AT WAR WITH SOCIETY.
When Richard Arnold reached the Embankment dusk had deepened into
night, so far, at least, as nature was concerned. But in London in
the beginning of the twentieth century there was but little night to
speak of, save in the sense of a division of time. The date of the
paper which contained the account of the tragedy on the Russian
railway was September 3rd, 1903, and within the last ten years
enormous progress had been made in electric lighting.
The ebb and flow in the Thames had at last been turned to account,
and worked huge turbines which perpetually stored up electric power
that was used not only for lighting, but for cooking in hotels and
private houses, and for driving machinery. At all the great centres
of traffic huge electric suns cast their rays far and wide along the
streets, supplementing the light of the lesser lamps with which they
were lined on each side.
The Embankment from Westminster to Blackfriars was bathed in a flood
of soft white light from hundreds of great lamps running along both
sides, and from the centre of each bridge a million candle-power sun
cast rays upon the water that were continued in one unbroken stream
of light from Chelsea to the Tower.
On the north side of the river the scene was one of brilliant and
splendid opulence, that contrasted strongly with the half-lighted
gloom of the murky wilderness of South London, dark and forbidding in
its irredeemable ugliness.
From Blackfriars Arnold walked briskly towards Westminster, bitterly
contrasting as he went the lavish display of wealth around him with
the sordid and seemingly hopeless poverty of his own desperate
condition.
He was the maker and possessor of a far greater marvel than anything
that helped to make up this splendid scene, and yet the ragged tramps
who were remorselessly moved on from one seat to another by the
policemen as soon as they had settled themselves down for a rest and
a doze, were hardly poorer than he was.
For nearly four hours he paced backwards and forwards, every now and
then stopping to lean on the parapet, and once or twice to sit down,
until the chill autumn wind pierced his scanty clothing, and
compelled him to resume his walk in order to get warm again.
All the time he turned his miserable situation over and over again in
his mind without avail. There seemed no way out of it; no way of
obtaining the few pounds that would save him from homeless beggary
and his splendid invention from being lost to him and the world,
certainly for years, and perhaps for ever.
And then, as hour after hour went by, and still no cheering thought
came, the misery of the present pressed closer and closer upon him.
He dare not go home, for that would be to bring the inevitable
disaster of the morrow nearer, and, besides, it was home no longer
till the rent was paid. He had two shillings, and he owed at least
twelve. He was also the maker of a machine for which the Tsar of
Russia had made a standing offer of a million sterling. That million
might have been his if he had possessed the money necessary to bring
his invention under the notice of the great Autocrat.
That was the position he had turned over and over in his mind until
its horrible contradictions maddened him. With a little money, riches
and fame were his; without it he was a beggar in sight of starvation.
And yet he doubted whether, even in his present dire extremity, he
could, had he had the chance, sell what might be made the most
terrific engine of destruction ever thought of to the head and front
of a despotism that he looked upon as the worst earthly enemy of
mankind.
For the twentieth time he had paused in his weary walk to and fro to
lean on the parapet close by Cleopatra's Needle. The Embankment was
almost deserted now, save by the tramps and a few isolated wanderers
like himself. For several minutes he looked out over the brightly
glittering waters below him, wondering listlessly how long it would
take him to drown if he dropped over, and whether he would be rescued
before he was dead, and brought back to life, and prosecuted the next
day for daring to try and leave the world save in the conventional
and orthodox fashion.
Then his mind wandered back to the Tsar and his million, and he
pictured to himself the awful part that a fleet of air-ships such as
his would play in the general European war that people said could not
now be put off for many months longer. As he thought of this the
vision grew in distinctness, and he saw them hovering over armies and
cities and fortresses, and raining irresistible death and destruction
down upon them. The prospect appalled him, and he shuddered as he
thought that it was now really within the possibility of realisation;
and then his ideas began to translate themselves involuntarily into
words which he spoke aloud, completely oblivious for the time being
of his surroundings.
