THE SPY'S STORY
"Andrews," said the Prince, "tell these gentlemen what you have found
out about the extent of this organization and the personality of its
leaders?"
"My lord," replied the man, "I can speak only by hearsay--from
whispers which I have heard in a thousand places, and by piecing
together scraps of information which I have gathered in a great many
ways. I do not yet speak positively. After to-morrow night I hope to
be able to tell you everything."
"I understand the difficulties you have to contend with," replied the
Prince; "and these gentlemen will not hold you to a strict
accountability for the correctness of what you have gathered in that
way."
"You can have no idea," said Andrews, "of the difficulty of obtaining
information. It is a terrible organization. I do not think that
anything like it has every existed before on the earth. One year ago
there were fifteen of us engaged in this work; I am the only one left
alive to-night."
His face grew paler as he spoke, and there was a visible start and
sensation about the council board.
"This organization," he continued, "is called '_The Brotherhood of
Destruction_.' It extends all over Europe and America, and numbers, I
am told, _one hundred million members_."
"Can that be possible?" asked one gentleman, in astonishment.
"I believe it to be true," said Andrews, solemnly. "Nearly every
workman of good character and sober habits in New York belongs to it;
and so it is in all our great cities; while the blacks of the South
are members of it to a man. Their former masters have kept them in a
state of savagery, instead of civilizing and elevating them; and the
result is they are as barbarous and bloodthirsty as their ancestors
were when brought from Africa, and fit subjects for such a terrible
organization."
"What has caused such a vast movement?" asked another gentleman.
"The universal misery and wretchedness of the working classes, in the
cities, on the farms--everywhere," replied Andrews.
"Are they armed?" asked another of the Council.
"It is claimed," said Andrews, "that every one of the hundred
millions possesses a magazine rifle of the most improved pattern,
with abundance of fixed ammunition."
"I fear, my good man," said another member of the Council, with a
sneer, "that you have been frightened by some old woman's tales.
Where could these men buy such weapons? What would they buy them
with? Where would they hide them? Our armories and manufacturers are
forbidden by law to sell firearms, unless under special permit,
signed by one of our trusty officers. The value of those guns would
in itself be a vast sum, far beyond the means of those miserable
wretches. And our police are constantly scouring the cities and the
country for weapons, and they report that the people possess none,
except a few old-fashioned, worthless fowling-pieces, that have come
down from father to son."
"As I said before," replied Andrews, "I tell you only what I have
gleaned among the workmen in those secret whispers which pass from
one man's mouth to another man's ear. I may be misinformed; but I am
told that these rifles are manufactured by the men themselves (for,
of course, all the skilled work of all kinds is done by workingmen)
in some remote and desolate parts of Europe or America; they are
furnished at a very low price, at actual cost, and paid for in small
installments, during many years. They are delivered to the captains
of tens and by them buried in rubber bags in the earth."
"Then that accounts," said one man, who had not yet spoken, "for a
curious incident which occurred the other day near the town of
Zhitomir, in the province of Volhynia, Russia, not very far from the
borders of Austria. A peasant made an offer to the police to deliver
up, for 200 rubles, and a promise of pardon for himself, nine of his
fellow conspirators and their rifles. His terms were accepted and he
was paid the money. He led the officers to a place in his barnyard,
where, under a manure-heap, they dug up ten splendid rifles of
American make, with fixed ammunition, of the most improved kind, the
whole inclosed in a rubber bag to keep out the damp. Nine other
peasants were arrested; they were all subjected to the knout; but
neither they nor their captain could tell anything more than he had
at first revealed. The Russian newspapers have been full of
speculations as to how the rifles came there, but could arrive at no
reasonable explanation."
"What became of the men?" asked Andrews, curiously.
"Nine of them were sent to Siberia for life; the tenth man, who had
revealed the hiding-place of the guns, was murdered that night with
his wife and all his family, and his house burned up. Even two of his
brothers, who lived near him, but had taken no part in the matter,
were also slain."
"I expected as much," said Andrews quietly.
This unlooked-for corroboration of the spy's story produced a marked
sensation, and there was profound silence for some minutes.
At last the Prince spoke up:
"Andrews," said he, "what did you learn about the leaders of this
organization?"
