A NEW MESSIAH

another moment there was a knock at the door leading to the corridor from the house. Zietsman opened it at once and the man Johnson appeared. He was carrying a bundle covered with a light shawl. At sight of this the four men turned their backs. The baron looked on stolidly. He had taken his courage in both hands. He would not flinch. Johnson walked slowly across the chamber carrying the bundle very carefully, so as to avoid touching table, chairs, or any furniture on his passage.

There was something in the attitude of the men with their faces turned away, some- thing in the way the bundle was carried ; something in the face of the man Johnson, that caused the baron's heart to stop in spite of his stern resolution. But he determined to go through with whatever was before him and make no moan.

Zietsman said sternly :

" Go with them — him." He pointed toward Johnson who was now passing through the doorway to the inner room. Resistance was useless. The captive was unarmed, out- numbered six to one. Surely it was a sorry

THE NEW VEHMGERICHTE 119

victory. He took a great breath and went into the room. Zietsman pushed the door almost close to after him, and looked through the last crevice left by it. There was a moment's silence, in which the men in the council chamber could hear their own hearts beat, and then a cry came from the inner room, a cry like the anguish of a lost soul. Zietsman closed the door.

CHAPTER VIII

A CHIEF OF POLICE

Penrose improved gradually in health, and,

after that peculiar fashion of Nature, whereby

the back seems strengthed to fit the burthen,

his mind grew accustomed to and partly

oblivious of the extraordinary circumstances

under which he was placed. The incident of

the forbidden room was but one of many

which he found it convenient to forget. He

read the recurring paragraphs about the last

Vehmgerichte murder with lessening interest,

and before long he came to look upon it as

a matter with which he had nothing to do —

which indeed was the case.

But when Zietsman told him one morning

that he was going into town, and that he

thought it better his late secretary and present

guest, or prisoner, should accompany him,

Penrose found his old fears come back with

a rush. There was a sense of security in

120

A CHIEF OF POLICE 121

Beechmount which had grown upon him as every day made him more familiar with its calm routine. For what conceivable purpose could the minions of the law invade that ostensibly law-abiding household. To avenge a crime committed in a London alley ? Poof I That was years ago. It was only a dream. No such crime had ever been committed. There was never such a man as Hemmingway. London itself was only an hypothesis.

Again, Penrose had been greatly comforted in his captivity by the society of Nell Zietsman. On this, of course, young Beresford had the first claim. But young Beresford did not actually live at Beechmount. He did so practically, it is true, but he was absent sometimes, and these times were flash- lights on the prisoner's life. The prisoner indeed, being a just man, had decided that it would never do to allow a fine, open, un- suspecting lad like Dick Beresford to entangle himself with a girl — however charming— who was the daughter of such a man as Zietsman. He himself would warn the lad rather than see him run blindfold into so dreadful a snare. This new life and this new responsibility were

V

122 A NEW MESSIAH

suddenly shredded away, by Zietsinan's pro- posal, as completely as the old existence, from which he had, as he hoped, escaped. The climax was added to his acute distress by the simple remark :

" Now, then, we'll just catch the ten-thirty. It is a slow train, but all are slow that stop at our station, so we may as well take that as another."

" If you don't mind, I'd rather take none," Penrose said, rather hopelessly.

" Nonsense ! You are moping here, or will mope, and you are thoroughly strong again. Only a sick man likes to dawdle. And I have work for you that is no sick man's work."

There was a force and directness in Ziets- man's manner that overbore all ordinary resistance, and Penrose was not of a mind to offer open objection to anything his chief might propose. What exactly their relations at the moment were, master and servant, employer and employee, host and guest, or victor and victim, must be determined later.

On one element in their possible future dealings he had made up his mind. From

A CHIEF OF POLICE. 123

any transaction that seemed even suspicious, much less dangerous, he would resolutely abstain. His easy-going disposition was hardening. He was, after all, a man, if only on the make. He had had good reason to regret deliberate crime, owing to the extreme incon- venience attached to it, and now that he saw the error of his easy-going ways he despised it for its own sake.

Since his arrival at Beechmount, or his incarceration there, Penrose had never been so far as the main avenue gate, or, indeed, the avenue itself. It was not by it they entered the house on that memorable night of his life. Nor was the road by which they now left it that by which they had come from London. As they drove through the gate and out on the main road, Penrose found that even security does not condone captivity, and that, if danger had its drawbacks, it was grand to be free. The horse had good pace, and Zietsman made him show it, and very soon the exhilaration of the movement made the passenger's blood flow fast. There was a sound of song in his ears, and — yes, he could place it now — it was his first holiday

V

124 A NEW MESSIAH

from school. The joy of it had returned to him. He wanted to cry out, to cheer. He restrained himself with difficulty.

The train was slow as Zietsman had antici- pated, but it was fast enough for Penrose. He was in no hurry. Besides, he had a few remarks to make to his companion, and, although the opportunity for this conversation might be easily bettered, it was more likely to be worsened. There was no one in the compartment but themselves. The noise of the train rendered anything that was said less intimate than if it had been spoken in the silence of a room. They would soon be nearing the city. Very well, he would begin.

" About this young fellow, Beresford," he said, taking up the stick, as it were, by the lighter end. He would lift the whole weight presently.

"What about him?" Zietsman asked, care- lessly. " Like this window up ? "

" No ; leave it as it is. You can see that he is — er — your daughter, you know ? "

" I see it with ease — rather pretty bit of wood that, even in its winter dress — I have — er — seen it for some time."

A CHIEF OF POLICE 125

" What, then, do you propose ? "

Zietsman lit a cigar leisurely, sniffed the flavour and said, suavely :

" If I wished to be rude "

" I'll chance that."

" I might ask, what the devil is that to you ? "

" You might."

" But, as I hate to give pain unnecess- arily "

" Talk sense," Penrose interrupted, roughly. He had not begun the subject to fool with it.

" I said ' unnecessarily,' " Zietsman repeated, coldly.

" Your necessity certainly knows no law."

Zietsman waited a moment, then smiled as if pleased, and went on :

"I'll. give you credit for that and pass it. You need not, however, enquire further about — about the matter you mentioned. And I presume you will not, when I tell you I arranged it myself."

" Then I will disarrange it," Penrose said sharply. He could not have taken Zietsman so resolutely a short time back — when he was a sick man.

V

126 A NEW MESSIAH

" But why should you ? " Zeitsman asked, still pleasantly. He was either keeping his temper very well, or disguising its loss with success.

" I do not think it fair "

The train rumbled into a station, put down a few passengers, picked up a few in their place, and rumbled on again to its connection with the main line five miles away.

" I do not think it fair," Penrose said again when the train was in motion, " that a lad like Beresford should — er — contract an alliance with your family — with, in short, the daughter of a man like you."

" Why should you mind his contracting an alliance which you contemplate yourself? Oh, don't bother to interrupt or contradict. And don't look so precious innocent. If it is good enough for you, why shouldn't it be good enough for him ? "

" There are several reasons. I will name one. It would be good enough for me, because while you are a murderer de facto, I am one de jure."

" As you are wrong in your first reason, we may dispense with the others. You

A CHIEF OF POLICE 127

are not, so far as I am aware, a murderer even dejiire."

"You say that seriously to me — you, who arranged it yourself, as you said a minute ago."

" I did ; but I also disarranged it."

" The dagger ! "

" Has not been found — yet."

