THE GREAT RIOTS
It was impossible to admit the crushing mob that besieged the court
room the next day. Forensic skill has always appealed to the American
mind, and the duel of eloquence and argument, which was expected,
would have awakened the curiosity of a far less apathetic public. As
it was, the court officers, the lawyers, witnesses, principals, and a
few favored auditors—among them Helen Lorimer, Amato, Mr. Briggs—were
admitted quietly at another entrance, one leading into halls and
exits upon Centre Street, removed from the approaches from Chatham
Street and the City Hall.
When the doors at last swung open, a stormy crowd rushed in, and
filled to overflowing, in a short time, the large accommodations, and
yet beyond the doors clamored and struggled an even larger impatient,
unsatisfied and vociferating throng. It required some rude force to
eject a section of this crowd which had unadvisedly forced its way
into the court room. Amid adjurations, entreaties, threats, and cries
of derision, the surplus was expelled; the doors were then closed,
and the multitude awaited the approach of the judge. He was announced
by a toll upon a bell, and the immense assemblage rose together with
the sound of a rising wind, with all those within the rail, standing
until the Clerk had repeated his form of words—uttered perhaps at
this thrilling moment with more expressive intonations—and the judge
had gravely sunk into his chair. A few minutes’ consultation, an
uneasy flitting to and fro of clerks and messengers, the bending
together of legal heads in conference, the shuffling of papers,
momentary short announcements, rulings by the judge, and then Mr.
Meldexter arose, and facing the judge, told of his inability to serve
a summons upon Mr. Theodore Lorimer, as that gentleman had suddenly
absented himself from the city.
The evidence of John Bunn the previous day, as to Mr. Lorimer’s
apparent intrigue with the anarchistic demagogues had been fully
understood. It created a new, terrible, sensation. To the dangerous
plans of Poniatowsky and his associates it proved helpful. It
engendered a deeper hatred of the class, which these men said, thus
attempted to lure them into a trap and actually prompted them to
crime—in order to secure the vindictive denunciation and revenge of
society which this same class was supposed to be so adorably devoted
to, which it so righteously defended, of which it was the great moral
ornament. And to Longtinsky’s views of Miss Lorimer it seemed to add
particular force. Was not this Mr. Lorimer her uncle? It was all of a
piece. Her pretentious benevolence was a still darker scheme for the
extermination of the radicals. Of course such a perversion of meaning
became current only among the irreconcilables, but it even shook the
confidence of her humble friends.
And among the conservatives this exposure produced an effect
bordering upon panic. It placed them in a ridiculous position. It
allied them with the worst enemies of decency. It overwhelmed them
with contempt. The repudiation of Mr. Lorimer’s act and an almost
fierce anger for it, appeared in the organs of the conservatives, and
Miss Lorimer’s instigation to this was not wanting. The night after
her uncle’s flight she had sat up writing and preparing a statement,
communicated to the papers for the next day’s issues, disclaiming the
act of Mr. Lorimer, and displaying her own sorrow and humiliation
that the shameless deed had proceeded from her household. It was a
quick, skillful move. It cleared her in the eyes of all honest,
right judging men. It met the eyes of the Mayor who had heard of the
whole episode in the trial, and heard too later, of Mr. Lorimer’s
escape. He held the paper a long time in his hands reading and
rereading the statement of Helen Lorimer. He wondered if he might
return. HE, TOO, HAD BLUNDERED. On the day of the summing up of the
case the Mayor had come back to New York. He was in the City Hall
when Mr. Meldexter addressed the court.
It was impossible that some trace of elation should not color his
feelings that morning, mingling with a real sympathy for Miss Lorimer
and, mingling too with the flaming upward of his love and a better
hope.
When Mr. Meldexter made the announcement of Mr. Lorimer’s
disappearance there was a considerable straining of necks, and
focussing of eyes upon Miss Lorimer and her friend. Amato seemed
more conscious of this inspection than Helen. She did not resent
the inquisition. She was grave and undisturbed. Many thoughts, far
removed from all the occurrences about her kept her mind busy, and
perhaps quickened the pulsations of her heart. At any rate the
ferreting eyes were not rewarded with any display of confusion, and
soon their repulse sought a compensation in the proceedings before
them, after a warrant for Mr. Lorimer’s arrest had been signed by the
judge.
Then began the struggle. Mr. Moser rose for the defense. His manner
was suave, insinuating, and deferential, at first. He pointed out
the disadvantage of his position, the inevitable prejudices he
confronted, his solicitude for the State’s welfare, and his fixed
desire to be just. The word stirred him to a broader flight of
rhetoric, and he drew a picture of Justice in a great Commonwealth.
The theme offered many advantages of elaboration; it particularly
helped him to disarm criticism, when he affirmed the rights of
the poorest as well as of the highest before the majesty of the
blindfolded Genius that made no distinctions between the master and
his servant, in her solemn and righteous adjudication.
Mr. Moser dropped his demeanor of apology. He began to become
assertive, a little defiant, and finally scornful. Were these
unfortunate men to be hurled into eternity to satisfy the
Juggernaut of a remorseless public vengeance? Then came analysis
and description; he was merciless in his derision of the police who
must find scapegoats for their satisfaction; he poured forth the
vials of his wrath upon Longtinsky, dwelling with effective emphasis
on his secrecy, his turpitude, his impenetrable selfishness, his
preposterous vanity—and then, moving softly from point to point,
weaving his allusions with facts, coloring his facts with emotion,
he came—as if stupefied by his own discovery—upon the boy—the little
Japanese wonder—Angelo Shimura.
Ever cautious and apprehensive he drew a wonderful picture of
Japanese mentality, the precocity of their children, the steadiness
of their nervous temperament, and then in an entertaining narrative
style described his meeting with the marvellous child whose evidence
he begged now to rehearse. He had been excellent throughout. Here he
surpassed himself. The note of pathos was not overstrained, and the
claims of indignation not ignored. He dwelt in corroboration of his
belief in the boy upon his absolute consistency—and he was not loth
to express his wonder at the singular reticence, so to speak, of the
district attorney’s cross-examination of this witness. He depicted
in picturesque terms the boy’s strange yet beautiful devotion to his
benefactor, and how still more strangely his devotion became the
instrument of justice. All depended upon him. Believe him and the
innocence of three of the prisoners was proven, the contributory
guilt of two others revealed, the absolute conviction of one—the vile
instrument of Longtinsky—only possible.
He ran over this state of things several times, throwing a softened
light upon the unhappy men who had been dragged into the toils and
nets of an arch-villain but, turning the glare of his exposure upon
the unspeakable Longtinsky. And then when he had thus left on the
minds of the jury only the overwhelming impression of this man’s
guilt, he swept into a higher region of reflection—and he went there
guided by Helen Lorimer, whose own words fell upon her ears with an
unexpected freshness. He drew a picture of the State rocking between
the struggles of two parties, he dwelt on the dangers of mistakes,
the immitigable contest in the advancing process of political change,
between a dangerous demagoguery, insane, violent, ruthless, and the
preservative principles of property, a stage of civilization attained
only through centuries of persistent effort against the confiscatory
violence of kings, barons, and conquerors; and now again endangered
by a reckless appeal to prejudice and passion, luring on into revolt,
the blind forgetful populace, whose own rights and opportunities
would disappear in the seething ocean of unrest, anarchism, and
spoliation.
Mistakes in justice, the condemnation of the innocent, the surrender
to popular clamor of the guiltless, a careless control of our own
resentment, would only jeopardize order and bring on a blind mutiny,
in which the institutions of society would disappear—destroyed by its
own imprudence. The lawyer made his point well, and, advancing to the
jury forcibly challenged their own sense of security, if, in this
case, they failed to do justice.
