SERGIUS THORD
The next day the heavens were clouded; and occasional volleys of heavy
thunder were mingled with the gusts of wind and rain which swept over
the city, and which lashed the fair southern sea into a dark semblance
of such angry waves as wear away northern coasts into bleak and rocky
barrenness. It was disappointing weather to multitudes, for it was the
feast-day of one of the numerous saints whose names fill the calendar of
the Roman Church,--and a great religious procession had been organized
to march from the market-place to the Cathedral, in which two or three
hundred children and girls had been chosen to take part. The fickle
bursts of sunshine which every now and again broke through the lowering
sky, decided the priests to carry out their programme in spite of the
threatening storm, in the hope that it would clear off completely with
the afternoon. Accordingly, groups of little maidens, in white robes and
veils, began to assemble with their flags and banners at the appointed
hour round the old market cross, which,--grey and crumbling at the
summit,--bent over the streets like a withered finger, crook’d as it
were, in feeble remonstrance at the passing of time,--while glimpses of
young faces beneath the snowy veils, and chatter of young voices, made
brightness and music around its frowning and iron-bound base. Shortly
before three o’clock the Cathedral bells began to chime, and crowds
of people made their way towards the sacred edifice in the laughing,
pushing, gesticulating fashion of southerners, to whom a special service
at the Church is like a new comedy at the theatre,--women with coloured
kerchiefs knotted over their hair or across their bosoms--men, more or
less roughly clad, yet all paying compliment to the Saint’s feast-day
by some extra smart touch in their attire, if it were only a pomegranate
flower or orange-blossom stuck in their hats, or behind their ears.
It was a mixed crowd, all of the working classes, who are proverbially
called ‘the common,’ as if those who work, are not a hundred times
more noble than those who do nothing! A few carriages, containing some
wealthy ladies of the nobility, who, to atone for their social sins,
were in the habit of contributing largely to the Church, passed every
now and again through the crowd, but taken as a spectacle it was simply
a ‘popular’ show, in which the children of the people took part, and
where the people themselves were evidently more amused than edified.
While the bells were ringing the procession gradually formed;--a
dozen or more priests leading,--incense-bearers and acolytes walking
next,--and then the long train of little children and girls carrying
their symbolic banners, following after. The way they had to walk was a
steep, winding ascent, through tortuous streets, to the Cathedral, which
stood in the centre of a great square on an eminence which overlooked
the whole city, and as soon as they started they began to sing,--softly
at first, then more clearly and sweetly, till gradually the air grew
full of melody, rising and falling on the capricious gusts of wind which
tore at the gilded and emblazoned banners, and tossed the white veils of
the maidens about like wreaths of drifting snow. Two men standing on the
Cathedral hill, watched the procession gradually ascending--one tall and
heavily-built, with a dark leonine head made more massive-looking by
its profusion of thick and unmanageable hair--the other lean and
narrow-shouldered, with a peaked reddish-auburn beard, which he
continually pulled and twitched at nervously as though its growth on his
chin was more a matter of vexation than convenience. He was apparently
not so much interested in the Church festival as he was in his
companion’s face, for he was perpetually glancing up at that brooding
countenance, which, half hidden as it was in wild hair and further
concealed by thick moustache and beard, showed no expression at all,
unless an occasional glimpse of full flashing eyes under the bushy
brows, gave a sudden magnetic hint of something dangerous and not to be
trifled with.
“You do not believe anything you hear or read, Sergius Thord!” he
said--“Will you twist your whole life into a crooked attitude of
suspicion against all mankind?” He who was named Sergius Thord, lifted
himself slowly from the shoulders upwards, the action making his great
height and broad chest even more apparent than before. A gleam of white
teeth shone under his black moustache.
“I do not twist my life into a crooked attitude, Johan Zegota,” he
replied. “If it is crooked, others have twisted it for me! Why should I
believe what I hear, since it is the fashion to lie? Why should I
accept what I read, since it is the business of the press to deceive the
public? And why do you ask me foolish questions? You should be better
instructed, seeing that your creed is the same as mine!”