Penrose did not speak for a little. The clatter of the train was pounding in his brain. He had to close his eyes to the whirling fields that went dancing past, and made him feel giddy. His voice when he spoke was pitiful. It was pathetic to see a recently reso- lute young man pleading like a coaxing child.

" Zietsman — do you mean to let me off? '

" That depends," Zietsman answered, and did not speak again until the train drew into the terminus in town, and he began gossiping about his arrangements for the day. The most important of these was the final settlement of the date for a lecture he was to deliver before the financial branch of the Britannic Association, an important society for the consideration of social subjects from a practical basis. Notwithstanding its original object, and indeed the terms of the articles

128 A NEW MESSIAH

on which the Association was founded, it was generally felt that the discussions under its auspices had tended more toward an Academic than an Objective method of treatment. And it was believed that Ziets- man, whose name was a terror in the financial world — although he had recently been " resting," — was just the man to give the right line in matters connected with money at least. Zietsman, it is true, altered this estimate when his great lecture on " Money " was delivered. But no one in the financial world could have foreseen the extraordinary line he took on that memorable occasion.

It did not take long to arrange the date, hour, and probable duration of the lecture, all of which Zietsman left to the Secretary of the branch he proposed to address. The only conditions he made were, as to the advertisements which were to be issued, and the names of the persons invited. In the list of invitations, he required a clear carte blanche for himself, and used it liberally. Everybody who was anybody in the world, which has anything, was invited — and a small, but important number in the world,

A CHIEF OF POLICE 129

which has not. Representatives from the most influential newspapers and Press Associations in the country were solicited to attend, and many of them eventually did so. When this tedious but necessary business had been transacted, Zietsman returned to the hotel where he had left Penrose, and ordered dinner for two, to be served at once in a private room. As Penrose, with all London before him, had spent the greater part of the day in the hotel — the old fear now strong upon him — the holiday had not been alto- gether a pleasant episode. He did not trouble Zietsman about it, however, until they had dined, and were drinking some of the best wine the house could supply. Even then the conversation on the sub- ject was not very long, and not at all satisfactory.

" Why did you bring me with you to-day ? " he asked quietly.

" To get you out of the blues, for one

thing," Zietsman answered. " And for another

to shake you up a bit, before entrusting some

important work to you."

"I do not wish to have any further

9

130 A NEW MESSIAH

share in your — work," Penrose said, in a low voice.

" But you've got to do it, all the same," Zietsman retorted, and dropped the subject.

Zietsman soon after paid the bill, and they left for the railway station, where they caught a train which got them home, even by the meanderings of the branch line, at a reasonable hour. During this journey, disagreeable topics were put aside by Zietsman so persistently that Penrose gave up trying to get any further information about his new " work," and spent the rest of the time silently. When they got back he would even have gone to his bedroom, without further conversation, early as the hour still was ; but Zietsman, relenting some- what, brought him into the room which was called the library, made him sit down in a luxurious arm-chair, stirred the fire, and said, to break the ice which was freezing fast between them :

" You never asked me the subject of my lecture before the Britannic Association. It is going to make a stir. It is a good

A CHIEF OF POLICE 131

subject, and if it is the root of all evil, it is a plant most people desire to cultivate. Money is my subject."

" You should handle that subject well," Penrose remarked drily. " You have handled a lot of it."

" I have," Zietsman agreed lazily. " More than I wished."

" More than some people wished, at any rate," Penrose corrected.

" I have had enough of it," said Zietsman.

" That's what they all say when they have too much. The millionaires are always groaning over the trouble it is to them," Penrose ventured.

" They'll groan less in the near future."

" Get used to it ? Or more patient under their affliction ? "

" No ; I mean there'll be fewer of them to groan."

" I suppose we could worry along without them," Penrose continued, without any exact grasp of the other's meaning.

Their talk then simmered on in more conventional grooves, Zietsman giving a few hints as to the drift of his lecture, and Penrose

V

132 A NEW MESSIAH

agreeing that it would certainly be new to the Britannic Association, and the world at large.

" Yes, if they had any idea how new it will be, I should never have the chance of delivering it — not that the Britannic Association guards itself so nervously against the growth of knowledge, as some of our institutions, founded and maintained appar- ently for the perpetuation of ignorance. But it suffers less or more, like the others, from the blight of the Average Man."

" I think I remember hearing you speak very feelingly of the Average Man, and all you meant to do for him."

" You have, and I mean to do a lot for him. But what I mean to do for him to-day, or the day after to-morrow, he should have done a thousand years ago for himself; and would have done it, only for his stupidity. The Average Man is an ass."

Penrose was tired after his first day out of bounds, and he was oppressed again with the nervousness which physical exhaustion and darkness help to strengthen. But it might be long before he found Zietsman

A CHIEF OF POLICE 133

in so communicative a humour. It was now or never, if he wanted to get any intelligible idea of his position, and he preferred that it should be now. He had partly forgotten the rebuff of the morning, apart from which he might have known his man better than to expect any information from him, until he himself chose to give it.

"May I ask you a plain question, Zietsman?" Penrose said suddenly, in order that he should not have time to consider the question too long, and so postpone it.

" Half a dozen, if they are discreet ! ':

" Discreet or not, I'll ask it, or them. In plain English, who, and what, are you ? "

" Whom, and what do you suppose me to be?"

" I suppose you to be a man called Zietsman ; and I suppose you to be a company promoter, a company wrecker, and a financial swindler all round. I suppose you to be a member, and one of the heads, if not the head, of the most wanton murder society ever formed ; a man of leisure, a man of honour ; a man of education ; a man of culture ; a good father, and an implacable

134 A NEW MESSIAH

scoundrel ; a philanthropist, a cut-throat, a faddist, a farceur, a millionaire, and a few other things. But what I cannot suppose, or form any concept of, as you would say in your lingo, is — how do you keep out of the hands of the police ? I know you do do it ; but I don't know how you do it."

" I'll waive all your introductory com- pliments," Zietsman said calmly, " and address myself to the final clause in your oration — How do I keep out of the hands of the police ? That is the most important item in the complimentary and damnatory — I borrow your antithetical method — catalogue."

" Yes, how do you keep clear of the police ? "

" There are various ways of getting into their hands, and all have been fairly well re- presented in the history of criminology. Fight them ; dodge them ; fly from them ! All these, and a hundred other well-known ways of getting conveniently under legal restraint have been consistently followed. Curious, isn't it, that it should have remained for me to invent the only sure method of

A CHIEF OF POLICE 135

keeping out of it. It is very simple. I am the police ! "

" You are amusing yourself."

" Perhaps that was rather bombastic. But it was only a figure of speech. You were talking about de jure and de facto this morning. Well, that's the sense in which I am the police personified. I have bought them. It was a big deal, but I have made it." He straightened himself, and said, with a flash in his eyes that was the reverse of laughter-provoking :

" De facto I am Chief of the European police ? '

" Mr. O'Mara ! " Johnson announced.