Mr. Moser was listened to with wonder and delight—he was amazingly
successful with the audience. Mr. Meldexter congratulated him as
he closed, and as he opened his own case for the people, continued
his congratulations with a more formal tribute to the greatness of
his rival’s effort. He warned the jury against the blandishments
of rhetoric, and asked for their sober unbiassed judgment of the
evidence—reiterating slowly their solemn pledges to abide by that
for the Truth’s sake! Mr. Meldexter was not an orator, nor did
he possess the art of limpid and entertaining discourse, but he
was shrewd, raspingly cynical, and bright in argument. He saw of
course the point of attack,—the Japanese boy’s story—and on that
he expended his skill, against that he launched his batteries of
sarcasm; had this remarkably well-drilled child told the truth? Did
he care whether he told the truth or not? How did he know that the
prisoners had not assisted in setting the House afire? He had left
the place with Longtinsky before the explosion. In that time what had
happened? Bingo and Fabrizio certainly carried the instruments of
destruction to the House, the other men had been sent for, Polinck
and they were there together engaged—perhaps with different degrees
of intelligence—in the work of destruction. They had been caught by
the police red-handed. That they had never been seen by the boy at
Longtinsky’s conferences—assuming that he told the truth, assuming
even that he was at these conferences at all—proved nothing, least of
all their innocence.
The facts must be reasonably interpreted, they must be interpreted by
Common Sense—no distortion springing from a neurotic fancy, lodged in
the deformed body of a Japanese infant should be allowed to distract
their—the jury’s—mind. These men were known to Longtinsky, they
were birds of one feather; this precious sneak of a boy knew their
names and recognized them as members of the plotting fraternity, in
which his own improbable romance placed himself. They had been found
guilty by the condemnation of one jury of honest and devoted men—let
not the sophistry of eloquence nor the depraved insinuations of a
diseased and treacherous puerile human freak disturb that conviction,
and subject the State to the ridicule and danger of caprice and
inconsistency.
Remember this boy so beautifully extolled by the defense; what
confidence would honest men put in the story of a self-convicted
ingrate. Were Longtinsky and his confederates such assured idiots
as to allow this creature full access to their deliberations? Could
anything be imagined more improbable? Regard the whole tale in the
light of their own experiences as men of the world and see its utter
futility!
This destructive criticism fell upon attentive ears also, and was
given its due weight, so that when the pleas were finished and
the day—which had grown dark and rainy—had well advanced into the
afternoon, the audience felt itself uncomfortably incompetent to make
up its mind. The same puzzling uncertainty doubtless would afflict
the jury, and a disagreement was promptly predicted. Helen Lorimer
and Amato felt the singular sway of the adroit counsel, and, except
for their anxiety, would have acknowledged it as a new proof of the
futility of history. It would have, under other circumstances, amused
them. Now they scanned the impassive faces of the jury for some
intimation of their secret thoughts.
The next instant the Judge arose and the Jury—rising for a moment
from their chairs, which they resumed upon a motion of the Judge’s
hand—turned their eyes upon their legal monitor with an expression
of profound, almost appealing interest. From his lips they expected
the advice and direction that might lead them to a right decision. It
seemed almost as if the entire assemblage shared their expectancy.
Not a person left the hall, and in a deep silence the solemn
utterances of the judge sounded almost weirdly distinct. It was
noticed that the prisoners—all except Polinck—evinced an animated
attention. Their hearts were not beating with more nervousness than
did the heart of the woman who had made herself their champion, and
who also realized the critical moment, and to whom the whole episode
had its political philosophical consequences, written in large
characters before her eyes.
It seemed so evident that the weight the judge would assign to the
testimony of the boy Angelo Shimura, would be the pivotal point of
the trial that every ear was strained to hear his word at this part
of the review. A silence of portentous significance fell upon the
great throng as the dull November afternoon darkened, and heavy gusts
of wind carrying rain splashed the windows, whence the trickling
currents just audibly mingled their murmur with the slowly and almost
sternly uttered sentences of the charge.
Helen Lorimer’s whole enthusiastic temperament was now aroused.
She had taken up the cause of these men with ardor; the trial full
of color and situations had excited her imagination, and her heart
anxiously—hungrily—yearning for alleviation through her mind’s
interests, found in the dramatic progress of the trial a wonderful
assistance. She had staked so much upon it; it was in a real
way her own splendid effort to avert injustice, and there was a
propagandist’s zeal in her industrious interest. She had followed the
trial with intellectual fidelity too, and her conferences with Mr.
Moser were always helpful to that adroit lawyer.
And—there was something more—there was the faithful sympathy of a
friend, the loyal agreement of her handsome companion. This was not
an inconsiderable joy. Amato was winning his way, and his patience,
his quick insight, his endless ingenuity, above all his sincerity,
and the really delicate culture of his mind impressed her, and the
impression grew warm with a friendship that it would have really
made her sad to break or lose. Amato on his behalf plunged into
the trial with zeal. He knew the evidence, argued the points, felt
his eagerness increasing day by day to see the end, and responded
instantly to all the diversions and evasions of the lawyers.
This mutual enthusiasm brought on an inevitable approach to
confidence with Helen Lorimer, and both—one with anticipation, the
other without suspicion, at least without analysis—continued it to
deeper and deeper consequences. Both had been present each day at the
trial, and they had been welcomed by the great crowd as a social
feature that added to the trial’s importance. Representatives of all
shades of opinion and standing were present, and the trial began
somehow to be regarded as a political crisis.
A sudden increase in the rising storm outside, made the judge’s
words almost inaudible to those against the wall of the court room,
and they engaged themselves in the corridors pressing forward down
the aisles until, almost unobserved, each was filled, and curiously
the attendants desisted from any effort to clear them. Helen and
Amato, the lawyers, the few witnesses within the rail, the jury and
prisoners, the multitude, heard these solemn words:
“And the evidence of the Japanese boy Angelo Shimura is crucial. Your
verdict must be almost solely determined by the credence you are
willing to concede to that testimony. The boy is qualified by age,
by evident mental qualifications, to give testimony. Its value is to
be determined by its consistency, its resistance to the demolishing
attacks of the cross-examination, and by such support as the other
evidence in this trial afforded it, or by such contradictions as
it has suffered from the same. This evidence is peculiar—” and
then carefully, with impartial acumen, the judge took up Angelo’s
story piece by piece, pointing out with cold indifference—so Helen
Lorimer thought as she felt her heart rise and sink again—that
“the circumstance was almost unprecedented of a boy’s precocious
constancy, and his secretive habit, binding him to such a patron as
Longtinsky, being known—and an inference prejudicial to his veracity
might on that account be entertained. And yet again, looked at as
evidence, the story had borne examination, it had not been actually
contradicted, and remained a substantial factor—indeed the one
overpowering feature of the trial. The jury’s duty was to carefully
examine this testimony, to absolutely place it in the foreground of
their deliberations, and if they believed it their verdict was to be
unmistakably one of acquittal at least as far as it exonerated some
of the prisoners. But there should be no extension of its application
to others.” A few less relevant directions and the grave judge bowed
to the jury, and dismissed them—just as the storm outside with sudden
fury smote again upon the windows and the startled audience rose to
their feet to leave.
And now there was a crush to the doors, and the crowd with
oscillations to and fro, began their tumultuous exit. Helen and
Amato remained seated. Mr. Moser was with them and invited them to
seats within the rail, where other persons had gathered, hoping that
perhaps a verdict would be soon reached. This anxiety was shared
by a number, and while, for different reasons, they all regarded a
decision as probable within an hour or so, it was Helen Lorimer’s
intense personal interest that kept her there, persuaded too by Mr.
Moser to see the denouement of the great trial.
