THE NEW MASTER
Wolf lost no time in demonstrating that he was complete master of the
situation.
At nine o'clock next morning two armed guards, whom he had never seen
in the house before, entered Norman's room and handed him the first
official order of the new regents. The deposed young leader read it
with amusement at first, but as his eyes rested on its brief words of
command, something of their sinister meaning began to dawn in his
mind.
"All citizens of the State of Ventura are ordered to immediately
surrender their arms. By order of
"HERMAN WOLF,
"_Regent_."
Norman looked at the revolvers in the holsters of the guards and dryly
remarked:
"But the State will kindly continue their use, I see!"
Norman surrendered his revolver, and his room was searched in every
nook and corner for weapons he might have concealed.
"Why this insult?" he demanded.
The guardsman saluted.
"Special orders of the regent, sir. We are to take no man's word for
it."
Norman sat in silence while the men opened his trunks, ransacked his
drawers, and searched in every conceivable spot where a weapon of any
kind might be hid.
"I could have told you at first that I had no other guns. The entire
colony is being disarmed this morning?"
"Yes, sir, the work will be completed by two o'clock."
"Indeed!"
The man fumbled in his pocket and drew out another order.
"And this one for you personally, sir."
"Oh--after the disarming?"
"Yes, sir!"
Norman read the second order and the lines of his mouth tightened
suddenly. The note was brief but to the point:
"Comrade Norman Worth will report to the regent at ten o'clock
for orders.
"HERMAN WOLF,
"_Regent_."
For five minutes after the guards had gone Norman stood in silence
staring at this order. It was the first he had ever received in his
life except the one from his own father which he had disobeyed.
To be driven into another man's presence to take orders as from a
master to a servant was an idea that had never entered his
imagination. He had seen such things. He had given orders, but he had
never, somehow, counted himself in the class of men who took them.
For the first time he began to realize the meaning of the work he had
been doing, and began to see how deftly and unconsciously he had been
forging the chains of a system of irresponsible slavery on his fellow
men. While the motive which impelled him was one of unselfish love,
and he had thought only of their best interest, he saw now in a flash
with what crushing cruelty this power could be used.
It all seemed simple enough when he regarded his own will as the
centre and source of power. Now that another man had grasped the lever
and applied this power, the whole scheme of artificial life which he
had created took on a new and darker meaning.
What should he do?
His first impulse was to walk into Wolf's presence, denounce him as a
scheming scoundrel, and defy his power. That Wolf would fight was not
to be questioned for a minute. His first act of disarming the colony
was a master-stroke, and the longer the young leader thought of it the
more hopeless his present situation became.
Beyond a doubt Wolf had been selecting the new regent's guard with the
same patience and skill with which he had executed his political coup.
This guard was composed now only of his tried and trusted henchmen. A
single false step on Norman's part would simply play into the wily
brute's hands, and he would destroy himself at a single stroke.
He must use his brain. He must fight the devil with fire. He must
submit for the moment, plan and work and wait with infinite patience,
and when the work of patience was complete, then strike and strike to
kill.
And yet the blood rushed to his heart and strangled with the thought
of submission to such a man. But there was no other way. He had
himself set the trap of steel he now felt crash into his own flesh.
To appeal to his father was unthinkable--his pride forbade it, even if
it were possible.
To escape was out of the question. Every way had been cut and that by
his own order. The mail was inspected. The steamer held no
communication with the people of the island. No boat was allowed to
land, and no boat, even the smallest sail or row boat, was permitted
to a member of the Brotherhood on any pretext.
Besides, resignation or flight could not be thought of for another
reason. To retreat now and leave thousands of people behind whom he
had led into this enterprise would be the act of a coward.
There was nothing left except to fight it out on the lines he had
himself laid down.
The one thing that hurt him most was the ugly suspicion that Barbara
must have known something of this deeply laid scheme by which the
Wolfs had gained control of the Brotherhood. And yet her surprise had
been genuine, her anger real. He couldn't be mistaken about it. To
believe her capable of such treachery and double-dealing was to doubt
the very existence of truth and purity.
And yet, when he recalled how little he really knew of her past life,
what dark secrets might lurk in the story of the years she had spent
under the same roof with these people, he grew sick at the thought.
He knew now that the blond beast with the red scar on his neck and the
slender, dark-eyed madonna-like mate who had always been his shadow
were capable of anything. Two people who could smile in treacherous
silence for a year and suddenly grip the throat of the man who had
been their best friend, needed no written biography to tell their
past. It was luminous. And in the glare in which he read it he
shuddered at the sinister light it threw on the beautiful girl whom
they had reared as their own.
He took from his mantel a little picture made one day in San Francisco
by a tintype man. It was a singularly beautiful likeness of Barbara,
taken on a sudden impulse without a moment's thought or preparation.
Her laughing face looked out at him, wreathed in a garland of wayward
ringlets of dark brown hair. Truth, sincerity, beauty, intelligence,
and a childlike innocence were stamped in every line.
A thousand times since he had seen her just like that. And from the
moment of their advent on the island this impression of girlish
innocence and sincerity had grown rather than decreased. The more he
saw of her in the simpler, quieter moments of their association, the
stronger, deeper, and more tender his love became, and the deeper grew
his utter faith in the purity of her soul and body.
"I'll sooner doubt an angel of God!" he said at last, as he placed it
back on the mantel.
He would see Wolf at once, learn his plans, and then carefully make
his own.
He dressed with care and at the appointed hour rapped for admission at
the executive office where the day before he sat as master.
He was told the regent was busy with others and ordered to wait his
turn. He flushed with anger, recovered himself, waited a half hour,
and was ushered into the presence of the new ruler.