"No, I think I would rather destroy it, and then take my secret with
me out of the world, than put such an awful power of destruction and
slaughter into the hands of the Tsar, or, for the matter of that, any
other of the rulers of the earth. Their subjects can butcher each
other quite efficiently enough as it is. The next war will be the
most frightful carnival of destruction that the world has ever seen;
but what would it be like if I were to give one of the nations of
Europe the power of raining death and desolation on its enemies from
the skies! No, no! Such a power, if used at all, should only be used
against and not for the despotisms that afflict the earth with the
curse of war!"
"Then why not use it so, my friend, if you possess it, and would see
mankind freed from its tyrants?" said a quiet voice at his elbow.
The sound instantly scattered his vision to the winds, and he turned
round with a startled exclamation to see who had spoken. As he did
so, a whiff of smoke from a very good cigar drifted past his
nostrils, and the voice said again in the same quiet, even tones--
"You must forgive me for my bad manners in listening to what you were
saying, and also for breaking in upon your reverie. My excuse must be
the great interest that your words had for me. Your opinions would
appear to be exactly my own, too, and perhaps you will accept that as
another excuse for my rudeness."
It was the first really kindly, friendly voice that Richard Arnold
had heard for many a long day, and the words were so well chosen and
so politely uttered that it was impossible to feel any resentment, so
he simply said in answer--
"There was no rudeness, sir; and, besides, why should a gentleman
like you apologise for speaking to a"--
"Another gentleman," quickly interrupted his new acquaintance.
"Because I transgressed the laws of politeness in doing so, and an
apology was due. Your speech tells me that we are socially equals.
Intellectually you look my superior. The rest is a difference only of
money, and that any smart swindler can bury himself in nowadays if he
chooses. But come, if you have no objection to make my better
acquaintance, I have a great desire to make yours. If you will pardon
my saying so, you are evidently not an ordinary man, or else,
something tells me, you would be rich. Have a smoke and let us talk,
since we apparently have a subject in common. Which way are you
going?"
"Nowhere--and therefore anywhere," replied Arnold, with a laugh that
had but little merriment in it. "I have reached a point from which
all roads are one to me."
"That being the case I propose that you shall take the one that leads
to my chambers in Savoy Mansions yonder. We shall find a bit of
supper ready, I expect, and then I shall ask you to talk. Come
along!"
There was no more mistaking the genuine kindness and sincerity of the
invitation than the delicacy with which it was given. To have refused
would not only have been churlish, but it would have been for a
drowning man to knock aside a kindly hand held out to help him; so
Arnold accepted, and the two new strangely met and strangely assorted
friends walked away together in the direction of the Savoy.
The suite of rooms occupied by Arnold's new acquaintance was the beau
ideal of a wealthy bachelor's abode. Small, compact, cosy, and richly
furnished, yet in the best of taste withal, the rooms looked like an
indoor paradise to him after the bare squalor of the one room that
had been his own home for over two years.
His host took him first into a dainty little bath-room to wash his
hands, and by the time he had performed his scanty toilet supper was
already on the table in the sitting-room. Nothing melts reserve like
a good well-cooked meal washed down by appropriate liquids, and
before supper was half over Arnold and his host were chatting
together as easily as though they stood on perfectly equal terms and
had known each other for years. His new friend seemed purposely to
keep the conversation to general subjects until the meal was over and
his pattern man-servant had removed the cloth and left them together
with the wine and cigars on the table.
As soon as he had closed the door behind him his host motioned Arnold
to an easy-chair on one side of the fireplace, threw himself into
another on the other side, and said--
"Now, my friend, plant yourself, as they say across the water, help
yourself to what there is as the spirit moves you, and talk--the more
about yourself the better. But stop. I forgot that we do not even
know each other's name yet. Let me introduce myself first.
"My name is Maurice Colston; I am a bachelor, as you see. For the
rest, in practice I am an idler, a dilettante, and a good deal else
that is pleasant and utterly useless. In theory, let me tell you, I
am a Socialist, or something of the sort, with a lively conviction as
to the injustice and absurdity of the social and economic conditions
which enable me to have such a good time on earth without having done
anything to deserve it beyond having managed to be born the son of my
father."
He stopped and looked at his guest through the wreaths of his cigar
smoke as much as to say: "And now who are you?"