And while they sat together, talking in low tones, events were
happening outside of the Court House which would soon precipitate
the greatest social crisis the huge city had ever known. The Mayor
had returned to the city as we have recorded. He had followed the
daily reports of the progress of the trial, and had timed his return
almost to the moment when the opposite counsel began their pleas.
It was indeed a little before that, as Mr. Meldexter asked for the
arrest of the absent Mr. Lorimer, that Tom Ratler was whirling—the
second time that day—the Mayor to the City Hall, where Mr. Briggs
awaited him—impatiently walking up and down the historic Governor’s
room—staring out of the windows, and muttering words of disgust and
anger. His eyes eagerly perused again and again a paper which he
rapidly folded and unfolded, and which had the effect of eliciting a
running comment:
“Yes, of course—just as I supposed—the blow is well timed—and the
troops away!—but it can’t be so serious—a little contraption—a
small eruption—and yet, damn it—if the Mayor hadn’t run
away—impracticable—head-strong—visionary—we may be in for it now. Ha,
here he is!”
The last words were directed to the figure of the Mayor passing up
the steps of the Hall, while a portion of the escaping throng from
the Municipal Building standing in the slashing rain with outspread
umbrellas, watched him for an instant, and then turned and mingled in
the running, stooping, dodging lines of people hurrying against the
vicious wind and water that slanted the trees, and whirled and spun
in silvery threads about Printing House Square, and the tall façades
along Park Row, and over the towered structures between Broadway and
the Hudson River.
Tom Ratler rushed his machine into a garage on Chamber Street, after
being told to be instantly ready for the Mayor’s return. The Mayor
burst into the Governor’s room. He met his Secretary, shook his
hand and pushed into it a paper which he pulled from his pocket,
saying: “I received that this afternoon. What do you think it means?
Anything?”
As he thrust the unsigned paper into his secretary’s hand the latter
saw in a second that the Mayor was the recipient of a warning
identical with that he himself had just received and read. The writer
of both was undoubtedly the same person; he had addressed one letter
to the Mayor at his home, the other had been sent to the Mayor’s
secretary. The identical letter was calm in language, and possessed
a certain internal stamp of sincerity and veracity from its very
calmness. It ran:
“On ... an attempt to overthrow the government of this City will
be seriously made. It is not a trivial outburst. It has been well
planned, will be well supported, and unless you meet it with force
and severity will effect enormous damage to the city. It will begin
by an open insurrection and by an attack upon three points of the
city—the Municipal Building, Carrara, and the Shipping along the
river fronts. The conspirators are well armed. Treachery has supplied
them with arms from an armory in this city. It is the trump card-play
of Socialism. Red placards throughout the city will announce and
defend it. Remember! it begins on the afternoon of....”
And while they thus read the warning, throughout the city in the veil
of the storm, the placards were indeed posted, as though sown upon
the fences and the sides of building and on the pavements by that
tempest that now began ominously to rise and roar around them. Those
placards, the effrontery of Longtinsky had already planned, they
were printed in the office of The Beehive, they were the frothings
of his bittermost hatred and envy, and the malign fury of their
denunciations summoned the nether tides of discontent, and the great
silent columns of the despairing to break forth into RED REBELLION.
The Mayor and Briggs looked at each other for one moment. Something
in the face of his secretary convinced the Mayor. Briggs mechanically
held up for the examination of his superior the paper he had
received. Then the Mayor hurried to his table, saying as he stood
there, “At any rate action must be quick. Send all police reserves
here. These blind hints must be our guide.
“Telephone the police. Summon out the Fire Department and let them
patrol the water front; every man armed; raise the two remaining
regiments of militia now in the city—the 69th and the 22d; rush them
to Carrara.”
Mr. Briggs jumped to the phone. In another instant the police army
would be marshalled. The Fire Department was ordered out pell-mell by
the same voice, and it shouted commands to the Colonels of the 69th
and 22d regiments to assemble their men within the shortest possible
time at their armories. The orders were understood to come from the
Mayor—explanation would follow—instant obedience was imperative.
In the meanwhile the Mayor dictated to an assistant a short
statement—one was sent on the wings of the wind to the Chief of the
Police, another to the Fire Department, and a third and fourth were
despatched with lightning speed to the colonels of the regiments. The
forces of defence were already acquainted with the nearness of an
unknown danger—the machinery of the city worked with instantaneous
swiftness—but though summoned the battalions of Order could not
instantly be mobilized, nor was the mere notice of danger sufficient
to give intelligence to its leaders.
The plans of action were unformed. Resistance to an attack was the
only clear notion entertained—but attack, Where? How? and When?—; the
unsigned paper in his hand was the only clue the Mayor possessed. Had
he been recreant, careless, had he suffered his suspicions—frequently
appealed to—to sleep, and now was his great charge, the beautiful
city of the centuries to undergo disparagement and disaster? The
Mayor clenched his hands and sprung to the windows where the raging
elements seemed to gather to protect the mysterious treason about
them. Tears almost forced themselves to his eyes, and through the
tears—somehow palely seen—came the face of Helen Lorimer.
Gazing blindly before him the Mayor suddenly saw the flying figure of
a woman mount the City Hall steps, and he divined her mission. Almost
the next moment she stood before the Mayor, streaming with the rain,
breathless, with pale cheeks framed in the folds of a shawl thrown
around her head. It was Jessie Longtinsky. Mr. Briggs recognized her.
He knew her message before her lips opened.
“Sir—Mr. Mayor,” she cried, “_to-day_, this evening—_now_—your city
will be in flames. Poni, Putkof, Felix, Madder, Bomber—will do
it! Five thousand men are ready. They say so. Oh, Sir—I am Jessie
Longtinsky, I have heard all. Do something or you are lost.”
Her stumbling words had scarcely been heard before the sudden thud of
an explosion sounded in their ears—it seemed crashingly near them—but
while their ears thus recorded the actual impact—something blindingly
bright shot through the window at their side. The group fell apart
while the sinister missile sizzled and expired at their feet, put out
by the rain that followed through the riven glass.
Indeed things beyond the Mayor’s or his strenuous secretary’s
observation had been hastening to desperate conclusions. With
Longtinsky’s arrest the conspirators developed a singular alacrity of
action, and a much more wonderful unanimity of plan. Longtinsky had
been right in one thing. The work of his organ had been effective,
and the conspirators found a serious state of discontent pervading
large masses. Poni discovered to his increasing wonderment that a
small army of enrolled men had been formed by the arrested editor,
who, suddenly, to Poni himself, loomed up as a real general. He
found also that Longtinsky’s choice of his assistants—Putkof,
Felix, Madder, and Bomber, had been excellent. They were desperate
characters with brains, and a fierce determination to wreck their
revenge for fancied wrongs—wrongs which Longtinsky’s subtle tongue
and pen kept ever before their eyes. It was a prearranged plan
that before the possible arrival at a verdict by the jury, which
all the plotters, and principally Longtinsky himself thought would
liberate the prisoners, _all_—except Polinck, and thus concentrate
the State’s punishment upon him and Longtinsky—before this verdict
was reached the outbreak should be begun. And it was. The fact was
most significant of the helplessness of even the most perfect system
of police supervision when craft and secrecy unite into a perfect
machine for the propagation of revolt.
The armies of disorder for once were trained, and their discipline
was dangerous. They came together from their hiding places in groups
and individuals, gathering silently like personal accidents in the
crowds of the city. From the cellars, the tenements, the outlying
districts in Long Island, and in the Bronx, from factory, and street,
from the corners, and the wharves, the yards, and the saloons; almost
as if by some poignant magnetism of motive and fore-knowledge, they
gathered. There were three hosts; assembled with instantaneous
precision like those investing and ragged tides that surrounded
the Constitutional Assembly in Paris far back in the days of the
Revolution. It was indeed a lesser sort of Revolution. Riot perhaps
more than Revolution, but yet stirring deeply in it was the essence
of Revolt. Briggs had long ago seen that, but as Carlyle wrote,
Revolution “is a thing nowhere to be laid hands on, to be clapt under
lock and key: where is it? what is it? It is the madness that dwells
in the hearts of men. In this man it is, and in that man; as a rage
or as a terror it is in all men. Invisible, impalpable; and yet no
black Azreal, with wings spread over half a continent, with sword
sweeping from sea to sea, could be a truer Reality.”
