The Vagrant Duke Part 61

"I'd advise you not to try that."

"Why?"

"They're stronger than you think."

"I'll take my chances on that. But I want to know where you stand. Are you with me or against me?"

"Well," said Jesse, rubbing his head dubiously, "I'll do what I can."

"All right. We'll make a fresh start. Round up all hands. I'm going to talk to them at dinner time."

Jesse glanced at him, shrugged and went out and Peter went into the office where he spent the intervening time going over the books. It was there that one of the clerks, a man named Brierly, brought forth from the drawer of his desk a small pamphlet which he had picked up yesterday in the bunk-house. Peter opened and read it. It was a copy of the new manifest of the Union of Russian Workers and though written in English, gave every mark of origin in the Lenin-Trotzky regime and was cleverly written in catch phrases meant to trap the ignorant. It proposed to destroy the churches and erect in their stead places of amus.e.m.e.nt for the working people. He read at random. "Beyond the blood-covered barricades, beyond all terrors of civil war, there already shines for us the magnificent, beautiful form of man, without a G.o.d, without a master, and full of authority." Fine doctrine this! The pamphlet derided the law and the state, and urged the complete destruction of private ownership.

It predicted the coming of the revolution in a few weeks, naming the day, of a general strike of all industries which would paralyze all the functions of commerce. It was Bolshevik in ideal, Bolshevik in inspiration and it opened Peter's eyes as to the venality of the gentleman with the black mustache. Brierly also told him that whisky had been smuggled into the camp the night before and that a fire in the woods had luckily been put out before it had become menacing. Brierly was a discharged soldier who had learned something of the value of obedience and made no effort to conceal his anxiety and his sympathies.

He voiced the opinion that either Flynn or Jacobi had brought in the liquor. Peter frowned. Jesse Brown had said nothing of this. The inference was obvious.

At the dinner-shed, Peter was to be made aware immediately of the difficulty of the task that confronted him, for dour looks met him on all sides. There were a few men who sat near him whom he thought he might count on at a venture, but they were very few and their positions difficult. Some of the men still showed the effects of their drink and hurled epithets about the room, obviously meant for Peter's ear, but he sat through the meal patiently and then got to his feet and demanded their attention.

As he began he was interrupted by hoots and cat-calls but he waited calmly for silence and seeing that they couldn't ruffle him by buffoonery they desisted after a moment.

"Men, I'm not going to take much of your time," he said. "A short while ago I came down here and talked to you. Some of you seemed to be friendly toward me and those are the men I want to talk to now. The others don't matter."

"Oh, don't they?" came a gruff voice from a crowd near the door. And another, "We'll see about that."

Peter tried to find the speakers with his gaze for a moment and then went on imperturbably. "I'm going to talk to you in plain English, because some things have happened in this camp that are going to make trouble for everybody, trouble for me, trouble for McGuire, but more trouble for you."

"That's what we're lookin' for--trouble----," cried the same voice, and Peter now identified it as Flynn's, for the agitator had come back and stolen in unawares.

"Ah, it's you, Flynn," said Peter easily. "You've come back." And then to the crowd, "I don't think Flynn is likely to be disappointed if he's looking for trouble," he said dryly. "Trouble is one of the few things in this world a man can find if he looks for it."

"Aye, mon, an' without lookin' for it," laughed a broad-chested Scot at Peter's table.

"That's right. I met Flynn a while ago over in the office. I made him an offer. I said I'd fight him fair just man to man, for our opinions. He refused. I also told him he was a coward, a sneak and a liar. But he wouldn't fight--because he's what I said he was."

"I'll show ye, Misther----," shouted Flynn, "but I ain't ready yet."

"You'll be ready when this meeting is over. And one of us is going out of this camp feet first."

"We'll see about that."

"One of us will. And I think I'll do the seeing."

A laugh went up around Peter, drowned immediately by a chorus of jeers from the rear of the room.

But Peter managed to be heard again.

"Well, _I_ didn't come on this job looking for trouble," he went on coolly. "I wanted to help you chaps in any way I could." ("The h.e.l.l you did.") "Yes, I did what I could for your comfort. I raised your wages and I didn't ask more than an honest day's work from any one of you.

Some of you have stuck to your jobs like men, in spite of the talk you've heard all about you, and I thank you. You others," he cried, toward the rear of the room, "I've tried to meet in a friendly spirit where I could, but some of you don't want friendship----" ("Not with you, we don't.") "Nor with any one else----" Peter shouted back defiantly. "You don't know what friendship means, or you wouldn't try to make discontent and trouble for everybody, when you're all getting a good wage and good living conditions." ("That ain't enough!")

Peter calmly disregarded the interruptions and went on. "Perhaps you fellows think I don't know what socialism means. I do. To the true socialist, socialism is nothing else but Christianity. It's just friendship, that's all. He believes in helping the needy and the weak.

He believes in defending his own life and happiness and the happiness of others." ("That's true--that's right.") "And he believes that the world can be led and guided by a great brotherhood of humanity seeking just laws and equality for all men." (Conflicting cries of "That's not enough!" and "Let him speak!") "But I know what anarchy means too, because less than six months ago I was in Russia and I saw the h.e.l.lish thing at work. I saw men turn and kill their neighbors because the neighbors had more than they had; I saw a whole people starving, women with children at the breast, men raging, ready to fly at one another's throats from hunger, from anger, from fear of what was coming next. That is what anarchy means."

