Comrades Part 47

Here all was changed. A new force in human history had been created.

Wealth beyond all the dreams of pa.s.sion and avarice was in the grasp of the regent and his henchmen. He wielded the most autocratic and merciless power over men conceivable to the human imagination--a power final and resistless, from which there could be no appeal save in death itself.

The results of this power quickly began to show in the development of life around the regent and each of his trusted minions.

By the time the theatre and music hall were finished and opened, Wolf had selected more than a hundred of the prettiest girls in the colony for the two stages.

His method of selection was always the same. The girl he desired he secretly ordered to be a.s.signed to a dirty or disgusting form of labour. He allowed her to rave in hopeless anger at her tasks until she found that all appeal was in vain and her doom sealed.

He then made it his business to call, express his surprise at the task to which she had been a.s.signed, and smile vaguely at her eager appeal for a change.

If she proved charming to the regent she was promptly a.s.signed to the chorus of the State theatre and given luxurious quarters in the building adjoining.

Their tasks were light and agreeable. They studied music and dancing and elocution. But, above all, they studied day and night the art of pleasing the regent, whose frown could send any of them instantly to the washtub or the scrubbing-brush.

In like manner around the personality of each guard, overseer, secret-service man, superintendent, and governor of departments there grew a coterie of favoured ones whose position depended solely on the whim of the man in power.

The State only could manufacture arms. The State only could bear arms.

And the system of law which Socialism developed was so full, so minute in its touch on every detail of human life, and so merciless in its system of espionage, the very idea of revolution was slowly dying in the despairing hearts of the colonists.

So sure was Wolf of his victim when once he had marked her, he was merely amused rather than displeased over Barbara's defiance of his wishes.

A few days before the opening and dedication of the regent's palace, when all his preparations were complete, Wolf summoned Catherine.

"I have here," he began, "my proclamation for the complete establishment of a perfect Social State. I publish it to-morrow morning. It goes into effect immediately:

"'From to-day the State of Ventura enters upon the reign of pure Communism which is the only logical end of Socialism. All private property is hereby abolished. The claim of husband to the person of his wife as his own can no longer be tolerated. Love is free from all chains. Marriage will hereafter be celebrated by a simple declaration before a representative of the State, and it shall cease to bind at the will of either party. Complete freedom in the s.e.x-relationship is left to the judgment and taste of a race of equally developed men and women. The State will interfere, when necessary, to regulate the birth-rate and maintain the limits of efficient population.'"

"Which means for me?" Catherine inquired.

"That you are divorced and free to marry whom you please."

The woman uttered a cry of anguish, threw her arms around Wolf's big neck, and burst into sobs.

"Oh, Herman, surely you have some pity left in your heart! For G.o.d's sake, don't cast me out of your life in this cruel, horrible way!"

He turned his stolid face away with cold indifference.

She lifted her tapering hand timidly and smoothed the coa.r.s.e hair back from his forehead with a tender gesture.

"Can you forget," she went on, in low, pa.s.sionate tones, "all we have been to one another through the long, dark years of our fight with poverty and oppression? All I have done for your sake? That I broke my husband's heart--for he loved me even as I love you--I left my babies, and have never seen them since; broke with every friend and loved one on earth for you! Have you forgotten all I have done in this work? The tireless zeal with which I've fought your battles? Can you kick me from your presence now as though I were a dog?"

Wolf pursed his thick lips and scowled.

"No, I mean that you shall stay where you are and take charge of my new household. Barbara will need your a.s.sistance."

"Barbara!" she gasped.

"I have chosen her as the new regent," Wolf calmly answered. "I will announce our marriage at the dedication of the palace."

"And you think that I will accept such shame?"

"I'm sure you will!" he quickly answered with an ominous threat in his tone.

The woman sprang to her feet and faced him, her tall, lithe figure tense with pa.s.sion.

"I dare you to try it!"

"Dare?" Wolf repeated in a low growl.

"I said it!" she cried, defiantly. "From the very housetop I'll shout the story of our life. I'll show you I'm a power you must reckon with----"

"And I'll show you," Wolf answered "that there's but one power that counts now in the world of realities in which we live--the elemental force of tooth, and nail, and claw--do you understand?"

He thrust his big, ugly face into hers and a look of terror flashed from her eyes as she saw his features convulsed with fury.

"Please, Herman!" she pleaded at last in a feeble, childish voice.

"You are still daring me?"

"No, I give up--surely you will not strike me!" she gasped.

"Not unless I have to," he answered, with cold menace.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

LOVE AND LOCKSMITHS

Barbara sat in the little rose bower on the lawn puzzling her brain for the thousandth time over impossible schemes to communicate with Norman.

From day to day she had watched with increasing fear the rapid growth of Wolf's cruel instincts under the conditions of tyranny he had established.

She had appealed in vain to every man in authority. Everywhere the same answer. The regent's power inspired a terror which no appeal could penetrate.

She started with a sudden thought. Among the guards who stood watch at Wolf's door was the nineteen-year-old boy who had acted as usher and shown Norman to a seat in the Socialist Hall the night they met.

She had caught a peculiar look in his face the last time she entered Wolf's office. Could it be possible he was in love with her in the helpless, heroic, boy fashion of his age? She would put him to the test. It was worth trying.

She found him on guard in the corridor outside Wolf's door, approached him cautiously, touched his hand timidly, and whispered:

"Jimmy, I'm in great distress."

"I wish I could help you, Miss Barbara," he answered in low, earnest tones, sweeping the corridor with a quick look.

"Even at the risk of your life?"