"There are three of them, I am told," replied the spy; they
constitute what is known as 'the Executive Committee.' The
commander-in-chief, it is whispered, is called, or was called--for no
one can tell what his name is now--Cæsar Lomellini; a man of Italian
descent, but a native of South Carolina. He is, it is said, of
immense size, considerable ability, and the most undaunted courage.
His history is singular. He is now about forty-five years of age. In
his youth, so the story goes, he migrated to the then newly settled
State of Jefferson, on the upper waters of the Saskatchewan. He had
married early, like all his race, and had a family. He settled down
on land and went to farming. He was a quiet, peaceable, industrious
man. One year, just as he was about to harvest his crops, a discharge
of lightning killed his horses; they were the only ones he had. He
was without the means to purchase another team, and without horses he
could not gather his harvest. He was therefore forced to mortgage his
land for enough to buy another pair of horses. The money-lender
demanded large interest on the loan and an exorbitant bonus besides;
and as the 'bankers,' as they called themselves, had an organization,
he could not get the money at a lower rate anywhere in that vicinity.
It was the old story. The crops failed sometimes, and when they did
not fail the combinations and trusts of one sort or another swept
away Cæsar's profits; then he had to renew the loan, again and again,
at higher rates of interest, and with still greater bonuses; then the
farm came to be regarded as not sufficient security for the debt; and
the horses, cattle, machinery, everything he had was covered with
mortgages. Cæsar worked like a slave, and his family toiled along
with him. At last the crash came; he was driven out of his home; the
farm and all had been lost for the price of a pair of horses. Right
on the heels of this calamity, Cæsar learned that his eldest
daughter--a beautiful, dark-eyed girl--had been seduced by a
lawyer--the agent of the money-lender--and would in a few months
become a mother. Then all the devil that lay hid in the depths of the
man's nature broke forth. That night the lawyer was attacked in his
bed and literally hewed to pieces: the same fate overtook the
money-lender. Before morning Cæsar and his family had fled to the
inhospitable mountain regions north of the settlement. There he
gathered around him a band of men as desperate as himself, and waged
bloody and incessant war on society. He seemed, however, to have a
method in his crimes, for, while he spared the poor, no man who
preyed upon his fellow-men was safe for an hour. At length the
government massed a number of troops in the vicinity; the place got
too hot for him; Cæsar and his men fled to the Pacific coast; and
nothing more was heard of him for three or four years. Then the
terrible negro insurrection broke out in the lower Mississippi
Valley, which you all remember, and a white man, of gigantic stature,
appeared as their leader, a man of great daring and enterprise. When
that rebellion had been suppressed, after many battles, the white man
disappeared; and it is now claimed that he is in this city at the
head of this terrible Brotherhood of Destruction; and that he is the
same Cæsar Lomellini who was once a peaceful farmer in the State of
Jefferson."
The spy paused. The Prince said:
"Well, who are the others?"
"It is reported that the second in command, but really 'the brains of
the organization,' as he is called by the men, is a Russian Jew. His
name I could not learn; very few have seen him or know anything about
him. He is said to be a cripple, and to have a crooked neck. It is
reported he was driven out of his synagogue in Russia, years ago, for
some crimes he had committed. He is believed to be the man who
organized the Brotherhood in Europe, and he has come here to make the
two great branches act together. If what is told of him be true, he
must be a man of great ability, power and cunning."
"Who is the third?" asked the Prince.
"There seems to be more obscurity about him than either of the
others," replied the spy. "I heard once that he was an American, a
young man of great wealth and ability, and that he had furnished much
of the money needed to carry on the Brotherhood. But this again is
denied by others. Jenkins, who was one of our party, and who was
killed some months since, told me, in our last interview, that he had
penetrated far enough to find out who the third man was; and he told
me this curious story, which may or may not be true. He said that
several years ago there lived in this city a man of large fortune, a
lawyer by education, but not engaged in the practice of his
profession, by the name of Arthur Phillips. He was a benevolent man,
of scholarly tastes, and something of a dreamer. He had made a study
of the works of all the great socialist writers, and had become a
convert to their theories, and very much interested in the cause of
the working people. He established a monthly journal for the
dissemination of his views. He spoke at the meetings of the workmen,
and was very much beloved and respected by them. Of course, so
Jenkins said, all this was very distasteful to the ruling class (I am
only repeating the story as it was told to me, your lordships will
please remember), and they began to persecute him. First he was
ostracised from his caste. But this did not trouble him much. He had
no family but his wife and one son who was away at the university. He
redoubled his exertions to benefit the working classes. At this time
he had a lawsuit about some property with a wealthy and influential
man, a member of the government. In the course of the trial Phillips
produced a writing, which purported to be signed by two men, and
witnessed by two others; and Phillips swore he saw all of them sign
it. Whereupon not only the men themselves, but the two witnesses to
the paper, came up and swore, point-blank, that their alleged
signatures were forgeries. There were four oaths against one.