Its materialization was so rapid and forceful that it succeeded,
and the City was unprotected. What the Mayor had done was a measure
of safety, but a measure necessarily tardy and confused. The police
hurried their platoons together, and from station to station the
recruits came to the Headquarters, where they were despatched in
regiments to the City Hall. Already the Municipal Court Building on
Center and Chatham was surrounded by the mob, and in the black and
maddened multitude in the stormy afternoon were Felix and Madder with
explosives, with firearms and with the torch, and with them too was
Poni, who had discovered that Jessie had left the Longtinsky home.
He knew well why. She had discovered the plans of the conspirators,
and would betray them and—why?—why?—it turned Poni’s face into the
savagest snarl of hatred—because of Tom Ratler! The thought made a
madman of him, and the thirst of murder swept over him. He cursed his
luck; “let him meet that white cur, and he would butcher him like a
rat—Ay—he would do worse; he’d strangle him to death by inches; Damn
him.”
It was from a spur of the thickening force around the Municipal
Building that the rocket, that fell at the feet of the Mayor and
Jessie Longtinsky had been projected. And now—upon the deafened ears
of the little group in the Governor’s Room, the loud thunder of
explosions fell. The attack had begun. The imprisoned men and women,
who were yet waiting for the verdict of the trial, had suddenly
realized their danger when an attendant came running into the court
room, telling of the strange appearance of the square around the
building, and telling too their fears, that some attempt at rescue
was intended. Some escaped at once, while the heavy doors were
closed, and despatches were sent out for help and the rest—among
them Helen Lorimer and Amato—remained. The judge was himself among
those thus at siege. The prisoners were in cells in the basement of
the building, and Longtinsky among them heard the detonations which
promised him release. His friends had understood, the effort was
already on way. His face lit up with a fanatic joy, and again those
painted dreams of power and success and dominion swept him into a
furious delight.
Felix, Madder, and Poni had organized a mass of strong men, who were
their immediate supporters, and these had forced back the surge of
silent beings about them, while the leaders themselves shot the bombs
against the doors of the building. The explosions were terrific, yet
somehow their violence was wasted upon the doorways alone and the
clouds of broken stone and splintered bricks fell upon the heads of
the crowd. The huge iron doors yet stood.
The frightened and blanched group in the court room were standing
together when the sound of a bursting bomb crashed, and then it
seemed as if a shout of exultation arose, and with it the fall
of some heavy object announced the breached defense. And at that
desperate moment Helen just noticed that the storm was abating and
the rain beat no longer upon the panes of the court room windows, the
next a sharp command struck her ear: “To the elevators; the top of
the building. Wire for a balloon. Up! Quick! the mob is breaking in!
For God’s sake, hurry.”
It was true. After the first ineffective attempt the men grown bolder
crept a little closer and threw the bombs at closer range. Their
effect was tremendous; the great ornamented doors with their metal
knobs and grinning escutcheons shuddered and fell in. The mob broke
out in cheers, and rushed forward—but not far. The herculean men
chosen by the leaders still held them back, waiting for the orders
from Felix and Madder and Poni to advance. Some of those inside
noticed this with terror. A disciplined mob was a thing of dreadful
import. But on the inside there was still resistance. The marshals
and wardens, guards, and keeper, had hastily armed themselves with
such weapons as the place afforded, and they were not ineffective.
But one door had actually yielded, and this had so fallen as to make
a parapet across the entrance itself. It was a danger zone of real
extremity. Behind it the crouching defenders stretched themselves
with the muzzles of their guns over the harsh edge of the prostrate
parapet.
And in the meanwhile radiating intentions of skill and discernment
had become apparent in the ordered mob. Madder ordered a band to
seize the subway station at the bridge, and the City Hall, and to
break up all traffic, coming either way. His purpose was obvious.
He desired to keep back the chance of any relief, and to divert the
crowds for the upper city to other lines of service. Nor was this
all. He derailed a train on the Elevated and effectually blocked
that avenue of movement. Then came the shout that the police were
advancing down Centre Street in military form spreading across the
street from curb to curb. In an instant, a small company tugging at
some dragging object in the swaying mass pushed their way to the
head of that street, and confronted the new arrivals with a small
rapid firing gun. It was the only piece of ordnance the rioters
possessed—and it was not revealed to the hurrying police as they
came solidly up the low hill, until they were within the circle of
its deadly fire. Even here precision prevailed. A stern hard faced
man, a deserter from the army directed the gun’s use, and the timing
of its discharge was chosen with deadly coolness. The police were
not really aware of the hidden weapon, until, uncovered, it poured
its deadly fire upon them, and almost instantly it was followed by
a discharge of riflery from the hands of a long front of rioters,
who with complete composure ranged themselves along the street, and
aimed their rifles at the disordered and flying police. Many of
these latter took refuge in doorways, and under porches, and darted
into the side streets. They had drawn their revolvers and a sharp
rattling volley of bullets, punctured the crowd before them, but with
no serious effect. This repulse of the police delighted the mob,
and almost as soon as it was accomplished, Felix, Madder, and Poni,
had demolished the protection of the iron door, behind which the
defenders of the Municipal Building had screened themselves.
Two well directed bombs had overthrown the door, and had scattered
its little garrison, who dragged with them two dead men, and one,
badly wounded, while the rioters rushed forward after a minute’s
hesitation, with yells and cries of victory, chasing the guards
through the halls, swarming into the court room, and entering the
stairways that led to the prison cells below.
When the police advanced up Centre Street a detachment had passed
from Centre to Chatham, and another from Centre through Pearl to
Broadway. The former was intended to enclose the rioters, as the
Centre Street phalanx had engaged them, while the Broadway squad was
sent to the protection of the City Hall. The first failed entirely in
its object, as the singular foresight and preparedness of the rioters
was again evinced in the stationing of a body of men in the street,
and along the elevated railroad tracks in Chatham Street, who used
once more the guns, rifled from a city armory, upon the guardians of
the city’s order. The little prominence at Chatham Square was well
held. Drilled men, and fairly armed, seemed suddenly all over it. The
hillside on Centre Street was clear, not a figure stirring in it, and
only far away at Grand or Canal thick moving bodies of people, and
the daunted policemen, while the grim spectacle of a few lifeless
bodies caught the eye on the street near at hand, where the murderous
volley met the approaching officers. The detachment of policemen
intended for the City Hall had already been intercepted by an order
to wait and receive guns.
The surprise in Centre Street cautioned the captains not to lead the
men helpless against the armed mob. The City Hall remained undefended
and the mob leaders had not yet thought of its capture. The Mayor
yet stayed with the clerical force, some aldermen, and the heads of
a few city departments. All there was consternation and panic. The
night was now fast settling down on the city, the electric lights
sprung into activity, and the pale aurora above the city sent its
illuminating and spectral radiance over the streets. The rain had
ceased, but a dull clouded sky prevailed, and the raw wind began
to rise chilling and dispiriting, in which a few forlorn and
unaccompanied snow flakes made their appearance. With the Mayor was
Jessie Longtinsky, and Mr. Briggs. Tom Ratler was not yet summoned
from the garage. The Mayor expected protection from the police,
and he would not leave the Hall. Through the open windows came the
frightening sound of the repeated explosions, and afterwards the more
awful notification that the rioters were engaged in battle.