“Have I ever denied it?” exclaimed Zegota warmly--“But I have said, and
I say again that I believe the news is true,--and that these howling
hypocrites,--” this with an angry gesture of his hand towards the open
square where the chanting priests who headed the procession were coming
into view--“have truly received an unlooked-for check from the King!”
Sergius Thord laid one hand heavily on his shoulder.
“When the King--when any king--does anything useful in the world, then
you may hang me with your own hands, Zegota! When did you ever hear,
except in myths of the past, of a monarch who cared for his people more
than his crown? Tell me that! Tell me of any king who so truly loved the
people he was called upon to govern, that he sacrificed his own money,
as well as his own time, to remedy their wrongs?--to save them from
unjust government, to defend them from cruel taxation?--to see that
their bread was not taken from their mouths by foreign competition?--and
to make it possible for them to live in the country of their birth in
peace and prosperity? Bah! There never was such a king! And that this
man,--who has for three years left us to the mercy of the most accursed
cheat and scoundrel minister that ever was in power,--has now declared
his opposition to the Jesuits’, is more than I will or can believe.”
“If it were true?”--suggested Zegota, with a more than usually vicious
tug at his beard.
“If it were true, it would not alter my opinion, or set aside my
intention,” replied Thord,--“I would admit that the King had done one
good deed before going to hell! Look! Here come the future traitresses
of men--girls trained by priests to deceive their nearest and dearest!
Poor children! They know nothing as yet of the uses to which their lives
are destined! If they could but die now, in their innocent faith and
stupidity, how much better for all the world!”
As he spoke, the wind, swooping into the square, and accompanied by
a pattering gust of rain, fell like a fury upon the leaders of the
religious procession and tore one of the great banners out of the hands
of the priest who held it, beating it against his head and face with so
much force that he fell backward to the ground under its weight, while
from a black cloud above, a flash of lightning gleamed, followed almost
instantaneously by a loud clap of thunder, which shook the square with
a mighty reverberation like that of a bursting bomb. The children
screamed,--and ran towards the Cathedral pellmell; and for a few moments
there ensued indescribable confusion, the priests, the people, and the
white-veiled girls getting mixed together in a wild hurly-burly. Sergius
Thord suddenly left his companion’s side, and springing on a small
handcart that stood empty near the centre of the square, his tall
figure rose up all at once like a dark apparition above the heads of
the assembled crowd, and his voice, strong, clear, and vibrating with
passion, rang out like a deep alarm bell, through all the noise of the
storm.
“Whither are you going, O foolish people? To pray to God? Pray to
Him here, then, under the flash of His lightning!--in the roll of His
thunder!--beneath His cathedral-canopy of clouds! Pray to Him with all
your hearts, your brains, your reason, your intelligence, and leave mere
lip-service and mockery to priests; and to these poor children, who, as
yet, know no better than to obey tyrants! Would you find out God? He
is here--with me,--with you!--in the earth, in the sky, in the sun and
storm! Whenever Truth declares a living fact, God speaks,--whenever we
respond to that Truth, God hears! No church, no cathedral contains His
presence more than we shall find it here--with us--where we stand!”
The people heard, and a great silence fell upon them. All faces were
turned toward the speaker, and none appeared to heed the great drops
of fast-falling rain. One of the priests who was trying to marshal the
scattered children into their former order, so that they might enter the
Cathedral in the manner arranged for the religious service, looked up
to see the cause of the sudden stillness, and muttered a curse under his
breath. But even while the oath escaped his lips, he gave the signal for
the sacred chanting to be resumed, and in another moment the ‘Litany
of the Virgin’ was started in stentorian tones by the leaders of the
procession. Intimidated by the looks, as well as by the commands of the
priests, the girls and children joined in the chanting with tremulous
voices, as they began to file through the Cathedral doors and enter the
great nave. But a magnetic spell, stronger than any invocation of the
Church, had fallen upon the crowd, and they all stood as though caught
in the invisible web of some enchanter, their faces turned upwards to
where Thord’s tall figure towered above them. His eyes glittered as
he noted the sudden hush of attention which prevailed, and lifting
his rough cap from his head, he waved it towards the open door of the
Cathedral, through which the grand strains of the organ rolling out from
within gave forth solemn invitation:--
“Sancta Dei Genitrix, Ora pro nobis!”
sang the children, as they passed in line under the ancient porch,
carved with the figures of forgotten saints and bishops, whose stone
countenances had stared at similar scenes through the course of long
centuries.
