agree that humanity is the object, the glorious triumph of humanity; and
being pledged to labour for that end, and face to face with the banded
opposition of kings, parliaments, churches, and the members of the
force, who am I--who are we, dear sir--to affect a nicety about the
tools employed? You might, perhaps, expect us to attack the Queen, the
sinister Gladstone, the rigid Derby, or the dexterous Granville; but
there you would be in error. Our appeal is to the body of the people; it
is these that we would touch and interest. Now, sir, have you observed
the English housemaid?"
"I should think I had," cried Somerset.
"From a man of taste and a votary of art, I had expected it," returned
the conspirator politely. "A type apart; a very charming figure; and
thoroughly adapted to our ends. The neat cap, the clean print, the
comely person, the engaging manner; her position between classes,
parents in one, employers in another; the probability that she will have
at least one sweetheart, whose feelings we shall address:--yes, I have a
leaning--call it, if you will, a weakness--for the housemaid. Not that I
would be understood to despise the nurse. For the child is a very
interesting feature: I have long since marked out the child as the
sensitive point in society." He wagged his head, with a wise, pensive
smile. "And talking, sir, of children and of the perils of our trade,
let me now narrate to you a little incident of an explosive bomb, that
fell out some weeks ago under my own observation. It fell out thus."
And Zero leaning back in his chair narrated the following simple tale.
FOOTNOTE:
[3] The Arabian author of the original has here a long passage
conceived in a style too oriental for the English reader. We subjoin
a specimen, and it seems doubtful whether it should be printed as
prose or verse: "Any writard who writes dynamitard shall find in me
a never-resting fightard"; and he goes on (if we correctly gather
his meaning) to object to such elegant and obviously correct
spellings as lamp-lightard, corn-dealard, apple-filchard (clearly
justified by the parallel--pilchard), and opera-dancard.
"Dynamitist," he adds, "I could understand."
ZERO'S TALE OF THE EXPLOSIVE BOMB[4]
I dined by appointment with one of our most trusted agents, in a private
chamber at St. James's Hall. You have seen the man: it was M'Guire, the
most chivalrous of creatures, but not himself expert in our
contrivances. Hence the necessity of our meeting; for I need not remind
you what enormous issues depend upon the nice adjustment of the engine.
I set our little petard for half an hour, the scene of action being hard
by; and, the better to avert miscarriage, employed a device, a recent
invention of my own, by which the opening of the Gladstone bag in which
the bomb was carried should instantly determine the explosion. M'Guire
was somewhat dashed by this arrangement, which was new to him: and
pointed out, with excellent, clear good sense, that should he be
arrested, it would probably involve him in the fall of our opponents.
But I was not to be moved, made a strong appeal to his patriotism, gave
him a good glass of whisky, and despatched him on his glorious errand.
Our objective was the effigy of Shakespeare in Leicester Square: a spot,
I think, admirably chosen; not only for the sake of the dramatist, still
very foolishly claimed as a glory by the English race, in spite of his
disgusting political opinions; but from the fact that the seats in the
immediate neighbourhood are often thronged by children, errand-boys,
unfortunate young ladies of the poorer class, and infirm old men--all
classes making a direct appeal to public pity, and therefore suitable
with our designs. As M'Guire drew near, his heart was inflamed by the
most noble sentiment of triumph. Never had he seen the garden so
crowded; children, still stumbling in the impotence of youth, ran to and
fro, shouting and playing, round the pedestal; an old, sick pensioner
sat upon the nearest bench, a medal on his breast, a stick with which he
walked (for he was disabled by wounds) reclining on his knee. Guilty
England would thus be stabbed in the most delicate quarters; the moment
had, indeed, been well selected; and M'Guire, with a radiant prevision
of the event, drew merrily nearer. Suddenly his eye alighted on the
burly form of a policeman, standing hard by the effigy in an attitude of
watch. My bold companion paused; he looked about him closely; here and
there, at different points of the enclosure, other men stood or
loitered, affecting an abstraction, feigning to gaze upon the shrubs,
feigning to talk, feigning to be weary and to rest upon the benches.
M'Guire was no child in these affairs; he instantly divined one of the
plots of the Machiavellian Gladstone.