Already throughout the city confusion reigned. The news of the
desperate uprising spread from mouth to mouth, the wires burned with
their message, and from post to post the startling rumors gathered
terror and exaggeration as they flew. The vagrants of the city, the
unemployed, and the mischief makers of all brands and inclinations,
flocked to the scene of the disorders, and gave a deceptive
appearance of strength to the mutiny. Longtinsky had planned an
attack on the city at three points, so that the composure of the
citizens might be the most tried and the forces of defence more
divided. It was a bold plot and it was successfully accomplished.
Putkof, the Russian, worked along the river fronts, and started a
series of bad fires which, fanned by the wind, spread with terrifying
rapidity. To these points the Mayor already had directed the firemen.
But their efforts were confined to saving the neighborhoods, where
the devastating flames roared and hissed, sending upwards volumes
of sparks, and throwing upwards too the horrid red spectres of
incendiarism. Bomber had been sent up town to lead the assaults upon
the houses of Carrara, and where the villa of the Lorimers raised
its marble roofs, _there_ the insatiable Longtinsky commanded them
to wreak their utmost powers of destruction. There too the Mayor had
ordered the two regiments of militia now left in the city—the 22d
and the 69th—but the slow process of assembling the men allowed the
rioters to get the start, and commence their onslaught.
Despatches to Chicago whither the militia had gone upon a vast
holiday parade were hurried away; but the distance was great and a
day at least would elapse before relief from that quarter could be
expected. Even the forts of the City were without garrisons. This was
known to the leaders of the insurrection and they hoped, buoyed up by
the mad promises and delusions of Longtinsky, to receive some monster
accession of strength from the people, and that a contagion of
revolt would come to their assistance. At any rate let them destroy,
pillage, and then, if the worst was to be feared, concentrate and
retreat into the hills of Westchester and parley for POWER! This was
his fanatical promise, and now that they saw the Municipal Building
in their hands, the city emptied of defenders, the police repulsed,
the river fronts streaming with flame and smoke, and heard too that
the attack upon Carrara had begun, these madmen suddenly felt that
their hopes would be realized.
Yet, already in answer to the Mayor’s explicit appeal, soldiers were
forming in line and boarding the train at the stations in Chicago,
and the practising garrisons ordered home from Montauk. The Mayor
and the occupants of the City Hall knew of the extremity of those in
the Municipal Building; they could easily see the state of things
there from the uppermost windows of the City Hall. The Mayor’s
first thought had been for the safety of Carrara, and thither the
regiments had been ordered. It was expected that the police would
be able to dislodge the rioters, and when the discomfiture of the
police was learned, when the determined and prepared attitude of the
mob was seen, its undisguised control by thinking leaders, it was
realized that the moment the prisoners—and Longtinsky among them—were
liberated an attack on the City Hall would follow, and it also seemed
pretty clear that its fall would be a matter of a few minutes only,
unless help came. The telephone wires, worked desperately, brought no
answer. The continued absence of any police for its protection awoke
the worst apprehensions at first, until a message from the Police
Headquarters arrived, explaining the recall of the squads sent down
Broadway, and their slow equipment with guns.
Scurrying orders sent through the city had so far failed to secure
the necessary armament. In the confusion, from the suddenness of it
all, with the plain evidence of preparation, and of some associative
plan, involving large numbers, the Mayor and his advisers felt
powerless, until an actual physical resistance to the rioters could
be summoned. Mr. Briggs wanted the Mayor to leave the Hall, and unite
himself with the troops at their armories; this the Mayor refused
to do; his place he thought was in the City Hall. Indeed he would
confront the mob himself. If there was no help he would undertake to
speak and argue with them.
This Mr. Briggs protested against. It was a confession of weakness,
it was courting death, it meant nothing but disaster.
And during this time, while the men debated, anxiously watching for
the promised succor, the rioters were pouring into the Municipal
Building. Armed with crowbars, with wooden beams, with stones, with
almost anything, they battered down door after door, following the
guards into the last corridor in the basement, around the prison
cells, where the faithful wardens gathered, ready with their lives to
defend their charge. It was a frightful extremity. A handful of men
against a host, and yet they formed silently in a line at the foot of
the stairs which descended into the basement, where the cells were
built.
The agitated and blanched faces of the prisoners were pressed against
the bars of their cages; a few lights only were turned on, and in the
half illuminated gloom the reflections from the gratings, a glint
cast upward from the barrel of a gun, the wan spots of light on the
ceiling above the lamps, seemed to weirdly accentuate the awful
suspense.
The keepers, twenty in number, were well armed, with magazine rifles,
and they had ammunition. They were trained men, utterly fearless.
The stairway was narrow, too narrow for three men to descend it
abreast. The keepers thought the chance a fighting one. They might
hold back the mob for some time, a dozen dead men would choke up
the entrance; the police were doubtless rushing preparations for a
fresh descent; they had arranged a firing line of six, into which by
turns they would step, as each set exhausted their shots; the lights
left were nearest the stairs, so that the faces of their assailants
would be seen, and they were themselves screened in shadow further
back—and then—at the last gasp—there was a fair run for safety
through some passages to other cellars, to area-ways, from which, by
ladders—already there to be put into use—they might reach the street
outside and escape!
It was a bold scheme, bold to the verge of desperation, but it bore
some promise of success. As for the prisoners, one of the wardens
stood at their cages with a gun—it was no idle threat—_a sound_, and
the man making it was a corpse.
And now the raging torrent was heard above them, cries, execrations,
the tramp of feet, the breaking of doors and—they strained their ears
at the sound—something like the roar and crackle of flames. Another
crash—a shout, a titanic rise of laughter, and then immense tumult
of voices in which rose contentious cries: “The jury—the jury—Hang
’em—Hang ’em Hooray—No—No Keep ’em. Let the boys they tried have a
_go_ at ’em—Oh, damn it—hang ’em. What’s the use?”—then a sudden
silence.
The wardens wondered. It was true, the jury forgotten in the tumult,
had remained locked up, and now so uncomfortably relieved from their
imprisonment, were in the hands of the mob. Still no sound—a low
repetition struck their ears. Some one was speaking, perhaps in
expostulation, perhaps in command. Then silence again—and then a
storm of running feet and more cries: “This way—to the cells—we’ll
break the boys out. This way! Here——”
The wardens tightened their hold upon their guns—raised to their
shoulders, their muscles set in their necks, and their lips closed
hard. The man at the cells also raised his gun and speaking to
the figures who, motionless at the confines of their cells, had
simultaneously glued their eyes upon the narrow stairway, said: “One
word and you’re _all in_, any one of you.” Longtinsky alone was not
at the front of his cage. Somewhere in the half discovered background
of his cell, he sat upon a low stool, silent and benumbed.
And now they came tumbling down the steps. The door was full of
figures. Crack—crack—a flash of light, six flashes of light and
as many men fell forward, stark dead. The mob by reason of the
steep descent could not see the wardens, could hardly divine what
obstreperous obstruction they had encountered. The cries redoubled,
those in front pushed back, those behind forward; in the confused and
contradictory efforts many fell.
The wardens waited. Not a man in the struggling heap was armed, which
was surprising enough. Sticks only were in their hands. It would
have been a pitiless slaughter to have fired then, and no one had
yet entered the darkened cellar. Suddenly to their left in the place
itself, a hoarse wild cry—a cry of mingled insanity and fright came
to their ears:
“Save me—Save me—Longtinsky is here—here—Save me!”