"What you say is a lie," came a clear voice in English, with a slight accent. A man had risen at the rear of the room and stood facing Peter.

He was not very tall and he was not in working clothes, but Peter recognized him at once as the man with the dark mustache, the mysterious stranger who had followed him to Black Rock. Peter set his jaw and shrugged. He was aware now of all the forces with which he had to deal.

"What does anarchy mean, then?" he asked coolly.

"You know what it means," said the man, pointing an accusing finger at Peter. "It means only the end of all autocracy whether of money or of power, the destruction of cla.s.s distinction and making the working cla.s.ses the masters of all general wealth which they alone produce and to which they alone are ent.i.tled."

A roar of approval went up from the rear of the room and cries of, "Go it, Bolsche," and "Give him h.e.l.l, Yakimov."

Peter waited until some order was restored, but he knew now that this type of man was more to be feared than Flynn or any other professional agitator of the I. W. W. When they had first come face to face, this Russian had feigned ignorance of English, but now his clearly enunciated phrases, though unpolished, indicated a perfect command of the language, and of his subject. That he should choose this time to come out into the open showed that he was more sure of himself and of his audience than Peter liked. And Peter had no humor to match phrases with him. Whatever his own beliefs since he had come to America, one fact stood clear: That he was employed to get this work done and that Yakimov, Flynn and others were trying to prevent it. It was to be no contest of philosophies but of personalities and Peter met the issue without hesitation.

"You are a communist then and not a socialist," said Peter, "one who believes in everybody sharing alike whether he works for it or not--or an anarchist who believes in the destruction of everything. You're an agent of the Union of Russian Workers, aren't you?"

"And what if I am----?"

"Oh, nothing, except that you have no place in a nation like the United States, which was founded and dedicated to an ideal, higher than any you can ever know----"

"An ideal--with money as its G.o.d----"

"And what's your G.o.d, Yakimov?"

"Liberty----"

"License! You want to inflame--pillage--destroy--And what then?"

"You shall see----"

"What I saw in Russia--no wages for any one, no harvests, factories idle, blood--starvation--if that's what you like, why did you leave there, Yakimov?"

The man stood tense for a second and then spoke with a clearness heard in every corner of the room.

"I came for another reason than yours. I came to spread the gospel of labor triumphant. _You_ came because----" Here the Russian leaned forward, shaking his fist, his eyes suddenly inflamed and hissing his words in a fury. "_You_ came because you believed in serfs and human slavery--because your own land spewed you out from a sick stomach, because you were one of the rotting sores in its inside--that had made Russia the dying nation that she was; because it was time that your country and my country cleansed herself from such as you. That's why you came. And we'll let these men judge which of us they want to lead them here."

The nature of the attack was so unexpected that Peter was taken for a moment off his guard. A dead silence had fallen upon the room as the auditors realized that a game was being played here that was not on the cards. Peter felt the myriads of eyes staring at him, and beyond them had a vision of a prostrate figure in the corner of a courtyard, the blood reddening his blouse under the falling knout. They were all Michael Kuprins, these foreigners who stared at him, all the grievances born of centuries of oppression. And as Peter did not speak at once, Yakimov pursued his advantage.

"I did not come here to tell who this man is," he shouted, "this man who tells you what liberty is. But you ought to know. It's your right. You know why Russia rose and threw off the yoke of bondage of centuries. It was because this man before you who calls himself Peter Nichols and others like him bound the people to work for him by terrible laws, taxed them, starved them, beat them, killed them, that he and others like him might buy jewels for their mistresses and live in luxury and ease, on the sweat of the labor of the people. And he asks me why I came to America! It was for a moment such as this that I was sent here to find him out that I might meet him face to face and confront him with his crimes--and those of his father--against humanity."

Yakimov paused suddenly in his furious tirade for lack of breath and in the deathly silence of the room, there was a sudden stir as a rich brogue queried anxiously of n.o.body in particular:

"Who in h.e.l.l _is_ he, then?"

"I'll tell you who he is," the Russian went on, getting his breath.

"He's one of the last of a race of tyrants and oppressors, the worst the world has ever known--in Russia the downtrodden. He fled to America to hide until the storm had blown over, hoping to return and take his place again at the head of a new government of the Democrats and the Bourgeoisie--the Grand Duke Peter Nicholaevitch!"

The uproar that filled the room for a moment made speech impossible. But every eye was turned on Peter now, some in incredulity, some in malevolence, and some in awe. He saw that it was now useless to deny his ident.i.ty even if he had wished to do so, and so he stood squarely on his feet, staring at Yakimov, who still leaned forward menacingly, shrieking above the tumult, finally making himself heard.

"And this is the man who dares to talk to you about a brotherhood of humanity, just laws and equality among men! This tyrant and son of tyrants, this representative of a political system that you and men like you have overthrown for all time. Is this the man you'll take your orders from? Or from the Union of Russian Workers which hates and kills all oppressors who stand in the way of the rights and liberties of the workers of the world!"