“Sancta Dei Genitrix, ora pro nobis!” echoed Sergius Thord--“Do you hear
it, O men? Do you hear it, O women? What does it teach you? ‘Holy Mother
of God!’ Who was she? Was she not merely a woman to whom God descended?
And what is the lesson she gives you? Plainly this--that men should be
as gods, and women as the mothers of gods! For every true and brave man
born into the world has God within him,--is made of God, and must return
to God! And every woman who gives birth to one such, true, brave man,
has given a God-incarnated being to the world! ‘Sancta Dei Genitrix!’
Be all as mothers of gods, O women! Be as gods, O men! Be as gods in
courage, in truth, in wisdom, in freedom! Suffer not devils to have
command of you! For devils there are, as there are gods;--evil there
is, as there is good. Fiends are born of women as gods are--and yet evil
itself is of God, inasmuch as without God there can be neither evil nor
good. Let us help God, we His children, to conquer evil by conquering
it in ourselves--and by refusing to give it power over us! So shall
God show us all goodness,--all pity! So shall He cease to afflict His
children; so will He cease to torture us with undeserved sorrows and
devilish agonies, for which we are not to blame!”
He paused. The singing had ceased; the children’s procession had entered
the Cathedral, and the doors still stood wide open. But the people
remained outside, crowded in the square, and gathering momentarily in
greater numbers.
“Look you!” cried Sergius Thord--“The building which is called the
Sanctuary of God, stands open--why do you not all enter there? Within
are precious marbles, priceless pictures, jewels and relics--and a great
altar raised up by the gifts of wicked dead kings, who by money sought
to atone for their sins to the people. There are priests who fast and
pray in public, and gratify all the lusts of appetite in private. There
are poor and ignorant women who believe whatsoever these priests tell
them--all this you can see if you go inside yonder. Why do you not go?
Why do you remain with me?”
A faint murmur, like the rising ripple of an angry sea, rose from the
crowd, but quickly died away again into silence.
“Shall I tell you why you stay?” went on Thord,--“Because you know I
am your friend--and because you also know that the priests are your
enemies! Because you know that I tell you the truth, and that the
priests tell you lies! Because you feel that all the promises made to
you of happiness in Heaven cannot explain away to your satisfaction the
causes of your bitter suffering and poverty on earth! Because you are
gradually learning that the chief business of priestcraft is to deceive
the people and keep them down,--down, always down in a state of wretched
ignorance. Learn, learn all you can, my brothers--take the only good
thing modern government gives you--Education! Education is thrown at
us like a bone thrown to a dog, half picked by others and barely
nourishing--but take it, take it, friends, for in it you shall find the
marrow of vengeance on your tyrants and oppressors! The education of
the masses means the downfall of false creeds,--the ruin of all
false priests! For it is only through the ignorance of the many
that tyrannical dominion is given into the hands of the few! Slavish
submission to a corrupt government would be impossible if we all refused
to be slaves. O friends, O brothers, throw off your chains! Break down
your prison doors! Some good you have done already--be brave and strong
to do more! Press forward fearlessly and strive for liberty and justice!
To-day we are told that the King has refused crown-lands to the Jesuits.
Shall we be told to-morrow that the King has dismissed Carl Pérousse
from office?”
A long wild shout told how this suggestion had gone straight home to the
throng.
