The Crimson Tide Part 74

"You stand there chirping to us about Love and Service and how we oughta give. _Give!_ Jesus!--we ain't got anything left to give. They ain't anything to give our wives or our children,--no, nor there ain't enough left to feed our own faces or pay for a patch on our pants!

_Give?_ h.e.l.l! The interests _took_ it. And you stand there twittering about Love and Service! We oughta serve 'em a brick on the neck and love 'em with a black-jack!"

"How far would that get you?" asked Palla gently.

"As far as their pants-pockets anyway!"

"And when you empty those, who is to employ and pay you?"

"Don't worry," he sneered, "we'll do the employing after that."

"And will your employees do to you some day what you did to your employers with a black-jack?"

The crowd laughed, but her heckler shook his fist at her and yelled:

"Ain't I telling you that we'll be sitting in these d.a.m.n gold-plated houses and payin' wages to these here fat millionaires for blackin'

our shoes?"

"You mean that when Bolshevism rules there are to be rich and poor just the same as at present?"

Again the crowd laughed.

"All right!" bawled the man, waving both arms above his head, "--yes, I do mean it! It will be our turn then. Why not? What do we want to split fifty-fifty with them soft, fat millionaires for?

Nix on that stuff! It will be hog-killing time, and you can bet your thousand-dollar wrist watch, Miss, that there'll be some killin' in little old New York!"

He had backed out of the circle and disappeared in the crowd before Palla could attempt further reasoning with him. So she merely shook her head in gentle disapproval and dissent:

"What is the use," she said, "of exchanging one form of tyranny for another? Why destroy the autocracy of the capitalist and erect on its ruins the autocracy of the worker?

"How can cla.s.s distinctions be eradicated by fanning cla.s.s-hatred? In a battle against all dictators, why proclaim dictatorship--even of the proletariat?

"All oppression is hateful, whether exercised by G.o.d or man--whether the oppressor be that murderous, stupid, treacherous, tyrannical bully in the Old Testament, miscalled G.o.d, or whether the oppressor be the proletariat which screamed for the blood of Jesus Christ and got it!

"Free heart, free mind, free soul!--anything less means servitude, not service--hatred, not love!"

A man in the outskirts of the crowd shouted: "Say, you're some rag-chewer, little girl! Go to it!"

She laughed, then glanced at her wrist watch.

There were a few more words she might say before the time she allowed herself had expired, and she found courage to go on, striving to explain to the shifting knot of people that the battle which now threatened civilisation was the terrible and final fight between Order and Disorder and that, under inexorable laws which could never change, order meant life and survival; disorder chaos and death for all living things.

A few cheered her as she bade them good-night, picked up her soap-box and carried it back to her boot-black friend, who inhabited a shack built against the family-entrance side of a saloon.

She was surprised that Ilse and John Estridge had not appeared--could scarcely understand it, as she made her way toward a taxicab.

For, in view of the startling occurrence earlier in the evening, and the non-appearance of Ilse and Estridge, Palla had decided to return in a taxi.

The incident--the boldness of the unknown man and vicious brutality of his att.i.tude, and also a sickening recollection of her own action and his b.l.o.o.d.y face--had really shocked her, even more than she was aware of at the time.

She felt tired and strained, and a trifle faint now, where she lay back, swaying there on her seat, her pistol clutched inside her m.u.f.f, as the ramshackle vehicle lurched its noisy way eastward. And always that dull sense of something sinister impending--that indefinable apprehension--remained with her. And she gazed darkly out on the dark streets, possessed by a melancholy which she did not attempt to a.n.a.lyse.

Yet, partly it came from the ruptured comradeship which always haunted her mind, partly because of Ilse and the uncertainty of what might happen to her--may have happened already for all Palla knew--and partly because--although she did not realise it--in the profound deeps of her girl's being she was vaguely conscious of something latent which seemed to have lain hidden there for a long, long time--something inert, inexorable, indestructible, which, if it ever stirred from its intense stillness, must be reckoned with in years to come.

She made no effort to comprehend what this thing might be--if, indeed, it really existed--no pains to a.n.a.lyse it or to meditate over the vague indications of its presence.

She seemed merely to be aware of something indefinable concealed in the uttermost depths of her.

It was Doubt, unborn.

The taxi drew up before her house. Rain was falling heavily, as she ran up the steps--a cold rain through which a few wet snowflakes slanted.

Her maid heard the rattle of her night-key and came to relieve her of her wet things, and to say that Miss Westgard had telephoned and had left a number to be called as soon as Miss Dumont returned.

The slip of paper bore John Estridge's telephone number and Palla seated herself at her desk and called it.

Almost immediately she heard Ilse's voice on the wire.

"What is the matter, dear?" inquired Palla with the slightest shiver of that premonition which had haunted her all day.

But Ilse's voice was cheerful: "We were so sorry not to go with you this evening, darling, but Jack is feeling so queer that he's turned in and I've sent for a physician."

"Shall I come around?" asked Palla.

"Oh, no," replied Ilse calmly, "but I've an idea Jack may need a nurse--perhaps two."

"What is it?" faltered Palla.

"I don't know. But he is running a high temperature and he says that it feels as though something were wrong with his appendix.

"You see Jack is almost a physician himself, so if it really is acute appendicitis we must know as soon as possible."

"Is there _anything_ I could do?" pleaded Palla. "Darling, I do so want to be of use if----"

"I'll let you know, dear. There isn't anything so far."

"Are you going to stay there to-night?"

"Of course," replied Ilse calmly. "Tell me, Palla, how did the soap-box arguments go?"

"Not very well. I was heckled. I'm such a wretched public speaker, Ilse;--I can never remember what rejoinders to make until it's too late."

She did not mention her encounter with the unknown man; Ilse had enough to occupy her.

They chatted a few moments longer, then Ilse promised to call her if necessary, and said good-night.

A little after midnight Palla's telephone rang beside her bed and she started upright with a pang of fear and groped for the instrument.