THE SWEEP OF THE NET
“I am not at all afraid,” I retorted, nettled at Lazaroff’s sneer, “but
how do I get in?”
A dog was yelping somewhere outside the Institute, and all the dogs in
Croydon seemed to have taken up its challenge. It was difficult for me
to make my voice audible above the uproar.
“I am not at all afraid,” I repeated, “but—”
I was back in the cellar with Esther and Lazaroff, and we were examining
the cylinders. As I looked about me, I seemed to be in the cylinder
still, but gradually it expanded, until it became a vast hall, dark,
save for a little window near the ceiling, through whose half-opaque
crystal a little light filtered in dimly.
Lazaroff seemed to have aged. He wore a white beard, and his touch was
very gentle as he bathed my face with water. As I stared at him he
became ... somebody whom I had once known ... Bishop Alfred!
“Now you are better,” said the old man, with his child-like smile.
I put my hand up to my aching head. There was a scarred groove along the
top of the scalp, where the glow ray had plowed its passage. I began to
remember now.
The howling of the dogs broke out afresh. The din was terrific, and the
mournful tones of the poor animals’ cries made the place a pandemonium.
“Arnold!” whispered a soft voice at my side.
Elizabeth was kneeling there, and David stood behind her. Next to David
stood the little woman who had been our neighbor in the Strangers’
House, and a multitude of men and women, and children, too, watched me
through the gloom.
“Where am I? Who are all these?” I asked. Then, lighting upon a more
momentous question, “How long have I been here?”
“Three days, Arnold,” whispered Elizabeth.
“Then in two days—two days—” I gasped.
“No, Arnold, tomorrow is the day,” interposed David, coming up to me
softly. “Sanson has proclaimed a meeting in the Temple at sunrise, and
it is now late afternoon. We are all in his trap. He must have found
you, taken you unaware, and fired at you, but afterward he changed his
mind and brought you here in his dispatchplane, where he found Bishop
Alfred awaiting him, and Elizabeth and myself, who had gone back to find
him. I bought a few days’ respite by surrender, and there was even
pleasure in the thought that my daughter will not meet her fate in
Lembken’s palace.”
“Where, then?” I asked, struggling painfully up.
“In the Vivisection Bureau—with these,” he answered, indicating the
assemblage.
“Where are we, David?” I cried in anguish.
“Beneath it. In the vaults where Sanson keeps his morons, Christians,
criminals, and dogs, to await the table.”
I was upon my feet raving like a madman, making my way round the vault,
striking my fists against the damp stone walls, crazed with the thought
of Esther. They followed me, and some laid their hands on me in
restraint, but I thrust them away. They thought I could not bear to
share their wretched fate. But the nearness of the crisis, the thought
of Esther in Sanson’s power deprived me of my senses.
The vault was an enormous one, the only access being at the far end, by
means of an oak gate, heavily barred. In this further portion were
chained, all along the walls, the dogs destined for the experimental
work above. As I drew near the gate the howling broke forth afresh. It
steadied me; I came back to my senses; somebody was at my side, clasping
my arm and speaking a few timid words in my ear.
I swung around and caught at the little woman who had been our neighbor.
She had her children with her, and the three held each other closely, as
if their last hour had begun.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
I did not know David was near, but at the words he clasped me in his
arms.
“She is here, Arnold,” he answered, “because the last act of terrorism
has brought her. Sanson’s reason has left him, and he has flung his net
wide over London for victims. He has gathered everyone: morons,
Christians, criminals, suspects. She taught her children fairy stories.
The inspectors had long suspected it, and they terrified the little girl
into admission by threatening to kill the mother. They were then
adjudged morons. The mother pleaded to be allowed to accompany them to
the table, alleging that her father had been color-blind. Her prayer was
granted; she is going, Arnold; we all are going—”
“No,” said the old bishop in a regretful tone, “not one of us is going.
You see,” he added in explanation, “the Russians are in Stockholm, and
it will not be long before they arrive in London to free the world. That
is why Sanson lost his self-control. He knows. He wants to finish his
enemies at home before they come.”
“How do you know?” demanded David, while everyone grew still and
listened.
“It is given to me to know,” said Bishop Alfred simply, beaming and
rubbing his hands. “I should like to have followed my dear master, the
Lord Bishop of London, to the fagots, but none of us will go to the
tables now, and we shall all have our two names again.”
David drew me aside. “Arnold,” he said, “this situation would have
robbed stronger men of their wits. I am afraid that our case is
hopeless. One of the Guard, who knows me, has told me that Sanson is
preparing for a holocaust of victims tomorrow, to celebrate his coup. He
will stop at nothing to appease his blood thirst. Arnold, all our people
know who you are. For their sake you must lead and show them how to die,
as the first Christians died. It is hard, my dear boy—”
I knew he was not thinking of death, but of my tragedy.
“Your capture has rendered our plans abortive,” he went on. “But still
there may be some hope unguessed by us. Unto the last we will not impugn
God’s power. Now, my friends,” he added, turning toward the crowd, which
circulated in the vault slowly, always following me, “let us show the
Guard where our strength lies.”
In the gloom of the vast vault, above the howling of the dogs, the hymn
was raised, old Bishop Alfred leading, in a voice singularly sweet,
although in speech the tones were broken. All kneeled.
Afterward David spoke briefly. He reminded us of the brave traditions of
martyrdom and its happy expectancy. We were going to face our fate
together, strengthened by our companionship and in the knowledge that
our death would create a revulsion of sentiment that would sweep Sanson
from power and restore Christianity to the world. They cried out their
approval, and there was no face but reflected David’s dauntless
resolution. Then it was as if some soul of merriment swept over us all.