Arnold took the silent hint, and opened his mouth and his heart at
the same time. Quite apart from the good turn he had done him, there
was a genial frankness about his unconventional host that chimed in
so well with his own nature that he cast all reserve aside, and told
plainly and simply the story of his life and its master passion, his
dreams and hopes and failures, and his final triumph in the hour when
triumph itself was defeat.
His host heard him through without a word, but towards the end of his
story his face betrayed an interest, or rather an expectant anxiety,
to hear what was coming next that no mere friendly concern of the
moment for one less fortunate than himself could adequately account
for. At length, when Arnold had completed his story with a brief but
graphic description of the last successful trial of his model, he
leant forward in his chair, and, fixing his dark, steady eyes on his
guest's face, said in a voice from which every trace of his former
good-humoured levity had vanished--
"A strange story, and truer, I think, than the one I told you. Now
tell me on your honour as a gentleman: Were you really in earnest
when I heard you say on the embankment that you would rather smash up
your model and take the secret with you into the next world, than
sell your discovery to the Tsar for the million that he has offered
for such an air-ship as yours?"
"Absolutely in earnest," was the reply. "I have seen enough of the
seamy side of this much-boasted civilisation of ours to know that it
is the most awful mockery that man ever insulted his Maker with. It
is based on fraud, and sustained by force--force that ruthlessly
crushes all who do not bow the knee to Mammon. I am the enemy of a
society that does not permit a man to be honest and live, unless he
has money and can defy it. I have just two shillings in the world,
and I would rather throw them into the Thames and myself after them
than take that million from the Tsar in exchange for an engine of
destruction that would make him master of the world."
"Those are brave words," said Colston, with a smile. "Forgive me for
saying so, but I wonder whether you would repeat them if I told you
that I am a servant of his Majesty the Tsar, and that you shall have
that million for your model and your secret the moment that you
convince me that what you have told me is true."
Before he had finished speaking Arnold had risen to his feet. He
heard him out, and then he said, slowly and steadily--
"I should not take the trouble to repeat them; I should only tell you
that I am sorry that I have eaten salt with a man who could take
advantage of my poverty to insult me. Good night."
He was moving towards the door when Colston jumped up from his chair,
strode round the table, and got in front of him. Then he put his two
hands on his shoulders, and, looking straight into his eyes, said in
a tone that vibrated with emotion--
"Thank God, I have found an honest man at last! Go and sit down
again, my friend, my comrade, as I hope you soon will be. Forgive me
for the foolishness that I spoke! I am no servant of the Tsar. He and
all like him have no more devoted enemy on earth than I am. Look! I
will soon prove it to you."
As he said the last words, Colston let go Arnold's shoulders, flung
off his coat and waistcoat, slipped his braces off his shoulders, and
pulled his shirt up to his neck. Then he turned his bare back to his
guest, and said--
"That is the sign-manual of Russian tyranny--the mark of the knout!"
Arnold shrank back with a cry of horror at the sight. From waist to
neck Colston's back was a mass of hideous scars and wheals, crossing
each other and rising up into purple lumps, with livid blue and grey
spaces between them. As he stood, there was not an inch of
naturally-coloured skin to be seen. It was like the back of a man who
had been flayed alive, and then flogged with a cat-o'-nine-tails.
Before Arnold had overcome his horror his host had re-adjusted his
clothing. Then he turned to him and said--
"That was my reward for telling the governor of a petty Russian town
that he was a brute-beast for flogging a poor decrepit old Jewess to
death. Do you believe me now when I say that I am no servant or
friend of the Tsar?"
"Yes, I do," replied Arnold, holding out his hand, "you were right to
try me, and I was wrong to be so hasty. It is a failing of mine that
has done me plenty of harm before now. I think I know now what you
are without your telling me. Give me a piece of paper and you shall
have my address, so that you can come to-morrow and see the
model--only I warn you that you will have to pay my rent to keep my
landlord's hands off it. And then I must be off, for I see it's past
twelve."
"You are not going out again to-night, my friend, while I have a sofa
and plenty of rugs at your disposal," said his host. "You will sleep
here, and in the morning we will go together and see this marvel of
yours. Meanwhile sit down and make yourself at home with another
cigar. We have only just begun to know each other--we two enemies of
Society!"