Wolf sat in the big revolving chair at his desk with conscious dignity
and power. Two of his guards stood outside the door, grim reminders of
the substantial character of the new administration.
Norman seated himself with careless ease without invitation and waited
for the older man to speak.
Wolf smiled grimly, stroked his thick, coarse reddish beard, and
looked at Norman thoughtfully a moment.
"Well, my boy," the regent began, with friendly patronage, "we'd as
well come to the point without ceremony. You are down and out. The new
board of governors will do what I wish. I am in supreme command of the
ship of state. Do you want to fight or work?"
"It's a poor doctor, Wolf," Norman said, coolly, "who can't take his
own medicine. I came here to work."
"Congratulations on your good sense!" the regent replied. "I've no
desire to make trouble for you. I have nothing against you
personally. I had to put you out and take command to save the colony
from ruin. You meant well, but you were a bungling amateur, and you
can be of greater service in the ranks than in command. I know you
don't like me after what has happened, but you don't have to. I'll be
generous. What sort of work would you like to have assigned you?"
"Thanks, that's very kind of you, Wolf, I'm sure. I believe the warden
of every penitentiary is equally generous to all convicts. However,
that's a minor detail, seeing that I assisted in the creation of this
ideal world."
Wolf smashed the desk top with his big fist and suddenly glared at
Norman, his cold eyes gleaming angrily.
"Come to the point! I've no time to waste! Have you any choice as to
the kind of work to which you wish to be assigned?"
"I have a decided choice. Our mines have all failed. I'll redeem the
failure by perfecting and completing the big dredge for mining gold
from the low-grade sands on the beach."
"A waste of time and money," Wolf snapped. "I can't afford to spare
the men on any more fool inventions. Such things must stop."
"You mean to stop all progress by stopping inventions?" Norman asked.
"So far as the State is concerned, yes," said the regent, with
emphasis. "Under your slipshod administration we spent nearly two
hundred thousand dollars during the past year on so-called inventions.
Every fool in the colony has invented something. Not one in a hundred
has produced an idea that is practicable. We cannot afford to waste
the capital of the State in such idiocy."
"Give me twenty men and I'll complete the dredge."
"Labour is capital in the Socialist State. I can't afford to waste
it."
"But you are not wasting it," Norman pleaded. "I've spent sixty
thousand already on this invention. Unless the machine is completed
the capital will be lost to the colony."
"It will be lost anyhow," Wolf answered, impatiently. "Your whole
conception is a piece of childish folly. You can't make a profit
operating a dredge in sand containing only twenty cents' worth of gold
to a ton of dirt."
"I can do better," Norman urged with enthusiasm. "I can make a hundred
per cent. on the investment if the dirt pans out ten cents to the ton.
If it pans twenty cents a ton I can make millions."
"So every crank has claimed for his particular piece of idiocy. I'll
not permit another dollar or another day's labour to be thrown away
on any such crazy experiment."
Norman's face reddened with a rush of uncontrollable anger.
"Look here, Wolf, you can't be serious in this."
"I was never more serious in my life," the big jaws snapped. "I am
going to issue an order to-day that hereafter any man or woman who
conceives an invention can work it out himself without aid from the
State. They must do this at odd hours after working the required time
each day. They must put their own money into their machine."
"As the State only has capital," Norman protested, "this means the
practical prohibition of all invention. No man can with his own hands
make the machinery needed in the progress of humanity. We have
abolished private capital by abolishing rent, interest, and profit. Do
you propose thus to stop the progress of the world?"
"No," Wolf cried with a wave of his heavy hand. "Let the ambitious
inventor work at night and build his own machine. I will grant, in my
order on the subject, to each successful inventor the right to operate
his own machine for ten years before it becomes the property of the
State."
"Suppose he succeeds," said Norman, "under such hard conditions with
his own hands and without capital in perfecting an invention of
enormous value, such as the dredge I have begun, of what use will the
results be if he cannot invest them in rent or interest, and all gifts
and exchanges are prohibited?"
"He may build a home and lavish them on his wife and children, or he
may become a great public benefactor and win the love and gratitude of
the people by enriching the State and shortening the hours of labour.
If your dredge can make a million, for example, as you claim--go
ahead, work at night, perfect it, put it to work, build yourself a
palace to live in, give millions to the Brotherhood. Shorten their
hours from eight to four, and I'll guarantee you'll oust me from my
position of power."
Norman's eye suddenly flashed with resolution.
"You will not grant me the labour to complete the dredge?" Norman
asked.
"Not one man for one minute," was the curt reply.
"Then I'll finish it myself," Norman said, with determination.
"After you've worked eight full hours a day, under my direction--you
understand!" the regent responded sullenly.
Norman sprang to his feet and the two men faced each other a moment,
the big scar on Wolf's neck flashing red, his enormous fists
instinctively closing.
"Wolf, this is an infamous outrage!"
"I'll teach you not to speak to me in that manner again, sir!" the
regent slowly said, as he tapped his bell.
The guards sprang to his side.
"Show this gentleman to the barnyard--he is a good farmer. Put him at
work with old Methodist John cleaning out the stables for the new
cantaloup crop. He is very fond of cantaloups. If he makes any trouble
tell the sergeant of your guard to give him thirty-nine lashes without
consulting me."
Norman stepped closer, and, trembling from head to foot, said to Wolf:
"If ever one of your men lays the weight of his hand on me----"
"And yet we both agreed that under our system discipline must be
enforced--the discipline of an army?" the regent interrupted.
Norman held his gaze fixed without moving a muscle, and slowly
continued:
"If you ever try it, you'd better finish your job."
"I'll remember your advice," Wolf answered with a sneer. "Show him to
his work."