And then a shot, the groan of death, a fall—Longtinsky lay a corpse
on the floor of his cell. But the wardens never turned: their eyes
still measured every detail of the daunted multitude on the stairway,
and the vigilant watchman paced slowly along the cells, with no
trace of the ominous scowl that had darkened his face as he heard
Longtinsky’s voice. Silence for an instant—and then again a plunge
forward of the crowd, and three big men shot into the space before
them. Once more a consentaneous movement, the crackle and report, and
all three fell back, dead, almost heaped together in the doorway.
Awful cries arose, and in the fierce declamation the stolid guardians
kneeling on the pavement, as yet unrelieved by the waiting marksmen
beside them and at their back, could distinguish with a shock, that
perhaps was only registered in a quicker heart beat, the savage
threat of:
“Bombs; Bombs—This way—Clean out the Rats; Blow them to Hell!”
Again there was a cessation of the tumult, and some strong voice
was heard cautioning; perhaps the rioters realized that the
prisoners would be blown to pieces too with their imperturbable
keepers. It seemed so. The stayed crowd on the stairway scrambled
back—and—peering forward the wardens saw the steps almost empty save
for the grewsome burden of the dead remaining on them. Perhaps five
minutes passed; then to their dismay they saw smoke curling and
floating in the basement room, and that rushing distant sound, least
perceptible before, as of the swish and pouring rage of ascending
fires came nearer. It was indeed Fire—Conflagration; now the smoke
began to gather in light veils and films, and it was rapidly
thickening. The rioters had left. Doubtless they expected the wardens
would be smoked or routed out, but how about the prisoners? how about
Longtinsky, whose liberation had been the motive of their attack?
There was another guess; the fire had been started somehow in the
ungovernable orgy of violence, and the rioters had deserted the spot,
careless now even of the fate of their friends.
But the wardens had little time to think over any plausible answer
to these questions—little more than enough time indeed to shackle
the prisoners, handcuff them, and retreat to the area-ways on Court
Street, whence they could reach the street up the raised ladders. And
when they crept up the ladders, climbed over the iron railing to the
street, to their stupefaction the street was deserted. They, huddled
with their prisoners, were irresolute. The flames were raging in the
magnificent structure they had left, smoke and sparks were pouring
from its broken windows, sinuous trails of light slipped from story
to story, a roar burst from the engulfing fires leaping up the shaft
with the stentorian might of the air’s pressure, and high up towards
the very summit of the building, black columns of smoke, dimly
smitten with reflected light from the ravenous blaze far beneath,
rolled tardily outward—and there—Good God! could it be possible!—the
wardens, in the ghastly illumination, saw on the edge of the roof—but
just discernibly—gesturing figures. Those figures were those sent up
to the attic in the elevators, and among them were Helen Lorimer and
Amato!
But there was scant time for deliberation: shots were heard in
rapid explosive succession. They seemed to come from the west, from
Broadway. The men hustled their prisoners over the street, surrounded
them, and marched rapidly to Centre. The shots were more distinctly
heard, and with occasional hoarse throated jeers. The City Hall was
beleaguered; the fight was for its possession. That seemed certain.
The wind was still blowing, though less violently, and the rain
had ceased, the clouds were rolling together into denser masses,
and here and there a star revealed the cleared sky. Starting on a
trot, forcing their prisoners on, the squad hurried down Centre
Street toward the police headquarters at Market Square and Broome
Street. One or two looked back at the deserted towering pile; it was
emitting red forks of flame from its windows, and murky clouds swayed
over it, streaming off in a stupendous blanket that took fantastic
outlines, beneath the glow of the electrical aurora—unchecked by the
disorders—that yet bathed the tall buildings of the city, with its
delicate refulgence.
The bitterest fight had already begun at the City Hall. Thither
all the resources of the police had been concentrated; the first
detachment, recalled for reinforcement and armament had returned to
the Hall, prepared to defend it, and to expel the rioters from the
Municipal Building. They formed practically almost a regiment. Their
dread had been the rapid firing gun of the rioters which had already
wrought such destruction among their comrades in Centre Street. They
came down Broadway, after their recall and replenishment with such
guns as the department could assemble, and had hastened across the
City Hall park as the rioters forced their way into the Municipal
Building. They were seen, of course, but they effected a lodgment in
the Hall, and prepared to defend it, being there placed under the
command of the Mayor. The mob at length ejected from the Municipal
Building by the raging storm of fire and smoke that now filled it,
had assembled outside, their swelling tumult being each minute
augmented by the additions of new arrivals of loafers, curiosity
seekers and sympathizers, the wild, ill disposed scum of the city.
This disorderly multitude filled the spaces around the Chatham Street
Hill, swarmed over the Printing House Square area, crowded into
Spruce and Nassau Streets, and were pushed up against the northern
and eastern ends of the City Hall. A recoil of those occupying
Chambers Street from the police had made a fierce jam about the
Record Hall, and it was then that the leaders, Felix, Madder, and
Poni, determined to actually precipitate a battle with the police
in the City Hall. Their first intentions had been to liberate
Longtinsky, and then rush the City Hall, and install the agitator
there as mayor. This had been planned already by Longtinsky himself.
There were almost one thousand men, and the Maxim; with these they
might capture the Hall, and the Mayor, who now they had learned was
within it. But they felt the need of a directive, formative, and
speaking mind. Proclamations and literary appeals were not in their
line. They recognized already the danger of disintegration. Something
must be done at once which would keep their forces together and win
them recruits by success.
“There are ink-slingers enough,” said Madder with an oath, “if we
only make the place safe for ’em.”
“Well, we’ll need ’em,” said the handsome Greek. “We may kill people,
but we can’t make ’em see things our way, unless we teach ’em.”
“To Hell with teaching,” broke in Poni, whose passion grew
insupportable as he thought of the capture of Jessie by the hated
Tom. “Get what we want and teach afterwards.”
“Yes, I know,” grumbled Felix. “But it’s win or hang with us; and
just killing won’t fetch it. Reason has a hand in the game too.
Longtinsky could have wiped their eyes with a little hot air. You
know that.”
“Come! Come! Right about and take the Hall! The Mayor’s there.
Perhaps,” Madder added with a sneer, “we can persuade him to say
something for us. Eh?”
Just then a clamor arose from the ranks of the little army, who were
still gathered in front of the Municipal Building, somewhat split
up into squads by the pouring and surging throngs around them, and
only recognizable by small red ribbons tied in their hat bands,
their only uniform, though the possession of a gun by each of them
told more plainly their confederation. This improvised army was the
whole strength of the revolution, together with the mass controlled
by Bomber, and soon to be engaged in an attack upon Carrara at the
north of the city. Rude and undisciplined, yet the mere fact of
their subordination to orders made them formidable. They had become
impatient with the delay at the Municipal Building, and the news of
the arrival of the police armed with guns at the City Hall daunted
them. The bolder spirits saw at once that action was necessary, and
it was their cries that now sounded in the ears of the leaders who
were parleying together nearer the Chatham Street side of the square.
The cries were answered quickly enough. Madder ordered the men with
the guns to form and surround the Hall. He stood for one moment
revealed above the shoulders of the crowd, standing on a settee. His
harangue was short and rough.
“Boys, we’ve smoked the rats out; everything is ours; All for
everyone and everyone for All; Short shrift for the satin coats. Take
the Hall; the Mayor’s in there. You know him. He set the militia on
you in the Strike. Perhaps you’d like to see him where he can’t do
much harm any more. Fight like tigers; you’ve got the Cops now. Let
them fry in their own grease. Down with Tyranny!”
This direct appeal was greeted with shrieks, imprecations, shouts,
and groans. The repeated cries were echoed from the edges of the
crowd, and rolled in and out again, in a wave of rising sound, that
brought the little garrison of the City Hall to the windows and
doors, and told them clearly that the fight was on.