Phillips lost his case. But this was not the worst of it. The next
day he was indicted for forgery and perjury; and, despite his wealth
and the efforts of the ablest counsel he could employ, he was
convicted and sentenced to twenty years' penal servitude in the state
prison. His friends said he was innocent; that he had been sacrificed
by the ruling class, who feared him and desired to destroy him; that
all the witnesses had been suborned by large sums of money to swear
as they did; that the jury was packed, the judge one of their tools,
and even his own lawyers corrupted. After several years his son--who
bore the same name as himself--Arthur Phillips--returned from the
university; and Jenkins told me that he had learned, in some
mysterious way, that this was really the man who, out of revenge for
the wrongs inflicted on his father, was now the third member of the
Executive Committee of the Brotherhood, and had furnished them with
large sums of money."
As this story progressed, listened to most attentively by all, I
noticed that one large man, flashily dressed, flushed somewhat, and
that the rest turned and looked at him. When Andrews stopped, the
Prince said, quietly:
"Count, that is your man."
"Yes," replied the man spoken to, very coolly. "There is, however, no
truth," he added, "in the latter part of the story; for I have had
detectives shadow young Phillips ever since he returned to the city,
and they report to me that he is a shallow, dissipated, drunken,
worthless fellow, who spends his time about saloons and running after
actresses and singers; and that it will not be long until he will
have neither health nor fortune left."
I need not say that I was an intent listener to everything, and
especially to the latter part of the spy's story. I pieced it out
with what Maximilian had told me, and felt certain that Maximilian
Petion and Arthur Phillips were one and the same person. I could now
understand why it was that a gentleman so intelligent, frank and
kindly by nature could have engaged in so desperate and bloody a
conspiracy. Nor could I, with that awful narrative ringing in my
cars, blame him much. What struck me most forcibly was that there was
no attempt, on the part of the Count, to deny the sinister part of
Jenkins' story; and the rest of the Council evidently had no doubt of
its truth; nor did it seem to lessen him a particle in their esteem.
In fact, one man said, and the rest assented to the sentiment:
"Well, it is a lucky thing the villain is locked up, anyhow."
There were some among these men whose faces were not bad. Under
favorable circumstances they might have been good and just men. But
they were the victims of a pernicious system, as fully as were the
poor, shambling, ragged wretches of the streets and slums, who had
been ground down by their acts into drunkenness and crime.
"When will the outbreak come?" asked one of the Council.
"That I cannot tell," said Andrews. "They seem to be waiting for
something, or there is a hitch in their plans. The men are eager to
break forth, and are only held back by the leaders. By their talk
they are confident of success when the insurrection does come."
"What are their plans?" asked the Prince.
"They have none," replied Andrews, "except to burn, rob, destroy and
murder. They have long lists of the condemned, I am told, including
all those here present, and hundreds of thousands besides. They will
kill all the men, women and children of the aristocracy, except the
young girls, and these will be reserved for a worse fate--at least
that is what the men about the beer-houses mutter between their cups."
The members of the government looked uneasy; some even were a trifle
pale.
"Can you come here Wednesday night next and tell us what you learn
during your visit to their 'Council of One Hundred'?" asked the
Prince.
"Yes," replied Andrews--"if I am alive. But it is dangerous for me to
come here."
"Wait in the library," said the Prince, "until I am at liberty, and I
will give you an order for the thousand dollars I promised you; and
also a key that will admit you to this house at any hour of the day
or night. Gentlemen," he said, turning to his associates, "have you
any further questions to ask this man?"
They had none, and Andrews withdrew.
"I think," said the Prince, "we had better reassemble here on
Wednesday night. Matters are growing critical."
This was agreed to. The Prince stepped to the door and whispered a
few words to Rudolph.