PREPARATIONS FOR TO-NIGHT
The next morning I found Maximilian in conference with a stranger; a
heavily-built, large-jawed, uncommunicative man. As I was about to
withdraw my friend insisted that I should sit down.
"We have been making the necessary arrangements for next Monday
night," he said. "The probabilities are great that we may be followed
when we leave the house, and traced. It will not do to go, as Rudolph
suggested, to the residence of any friend, and pass through it to
another carriage. The Oligarchy would visit a terrible vengeance on
the head of the man who so helped us to escape. I have instructed
this gentleman to secure us, through an agent, three empty houses in
different parts of the city, and he has done so; they stand in the
center of blocks, and have rear exits, opening upon other streets or
alleys, at right angles with the streets on which the houses stand.
Then in these back streets he is to have covered carriages with the
fleetest horses he can obtain. Our pursuers, thinking we are safely
housed, may return to report our whereabouts to their masters.
Estella being missed the next day, the police will visit the house,
but they will find no one there to punish; nothing but curtains over
the windows."
"But," said I, "will they not follow the carriage that brought us
there, and thus identify its owner and driver, and force them to tell
who employed them?"
"Of course; I have thought of that, and provided for it. There are
members of the Brotherhood who have been brought from other cities in
disguise, and three of these will have another carriage, which,
leaving the Prince's grounds soon after we do, will pursue our
pursuers. They will be well armed and equipped with hand-grenades of
dynamite. If they perceive that the spies cannot be shaken off, or
that they propose to follow any of our carriages to their stables, it
will be their duty to swiftly overtake the pursuers, and, as they
pass them, fling the explosives under the horses' feet, disabling or
killing them. It will take the police some time to obtain other
horses, and before they can do so, all traces of us will be lost. If
necessary, our friends will not hesitate to blow up the spies as well
as the horses."
"But," I suggested, "will they not identify the man who rented the
houses?"
Maximilian laughed.
"Why," said he, "my dear Gabriel, you would make a conspirator
yourself. We will have to get you into the Brotherhood. We are too
old to be caught that way. The man who rented the houses has been
brought here from a city hundreds of miles distant; he was thoroughly
disguised. As soon as he engaged the buildings, and paid one month's
rent in advance for each, he left the city; and before to-morrow
night he will be home again, and without his disguise; and he could
never be suspected or identified as the same man. And," he added, "I
do not propose that you shall go into that lion's den unsupported. We
will have twenty of the Brotherhood, under Rudolph's management,
scattered through the household, as servants; and three hundred more
will be armed to the teeth and near at hand in the neighborhood; and
if it becomes necessary they will storm the house and burn it over
the villians' heads, rather than that you or Estella shall come to
harm."
I pressed his hand warmly, and thanked him for his care of me, and of
one so dear to me.
He laughed. "That is all right," he said; "good and unselfish men are
so scarce in this world that one cannot do too much for them. We must
be careful lest, like the dodo and the great auk, the breed becomes
extinct."
"But," said I, "may not the Oligarchy find you out, even here?"
"No," he replied, "my identity is lost. Here I live, in my real
appearance, under a false name. But I have a house elsewhere, in
which I dwell disguised, but under my real name, and with an unreal
character. Here I am a serious, plotting conspirator; there I am a
dissipated, reckless, foolish spendthrift, of whom no man need be
afraid. It chanced that after certain events had occurred, of which I
may tell you some day, I did not return home for several years; and
then I came for revenge, with ample preparations for my own safety. I
resumed my old place in society with a new appearance and a new
character. That personage is constantly watched by spies; but he
spends his time in drunkenness and deeds of folly; and his enemies
laugh and say, 'He will never trouble us; he will be dead soon.' And
so, with the real name and the unreal appearance and character in one
place, and a false name, but the real appearance and character, in
another, I lead a dual life and thwart the cunning of my enemies, and
prepare for the day of my vengeance."
His eyes glowed with a baleful light as he spoke, and I could see
that some great injustice, "like eager droppings into milk," had
soured an otherwise loving and affectionate nature. I put my hand on
his and said:
"My dear Max, your enemies are my enemies and your cause my cause,
from henceforth forever."
His face beamed with delight, as he replied:
"I may some day, my dear Gabriel, hold you to that pledge."
"Agreed," I responded; "at all times I am ready."
He gave his agent a roll of money, and with mutual courtesies they
separated.