Indeed it was. The rioters were now thoroughly inflamed. Their
success with the Municipal Building, despite the loss of their
friends, the prisoners, had driven them mad, and the easy access to
liquor, begun by the breaking in of a few saloons, had added the fury
of an insane insolence to their zeal. This with many, but there were
many more to whom this effort meant a serious and heroic struggle for
the overthrow of a wicked and cruel State. Longtinsky had instilled
the sullen rage of his own fanaticism in many, and in many more this
rage was mingled with strange delusions of happiness and ease.
The day had progressed and the tolling of the belfry of St. Paul’s
announced the hour of eight; there had been no interference with
the lamps that converted the park spaces into vivid escutcheons
on the dark neighborhoods, and the streets into gashes of light.
Crowds of adventuresome men and with them—by the purest caprice of
contradiction—a few ambitious and careless women had come down town
to the City Hall, and occupied spots of observation, while many more,
emboldened by their fears of danger to property, had hurried to their
stores and office buildings, gathering with them such improvised
forces for protection as could be hastily summoned in the increasing
tumult and dismay of the whole city. These were not ready to become
helpful; their intent was only self-protection.
The force of the rioters led by Madder, Felix, and Poni, marched out
into the spaces about St. Paul’s and Broadway, about the railed end
of the City Park, and also formed up along Park Row, Barclay, Warren,
and Murray Streets. The battle ground was to be the park space in
front of the City Hall. The Maxim rapid shooter was brought forward
and the men sullenly pressed up into the park, pushing the Maxim
before them, in a somewhat ludicrous confidence that its appearance
would stampede the garrison of the City Hall. Then began the firing
which the wardens had heard, as they led their prisoners up Centre
Street. They could see the stalking figures of the mob running from
point to point, and firing carefully at the chances that the windows
of the Hall afforded, where crouched the police, who responded with
easy assurance, and not without effect.
A reeling form sank constantly to the ground in many directions, and
this unfavorable balance of disaster drove Madder wild with doubt; he
knew his men would not long stand the murderous depletion. Already
the improvised auxiliaries behind the drilled men had broken and
fled, scattered over the neighboring alleys and doorways, in which
safe refuges they stared out upon the irregular frontier-like duel.
Madder’s men were taking advantage of the stone rimmed fountain
in front of the Hall, and from this screen the bullets ripped and
whistled, and often entered the windows of the Hall within whose
walls also dead and dying bodies lay.
Madder ordered the men to form and “rush” the Hall. With a yell they
sprang into the lit space on the roadway and ran forward to the steps
of the entrance. The movement had been unexpected, and the fire of
the police had for a moment dropped; this cover enabled the rioters
to reach the steps, and, for a short distance, to mount them. Then
came a sharp volley of cracking reports and every window in the Hall
was spitted with fire. The figures jumping and scrambling in a thick
mass were rolled back, and many stumbled over the fallen; cries burst
forth from the distant spectators many of whom at this juncture had
also pushed out from their hiding places and made trailing broken
lines along the far off streets. Almost at the same instant a charge
of men shot out from the doors of the Hall, and fell on the wavering
files on the steps, while from windows above and below the sharp
rattling discharges of the guns kept up.
But where the insurgents had forced themselves, the aim of the
police, guarding the windows, failed in precision and was wasted. The
shooting was wild, though men could be seen pushed far out from the
sills, trying to circumvent the misfortune of their retired position,
arising from the indentation of the walls behind the porch of the
Hall. Others had clambered to the narrow lintels of the windows on
the second story, and sent withering charges down on the men beneath
them, and more destructively enfiladed them from the wings.
The fire of the police ceased entirely as they recognized the peril
of their comrades. These men chosen from the strongest and bravest,
had actually sallied from the doors of the Hall, armed only with
clubs. They fought like demons, smashing their sticks right and left,
and devastating the throng, within whose yielding mass they soon
found themselves enclosed. It was a devoted and foolhardy risk.
With almost magical swiftness, maddened by the very sight of the
“blue-coats,” the lines behind the advance which had fallen somewhat
apart from their advanced comrades, sprang back, and in an instant
the policemen were imprisoned in the surging ball, from whose surface
rose and fell the night sticks of its desperate prisoners. Another
instant and the crowd dragging their prisoners with them broke to the
sidewalk, and then Madder’s powerful voice yelled: “Stand back and
Shoot.”
Fleeing on all sides the mob freed itself from the devoted band of
the police, and they were seen staggering and crushed together,
daunted by the sudden desertion of their enemies. Then, almost before
they realized their peril, the assassinating fire of the guns all
around them, and in the very faces of their friends, blazed upon
them, and they fell one by one, in twos and threes, while a few
dazed and exhausted tried to regain the entrance of the Hall. It
was a signal massacre. Its record was a heap of dead bodies on the
steps, and here and there a twitching figure yet unreleased from its
mortal sufferings. The windows of the Hall reddened again with the
discharges of the guns, held by its defenders, but now the rioters,
exulting over the destruction of the little group of their assailants
returned, and drove up the steps of the Hall, almost unchecked. The
gates through which the police had emerged, as they beat down upon
the mob, were yet unclosed, and they were reached by the first of the
ascending throng, before they could be shut. Quicker than thought
these men shot in upon the inner court of the Hall, in spite of
the fire directed against them from the doors and the stairways.
Physical mass asserted its mastery; those outside pressed upon those
within, and, though dying and wounded, the police could not withstand
their mere mechanical pressure. Then sounded again the terrible voice
of Madder:
“Bomb ’em, Bomb ’em.”
The cry made the stoutest heart quail, it took away the breath of the
crowd itself and the panic seized many. An interior revolt developed,
some trying to escape, others hurling themselves against them in
their efforts, while shouts, groans, a fusillade of shots, made an
indescribable confusion. The police yet held the stairway, and from
the circular gallery poured their hail of lead upon the rioters,
who returned their shots. It became a carnage and all semblance of
restraint vanished.
Those familiar with the present City Hall will recall that the
visitor enters a room-like space cut up by columns beyond, which, in
the well-like rotunda, rises the circular stairway with its narrow
marble steps and iron hand rail, its two arms sweeping right and
left from the initial landing, which is raised some ten steps from
the floor of the entrance. Above, encircling the rotunda space, and
making a fence to the circular hallway is also an iron railing. At
this fence the Mayor was standing, watching the strange and tragic
fight. Behind the stout channelled pillars of the room below, the
fighters attempted to screen themselves as the shots from above
and from the doors on either side riddled the mass and zipped
remorselessly through the chamber. The escape of those already
confined in the straitened quarters was prevented by the blockade of
those attempting to force their way in. It was at this critical and
terrible moment that Madder ordered the Bombs.
The order thus given was a cry which bore all the vocal marks of
rage and defiance; it was taken up by a hundred throats whose hoarse
and various accents of terrible execration made the next moment loom
large and hideous to all their startled hearers. It was then that
the Mayor shouted back:
“Shame! Hold back. Listen to me.”
He flung himself over the railing, wrenching himself loose from
Briggs’ restraining hand, and somehow, clambering, falling, clutching
at heads and shoulders, landed upon the small landing, raised a few
feet above the floor of the court below. His clear voice sounded—in
some stifling instant of terrified expectation—in the spaces around
with a quite superhuman loudness. The cowering figures of the
frightened ones, the motion of the mass at the doors plunging in and
out, the outside mob jostled together in a heap, bewildered by the
sweeping fire of the police, from the wings of the Hall, which had
now become withering and deadly, the rushing forms on either side
of him, as the police from above renewed a final effort to break
into the rioters and hurl them from the enclosure made before his
eyes a picture of stupefying terror. His action, by some alertness
of attention, in everyone, to the risk he ran, created a pause, an
arrest of motion, as the sudden flash of an electric spark seems to
stop the revolving wheel of light and colors.