CHAPTER IX

GREEK JOINS GREEK

" Show him into the conservatory, Johnson." Zietsman's voice was non-committal. If it betrayed anything it was a trace of satisfaction that his words should be so fittingly capped. He had no sooner claimed to be a chief of police than here came one of them to do his bidding ! Nothing could be more appropriate. " O'Mara prefers the conservatory to any room in the house," Zietsman explained. " Our business, as you would understand, is often of the ' private and confidential ' order, and we are safe from interruption there." Although Zietsman said this in the pleasantest tone he seemed to have trouble with his breathing for a moment. Bronchial weakness is not easily avoided in our climate. When he recovered from this trivial discomfort he said slowly and

136

GREEK JOINS GREEK 137

distinctly to Penrose, as though he wished his hearer to weigh every word :

" I told you not long ago that I had work for you. Here is one specific instruction to which I must ask your careful attention. If at any time, within the next five years, or — er — five minutes, you receive a message from me consisting of the word ' Act,' you will open this paper, which I place in this drawer, of which I give you this key, and you will do as you are therein directed. That is all I have to say at present. There's your key ! "

" Let us imagine," Penrose replied stub- bornly, " that the moment you turn your back I throw this key away, or, obtaining your message, instead of acting on it I burn this paper and give myself no concern as to its contents."

" In other words," Zietsman snapped, " that you either defy me or betray me.'

" Put it that way, if you wish."

" In the first case, then, you will be hanged by law ; in the second, you will be put to death by a power which is at present, and for some time to come will be, above the law. That is absolutely certain. But there, I do not wish

138 THE NEW MESSIAH

to compel your service, if I can command it, although I will compel it if it be neccessary. I should prefer to have your help from choice rather than fear, that is all. We are beginning to understand each other better, are we not ? "

" I don't profess to understand you very clearly yet," Penrose answered stiffly. " At least not clearly enough to brag about it."

" You will some day — soon, I hope," Zietsman exclaimed and left the room. Before joining O'Mara in the conservatory he went to look for his daughter, and found her in a boudoir drawing-room. He had a short but earnest conversation with her. In this he contrived very dexterously to convey a serious message in a light tone. Very serious business might require his presence at a distant point — in a distant country indeed — at any moment. This business, however, which might arise in a moment, might be indefinitely postponed. His absence, if he was called away, might only be for a few days, but it might also be for a few years. He had left full instructions as to his wishes with Penrose, to whose care he confided her, with provision for her own

GREEK JOINS GREEK 139

absolute freedom of action until her marriage — with Beresford, he hoped. There were special reasons, for placing her under the guardianship of a young fellow like Penrose — reasons which could not be waived, and suitable arrangement, for a chaperonage in accordance with the conventions, had been carefully made.

When Zietsman had run through this in the pleasantest voice, he looked furtively at his daughter's face to see how she had received it. Nell was calm ; but for her white set face she might have been thought altogether unmoved, so quietly she bore herself. But her father knew her better. Yet he said nothing to qualify — much less withdraw — the least important of his remarks. He might have accentuated the probability of his unwelcome forecast's indefinite postponement, the possibility of its ultimate evasion. But he did neither. When the girl had fought out for herself that single-handed, silent fight with the mortal fear which suddenly oppressed her in spite of her father's cheerful tone and airy presentment of these terrible possibilities, she said simply, but her words cut him to the heart :

140 A NEW MESSIAH

" I know it is very selfish of me to place my happiness before your — your business projects ; but I am afraid I cannot pretend to take what you have just told me as cheerfully as you do—"

" Nell, Nell. You'll break my heart if you speak like that ! " He turned and left the room abruptly, and only that the girl saw in a mirror as he passed it the reflection of his haggard face — wilder, older than she had ever before seen it — she might not have known what those recent airy phrases had cost him to compose. She went to her room with a new expression on her own face. For the formless dread which had been vaguely overshadowing her life was now surely taking shape. As yet she knew not what she feared — only that she feared, and that one day her fear would be fulfilled. This, then, was the beginning of the end of her happiness. Her girlhood indeed had been happy, for if the shadows of youth are dark they lift easily, and the sun is as bright as ever so soon as they have vanished. But now she knew with a sure intuition that the short day of her gladness was far spent. And with this knowledge there came a

GREEK JOINS GREEK 141

resolution to meet her future with a stout heart, for she had something of her father's will with all her girlish graces — but alas !

When Zietsman left his daughter he went hurriedly to the conservatory where O'Mara was waiting for him. The visitor had certainly been too long neglected. O'Mara, no doubt, found endless interest in that strange emporium, but that was hardly a sufficient excuse for leaving him altogether to its attractions.

" Hallo, O'Mara ! You'll pardon me, I know, like a good fellow, for neglecting you," Zietsman cried. " I was very busily engaged, so I sent you in here as I know you like the place. Besides, we are free from interruption here."

" I hope so," O'Mara answered coldly. He did not take Zietsman's hand.

Zietsman pushed a couple of the comfortable armchairs over to the smoking-table, took one himself and begged O'Mara to sit down and talk at ease. He passed a box of cigars and a decanter to his visitor, and helped himself, to set a social example. O'Mara liked a good cigar and good liquor, and when, as at

142 A NEW MESSIAH

present, they cost him nothing in cash or kind he did not require pressing. He filled a wine- glass and tossed the contents of the brimming measure into his tumbler with the easy familiarity of a man who had many times performed the action. Then he passed over the tumbler to be filled up from a syphon Zietsman was holding ready, and said slowly :

" I was about to say — a little more soda please — that you have — drowned it, begob ! — made a name for yourself by — the best whisky I get anywhere — that speech of yours — devilish good stuff — before it is delivered."

O'Mara's remarks were slightly mixed like the whisky he was drinking, which was really blend ; but they were intelligible to Zietsman, who answered lightly :

" Yes, we sent paragraphs to all the evening papers. It is very good of you to run out — so late too — to congratulate me on the honour of addressing the Britannic Association. So you tell me the news of it is going round already."

" There is more news than that going round,"

GREEK JOINS GREEK 143

O'Mara replied, stretching his legs out luxuriously, and lazily watching a ring of smoke he had accidentally blown. " Such as strange disappearances of ships at sea, no battles on hand just now, but lots of murder and sudden death — and all that sort of thing ! "

" There is generally a good deal of that sort of thing going, isn't there ? " Zietsman asked carelessly. " What do you make of it ? " He did something surreptitiously to the light. It softened almost imperceptibly from the usual glare.

" My deduction," O'Mara said grimly, " is copyright. It isn't entered at Stationer's Hall, but all rights are reserved — for the present. The world isn't up to the mark for it yet. I shall have to educate my public, before I spring it on them."

" Are you acting professionally, or privately; for the authorities, or on your own ? " Zietsman asked, politely interested. The light was now very soft. He was nearly hid behind a veil of sweet-smelling smoke.

' On my own. The authorities are in a denser fog than usual, if that were possible.

144 A NEW MESSIAH

They have, all and sundry, got their several heads in bags."

" Is it allowable to ask, in a general way, in what direction this private deduction of* yours trends ? "

" It is not allowable — in a general way. But I don't mind giving you a hint in confidence. My deduction is that all these disappearances, sudden deaths, murders, etc., are planned by one man, and carried out by one organization."

" You allude to the New Vehmgerichte, of course. But I thought they took pains to claim copyright, as it were, in their own ciimes. It does not seem, therefore, a great discovery, to find out what they openly boast."

" The Vehmgerichte," said O'Mara, " usually leave some evidence of their handiwork, however marvellously they keep the secret of their membership. But I am referring now, to other, unclaimed, crimes. These a'so bear evidence of their authorship. Their completeness, their careful execution, the absolute obliteration of all manner of trail, the absence of all miscalculation, to my

GREEK JOINS GREEK 145

mind, point to what I say — that these occurrences are not accidental, or merely coincidental. They are the work of one man — just as the company promoting in this country last year was all directly or indirectly done by one man — you. Just as the company

wrecking ." O'Mara paused and puffed

pleasantly at his cigar. Zietsman did the same.

