THE LIBERATED PRISONER
About two o'clock that day Maximilian returned home. He was covered
with dust and powder-smoke, but there was no blood upon him. I did
not see him return; but when I entered the drawing-room I started
back. There was a stranger present. I could not long doubt as to who
he was. He was locked in the arms of Max's mother. He was a pitiful
sight. A tall, gaunt man; his short hair and stubby beard white as
snow. He was prematurely aged--his back was stooped--his pallid
complexion reminded one of plants grown in cellars; he had a
dejected, timorous look, like one who had long been at the mercy of
brutal masters; his hands were seamed and calloused with hard work;
he was without a coat, and his nether garments had curious,
tiger-like stripes upon them. He was sobbing like a child in the arms
of his wife. He seemed very weak in body and mind. Maximilian gave
him a chair, and his mother sat down by him, weeping bitterly, and
holding the poor calloused hands in her own, and patting them gently,
while she murmured words of comfort and rejoicing. The poor man
looked bewildered, as if he could not quite collect his faculties;
and occasionally he would glance anxiously at the door, as if he
expected that, at any moment, his brutal masters would enter and take
him back to his tasks.
"Gabriel," said Maximilian,--and his face was flushed and
working,--"this is--or was--my father."
I took the poor hand in my own and kissed it, and spoke encouragingly
to him. And this, I thought, was once a wealthy, handsome, portly,
learned gentleman; a scholar and a philanthropist; and his only crime
was that he loved his fellow-men! And upon how many such men have the
prison doors of the world closed--never to open again?
They took him away to the bath; they fed him; they put upon him the
clothes of a gentleman. He smiled in a childish way, and smoothed the
fine cloth with his hands; and then he seemed to realize, for the
first time, that he was, indeed, no longer a prisoner--that his
jailers had gone out of his life forever.
"I must go now," said Maximilian, hurriedly; "I will be back this
evening. I have a duty to perform."
He returned at nightfall. There was a terrible light in his eyes.
"I have avenged my father," he said to me, in a hoarse whisper. "Come
this way."
He took me into the library, for he would not have the women hear the
dreadful story. I shut the door. He said:
"I had made all the necessary arrangements to prevent the escape of
the Count and his accomplices. I knew that he would fly, at the first
alarm, to his yacht, which lies out in the harbor. He had ruined my
father by bribery; so I brought his own instrument to bear upon him,
and bribed, with a large sum, his confidential friend, who was in
command of his vessel, to deliver him up to me. As I had anticipated,
the cunning wretch fled to the yacht; they took him on board. Then
they made him prisoner. He was shackled and chained to the mast. He
begged for his life and liberty. He had brought a fortune with him in
gold and jewels. He offered the whole of it to his _friend_, as a
bribe, for he surmised what was coming. The faithful officer replied,
as I had instructed him, that the Count could not offer that
treasure, for he himself had already appropriated it to his own
purposes. The miscreant had always had a lively sense of the power of
money for evil; he saw it now in a new light--for he was penniless.
After taking my father from the prison and bringing him home, I
arranged as to the other prisoners and then went to the yacht. I
introduced myself to the Count. I told him that I had deceived his
spies--that I had led a double life; that I had joined the
Brotherhood and had become one of its leading spirits, with but two
objects:--to punish him and his villainous associates and to rescue
my father. That, as they had destroyed my father for money, the same
instruments should now destroy him, through fear. That they were all
prisoners, and should die together a fearful death; but if they had a
hundred lives they could not atone for the suffering they had caused
one good and great-hearted man. They had compelled him, for years, to
work in the society of the basest of his species--at work too hard
for even a young and strong man; they had separated him from his
family; they had starved his mind and heart and body; they had beaten
and scourged him for the slightest offenses. He had suffered a
thousand deaths. It would be no equivalent to simply kill them. They
should die in prolonged agony. And as he--the Count--had always gone
upon the principle that it was right to work upon the weaknesses of
others to accomplish his purposes, I should imitate him. I should not
touch him myself.
"I then ordered the captain and his men to put him in the boat and
carry him ashore.
"He begged and pleaded and abased himself; he entreated and shrieked;
but he addressed hearts as hard as his own.
"On the river-bank were a body of my men. In the midst of them they
had the other prisoners--the corrupt judge, eight of the
jurymen--four had died since the trial--and the four lying witnesses.