“Why this madness! Take me if you will. Kill me if that is your wish,
but stop this insane murder!”
The protest seemed foolish; to Briggs, gritting his teeth in a spasm
of disgust, it appeared a bit of grotesque bombast. The fighting
police—for one moment as the rest—transfixed into immobility by the
suddenness of the Mayor’s motion, hardly believed their ears, and
the mob of crouching fallen and torn men gazed at the bared head
with the sharp stare of derision. The next instant the police on the
stairway seized the Mayor as he attempted to fulfill his offer, and
mix bodily with the bleeding and dying men in the lower room; but,
in some strange way, this interjection of astonishment helped the
day for the police. The bombs were not thrown; at least the attempt
came too late. By the slight coercion of some customary deferences
to command, bred in the brain molecules through years of work and
service, the rebels themselves paused in their attack, and the police
sharper in intuition and especially quickened by a superior sense
of duty saw their opportunity. From all sides from the hallways
above, they swarmed pell-mell; leaping past the Mayor they prodded
with battering instantaneity the stunned crowd. It was an avalanche,
impetuous irresistible, and, like no avalanche of dumb natural
missiles, seized its victims with discrimination and lightning speed.
The man raising the bomb was struck senseless; a dozen or more
lifted guns were knocked from the hands of their holders, hither,
thither, the baffled insurgents were driven, pinioned, beaten into
insensibility. Nor was this all. The propitious instant coincided
over a larger field of action. The police garrison in the wings of
the Hall, poured through the windows, and precipitated themselves
upon the invading ranks on the front steps of the Hall. They seemed
like a living whirlwind, from whose mad moving surfaces a thousand
arms, in simultaneous thrashing, hit right and left. The crowd
broke, men fled to this side and to that, only occasionally turning
back to fire off their yet unemptied and carelessly aimed guns. And
reinforcements came. New companies had been armed at the Police
headquarters. They strode upon the scene from Centre Street, from
Broadway, from Spruce and Nassau, encircling by anticipation the
little boiling tempest of disorder.
Then it was that Poni who had not led in the attack rushed to the
Machine Gun. Apparently it had been forgotten. It might shrewdly
have wondered why, when in the midst of wearying arms its tireless
mechanical swiftness lay unused. Gorged and yet powerless, its
volleys of leaden pellets crowding to its bore each waiting for the
click of separation to become a faintly jubilant assassin. Just let a
human hand start off its awful alacrity and, perhaps, it thought, a
different story will be told.
So too thought Poni, still cursing the bitter luck that had lost
him Jessie. In all directions the mob were now fleeing; the men
hitherto inactive that had been sent to the defence of the offices on
Broadway made themselves also into lines of marksmen, and threaded
the panic-mad multitude with killing bullets. Everywhere the sudden
collapse of the rioters seemed imminent, only the pillar of smoke and
flames, where the Municipal Building stood, yet told of their first
horrible success.
Poni approached the Maxim with the glee of desperation. He saw the
struggle yet fitfully prolonged on the steps of the Hall, and perhaps
he yet might turn the tide of battle when this belching terror began
its slaughtering work. He had looked long about the scene for the
face of Tom Ratler; he cared really little for Longtinsky’s social
revolution. His one thought had been to get away with Jessie. If
now he could meet his rival the satisfaction of killing him might
sensibly lighten the grief of losing Jessie. But nowhere in the
fighting groups, among the faces looking out from the windows of the
Hall, along the side streets—or any where, was Tom. Poni bitterly
berated his luck, that it had not allowed him the heavenly privilege
of sticking a knife into the cushion of Tom’s body, and settling one
score at least before the game was up.
And yet Tom was there all the time. After he had left the Mayor at
the Hall, Tom had run his machine into the garage on Chambers Street,
locked the doors, and actually mingled with the growing crowds which
then surrounded the Municipal Building, thinking that he might enter
and hear the results of the Trial. It did not take him long to see
that mischief was uppermost in the hustling multitude, and it was
only a few minutes later that the attack on the Building began.
Tom hastened towards the Hall thinking only of reaching the Mayor
and telling him of the conditions. These the Mayor of course knew
and Tom was told to hasten back to the garage and await there orders
from the Mayor. These orders never came; the attack on the Hall quite
displaced them, and in the fierce melee Tom and his car was quite
forgotten. Then came the dramatic intervention of the Mayor, the
sudden doubling up of the efficiency of the police, and the rapidly
accomplished discomfiture of the mob. Tom had started to reconnoitre
for himself and, in the nature of things, as Chance or Destiny
arranges the contact of opposites, he came on the scene, just in time
to meet his antagonist. He and Poni were almost alone in the empty
spaces in front of the Hall.
Scarcely had Poni placed his hand on the Maxim, than Tom, swift as
his intuition of the peril of this new ally of the rioters, had
rushed upon him. Then Poni turning _saw_ him. Tom had not been far
away, but in the night—bright as it was—and in the confusion, he
had never noted the solitary figure underneath the trees, watching
with himself the raging conflict at the doors and on the steps of
the Hall. _Then he SAW him!_ Something like a hiss escaping from his
lips, as though steam had gotten loose from too hard a confinement,
was the only note given of recognition. His hand left the machine,
and probed the breast pocket of his coat. It came out from that
ambush with a glittering knife.
“Now, by God, I’ve got ye:” the voice sounded like a continuation of
the hiss. Tom’s rush was stopped. Defence was his policy just then;
for Poni had stooped and was creeping towards him. Tom had no weapon;
the knife was a significant advantage. Poni straightened himself, Tom
saw he was gathering all his strength for a mortal dash, and he too
stood erect, with a slight wavering motion from side to side in the
interests of evasion, when the dash came.
The dash came, and Tom, with a cat’s agility leaped to one side,
but followed by Poni who too had showed an incredible flexibility.
Tom dodged, so did Poni. The two shooting figures became clear in
the lighter squares, and were partly hidden in the shadows. Poni was
breathing a little hard, Tom thought; he made the mistake of cursing
Tom too often; it was a waste of breath, and to both breath was
the subjective element of safety. Then, too, Poni’s lunges missed,
because of Tom’s quickness and coolness. But _there_ was Poni’s
implacable hatred; it fed him with a strength past comprehension.
This mutual detachment could not last long; Poni had cornered his
enemy against the railing of the park itself. The thought flashed
into Tom’s mind of butting the raging beast before him down to the
ground, and running the risk of a knife wound. The dreadful blade
flashed and turned in the light; he feared it. Again he sprang aside,
and with a yell Poni struck his shoulder, and the bitter edge entered
his flesh. It was a bad injury, but not so bad as to disable him.
The tear and smart turned him _too_ into a tiger. His hands closed
about the throat of the demon, now yelling in his ears, and they came
almost together with a hideous compression. Something cracked, two
forms rolled over on the ground.
It was a death struggle. Poni had freed himself from the clasp of
Tom’s fingers, but suffocation, or something like it, closed his
throat. And yet sense was left, and in it hate. He struck again, for
the knife had never left his hand and his blows hit. Suddenly Tom
loosened himself and KICKED. Kicking was elemental and irresistible
with Tom. It had once saved him against an infuriated stag. It saved
him now from something worse. The stout legs remembered their old
power. Poni spun like a waif from Tom’s side and—his knife flew from
his hand. Tom was weak and bleeding, but with the last gathered
effort of his will he got up and staggered over to the spot where
Poni writhed in the agonies of a broken wind-pipe—and—then the little
park grew dim, and the trees above him sped in dizzying circles.
Pictures came one by one to him. Again, as so often before, the
little room in the attic and the filled book-cases on the walls,
and then the faces of his old Mother and the kindly visage of a
rugged Father, and then—then a little farther off and smiling at him
Jessie’s sweet eyes and then—darkness.