" The Company wrecking you were saying ? "

" The Company wrecking was all done by the same — gang ; the gang that used to meet in that house in Soho where, between us — between us," O'Mara repeated — " the whole pack got clear away."

The light softened to a still duller glow — imperceptibly.

" The deduction seems natural," Zietsman

agreed, looking very thoughtful, as a man

should who was weighing carefully the

evidence on which an important theory was

founded. He appeared to reflect for a few

moments, and then said absently : " This

public education — or education of the

public — you spoke of, how do you mean to

attack it ? "

- 10

146 A NEW MESSIAH

Certain little birds which had been twitter- ing very gently on the branches where they roosted, gave up their whispered trills, stretched themselves in lieu of yawning, and then tucked their heads under their wings cosily.

" For one thing," O'Mara replied, " I shall — shove over that decanter, will you ? — familiarise the public with the most startling rumours. I shall have it given out that the most dis- tinguished, world-famous, persons in fact, are suspect, and have such rumours immediately contradicted. In short, I shall seek to — shock public opinion ! "

O'Mara emphasized the last clause, strangely. Zietsman looked at him dreamily, and re- peated :

" You will shock public opinion ? " He knew very well the occasion on which he had last used those words. How did O'Mara know ?

" In this way," O'Mara went on, the startling emphasis with which he had last spoken slightly abashed, by Zietsman's de- liberate repetition of his phrase ; "I will so upset the balance of the public mind that it will be ready to receive and assimilate any

GREEK JOINS GREEK 147

new idea, or believe any man to be guilty of these crimes. Why, I'll have the masses in such a state of bewilderment that they would believe, if they were told it, that these crimes were committed by, or planned by — " he cast about for an extravagant illustration — " by you yourself! "

As he said this, O'Mara leaned forward and struck Zietsman playfully on the knee, taking advantage of his position to look his man steadily in the eyes. His man looked as steadily in his own. For ten seconds the two men sat silently and looked each other in the face. Then Zietsman asked, lazily : " What do you propose to do, then ? " " That part is private — yet ! " " Oh, dear me," Zietsman protested. " That is surely too bad. You give it out publicly that I am a murderer in a large way, and, having deliberately got me into that mess, you leave me to get out of it as best I can. Come, come, O'Mara, that's not friendly."

" Oh, bother it, Zietsman, you need not take my hypothesis as literally as if I were stating a fact. As if I would state such a

148 A NEW MESSIAH

fact here — if I had it to state at all — which is absurd ! "

" Why not here ? " Zietsman persisted.

" Well, if you will make my illustration the subject of an argument, isn't it absurd to suppose that I would personally accuse any man of murder, even in the retail line, until I was in a position — to arrest him ! "

Again the two men looked each other in the face.

" Why, you might murder me here, and no one would be a bit the wiser."

" Not a bad idea, by any means," Zietsman reflected. But, he said, with a deprecating wave of his hand ; " Oh, no, O'Mara, you surely don't think I would be so stupid as to murder you here, when — in the extra- ordinary hypothesis we have been discussing — you would have blazed your trail, as you used to say, to this house. That would be too childlike and bland. Now, if I were really going to murder you — " He turned fiercely on O'Mara, and, before the real murder in his eyes, the detective flinched — " I should arrange that you would be found dead in your own bed, with your razor in your dead hand, and

GREEK JOINS GREEK 149

your throat — " he made a gesture which sent a shiver through O'Mara, in spite of his firm nerves.

" But we have amused ourselves long enough with this nonsense." Zietsman's manner changed back in a flash. " Have you really a clue about these startling — er — crimes ? "

" I have," O'Mara said, shortly, as he arose and prepared to go.

" May I hope to be taken into your con- fidence— er — later on ? "

" You may," said O'Mara. He stopped a moment with an unintentional dramatic pause, and then going close to Zietsman he said, in a low voice : " If my clue is as good as I think it is you will hear about it very soon. You will be the first to hear about it. Good-night, Zietsman." He did not offer his hand. This was the second time he had been guilty of the same trivial offence. It was duly noted.

"Hold on a moment, O'Mara," Zietsman called after his unconventional guest. ' They are all gone to bed. I'll see you out."

At the door, Zietsman thrust something, with a beseeching gesture, into O'Mara's hand. The latter put the closed envelope, as it proved

150 A NEW MESSIAH

to be, into his pocket the moment he looked at it. He could not trust himself to open it in the other man's presence. He could not trust himself with his triumph till he was alone. His exultation would be impossible to suppress, but indecent, especially as his man had evidently thrown himself on his mercy. This, that he held lovingly in the hand by which he had stuffed it into his pocket, was, at least, a signal of surrender — perhaps a confession. Now, the authorities would learn whether they or he had been right — whether he was only a nuisance on their staff or the best man they had ever employed. He had admittedly attempted a tour de force in visiting Zietsman without a scrap of legal evidence — or only a scrap. And that scrap had not " come off." Yet here was the certificate of his success signed by the man best qualified to guarantee it.

As his cab was driven smartly to the rural railway station, to catch a night train to town, O'Mara went on weaving pleasant fancies. He still held his hand on the letter in his pocket, like a school-boy with his first sovereign, afraid he should lose it if he let

GKEEK JOINS GREEK 151

it go. At the station, where he was the only passenger on the platform, he opened the precious envelope and read the contents by the dim light of a poor lamp.

It was a complimentary ticket for Zietsman's lecture.

CHAPTER X

THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND

Owing to the press paragraphs, which had heralded Zietsman's lecture before the Britan- nic Association, he found a packed audience in the hall of the Financial Branch, as he stepped on the platform. He sauntered to the reading desk, with that carefully careless grace, which is very effective, when properly carried off, although a painful caricature when inefficiently presented. But he had practised his manner too long to make a mistake, or it came natural to him, which is nearly as good.

Zietsman ran easily over the introductory portion of his discourse, with a confident, but subtly apologetic tone, a tone which suggested that his remarks were admittedly jejune, and the point of his arguments too obvious to be put with any propriety before

152

THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND 153

such an audience. To persons possessing such unfathomable profundity of thought, he seemed to imply, it was an indignity to be offered his poor presentation of what they all knew so much better than himself. It is a simple platform trick, and well worth while. The wiser heads no doubt perceive how they are being imposed on at the moment, and decry it — next morning. The others never find it out. Zietsman had his audience in the hollow of his hand, after his first few sentences.

He ran lightly, and brightly, considering the nature of his subject, over the history of money, from its earliest appearance in the records of mankind. Away in the mists of history, far back in the traditions of the past, deep down on the horizon of civilisation itself, he pointed out the first nimbus of the cloud which had spread until it overshadowed, and bade fair to overwhelm, the activity to which it owed its genesis. The first attempts by man to manufacture a standard of exchange were catalogued in a running fire of sparkling verbiage. Playfully, but incisively, he rippled over the lornr list : the skins of animals taken

154 THE NEW MESSIAH

in the chase, domestic animals while alive, measures of grain, oil, etc., the cowries of the East Indies, the cacao nuts of Yutacan, beeswax in Sumatra, red feathers in the Pacific Isles, cubes of tea in Tartary, cotton cloth on the Senegal, iron shovels among the Malagasy, eggs in Alpine villages, dried codfish in Newfoundland, and hand-made nails in early Scotland ; while at Antioch and Alexandria in the old days, the people were worse off than our neighbours of a couple of centuries ago, who were reduced to brass money, and wooden shoes. At Antioch and Alexandria, they had wooden money for a time, and no shoes at all. Then he created a general laugh, by imagining a man walking into a City bank to open an account, with the lodgment of an ox ; or who asked one of the ladies in the Post Office for a postage stamp, and found he had nothing smaller with him than a sheep to pay for it.