A chief difficulty with which we have to deal is a certain nervousness
in the subaltern branches of the corps; as the hour of some design draws
near, these chicken-souled conspirators appear to suffer some revulsion
of intent; and frequently despatch to the authorities, not indeed
specific denunciations, but vague anonymous warnings. But for this
purely accidental circumstance, England had long ago been an historical
expression. On the receipt of such a letter, the Government lays a trap
for its adversaries, and surrounds the threatened spot with hirelings.
My blood sometimes boils in my veins, when I consider the case of those
who sell themselves for money in such a cause. True, thanks to the
generosity of our supporters, we patriots receive a very comfortable
stipend; I myself, of course, touch a salary which puts me quite beyond
the reach of any peddling, mercenary thoughts; M'Guire, again, ere he
joined our ranks, was on the brink of starving, and now, thank God!
receives a decent income. That is as it should be; the patriot must not
be diverted from his task by any base consideration; and the distinction
between our position and that of the police is too obvious to be stated.
Plainly, however, our Leicester Square design had been divulged; the
Government had craftily filled the place with minions; even the
pensioner was not improbably a hireling in disguise; and our emissary,
without other aid or protection than the simple apparatus in his bag,
found himself confronted by force; brutal force; that strong hand which
was a character of the ages of oppression. Should he venture to deposit
the machine, it was almost certain that he would be observed and
arrested; a cry would arise; and there was just a fear that the police
might not be present in sufficient force to protect him from the
savagery of the mob. The scheme must be delayed. He stood with his bag
on his arm, pretending to survey the front of the Alhambra, when there
flashed into his mind a thought to appal the bravest. The machine was
set; at the appointed hour, it must explode; and how, in the interval,
was he to be rid of it?
Put yourself, I beseech you, into the body of that patriot. There he
was, friendless and helpless; a man in the very flower of life, for he
is not yet forty; with long years of happiness before him; and now
condemned, in one moment, to a cruel and revolting death by dynamite!
The square, he said, went round him like a thaumatrope; he saw the
Alhambra leap into the air like a balloon; and reeled against the
railing. It is probable he fainted.
When he came to himself, a constable had him by the arm.
"My God!" he cried.
"You seem to be unwell, sir," said the hireling.
"I feel better now," cried poor M'Guire: and with uneven steps, for the
pavement of the square seemed to lurch and reel under his footing, he
fled from the scene of this disaster. Fled? Alas, from what was he
fleeing? Did he not carry that from which he fled, along with him? and
had he the wings of the eagle, had he the swiftness of the ocean winds,
could he have been rapt into the uttermost quarters of the earth, how
should he escape the ruin that he carried? We have heard of living men
who have been fettered to the dead; the grievance, soberly considered,
is no more than sentimental; the case is but a flea-bite to that of him
who should be linked, like poor M'Guire, to an explosive bomb.
A thought struck him in Green Street, like a dart through his liver:
suppose it were the hour already. He stopped as though he had been shot,
and plucked his watch out. There was a howling in his ears, as loud as a
winter tempest; his sight was now obscured as if by a cloud, now, as by
a lightning flash, would show him the very dust upon the street. But so
brief were these intervals of vision, and so violently did the watch
vibrate in his hands, that it was impossible to distinguish the numbers
on the dial. He covered his eyes for a few seconds; and in that space,
it seemed to him that he had fallen to be a man of ninety. When he
looked again, the watch-plate had grown legible: he had twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes, and no plan!
Green Street, at that time, was very empty; and he now observed a little
girl of about six drawing near to him and, as she came, kicking in front
of her, as children will, a piece of wood. She sang, too; and something
in her accent recalling him to the past produced a sudden clearness in
his mind. Here was a God-sent opportunity!
"My dear," said he, "would you like a present of a pretty bag?"
The child cried aloud with joy and put out her hands to take it. She had
looked first at the bag, like a true child; but most unfortunately,
before she had yet received the fatal gift, her eyes fell directly on
M'Guire; and no sooner had she seen the poor gentleman's face than she
screamed out and leaped backward, as though she had seen the devil.
Almost at the same moment a woman appeared upon the threshold of a
neighbouring shop, and called upon the child in anger. "Come here,
colleen," she said, "and don't be plaguing the poor old gentleman!" With
that she re-entered the house, and the child followed her, sobbing
aloud.
