TRAPPED!
Brevard was the first to speak. "Gabriel," said he, "we have agreed that
you must be the leader in this whole affair. The actual, personal
leader. To begin with, you're younger and physically stronger than any
of us men. Your executive ability is, without any question whatever, far
and away ahead of ours--for we are more in the analytical, compiling,
organizing, preparing line. To cap all, your personality carries more,
far more, with the mass of the comrades than any of ours. Your career,
in the past, your conflict with Flint and Waldron, and your long
imprisonment, have given you the necessary following. You, and you
alone, must issue the final call, lead the last, supreme attack, and
carry the old flag, the Crimson Banner of Brotherhood, to the topmost
battlement of an annihilated Capitalism!"
Gabriel demurred, but they overruled him. So, presently, he consented;
and pledged his life to it; and thrilled with pride and joy at thought
of what now lay written in the Book of Fate, for him to read.
Catherine's eyes shone with a strange light, as she looked upon him
there, so modest yet so strong. And he, smiling a little as his gaze met
hers, foresaw other things than war, and was glad. His heart sang within
him, that memorable and wondrous night, up there in the hiding-place
among the Great Smokies--there with Catherine and the other
comrades--there planning the last great blow to strike away forever the
shackles from the bleeding limbs of all the human race!
But serious and urgent things were to be thought of, and at once, for on
the morrow Brevard was going down, disguised, to Louisville, in one of
the two monoplanes, to attend a final secret meeting of the North-middle
Section Committee. From this he would proceed to the refuge near Port
Colborne, Ontario.
"Let us make that our meeting-place, one week from tonight," said
Gabriel, "in case anything happens. Should we be detected, or should any
accident befall, we must have some time and place to rally by. Is my
suggestion taken?"
They all agreed, after some discussion.
"But," added Mrs. Grantham, "let's hope we're still secure here, for a
while. It doesn't seem possible they could find us _here_, in this broad
mountain wilderness!"
Brevard, meanwhile, was spreading out diagrams and plans.
"The plant at Niagara," said he. "Gabriel, study this, now, as you never
yet have studied anything! For on your intimate knowledge of these
plans--which, by the way, have been obtained only at the cost of eight
lives of our comrades, and through adventures which alone would make a
wonderful book--depends everything. With all communications cut, and
troops kept away, and our own people storming the works, you will yet
fail, Gabriel, unless you know every building, every courtyard, wall and
passage, every door and window, almost, I might say. For the place is
more than a manufacturing plant. It's a fortress, a city in itself, a
wonderful, gigantic center to the whole web of world-domination!
"So now, to the plans!"
For hours, while Gabriel took notes and listened keenly, asked questions
and made minute memoranda, Brevard explained the situation at the great
Air Trust works. The others looked on, listened, and from time to time
made suggestions; but for the most part they kept silent, unwilling to
disturb this most important work.
Carefully and with painstaking accuracy he showed Gabriel how the plant
now embraced more than two square miles of territory around the Falls,
all guarded by tremendous barricades mounting machine-guns and
search-lights. On both sides of the river this huge monster had
squatted, effectually shutting out all sight of the Falls and depriving
the people of their birthright of beauty, at the same time that it had
harnessed the vast waterpower to the task of enslaving the world.
"From the Grand Trunk steel arch bridge up to and including the former
plant of the Niagara Falls Power Company," said Brevard, "you see the
plant extends. And, on the Canadian side--or what was the Canadian,
before 'we' absorbed Canada--it stretches from the Ontario Power
Company's works to those of the Toronto-Niagara Power Company, including
both. In addition to having absorbed these, it has taken over the
Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power and Manufacturing Company, the Canadian
Power Company and half a dozen others, and has, as you see, established
its central offices and plant on Goat Island.
"Here Flint and Waldron have what may be called a citadel within a
citadel--twelve acres of administration buildings, laboratories (in
charge of your old friend Herzog, by the way!) and experimental works,
including also the big steel chambers, vacuum-lined, where they are
already storing their liquid oxygen to be turned into their pipe-lines
and tank-cars. This Goat Island central plant will be the real kernel in
the nut, Gabriel. Once _that_ is gone, you'll have ripped the heart out
of the beast, smashed the vital ganglia, and given the world the
respite, the breathing-space it must have, to free itself!"
"And if I don't?" asked Gabriel. "If anything happens to upset our
blockading tactics, or if our attacking forces are defeated or our
aeroplanes shot down, what then?"
"Then," said Brevard, slowly, "then the world had better die than
survive under the abominable slavery now impending. Already the
pipe-lines have been laid to Buffalo, Cleveland, Albany and Scranton.
Already they're under way to New York City itself, and to Cincinnati.
Already other plants have been projected for Chicago, Denver, San
Francisco and New Orleans, to say nothing of half a dozen in the Old
World. At this present moment, as we all sit here in this quiet room on
this remote mountain-slope, the world's air is being cornered! All the
atmospheric nitrogen is planned for, by Flint and Waldron, to pass under
their control--and with it, every crop that grows. All the oxygen will
follow. They're already having their domestic-service apparatus
manufactured--their cold-pipe radiators, meters, evaporators and
respirators. I tell you, comrades, this thing is close upon us, not as a
theory, now, but as a terrible, an inconceivably ghastly reality!
"Even as we talk this thing over, those devils in human form are at
work impoverishing the atmosphere, the very basis of all life. My
oxymeter, today, showed a diminution of .047 per cent. in the amount of
free oxygen in the air right on this mountain. And their plant is hardly
running yet! Wait till they get it under full swing--wait till their
pipe-lines and tanks and instruments and all their vast, infernal
apparatus of exploitation and enslavement are in operation! Even in a
week from now, or less, by the time you issue the call, Gabriel, you may
see wretches gasping in vain for breath, in some dark alley of Niagara
where the air is being drained!"
"Oh, devilish and infernal plot against the world!" said Gabriel,
bitterly. "Yet in essence, after all, no different from the system of
ten years ago, which kept food and shelter, light and fuel, under lock
and key--and made the dollar the only key to fit the lock! Yet this
seems worse, somehow; and though I die for it, my last supreme blow
shall be against such unutterable, such murderous villainy! So then,
comrades--"
He paused, suddenly, as Kate laid a hand on his arm.
"Hark! What's that?" she whispered.
Outside, somewhere, a sound had made itself heard. Then on the porch, a
loose board creaked.
Gabriel sprang to his feet. The others stood up and faced the door.
"In heaven's name, what's that outside?" demanded Craig.
On the instant, a heavy foot crashed through the panels of their door.
The door, burst open, flew back.
In the aperture, stood a man, in aviator's dress, with another dimly
visible behind him. Both these men held long, blue-nosed,
oxygen-bullet-shooting revolvers levelled at the little group around the
table.
"My God! Air Trust spies!" cried Grantham, pale as death.
"Hands up, you!" shouted the man in the doorway, with a wild triumph in
his voice. "You're caught, all of you! Not a move, you ---- ---- ----!
Hands up!"