In this way, Zietsman first gripped the attention of the people, and then, like an angler, who feels that he has hooked his fish, and drives in the steel, the lecturer

THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND 155

struck his audience hard. His dilettante manner altered so sharply, that the people nearly started in their seats. There was actually a subdued shuffle of feet, and an inarticulate, but audible sound or sigh of pained surprise, as though an unforeseen collection had been suddenly announced. Every ear was strained to catch the words, lower in tone, as each bitter sentence gained in suppressed vehemence. The speakers balanced periods had given place to more vigorous polemics ; his suave manner to a passionate impatience. He went on stren- uously :

" From the cumbrous but solvent currency in which each coin was intrinsically worth what we may call its face value, to the token which is only worth its equivalent so long as a nation, or Society, chooses to recognise it as such, we have an enormous advance — in many directions. Money, defined shortly, is simply a vast ledger, in which every man's claim to service is automatically entered up — this claim to a service from Society being at first solely founded upon his proof of having rendered an equivalent service to

J56 A NEW MESSIAH

Society. To facilitate this proof he received, on rendering his service, a token which was at first intrinsically worth the service, and after- wards extrinsically good as a claim to a like, or ad valorem service. The intention was always the dispensation of exact justice, and for a time the system worked well enough. That is, if it worked ill, any other scheme devisable by the wit of man, would probably have worked worse. Latterly, the system is working inconceivable havoc in humanity, by the weakness of the factor which was once its strength — the mobility of modern money.

" Now, commerce in its higher forms could never be brought to its present universal application, and scientific exactitude, without a more mobile currency than bear-skins or hand-made nails, and more durable than fresh eggs. In the marvellous ramification of that stupendous system of exchange, which has stretched its arms round the earth, neither live stock nor dried codfish could for a moment be used as a counter. In these gigantic sums of debtor and creditor, some- thing at first portable in enormous quantity in charge of a single caretaker, as gold ; then.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS A.T HAND 157

transmittable safely by ordinary post, such as government bonds, or bankers' bills ; and lastly, when sluggish steamship, wallowing in the waves a poor twenty knots, and snail- like express crawling over the land at the practically stationary rate of a mile a minute, became all too slow, we have almost perfected a medium which can be flashed on the wings of the lightning, and you can buy by telegram in Antipodean markets, on credits established in Lothbury.

" Follow me closely : this is an enormous advance in the extrinsic influence of the factor employed. Money is no longer a medium : Money is no longer an ethical substitute for, and a just claim to, products. Money is a weapon to conquer and sequestrate products. Money is omniscience !

" That is wrong.

" The original ruison d'etre, as we have seen, of Money was to facilitate a man, who had rendered a service to Society, in banking his claim, so to speak ; securing thereby, when required, on the credential for which he ex- changed it, a similiar or ad valorem service from Society. Money has become an economic

158 A NEW MESSIAH

rack by means of which services can be torn from Society in payment of which ad valorem services have not been rendered, no service has been rendered.

" That is immoral.

" Nay more, by Money a claim to service can be manipulated to exact from Society two ad valorem, services, or two thousand services, and yet remain intact, an undiminished power for extortion.

" That ought to be criminal.

" The last of these three facets of the same figure, these three presentations of the same truth, is perhaps the most forcible as well as direct impeachment of the iniquity under examination. Let me amplify my point of view upon it. For this immediate purpose I shall not differentiate between claims resting on a just or unjust foundation. I do not care whether the claim was created by a man who built a ship for it ; or by an ancestor who robbed a church for it ; or by an ancestress who was mistress to a king for it. The claim exists. It must be discharged. But being discharged it ought to be extinguished. That is the crux of this question. As we know,

THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND 159

the claim at present can be used like the widow's cruse. So far from being diminished on its satisfaction, by a stupendous paradox, it becomes greater. A man borrows it, puts it in force against Society, returns it to its original owner with an increased potentiality, so that the next man can borrow a larger claim, and so on indefinitely — the lender, perhaps even not a single one of the borrowers, rendering aught in lieu of what they are all receiving. The claim itself meanwhile roams about like a Wandering Jew, unable to die."

Zietsman paused for a moment and in the stillness you could almost hear the people breathe. Then leaning forward, both hands grasping the rail before him, his face almost repellent in its tragic intensity, he cried out in a stentorian voice :

" That is the way Millionaires are made!" He went on again in quiet but impressive tones :

" That, simply as I have put it, is the explanation of the stupendous accumulation of money in the hands of a few, and the atrocious straits of the many. The claims are heaping up, being heaped up by men who,

160 A NEW MESSIAH

never from their cradles to their graves, render an iota of service in lieu of them. And these claims — purely theoretical claims, purely hypo- thetical values, utterly worthless and pre- posterous paper tokens, endless rows of meaningless figures multiplying them- selves by a hideous geometrical progres- sion — are being met again and again by a foolish, a wickedly innocent, a disgrace- fully ignorant, an unthinkably stupid Society, until the burden under which it groans is greater than it can bear. That is the problem of to-morrow. That is the problem of to-day ! The present civilisation will perish on that rock if it be not blasted from its foundations. All the older civilisations foundered on it, and we, with our more facile methods, move as far in a decade as they in a century. When the reins dropped from Egypt's mummied fingers, two per cent, of her population owned ninety-seven per cent, of her wealth. When the waters closed over Babylon, two per cent, owned all the wealth. When Rome fell, eighteen hundred men owned all the Roman world. A hundred thousand persons own the United Kingdom, and three-fifths of the

THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND 161

wealth of the United States is in the hands of thirty-one thousand persons. Savage hordes cannot now overwhelm any civilisation from without. The hordes, which our civilisation is rendering savage, will, if it persist, overturn it from within.

" But I believe it will not persist. Already humanity is revolting at the spectacle which would be almost laughable if it were not lamentable, of a man begging his brother worm for leave to toil, and offering nine -tenths of the fruit of his labour in return for that preposterous privilege. Already even dull humanity is beginning to laugh at the time- dishonoured spectacle of a brute, who, in tendering a claim — mostly bogus — for service adopts an insulting, imperious, or even superior air, while the wretch who renders it is obsequious enough to cringe, and silly enough to feel grateful. The old order may have served its day, but happily, that day is done or dying, I preach no impossible doctrine. I postulate no far-fetched and unworkable hypothesis. My system is so simple that he who runs may read it. In

future all accounts between the Individual

11

162 A NEW MESSIAH

and Society will be kept by Society : between nation and nation in the clearing room of the world. That will dispense with the swash- buckler millionaire accumulating and annexing the whole surplus earnings of thousands beyond what keeps them alive — miserably alive. That also will dispense with the swash- buckler nation riding rough-shod over the world. For as a man who is in debt is a slave, so a nation in debt is a nation of slaves, and the earnings of the serfs who serve the millionaire being lodged to his banking account, instead of to their own, is no more ridiculous and dishonest than the earnings of a starving nation being transferred by due process of commerce to be gambled at Monte Carlo or guzzled at a metropolitan hotel.