With the loss of this hope M'Guire's reason swooned within him. When
next he awoke to consciousness, he was standing before St.
Martin's-in-the-Fields, wavering like a drunken man; the passers-by
regarded him with eyes in which he read, as in a glass, an image of the
terror and horror that dwelt within his own.
"I am afraid you are very ill, sir," observed a woman, stopping and
gazing hard in his face. "Can I do anything to help you?"
"Ill?" said M'Guire. "O God!" And then, recovering some shadow of his
self-command, "Chronic, madam," said he: "a long course of the dumb
ague. But since you are so compassionate--an errand that I lack the
strength to carry out," he gasped--"this bag to Portman Square. O
compassionate woman, as you hope to be saved, as you are a mother, in
the name of your babes that wait to welcome you at home, oh, take this
bag to Portman Square! I have a mother, too," he added, with a broken
voice. "Number 19 Portman Square."
I suppose he had expressed himself with too much energy of voice; for
the woman was plainly taken with a certain fear of him. "Poor
gentleman!" said she. "If I were you, I would go home." And she left him
standing there in his distress.
"Home!" thought M'Guire, "what a derision!" What home was there for him,
the victim of philanthropy? He thought of his old mother, of his happy
youth; of the hideous, rending pang of the explosion; of the possibility
that he might not be killed, that he might be cruelly mangled, crippled
for life, condemned to life-long pains, blinded perhaps, and almost
surely deafened. Ah, you spoke lightly of the dynamiter's peril; but
even waiving death, have you realised what it is for a fine, brave young
man of forty, to be smitten suddenly with deafness, cut off from all the
music of life, and from the voice of friendship and love? How little do
we realise the sufferings of others! Even your brutal Government, in the
heyday of its lust for cruelty, though it scruples not to hound the
patriot with spies, to pack the corrupt jury, to bribe the hangman, and
to erect the infamous gallows, would hesitate to inflict so horrible a
doom: not, I am well aware, from virtue, not from philanthropy, but with
the fear before it of the withering scorn of the good.
But I wander from M'Guire. From this dread glance into the past and
future, his thoughts returned at a bound upon the present. How had he
wandered there? and how long--O heavens! how long had he been about it?
He pulled out his watch; and found that but three minutes had elapsed.
It seemed too bright a thing to be believed. He glanced at the church
clock; and sure enough, it marked an hour four minutes in advance of the
watch.
Of all that he endured, M'Guire declares that pang was the most
desolate. Till then, he had had one friend, one counsellor, in whom he
plenarily trusted; by whose advertisement he numbered the minutes that
remained to him of life; on whose sure testimony he could tell when the
time was come to risk the last adventure, to cast the bag away from him,
and take to flight. And now in what was he to place reliance? His watch
was slow; it might be losing time; if so, in what degree? What limit
could he set to its derangement? and how much was it possible for a
watch to lose in thirty minutes? Five? ten? fifteen? It might be so;
already, it seemed years since he had left St. James's Hall on this so
promising enterprise; at any moment, then, the blow was to be looked
for.
In the face of this new distress, the wild disorder of his pulses
settled down; and a broken weariness succeeded, as though he had lived
for centuries and for centuries been dead. The buildings and the people
in the street became incredibly small, and far-away, and bright; London
sounded in his ears stilly, like a whisper; and the rattle of the cab
that nearly charged him down was like a sound from Africa. Meanwhile, he
was conscious of a strange abstraction from himself; and heard and felt
his footfalls on the ground, as those of a very old, small, debile, and
tragically fortuned man, whom he sincerely pitied.
As he was thus moving forward past the National Gallery, in a medium, it
seemed, of greater rarity and quiet than ordinary air, there slipped
into his mind the recollection of a certain entry in Whitcomb Street
hard by, where he might perhaps lay down his tragic cargo unremarked.
Thither, then, he bent his steps, seeming, as he went, to float above
the pavement; and there, in the mouth of the entry, he found a man in a
sleeved waistcoat, gravely chewing a straw. He passed him by, and twice
patrolled the entry, scouting for the barest chance; but the man had
faced about and continued to observe him curiously.