“Shall we be told this, I ask? No! Ten thousand times no! The refusal
of the King to grant the priests any wider dominion over us is merely
an act of policy inspired by terror. The King is afraid! He fears the
people will revolt against the Church, and so takes part with them lest
there should be trouble in the land, but he never seems to think there
may be another kind of revolt against himself! His refusal to concede
more place for the accursed practice of Jesuitry is so far good; but his
dismissal of Pérousse would be still better!”
A perfect hurricane of applause from the people gave emphatic testimony
to the truth of these words.
“What is this man, Carl Pérousse?” he went on--“A man of the
people--whose oaths were sworn to the people,--whom the people
themselves brought into power because he promised to remain faithful to
them! He is false,--a traitor and political coward! A mere manufacturer
of kitchen goods, who through our folly was returned to this country’s
senate;--and through our still further credulity is now set in almost
complete dominion over us. Well! We have suffered and are suffering
for our misplaced belief in him;--the question is, how long shall we
continue to suffer? How long are we to be governed by the schemes of
Carl Pérousse, the country’s turncoat,--the trafficker in secret with
Jew speculators? It is for you to decide! It is for you to work out your
own salvation! It is for you to throw off tyranny, and show yourselves
free men of reason and capacity! Just as the priests chant long prayers
to cover their own iniquity, so do the men of government make long
speeches to disguise their own corruption. You know you cannot believe
their promises. Neither can you believe the press, for if this is not
actually bought by Pérousse, it is bribed. And you cannot trust the
King; for he is as a house divided against itself which must fall! Slave
of his own passions, and duped by women, what is he but a burden to the
State? Justice and power should be on the side of kings,--but the days
are come when self-interest and money can even buy a throne! O men, O
women, rouse up your hearts and minds to work for yourselves, to redress
wrongs,--to save your country! Rouse up in your thousands, and with
your toil-worn hands pull down the pillars of iniquity and vice that
overshadow and darken the land! Fight against the insolent pride of
wealth which strives to crush the poor; rouse, rouse your hearts!--open
your eyes and see the evils which are gathering thick upon us!--and
like the lightnings pent up in yonder clouds, leap forth in flame and
thunder, and clear the air!”
A burst of frantic acclamation from the crowd followed this wild
harangue, and while the loud roar of voices yet echoed aloft, a band of
armed police came into view, marching steadily up from the lower streets
of the city. Sergius Thord smiled as he saw them approach.
“Yonder comes the Law!” he said--“A few poor constables, badly paid, who
if they could find anything better to do than to interfere with their
fellow-men would be glad of other occupation! Before they come any
nearer, disperse yourselves, my friends, and so save them trouble! Go
all to your homes and think on my words;--or enter the Cathedral and
pray, those who will--but let this place be as empty of you in five
minutes as though you never had been here! Disperse,--and farewell! We
shall meet again!”
He leaped down from his position and disappeared, and in obedience to
his command the crowd began to melt away with almost miraculous speed.
Before the police could reach the centre of the square, there were only
some thirty or forty people left, and these were quietly entering the
Cathedral where the service for the saint whose feast day was being
celebrated was now in full and solemn progress.
For one instant, on the first step of the great porch, Sergius Thord and
his companion, Johan Zegota, met,--but making a rapid sign to each other
with the left hand, they as quickly separated,--Zegota to enter the
Cathedral, Thord to walk rapidly down one of the narrowest and most
unfrequented streets to the lower precincts of the city.