" It may often, may always, be necessary to obtain services from Society before the corresponding service is rendered. That will be done sanely. A city wishes to extend its drains, or exude its slums. The labour of many men is necessary. It now borrows claims to service, intrinsically worthless, from individuals holding them — and the hundred thousand pounds debt becomes a hundred

THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND 163

million, and when that is paid it is not even then discharged ! Before the last day surely the city will acquire the sense to borrow the services and pay for them by orders on the municipality ; every one of which when met is extinguished.

" But you ask me would men trust the municipality or Society with their services, and I answer : — all men trust Society now, for if Society make not good your monetary token, by giving products for it when presented, your miser's gold is only a store of very malleable metal, and your millionaire's scrip so much waste paper. And do you not suppose that if our friends the millionaires continued indefinitely their multiplication of these their bonds that Society would not, that Society will not, one day say enough : keep your ridiculous parchments and eat them if you choose, for you shall have no other food from us. Remember that the figures in his deeds no more represent services to Society, or products given in lieu of them, than if he had made the numerals with his own pen in a frivolous mood. And remember that Society would be ethically right m repudiating

164 A NEW MESSIAH

them, and that one day it will repudiate them."

" La propriete cest le vol ! "

A man in the audience shouted this sar- castically. A raging cheer swept over the whole assembly. It was only in the bitterness of that yell you could have gauged how intensely Zietsman had stirred their hate, hitherto so well suppressed. The people were all of the undemonstrative class, and had done violence to their feelings by this outburst. But having done so they seemed of no mind to recant. In another second they would have got out of hand, and the lecturer had not yet done with them — or with the reporters who were taking down his speech. It was certainly a psychological moment.

" That aphorism," Zietsman called, in a loud, commanding voice, " has been more misunderstood, more wilfully represented, than any other in the history of ex parte argument. The audience seems to ask do I support Proudhon, and I answer that with all my heart I do support Proudhon, but not the ignorant slanders of his traducers. I myself believe not only in the just rights

THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND 165

of property, but I believe in them so much more strongly than does this audience, that I would visit with death, the man who defrauded another of his property, the produce of the work of his hands or his brains, to which his Right is inalienable. Yet of this right he is daily despoiled in the present regime, on the plea of the Rights of Property ; the right of theoretical property to rob him of his actual property : the right of property which has been created to absorb all property that is being created, or will be created : the con- fiscation of the fruits of a man's sweat and blood, on the shadowy plea that some prior man has sweated and bled, a thousand-year- old certificate of which, in the form of a piece of paper worth a fraction of a farthing, is produced to legalise the spoilage : the right of a generation which is dead, the bones of which are dust, to order the lives, dictate the laws, divide the goods, distribute the products, of a generation which is alive ; the Right of Theft ! That is what Proudhon struck at, and I impeach ; only that I put it shortly, and he put it clumsily.

"And let me add that what I have said

166 A NEW MESSIAH

of Proudhon, applies with not less force to the revolt of La Fontaine, the vengeance of Bossuet, the anarchism of Diderot, the visions of Rousseau, the venom of Voltaire, the doctrinairism of Paine, the socialism of Marx, the nihilism of Kropotkin ! What have you, any of you — all of you — read of these men, and what have you not read about these men ? "

The audience was literally stricken dumb.

" Believe me," Zietsman went on fervently, " man will not consent for ever to live only as an executor of the past ; he will not wander to eternity among the tombstones of dead utilities which we call conventions ; he will not everlastingly blind his brain with void aphorisms, for after all what are even the best of these, but coins of truth long since called in. Slowly, but surely, the old economic conditions are going the way of the stone axe. Man's environment already requires, and in the near future will require with a thousand-fold force, new social, commercial, and industrial relations. The first, most far reaching, and fundamental of these changes, will be the complete re-organi-

THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND 167

sation, not to say revolution, of the Financial System of the World ! "

The speaker paused to recover his breath for a final outburst, and broke out once more :

" This system began, as we saw, in a medium for the facilitation of the necessary and useful interchange of products, and has rotted, as I have shewn, into a system for the confisca- tion of products. Every day this Sisyphean stone is rolling downhill, with added momentum, for every day deserters from the ranks of labour join the army of parasites that prey upon it, until mankind groans under the burthen which threatens to press the life out of the civilisation which has invented it. But I do not despair. To change my metaphor, I see in this rottenness but the decaying husk which nourishes the seed that from such corruption will spring into new life, a re-born vitality. All entities pass away in their good time. All activities are replaced. We must not lose heart because at present everything seems so dark. The day is at hand. We must not fear although our old landmarks are vanishing, and the new order as yet shows

158 A NEW MESSIAH

us not how we may replace the sign-posts which hitherto guided our way. It is but a transition period in an eternal progression. Life, death, and then new birth. Everything changes but change.

" Do not charge me that my criticism is mainly destructive. Napoleon, who tore the last rags of feudalism in shreds and scattered the dross to the four winds builded nothing that will endure. Yet everything has been built on the ground he cleared. You charge us, we who tell you — we who shout in your deaf ears — that the days of Property as they have hitherto obtained are passing away, that we give you no system, no formula of mathematical exactitude to take the place of that which is perishing amid the contempt of wise men and the lamentations of fools. I answer you, it is not ours to build but to destroy. I come not to bring Peace but a Sword. Others will come after and reap where we have sown, and gather where we have strawed. Theirs will be the guerdon but to mankind will be the gain !

" I see," he continued in a hushed voice, every syllable of which still reached the

THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND 169

farthest ear, "I see a new heaven descending on this new earth. I see a vast panorama of beatitude sweeping from east to west, rolling from pole to pole ; war forgotten, poverty banished, crime extinct. I see a world so transfigured and transformed that honesty and industry will no longer be disabilities, in which charity will be uncalled for, and even what we call humanity will be unnecessary, because justice will be omniscient. For, the social, economic and intellectual night in which man has wandered, like them that walk in darkness is far spent. The light that is glowing in the east, as yet but a single spark of fire, is no bigger than a man's hand, but in the day of its coming the Cimmerian firmament will be rolled back as a scroll, and under that blazing oriflamme will march the battalions of Truth. Already if you have ears to hear you may listen to the muffled drums and hear the earth-shaking tramp of the marching feet in the armies of that grand advance. Blasphemy of blas- phemies," he cried out, " but paean of praise, I acclaim the long-delayed Apologia of the Almighty, the justification of Creation ! Lord !

170 A NEW MESSIAH

Thine ear has been slow to hear and Thy hand to save. But Thy mercy will be as enduring as Thy hate and it shall last till the Trumpet shall sound."

He paused for a moment overcome, and then by a supreme effort controlling his emotion, which even if only rhetorical was certainly sincere, he cried out in a powerful voice :

" The Kingdom of God is at hand ! "

CHAPTER XI

CRUCIFY HIM! CRUCIFY HIM!