They were all shackled together. A notary public was present, and
they signed and acknowledged their confessions, that they had been
bribed to swear against my father and convict him; and they even
acknowledged, in their terror, the precise sums which they had
received for their dreadful acts.
"'Spare me! spare me!' shrieked the Count, groveling on the ground;
'only part of that money came from me. I was but the instrument of
the government. I was commanded to do as I did.'
"'The others have already gone to their account,' I replied, 'every
man of them. You will overtake them in a little while.'
"I ordered the prisoners to chain him to a stout post which stood in
the middle of one of the wharves. They were unshackled and did so
with alacrity; my men standing around ready to shoot them down if
they attempted to fly. The Count writhed and shrieked for help, but
in a little while he was securely fastened to the post. There was a
ship loaded with lumber lying beside the next wharf. I ordered them
to bring the lumber; they quickly piled it up in great walls around
him, within about ten feet of him; and then more and more was heaped
around these walls. The Count began to realize the death that awaited
him, and his screams were appalling. But I said to him:
"'O Count, be calm. This is not as bad as a sentence of twenty years
in the penitentiary for an honest and innocent man. And, remember, my
dear Count, how you have enjoyed yourself all these years, while my
poor father has been toiling in prison in a striped suit. Think of
the roast beef you have eaten and the wine you have consumed! And,
moreover, the death you are about to die, my dear Count, was once
fashionable and popular in the world; and many a good and holy man
went up to heaven from just such a death-bed as you shall have-a
death-bed of fire and ashes. And see, my good Count, how willingly
these honest men, whom you hired, with your damnable money, to
destroy my father--see how willingly they work to prepare your
funeral pile! What a supple and pliant thing, O Count, is human
baseness. It has but one defect--it may be turned upon ourselves! And
then, O my dear Count, it shocks us and hurts our feelings. But say
your prayers, Count, say your prayers. Call upon God, for He is the
only one likely to listen to you now.'
"'Here,' I said to the judge, 'put a match to the pile.'
"The miserable wretch, trembling and hoping to save his own life by
his superserviceable zeal, got down upon his knees, and lighted a
match, and puffed and blew to make the fire catch. At last it started
briskly, and in a few minutes the Count was screaming in the center
of a roaring furnace.
"I gave a preconcerted signal to my men. In the twinkling of an eye
each of the prisoners was manacled hand and foot, shrieking and
roaring for mercy.
"'It was a splendid joke, gentlemen,' I said to them, 'that you
played on my father. To send that good man to prison, and to go home
with the price of his honor and his liberty jingling in your pockets.
It was a capital joke; and you will now feel the finest point of the
witticism. In with them!'
"And high above the walls of fire they were thrown, and the briber
and the bribed--the villain and his instruments--all perished howling
together."
I listened, awestruck, to the terrible story. There was a light in
Max's eyes which showed that long brooding over the wrongs of his
father and the sight of his emaciated and wretched form had "worked
like madness in his brain," until he was, as I had feared, a
monomaniac, with but one idea--revenge.
"Max, dear Max." I said, "for Heaven's sake never let Christina or
your mother hear that dreadful story. It was a madman's act! Never
think of it again. You have wiped out the crime in blood; there let
it end. And leave these awful scenes, or you will become a maniac."
He did not answer me for a time, but looked down thoughtfully; and
then he glanced at me, furtively, and said:
"Is not revenge right? Is it not simply justice?"
"Perhaps so, in some sense," I replied; "and if you had killed those
base wretches with your own hand the world could not have much blamed
you. Remember, however, 'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and I
will repay.' But to send them out of life by such dreadful tortures!
It is too terrible."
"But death," he said, "is nothing; it is the mere end of
life--perhaps of consciousness; and that is no atonement for years of
suffering, every day of which was full of more agony than death
itself can wring from the human heart."
"I will not argue with you, Max," I replied, "for you are wrong, and
I love you; but do you not see, when a heart, the kindest in the
world, could conceive and execute such a terrible revenge, that the
condition of the mind is abnormal? But let us change the gloomy
subject. The dreadful time has put 'tricks of desperation' in your
brain. And it is not the least of the crimes of the Oligarchy that it
could thus pervert honest and gentle natures, and turn them into
savages. And that is what it has done with millions. It has fought
against goodness, and developed wickedness."