The afternoon grew darker, and the weather more depressing, and by the
time evening closed in, the rain was pouring persistently. The wind had
ceased, and the thunder had long since died away, its force drenched out
by the weight of water in the clouds. The saint’s day had ended badly
for all concerned;--many of the children who had taken part in the
procession had been carried home by their parents wet through, all the
pretty white frocks and veils of the little girls having been completely
soaked and spoilt by the unkind elements. A drearier night had seldom
gloomed over this fair city of the southern sea, and down in the
quarters of the poor, where men and women dwelt all huddled miserably
in overcrowded tenements, and sin and starvation kept hideous company
together, the streets presented as dark and forbidding an aspect as the
heavy skies blackly brooding above. Here and there a gas-lamp flared
its light upon the drawn little face of some child crouching asleep in a
doorway, or on the pinched and painted features of some wretched outcast
wending her way to the den she called ‘home.’ The loud brutal laughter
of drunken men was mingled with the wailing of half-starved and fretful
infants, and the mean, squalid houses swarmed with the living spawn of
every vice and lust in the calendar of crime. Deep in the heart of the
so-called civilized, beautiful and luxurious city, this ‘quarter of the
poor,’ the cancer of the social body, throbbed and ate its destructive
way slowly but surely on, and Sergius Thord, who longed to lay a sharp
knife against it and cut it out, for the health of the whole community,
was as powerless as Dante in hell to cure the evils he witnessed. Yet
it was not too much to say that he would have given his life to ease
another’s pain,--as swiftly and as readily as he would have taken
life without mercy, in the pursuit of what he imagined to be a just
vengeance.
“How vain, after all, is my labour!” he thought--“How helpless I am to
move the self-centred powers of the Government and the Throne! Even were
all these wretched multitudes to rise with me, and make havoc of the
whole city, should we move so much as one step higher out of the Gehenna
of poverty and crime? Almost I doubt it!”
He walked on past dark open doorways, where some of the miserable
inhabitants of the dens within, stood to inhale the fresh wet air of the
rainy night. His tall form was familiar to most of them,--if they were
considered as wolves of humanity in the sight of the law, they were
all faithful dogs to him; doing as he bade, running where he commanded,
ready at any moment to assemble at any given point and burn and pillage,
or rob and slay. There were no leaders in the political government,--but
this one leader of the massed poor could, had he chosen, have burned
down the city. But he did not choose. He had a far-sighted, clear
brain,--and though he had sworn to destroy abuses wherever he could find
them, he moved always with caution; and his plans were guided, not
by impulse alone, but by earnest consideration for the future. He was
marked out by the police as a dangerous Socialist; and his movements
were constantly tracked and dodged, but so far, he had done nothing
which could empower his arrest. He was a free subject in a free country;
and provided he created no open disturbance he had as much liberty as
a mission preacher to speak in the streets to those who would stop to
listen. He paused now in his walk at the door of one house more than
commonly dingy and tumble-down in appearance, where a man lounged
outside in his shirt-sleeves, smoking.
“Is all well with you, Matsin?” he asked gently.
“All is well!” answered the man called Matsin,--“better than last night.
The child is dead.”
“Dead!” echoed Thord,--“And the mother----”
“Asleep!” answered Matsin. “I gave her opium to save her from madness.
She was hungry, too--the opium fed her and made her forget!”
Thord pushed him gently aside, and went into the house. There on the
floor lay the naked body of a dead child, so emaciated as to be almost a
skeleton; and across it, holding it close with one arm, was stretched a
woman, half clothed, her face hidden in her unbound dark hair, breathing
heavily in a drugged sleep. Great tears filled Thord’s eyes.
“God exists!” he said,--“And He can bear to look upon a sight like this!
If I were God, I should hate myself for letting such things be!”
“Perhaps He does hate Himself!” said the man Matsin, who had also come
in, and now looked at the scene with sullen apathy--“That may be the
cause of all our troubles! I don’t understand the ways of God; or the
ways of man either. I have done no harm. I married the woman--and we had
that one child. I worked hard for both. I could not get sufficient money
to keep us going; I did metal work--very well, so I was told. But they
make it all abroad now by machinery--I cannot compete. They don’t want
new designs they say--the old will serve. I do anything now that I
can--but it is difficult. You, too,--you starve with us!”
“I am poor, if that is what you mean,” said Thord,--“but take all I have
to-night, Matsin--” and he emptied a small purse of silver coins into
the man’s hand. “Bury the poor little innocent one;--and comfort the
mother when she wakes. Comfort her!--love her!--she needs love! I will
be back again to-morrow.”