When his last word was spoken, Zietsman turned from the reading desk and left the platform, without waiting for the usual formalities which follow the lectures before the Britannic Association. The audience remained in their places for a few moments without moving, and in a silence so great that it might easily be felt. They were vaguely conscious that the proceedings had terminated unusually : that the meeting had not been formally declared closed : and they sat in a stupefied inanition waiting for the next development. This came naturally from the platform, on which, after some excited consultation, a man appeared and informed the audience that the customary amenities on occasions like the present had

171

172 A NEW MESSIAH

been dispensed with, and that the meeting was over. A word of warning was volunteered by the speaker. He trusted, that the extra- ordinary and totally unexpected nature of the address they had just listened to would be forgotten, or forgiven ; that the audience would disperse quietly, without any mani- festations of the natural indignation they must feel under the circumstances ; and that the gentlemen representing the press would see the propriety of destroying their notes, and paying no further attention to an episode which no one could regret more than the Financial Committee of the Britannic As- sociation, under whose auspices the lecture had been delivered. Then the people arose, and began to move slowly out, convers- ing in low whispers, and straggling in groups down the long aisles, a marked contrast to the usual expeditious clearance of the building.

" Zietsman, Zietsman ! where is Zietsman ?" This cry echoed through corridors and cloak-rooms. Frantic city men shouted them- selves hoarse, and all manner of financial authorities demanded his body, while with

CEUCIFY HIM! CRUCIFY HIM! 173

apostolic emphasis they foreswore his teaching. Some superior persons insisted that the whole preposterous argument and bizarre beatitudes were but an elaborate hoax conceived, they admitted, in the worst taste, but executed, they maintained, with considerable ability. All soon leant to the opinion which, indeed, they declared might have been admitted from the first, that Zietsman hoped by establishing a financial hysteria, something comparable with the regulation religious epidemic or revival, to flutter the market to his own advantage. It cannot be pretended that many blamed him for this, but they did blame him severely for not giving them the hint. One notorious "operator" took a very severe, and perfectly sincere view of the grossly immoral nature of Zietsman's action, which even from the most favourable view was a form of swindling not on the code.

This heated and motley crowd of indignant critics found their way at last to the room in which the lecturer had made his final preparations for his appearance on the plat- form, and into which, moreover, a commis-

174 A NEW MESSIAH

sionaire declared he had retired immediately on leaving it. So into this room they burst, shouting, swearing, laughing by turns, as the various phases of the situation presented themselves to their minds. But whether they laughed or swore, there was no alteration in their intention of making Zietsman sorry he spoke. He had escaped them for the moment. The room was empty. Again the corridors and passages rang with :

" Zietsman, Zietsman ! Where is Zietsman?" But they might have called there all night without result, for when Zietsman himself dashed into his room from the lecture plat- form, he only stayed long enough to thrust his manuscript into his bag, and, seizing hat and coat, dash out again, before the coma in the hall had been displaced by the speaker who announced that the proceedings were unexpectedly at an end. So instantaneous was Zietsman's movement that he was gone down many stairs, through long passages, out by a side door, and into a cab, before the people in the hall arose from their seats. The cab went off at speed, and thus the strictly informal character of the unusual

CRUCIFY HIM! CRUCIFY HIM! 175

episode was maintained till its close. It was not closed yet, but the informality was faithfully preserved in the further and final feature which brought the whole matter to a fitting climax. In this the audience con- tributed their share.

In the street outside the main door of the hall, a crowd had gathered, guided it may have been by that subtle instinct which infallibly conducts a mob to where it can do most harm. The electric atmosphere with which the Financial Hall was charged, had filtered out, and although unusually quiet, the mass was ripe for any stupidity. It was the unusual, the uncanny silence of the hall into which a vast audience had been crowded that impressed the outside throng. Something must have happened. There must be something wrong. Anything wrong will do for a mob. Any misfortune is better than none.

Thus it was, as a handsomely appointed carriage plunged through the people, and broke into the long line of vehicles that waited, each its own turn, at the door. It was a high-handed proceeding, but a word

176 A NEW MESSIAH

was passed round which made it right, or stopped the clamour. Simultaneously was called from the vestibule :

" Mr. Van Rannsler' s carriage ! "

A tall, fine-looking man in the vestibule, wearing jewelry perhaps too massive for the best taste, but otherwise not noticeable among the well-dressed crowd through which he moved, spoke angrily. He had plainly lost his temper, and did not take the pains neces- sary to conceal the fact which is usual among well-dressed people. A young fellow who sauntered arm-in-arm with him drawled :

" I certainly think, Van Rannsler, the fellow should be under restraint."

" I would put him under a restraint that would be permanent," Van Rannsler said, very loudly — almost shouted. A murmur of approval like the applause at a theatre filled the vestibule. Social etiquette did not hold under the extraordinary conditions. Men who were utter strangers to Van Rannsler cried in a respectful chorus :

" Quite right ! quite right, sir ! quite right ! "

CKUCIFY HIM! OKUCIFY HIM! 177

Van Rannsler had not looked for their approval, but he was pleased with it. When he stopped, as if to accentuate what he was about to say, there was a silence as sudden as if a duly elected chairman of the meeting had called for order. Van Rannsler raised his voice so that it carried right over the excited crowd, and said harshly :

" He ought to be hanged ! "

Informal as the meeting was, the people

clapped their hands, and stamped their feet,

and shouted, " hear, hear ! " with more than

formal sincerity. When the tumult ceased,

an old, white-haired man, who stood at

the extreme limit of the crowd, near the

entrance from the street, raised his

hand. The noise stopped instantly. The

strain was so great, not a man or woman

moved until they would hear what this

venerable man had to say to the infamous

doctrines which had just been preached. He

raised his weak hands aloft, as though he

would pronounce a benediction. His shrunk

form was silhouetted against the glare of

the street lamps, and it cast a weird shadow

toward the people. His arm was withered,

12

178 A- NEW MESSIAH

and his face was old — but his eyes were like flames, as his hoarse voice resounded through the vestibule :

" But they cried the more saying, Crucify Him ! Crucify Him ! "

CHAPTER XII

IN THE GREAT DEEP

On the morning after the lecture, Zietsman did not come to breakfast. This was not unusual. When Nell asked about her father, Johnson replied in a tone which implied that, whatever the strain of the lecture had been, it had not in the least injured the lecturer. The girl had often heard her father theorise in a startling way when in the heat of con- versational debate, but the lecture, to which she had gone with Penrose, was as great a revelation to them both as it could have been to the most orthodox financier in the City, and some of these had attended it — to their immediate regret and ultimate disgust.

"He will be down presently," Johnson volunteered ; " When we have finished packing." i,

179

180 A NEW MESSIAH

" When you have finished packing ! " Nell exclaimed, in some surprise, although well accustomed to her father's sudden, almost mysterious disappearances from home. The lengthened tour, which she had mentioned to Penrose as in contemplation, could hardly be undertaken at such very short notice, nor had she been warned to hold herself in readiness for an immediate departure. This flight was, therefore, most likely unpremedi- tated or intended to be brief. Nell had breakfasted quite by herself, for Penrose was also an absentee, although he attended all meals with a cumulative punctuality, as his own strength increased and his ap- preciation of Miss Zietsman's society grew with it.

" Where is Mr. Penrose this morning, Johnson ? We were not so very late last night. He is usually (she might have said, ' always ') down by this time." " Mr. Penrose is packing." " Mr. Penrose ! Is he going also ? " " Yes. They may be away some weeks, or only a few days." Johnson had nothing more to tell, or had told all he intended, so

IN THE GREAT DEEP 181

Nell did not persist when he protested further ignorance of his master's movements.

