The Deluge Part 40

I rose. "Good," said I. "I'm ready."

"Wait until the other police get here," advised Crawford.

"If the mob is in the temper you describe," said I, "the less that's done to irritate it the better. I must go out as if I hadn't a suspicion of danger."

The inspector eyed me with an expression that was highly flattering to my vanity.

"I'll go with you," said Joe, starting up from his stupor.

"No," I replied. "You and the other fellows can take the underground route, if it's necessary."

"It won't be necessary," put in the inspector. "As soon as I'm rid of you and have my additional force, I'll clear the streets." He went to the door.

"Wait, Mr. Blacklock, until I've had time to get out to my men."

Perhaps ten seconds after he disappeared, I, without further words, put on my hat, lit a cigar, shook Joe's wet, trembling hand, left in it my private keys and the memorandum of the combination of my private vault. Then I sallied forth.

I had always had a ravenous appet.i.te for excitement, and I had been in many a tight place; but for the first time there seemed to me to be an equilibrium between my internal energy and the outside situation. As I stepped from my street door and glanced about me, I had no feeling of danger. The whole situation seemed so simple. There stood the electric, just across the narrow stretch of sidewalk; there were the two hundred police, under Crawford's orders, scattered everywhere through the crowd, and good-naturedly jostling and pushing to create distraction. Without haste, I got into my machine. I calmly met the gaze of those thousands, quiet as so many barrels of gunpowder before the explosion. The chauffeur turned the machine.

"Go slow," I called to him. "You might hurt somebody."

But he had his orders from the inspector. He suddenly darted ahead at full speed. The mob scattered in every direction, and we were in Broadway, bound up town full-tilt, before I or the mob realized what he was about.

I called to him to slow down. He paid not the slightest attention. I leaned from the window and looked up at him. It was not my chauffeur; it was a man who had the unmistakable but indescribable marks of the plain-clothes policeman.

"Where are you going?" I shouted.

"You'll find out when we arrive," he shouted back, grinning.

I settled myself and waited--what else was there to do? Soon I guessed we were headed for the pier off which my yacht was anch.o.r.ed. As we dashed on to it, I saw that it was filled with police, both in uniform and in plain clothes. I descended. A detective sergeant stepped up to me. "We are here to help you to your yacht," he explained. "You wouldn't be safe anywhere in New York--no more would the place that harbored you."

He had both common sense and force on his side. I got into the launch. Four detective sergeants accompanied me and went aboard with me. "Go ahead,"

said one of them to my captain. He looked at me for orders.

"We are in the hands of our guests," said I. "Let them have their way."

We steamed down the bay and out to sea.

From Maine to Texas the cry rose and swelled:

"Blacklock is responsible! What does it matter whether he lied or told the truth? See the results of his crusade! He ought to be pilloried! He ought to be killed! He is the enemy of the human race. He has almost plunged the whole civilized world into bankruptcy and civil war." And they turned eagerly to the very autocrats who had been oppressing them. "You have the genius for finance and industry. Save us!"

If you did not know, you could guess how those patriots with the "genius for finance and industry" responded. When they had done, when their program was in effect, Langdon, Melville and Updegraff were the three richest men in the country, and as powerful as Octavius, Antony and Lepidus after Philippi. They had saddled upon the reorganized finance and industry of the nation heavier taxes than ever, and a vaster and more expensive and more luxurious army of their parasites.

The people had risen for financial and industrial freedom; they had paid its fearful price; then, in senseless panic and terror, they flung it away.

I have read that one of the inscriptions on Apollo's temple at Delphi was, "Man, the fool of the farce." Truly, the G.o.ds must have created us for their amus.e.m.e.nt; and when Olympus palls, they ring up the curtain on some such screaming comedy as was that. It "makes the fancy chuckle, while the heart doth ache."

x.x.xVI. "BLACK MATT'S" TRIUMPH

My enemies caused it to be widely believed that "Wild Week" was my deliberate contrivance for the sole purpose of enriching myself. Thus they got me a reputation for almost superhuman daring, for satanic astuteness at cold-blooded calculation. I do not deserve the admiration and respect that my success-worshiping fellow countrymen lay at my feet. True, I did greatly enrich myself; but _not until the Monday after Wild Week_.

Not until I had pondered on men and events with the a.s.sistance of the newspapers my detective protectors and jailers permitted to be brought aboard--not until the last hope of turning Wild Week to the immediate public advantage had sputtered out like a lost man's last match, did I think of benefiting myself, of seizing the opportunity to strengthen myself for the future. On Monday morning, I said to Sergeant Mulholland: "I want to go ash.o.r.e at once and send some telegrams."