He strode away quickly, and Matsin remained at his door turning over the
money in his hand.
“He will sacrifice something he needs himself, for this,” he muttered.
“Yet that is the man they say the King would hang if ever he got hold of
him! By Heaven!--the King himself should hang first!”
Meanwhile Sergius Thord went on, slackening his pace a little as he
came near his own destination, a tall and narrow house at the end of the
street, with a single light shining in one of the upper windows. There
was a gas-lamp some few paces off, and under this stood a man reading,
or trying to read, a newspaper by its flickering glare. Thord glanced at
him with some suspicion--the stranger was too near his own lodging for
his pleasure, for he was always on his guard against spies. Approaching
more closely, he saw that though the man was shabbily attired in a rough
pilot suit, much the worse for wear, he nevertheless had the indefinable
look and bearing of a gentleman. Acting on impulse, as he often did,
Thord spoke to him.
“A rough night for reading by lamplight, my friend!” he said.
The man looked up, and smiled.
“Yes, it is, rather! But I have only just got the evening paper.”
“Any special news?”
“No--only this--” and he pointed to a bold headline--“The King _versus_
The Jesuits.”
“Ah!” said Thord, and he studied the looks and bearing of the stranger
with increasing curiosity. “What do you think of it?”
“What do I think? May I ask, without offence, what _you_ think?”
“I think,” said Thord slowly, “that the King has for once in his life
done a wise thing.”
“‘For once in his life!’” repeated the stranger dubiously--“Then I
presume your King is, generally speaking, a fool?”
“If you are a subject of his--” began Thord slowly----
“Thank Heaven, I am not! I am a mere wanderer--a literary loafer--a
student of men and manners. I read books, and I write them too,--this
will perhaps explain the eccentricity of my behaviour in trying to read
under the lamplight in the rain!”
He smiled again, and the smile was irresistibly pleasant. Something
about him attracted Thord, and after a pause he asked:
“If you are, as you say, a wanderer and a stranger in this town, can I
be of service to you?”
“You are very kind!” said the other, turning a pair of deep, dark, grey
meditative eyes upon him,--“And I am infinitely obliged to you for the
suggestion. But I really want nothing. As a matter of fact, I am waiting
for two friends of mine who have just gone into one of the foul and
filthy habitations here, to see what they can do for a suddenly bereaved
family. The husband and father fell dead in the street before our
eyes,--and those who picked him up said he was drunk, but it turned out
that he was merely starved,--_merely_!--you understand? Merely starved!
We found his home,--and the poor widow is wailing and weeping, and the
children are crying for food. I confess myself quite unable to bear the
sight, and so I have sent all the money I had about me to help them
for to-night at least. By my faith, they are most hopelessly, incurably
miserable!”
“Their lot is exceedingly common in these quarters,” said Thord,
sorrowfully. “Day after day, night after night, men, women and children
toil, suffer and die here without ever knowing what it is to have one
hour of free fresh air, one day of rest and joy! Yet this is a great
city,--and we live in a civilized country!” He smiled bitterly, then
added--“You have done a good action; and you need no thanks, or I would
thank you; for my life’s work lies among these wretched poor, and I am
familiar with their tragic histories. Good-night!”
“Pray do not go!” said the stranger suddenly--“I should like to talk to
you a little longer, if you have no objection. Is there not some
place near, where we can go out of this rain and have a glass of wine
together?”
Sergius Thord stood irresolute,--gazing at him, half in liking, half in
distrust.
“Sir,” he said at last, “I do not know you--and you do not know me. If I
told you my name, you would probably not seek my company!”
“Will you tell it?” suggested the stranger cheerfully--“Mine is at your
service--Pasquin Leroy. I fear my fame as an author has not reached your
ears!”
Thord shook his head.
“No. I have never heard of you. And probably you have never heard of me.
My name is Sergius Thord.”
“Sergius Thord!” echoed the stranger; “Now that is truly remarkable!