Penrose finished his preparations quickly, having indeed very little to prepare. He had made a few furtive purchases on the day he spent in town with Zietsman, but did not go to his own rooms there, for reasons which have been described. These purchases, with what he had ordered by post from time to time, did not make a formidable stock, but Zietsman added a pair of sea-boots, a heavy overcoat, and other extras, the use of which Penrose did not clearly understand, or indeed trouble about. Zietsman, it was now plain, was more or less mad. He would humour him while he decided how to get clear of him for good. One little rill of comfort began to trickle towards Penrose. When Zietsman had proved a lunatic, might not more than one item in the phantasmagoria of murder and crime, in which he himself seemed to be involved, vanish as mysteriously as it had arrived ? Everything rested on a madman's word — almost everything. He had not forgotten the forbidden room, but he had resolutely refused to remember it

182 A NEW MESSIAH

and to this good resolution he meant to adhere.

When Zietsman joined his daughter and Penrose in the breakfast room, he was in excellent spirits, although his hair seemed to have gone greyer than on even the preceding day. In getting the lecture off his mind, he had evidently rid it of a serious responsi- bility, or a consummate nuisance, and he was now more cheerful than he had been for a long time. He spoke of the journey, on which he and Penrose were about to start, with enthusiasm ; gave orders for the better care of a portion of the grounds which had been showing signs of neglect ; took an interest in household trivialities that had never hitherto occupied his notice, and behaved generally like a much occupied business man who proposed to himself a long holiday or a complete retirement. The last possibility thrilled Nell with a hope that was unhappily becoming a good stranger to her, and, fearing disappointment while she did so, she could not help asking her father if he did not mean to take a long rest on his return from this tiresome journey. His reply was not alto-

IN THE GREAT DEEP 183

gether satisfactory. He looked seriously at her for a moment, patted her shoulder affec- tionately, and said :

" I shall take a long rest — soon."

" I am very glad," Nell tried to reply, but the words somehow froze upon her lips.

" No, poor child," Zietsman whispered to himself, as he left the room, " You will be sorry — but only for a little while, I hope." This pensive mood passed quickly, and he again busied himself with the arrangements for his journey. One of these, to which he seemed to attach some importance, was to prevent Penrose having a private interview with his daughter before they left. He seemed as anxious now to keep Nell from having any particular conversation with Penrose as he had recently been to confide her to his care. From the instruction as to the locked drawer and the paper it contained he did not, however, recede. That order, he gave Penrose to understand, was unchanged and unchangeable. In the contingency for which he had provided, Penrose was to assume the guardianship of his daughter. Pending the arrival of that contingency he did jiot wish them to become

184 A NEW MESSIAH

too confidential. That was all the explana- tion of his wishes he would give.

Before Zietsman and Penrose finally set out, the short winter day was closing in, and evening was coming on, not very pleasantly, with cold winds and passing sleet showers. The weather did not matter while they were in the train, but when their long zigzag journey finally landed them at a small station, in what was little more than a fishing village on the south coast, it again became disagreeably noticeable. Four men met them here. From the conversation that passed, Zietsman ap- parently expected them, and they him.

" Everything is ready, of course," Zietsman said, as soon as the barest civilities had been exchanged.

" Everything is ready," they answered, shortly.

" Then we can start at once. How far off is the boat ? I mean where the boat will pick us up ? "

" Four miles."

" Very good, then march."

Penrose was not introduced to the new men, with whom it appeared he was to be

IN THE GREAT DEEP 185

associated. He accepted this informality as a matter of course and walked along with the strangers, talking on commonplace subjects. They spoke to him courteously enough, but appeared to be preoccupied. When he addressed them, they answered : when he kept silence, they did the same. Zietsman himself spoke to none.

It was a cold night with a stormy east wind blowing down channel, and a nasty sea on. With the heavier gusts of wind, a thin sleet drove in a chilling and saturating mist. The coast was absolutely deserted, and there was no appearance of the rudest wharf whereby passengers might embark, nor indeed was there so far any appearance of a boat. But while they stood cowering at last in the lee of a stunted hedge above the beach, they could hear faintly, far out in the darkness the sound of voices calling orders, and then, after a short interval, the thump of sea oars in rough rowlocks could be distinguished. As they strained their eyes seaward a misty blotch, darker than the darkness, came looming in out of the night, swaying and plunging on the heaving sea. The black

186 A NEW MESSIAH

blotch floundered forward, took shape, denned itself more sharply, threw aside disguise, and displayed itself as a fair-sized fishing boat. It waddled further in, grounded heavily on the beach, went back with an ugly yaw, dropped anchor and came to a partial rest.

Zietsman hailed the boat and was answered. He then jabbered some incoherent and in- consequent words. The countersign was given and Zietsman ordered, sharply :

" Now then ! All aboard ! "

" As how ? " Penrose asked. " Do you propose that we should walk on the waves like the apostle ? "

" On them, or under them, as you find it most convenient," Zietsman answered harshly, and stepped into the surf

For some distance on the flat beach the water was not very deep, except when a heavy wave came roaring in, but every time one did, the waders — for they were now all in the water — were drenched to their necks in a foaming smother, which nearly swept them off their feet. By holding hard to each other, however, the little line of men managed to support the impact, the stronger helping the

IN THE GKEAT DEEP 187

weak, so all managed to reach the anchored boat ; half drowned it is true, half dead with cold and wholly sorry, some of them, that they had agreed to the venture. The moment the last man was aboard, the fishing boat weighed anchor and blew out seaward under a rag of sail, which had been flapping slackly furled on the boom.

For two or three miles the boat steered out to sea, now under as much close-reefed sail as she could carry, and then two little points of light, green and red, with a star-like masthead light, forming the apex of the triangle, showed that they were meeting a steamer, nearly bow on. This steamer was going full speed, too, or those three lights would not have closed up with the fishing boat so soon. A rocket flared up from the boat, another flashed from the steamer. The vessel's engines slowed — stopped — and she was lying in a beam sea, with little way on her when the sailing boat came alongside.

By going a small turn ahead so as to keep steerage way on the steamer, she could offer a lee side to the boat, and the benumbed passengers of the latter were able to climb

188 A NEW MESSIAH

or allow themselves to be dragged, up the gangway without misadventure. When they were all on deck the fishing boat cast off, and in a moment her brown sail, which showed for a second in a slant of watery moon, disappeared into the darkness. The vessel on which the new passengers found themselves was not large, although from her speed, she seemed to have powerful engines. The decks, even in the dim light showing from the faint moon, were singularly free from any form of ship impedimenta, deck houses, boats, open hatches or any of the numberless encumbrances which limit the open space on an ordinary steamer. But this was not an ordinary steamer, as the new- comers soon discovered.

One thing Penrose here noticed about his newly made and reticent acquaintances. They appeared to be as ignorant as himself of where they were going and what sort of a ship they were going in. It was they who had arranged with the boatmen who put them on board. But thereafter they appeared completely at sea, figuratively as well as literally. They obeyed Zietsman and asked no questions.

IN THE GREAT DEEP 189

For the present Penrose thought it best to do the same.

The main cabin to which Zietsman brought them was small, but comfortable, and when every man had changed, and got on dry- clothing, the supper which was waiting for them was very welcome. While they were eating and drinking, Zietsman and the captain retired to consult in private over some business which it seemed was too important to entrust to all. This arrangement suited those at the banquet admirably, and they ate as heartily as if they were out for a pleasure cruise instead of a voyage so infamous that their own leader thought it better to keep its purport from them until they were committed to it. As they were all tired from the hardships as well as fatigue of their journey, no late sitting was made.