The sergeant is one of the detective bureau's "dress-suit men." He is by nature phlegmatic and cynical. His experience has put over that a veneer of weary politeness. We had become great friends during our enforced inseparable companionship. For Joe, who looked on me somewhat as a mother looks on a brilliant but erratic son, had, as I soon discovered, elaborated a wonderful program for me. It included a watch on me day and night, lest, through rage or despondency, I should try to do violence to myself. A fine character, that Joe! But, to return, Mulholland answered my request for sh.o.r.e-leave with a soothing smile. "Can't do it, Mr. Blacklock," he said.

"Our orders are positive. But when we put in at New London and send ash.o.r.e for further instructions, and for the papers, you can send in your messages."

"As you please," said I. And I gave him a cipher telegram to Joe--an order to invest my store of cash, which meant practically my whole fortune, in the gilt-edged securities that were to be had for cash at a small fraction of their value.

This on the Monday after Wild Week, please note. I would have helped the people to deliver themselves from the bondage of the bandits. They would not have it. I would even have sacrificed my all in trying to save them in spite of themselves. But what is one sane man against a stampeded mult.i.tude of maniacs? For confirmation of my disinterestedness, I point to all those weeks and months during which I waged costly warfare on "The Seven," who would gladly have given me more than I now have, could I have been bribed to desist. But, when I was compelled to admit that I had overestimated my fellow men, that the people wear the yoke because they have not yet become intelligent and competent enough to be free, then and not until then did I abandon the hopeless struggle.

And I did not go over to the bandits; I simply resumed my own neglected personal affairs and made Wild Week at least a personal triumph.

There is nothing of the spectacular in my make-up. I have no belief in the value of martyrs and martyrdom. Causes are not won--and in my humble opinion never have been won--in the graveyards. Alive and afoot and armed, and true to my cause, I am the dreaded menace to systematic and respectable robbery. What possible good could have come of mobs killing me and the bandits dividing my estate?

But why should I seek to justify myself? I care not a rap for the opinion of my fellow men. They sought my life when they should have been hailing me as a deliverer; now, they look up to me because they falsely believe me guilty of an infamy.

My guards expected to be recalled on Tuesday. But Melville heard what Crawford had done about me, and straightway used his influence to have me detained until the new grip of the old gang was secure. Sat.u.r.day afternoon we put in at Newport for the daily communication with the sh.o.r.e. When the launch returned, Mulholland brought the papers to me, lounging aft in a ma.s.s of cushions under the awning. "We are going ash.o.r.e," said he. "The order has come."

I had a sudden sense of loneliness. "I'll take you down to New York," said I. "I prefer to land my guests where I shipped them."

As we steamed slowly westward I read the papers. The country was rapidly readjusting itself, was returning to the conditions before the upheaval.

The "financiers"--the same old gang, except for a few of the weaker brethren ruined and a few strong outsiders, who had slipped in during the confusion--were employing all the old, familiar devices for deceiving and robbing the people. The upset milking-stool was righted, and the milker was seated again and busy, the good old cow standing without so much as shake of horn or switch of tail. "Mulholland," said I, "what do you think of this business of living?"

"I'll tell you, Mr. Blacklock," said he. "I used to fuss and fret a good deal about it. But I don't any more. I've got a house up in the Bronx, and a bit of land round it. And there's Mrs. Mulholland and four little Mulhollands and me--that's my country and my party and my religion. The rest is off my beat, and I don't give a d.a.m.n for it. I don't care which fakir gets to be president, or which swindler gets to be rich. Everything works out somehow, and the best any man can do is to mind his own business."

"Mulholland--Mrs. Mulholland--four little Mulhollands," said I reflectively. "That's about as much as one man could attend to properly.

And--you are 'on the level,' aren't you?"

"Some say honesty's the best policy," replied he. "Some say it isn't. I don't know, and I don't care, whether it is or it isn't. It's _my_ policy. And we six seem to have got along on it so far."

I sent my "guests" ash.o.r.e the next morning.

"No, I'll stay aboard," said I to Mulholland, as he stood aside for me to precede him down the gangway from the launch. I went into the watch-pocket of my trousers and drew out the folded two one-thousand-dollar bills I always carried--it was a habit formed in my youthful, gambling days. I handed him one of the bills. He hesitated.

"For the four little Mulhollands," I urged.

He put it in his pocket. I watched him and his men depart with a heavy heart. I felt alone, horribly alone, without a tie or an interest. Some of the morning papers spoke respectfully of me as one of the strong men who had ridden the flood and had been landed by it on the heights of wealth and power. Admiration and envy lurked even in sneers at my "unscrupulous plotting." Since I had wealth, plenty of wealth, I did not need character.

Of what use was character in such a world except as a commodity to exchange for wealth?

"Any orders, sir?" interrupted my captain.

I looked round that vast and vivid scene of sea and land activities. I looked along the city's t.i.tanic sky-line--the mighty fortresses of trade and commerce piercing the heavens and flinging to the wind their black banners of defiance. I felt that I was under the walls of h.e.l.l itself.