Another hope was gone. M'Guire re-issued from the entry, still followed
by the wondering eyes of the man in the sleeved waistcoat. He once more
consulted his watch: there were but fourteen minutes left to him. At
that, it seemed as if a sudden, genial heat were spread about his brain;
for a second or two, he saw the world as red as blood; and thereafter
entered into a complete possession of himself, with an incredible
cheerfulness of spirits, prompting him to sing and chuckle as he walked.
And yet this mirth seemed to belong to things external; and within, like
a black and leaden-heavy kernel, he was conscious of the weight upon his
soul.
"I care for nobody, no, not I,
And nobody cares for me,"
he sang, and laughed at the appropriate burthen, so that the passengers
stared upon him on the street. And still the warmth seemed to increase
and to become more genial. What was life? he considered, and what he,
M'Guire? What even Erin, our green Erin? All seemed so incalculably
little that he smiled as he looked down upon it. He would have given
years, had he possessed them, for a glass of spirits; but time failed,
and he must deny himself this last indulgence.
At the corner of the Haymarket, he very jauntily hailed a hansom cab;
jumped in; bade the fellow drive him to a part of the Embankment, which
he named; and as soon as the vehicle was in motion, concealed the bag as
completely as he could under the vantage of the apron, and once more
drew out his watch. So he rode for five interminable minutes, his heart
in his mouth at every jolt, scarce able to possess his terrors, yet
fearing to wake the attention of the driver by too obvious a change of
plan, and willing, if possible, to leave him time to forget the
Gladstone bag.
At length, at the head of some stairs on the Embankment, he hailed; the
cab was stopped; and he alighted--with how glad a heart! He thrust his
hand into his pocket. All was now over; he had saved his life; nor that
alone, but he had engineered a striking act of dynamite; for what could
be more pictorial, what more effective, than the explosion of a hansom
cab, as it sped rapidly along the streets of London? He felt in one
pocket; then in another. The most crushing seizure of despair descended
on his soul; and, struck into abject dumbness, he stared upon the
driver. He had not one penny.
"Hillo," said the driver, "don't seem well."
"Lost my money," said M'Guire, in tones so faint and strange that they
surprised his hearing.
The man looked through the trap. "I dessay," said he: "you've left your
bag."
M'Guire half unconsciously fetched it out; and looking on that black
continent at arm's length, withered inwardly and felt his features
sharpen as with mortal sickness.
"This is not mine," said he. "Your last fare must have left it. You had
better take it to the station."
"Now look here," returned the cabman: "are you off your chump? or am I?"
"Well, then, I'll tell you what," exclaimed M'Guire: "you take it for
your fare!"
"Oh, I dessay," replied the driver. "Anything else? What's _in_ your
bag? Open it, and let me see."
"No, no," returned M'Guire. "O no, not that. It's a surprise; it's
prepared expressly: a surprise for honest cabmen."
"No, you don't," said the man, alighting from his perch, and coming very
close to the unhappy patriot. "You're either going to pay my fare, or
get in again and drive to the office."
It was at this supreme hour of his distress, that M'Guire spied the
stout figure of one Godall, a tobacconist of Rupert Street, drawing near
along the Embankment. The man was not unknown to him; he had bought of
his wares, and heard him quoted for the soul of liberality; and such was
now the nearness of his peril, that even at such a straw of hope he
clutched with gratitude.
"Thank God!" he cried. "Here comes a friend of mine. I'll borrow." And
he dashed to meet the tradesman. "Sir," said he, "Mr. Godall, I have
dealt with you--you doubtless know my face--calamities for which I
cannot blame myself have overwhelmed me. Oh, sir, for the love of
innocence, for the sake of the bonds of humanity, and as you hope for
mercy at the throne of grace, lend me two-and-six!"
"I do not recognise your face," replied Mr. Godall; "but I remember the
cut of your beard, which I have the misfortune to dislike. Here, sir, is
a sovereign; which I very willingly advance to you, on the single
condition that you shave your chin."
M'Guire grasped the coin without a word; cast it to the cabman, calling
out to him to keep the change; bounded down the steps, flung the bag far
forth into the river, and fell headlong after it. He was plucked from a
watery grave, it is believed, by the hands of Mr. Godall. Even as he was
being hoisted dripping to the shore, a dull and choked explosion shook
the solid masonry of the Embankment, and far out in the river a
momentary fountain rose and disappeared.