It is a happy coincidence that we should have met to-night. I have just
seen your name in this very paper which you caught me reading--see!--the
next heading under that concerning the King and the Jesuits--‘Thord’s
Rabble.’ Are not you that same Thord?”
“I am!” said Thord proudly, his eyes shining as he took the paper and
perused quickly the few flashy lines which described the crowd outside
the Cathedral that afternoon, and set him down as a crazy Socialist, and
disturber of the peace, “And the ‘rabble’ as this scribbling fool
calls it, is the greater part of this city’s population. The King
may intimidate his Court; but I, Sergius Thord, with my ‘rabble’ can
intimidate both Court and King!”
He drew himself up to his full majestic height--a noble figure of a man
with his fine heroic head and eagle-like glance of eye,--and he who had
called himself Pasquin Leroy, suddenly held out his hand.
“Let me see more of you, Sergius Thord!” he said,--“You are the very
man for me! They say in this paper that you spoke to a great multitude
outside the Cathedral this afternoon, and interfered with the religious
procession; they also say you are the head of a Society called the
Revolutionary Committee;--now let me work for you in some department of
_that_ business!”
“Let you work for me?” echoed Thord astonished--“But how?”
“In this way--” replied the other--“I write Socialistic works,--and for
this cause have been expelled from my native home and surroundings. I
have a little money--and some influence,--and I will devote both to your
Cause. Will you take me, and trust me?”
Thord caught his extended hand, and looked at him with a kind of fierce
intentness.
“You mean it?” he said in thrilling tones--“You mean it positively and
truly?”
“Positively and truly!” said Leroy--“If you are working to remedy the
frightful evils abounding in this wretched quarter of the poor, I will
help you! If you are striving to destroy rank abuses, I ask nothing
better than to employ my pen in your service. I will get work on the
press here--I will do all I can to aid your purposes and carry out your
intentions. I have no master, so am free to do as I like; and I will
devote myself to your service so long as you think I can be of any use
to you.”
“Wait!” said Thord--“You must not be carried away by a sudden generous
impulse, simply because you have witnessed one scene of the continual
misery that is going on here daily. To belong to our Committee means
much more than you at present realize, and involves an oath which you
may not be willing to take! And what of the friends you spoke of?”
“They will do what I do,” replied Leroy--“They share my
fortunes--likewise my opinions;--and here they come,--so they can speak
for themselves,” this, as two men emerged from a dark street on the
left, and came full into the lamplight’s flare--“Axel Regor, Max
Graub--come hither! Fortune has singularly favoured us to-night! Let me
present to you my friend--” and he emphasized the word, “Sergius Thord!”
Both men started ever so slightly as the introduction was performed,
and Thord looked at them with fresh touches of suspicion here and there
lurking in his mind. But he was brave; and having once proceeded in
a given direction was not in the habit of turning back. He therefore
saluted both the new-comers with grave courtesy.
“I trust you!” he then said curtly to Leroy, “and I think you will not
betray my trust. If you do, it will be the worse for you!”
His lips parted in a slight sinister smile, and the two who were
respectively called Axel Regor and Max Graub, exchanged anxious glances.
But Leroy showed no sign of hesitation or alarm.
“Your warning is quite unnecessary, Sergius Thord,” he said,--“I pledge
you my word with my friendship--and my word is my bond! I will also hold
myself responsible for my companions.”
Thord bent his head in silent recognition of this assurance.
“Then follow me, if such is your desire,” he said--“Remember, there is
yet time to go in another direction, and to see me no more; but if you
once do cast in your lot with mine the tie between us is indissoluble!”
He paused, as though expecting some recoil or hesitation on the part of
those to whom he made this statement, but none came. He therefore strode
on, and they followed, till arriving at the door of the tall, narrow
house, where the light in the highest window gleamed like a signal, he
opened it with a small key and entered, holding it back courteously for
his three new companions to enter with him. They did so, and he closed
the door. At the same moment the light was extinguished in the upper
window, and the outside of the house became a mere wall of dense
blackness in the driving rain.