I saw strangers embracing, there was clapping of hands, and the
concluding hymn was shouted so joyously that a slit in the little window
overhead was thrust back, and I saw the face of a sentinel stare in on
us with something of superstitious awe.
The glass must have been sound-proof, like that which enclosed Lembken’s
gardens, for, as the slit was pushed back, I heard the cries of the
multitude in the courts above:
“Sanson! Sanson! Sanson!” they howled. “Out with the Christian morons!
To the Rest Cure! The Rest Cure!”
The slit was pushed into place, cutting off all sound. Darkness was
falling. The little light within the vault faded. Gradually the voices
died away. Sometimes a hymn would be started, but mostly we sat silent
now, and even the dogs ceased howling, and only stirred and whined at
intervals. I heard the little woman’s children whimper, and fancied her
motherly face bent over them as she quieted their fears. I only felt
Elizabeth’s presence, and that of David, good, fatherly man, on whom I
leaned more than he knew. At last the only sounds were the bishop’s
mumbling voice, as he talked to himself, and the staccato tapping of his
stick on the stone floors.
[Illustration:
A man near me leaped up and craned his neck, looking into the gloom
]
“They are coming,” I heard him say. “They are gathering up the Stockholm
fleets. They will be here—”
“Who?” I burst out.
“The Russians,” he answered gently. “See them coming; big men, with
bloody crosses on their breasts.”
A man near me leaped up and craned his neck, looking into the gloom. One
or two cried out at the old bishop’s words, and some listened and
whispered eagerly. Time passed. Most of the prisoners slept. I was still
too sick and dizzy from my wound; I waited in a sort of apathy, and I
seemed to see Esther within the opening cylinder, and Sanson, creeping
like a foul beast of prey toward her.
I had been dozing. I started up at the sound of bolts being withdrawn,
the heavy door at the far end of the vault was opened, and flashing
lights shone in on us. The dogs, awakened, began to howl again. There
was the stamping of heavy boots upon the stones, and a detachment of the
Guard appeared before us.
They numbered seven. Six of them were privates, carrying solar torches
and Ray rods; and in their midst stood a tall man with a black beard and
a curved sword sheath that clanked on the stones. I recognized in him
Mehemet, the Turkish commander.
Some, who had slept and mercifully forgotten all, sat up in
bewilderment, others leaped up, thinking the hour had come. As we stood
blinking at the lights, Mehemet spoke a few words, and the soldiers
flashed their torches into our faces until they lighted on mine. Then
Mehemet stepped forward and laid his hand on my shoulder, and drew me
toward him; and the soldiers closed about us.
David sprang toward them.
“You shall not take him alone!” he cried. “Let us go with him, every one
of us. We shall go to death together.”
And others sprang forward too, clamoring, beseeching. “Take us all!”
they cried. “Take us together!”
Mehemet shrugged his shoulders and turned away. The captives flung
themselves before the soldiers, who hesitated.
It was then that the old bishop, who had never ceased to mumble, I
think, came quietly up to us.
“It is all right. Let him go,” he said gently. “He will come to no
harm.”
[Illustration:
A tall man with a black beard and a curved sword sheath that clanked
on the stones.
I recognized in him Mehemet the Turkish commander
]
“It is my orders,” said Mehemet, looking with respect at Bishop Alfred.
“I have come for him alone.”
Half quieted by the bishop’s intervention, my fellow-prisoners ceased to
offer forcible resistance. But they wept and prayed, and David grasped
me by the hand.
“We shall be together in spirit, Arnold!” he cried. “God be with you.
God be with you.” He flung his arms about me, and the guards, touched by
the scene, permitted him to accompany me as far as the door. They picked
their way carefully by the light of their torches, to avoid treading on
the dogs, which crept to their feet or strained, yelping, upon their
chains. At the door I found Elizabeth.
“We shall be with you in your hour, Arnold!” she said, embracing me and
fighting back her sobs valiantly. “We shall all think of you tomorrow.”
The crowd dispersed. The last thing that I saw was the white, terrified,
maternal face of the little woman, as she clutched her children to her
breast, and, over her, the bishop’s pastoral staff, held up as if to
shield her.
The door was closed behind me, and the soldiers shot the bolts home. In
front of me was a flight of winding concrete stairs, dividing at a
central space into two portions that ran right and left respectively. We
took the left. I expected to emerge into the Vivisection Bureau, to see
the eager students of the medical school, and Sanson, the presiding
devil, there. But instead I saw a gate above me; a guard unlocked it.
Then I found myself standing alone beside Mehemet, in the interior court
between the Temple and the Airscouts’ Fortress, between the Science Wing
and the Council Building.
High above me the bridges crossed, spanning the gulf in whose recess we
stood. I saw once more the palms against the upreared crystal walls.
As I watched I saw the battleplanes take their flight once more, one by
one, from the roof of the Airscouts’ Fortress, rising into the dark
night like luminous balloons. In the distance London glowed like day.
Behind us, in the outer courts, a multitude was shrieking curses upon
the Christians; and, for the first time, I heard threats against
Lembken, and realized that Sanson’s plans were made for that coup which
I was never to see.
“We are going to Sanson?” I asked Mehemet, nerving myself for his
affirmative reply.
He spat. “The jackal!” he said. “Sooner would I become a Christian than
serve such spawn. We are going to the People’s House.”
Evidently Sanson did not know that the main prop of his new house had
fallen.