FOOTNOTE:
[4] The Arabian author, with that quaint particularity of touch
which our translation usually praetermits, here registers a somewhat
interesting detail. Zero pronounced the word "boom"; and the reader,
if but for the nonce, will possibly consent to follow him.
THE SUPERFLUOUS MANSION (_continued_)
Somerset in vain strove to attach a meaning to these words. He had, in
the meanwhile, applied himself assiduously to the flagon; the plotter
began to melt in twain, and seemed to expand and hover on his seat; and
with a vague sense of nightmare, the young man rose unsteadily to his
feet, and, refusing the proffer of a third grog, insisted that the hour
was late and he must positively get to bed.
"Dear me," observed Zero, "I find you very temperate. But I will not be
oppressive. Suffice it that we are now fast friends; and, my dear
landlord, _au revoir_!"
So saying the plotter once more shook hands; and with the politest
ceremonies, and some necessary guidance, conducted the bewildered young
gentleman to the top of the stair.
Precisely how he got to bed was a point on which Somerset remained in
utter darkness; but the next morning when, at a blow, he started broad
awake, there fell upon his mind a perfect hurricane of horror and
wonder. That he should have suffered himself to be led into the
semblance of intimacy with such a man as his abominable lodger,
appeared, in the cold light of day, a mystery of human weakness. True,
he was caught in a situation that might have tested the aplomb of
Talleyrand. That was perhaps a palliation; but it was no excuse. For so
wholesale a capitulation of principle, for such a fall into criminal
familiarity, no excuse indeed was possible; nor any remedy, but to
withdraw at once from the relation.
As soon as he was dressed, he hurried upstairs, determined on a rupture.
Zero hailed him with the warmth of an old friend.
"Come in," he cried, "dear Mr. Somerset! Come in, sit down, and, without
ceremony, join me at my morning meal."
"Sir," said Somerset, "you must permit me first to disengage my honour.
Last night, I was surprised into a certain appearance of complicity; but
once for all, let me inform you that I regard you and your machinations
with unmingled horror and disgust, and I will leave no stone unturned to
crush your vile conspiracy."
"My dear fellow," replied Zero, with an air of some complacency, "I am
well accustomed to these human weaknesses. Disgust? I have felt it
myself; it speedily wears off. I think none the worse, I think the more
of you, for this engaging frankness. And in the meanwhile, what are you
to do? You find yourself, if I interpret rightly, in very much the same
situation as Charles the Second (possibly the least degraded of your
British sovereigns) when he was taken into the confidence of the thief.
To denounce me is out of the question; and what else can you attempt?
No, dear Mr. Somerset, your hands are tied; and you find yourself
condemned, under pain of behaving like a cad, to be that same charming
and intellectual companion who delighted me last night."
"At least," cried Somerset, "I can, and do, order you to leave this
house."
"Ah!" cried the plotter, "but there I fail to follow you. You may, if
you please, enact the part of Judas; but if, as I suppose, you recoil
from that extremity of meanness, I am, on my side, far too intelligent
to leave these lodgings, in which I please myself exceedingly, and from
which you lack the power to drive me. No, no, dear sir; here I am, and
here I propose to stay."
"I repeat," cried Somerset, beside himself with a sense of his own
weakness, "I repeat that I give you warning. I am master of this house;
and I emphatically give you warning."
"A week's warning?" said the imperturbable conspirator. "Very well: we
will talk of it a week from now. That is arranged; and, in the
meanwhile, I observe my breakfast growing cold. Do, dear Mr. Somerset,
since you find yourself condemned, for a week at least, to the society
of a very interesting character, display some of that open favour, some
of that interest in life's obscurer sides, which stamp the character of
the true artist. Hang me, if you will, to-morrow; but to-day show
yourself divested of the scruple of the burgess, and sit down pleasantly
to share my meal."
"Man!" cried Somerset, "do you understand my sentiments?"
"Certainly," replied Zero; "and I respect them! Would you be outdone in
such a contest? will you alone be partial? and in this nineteenth
century, cannot two gentlemen of education agree to differ on a point of
politics? Come, sir: all your hard words have left me smiling; judge
then, which of us is the philosopher!"