Hartmann, the Anarchist; Or, The Doom of the Great City by E. Douglas Fawcett (smallest ebook reader .TXT) 📗
- Author: E. Douglas Fawcett
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“Tell the captain I must see him. Tell him the letter was never delivered, and that I must somehow find a means of speaking to him face to face.” The answer came that he could not possibly see me, and that I must say through the telephone what I wanted, and that briefly. I shouted that I must at all costs descend. He replied that his plans were unalterable. I entreated, I clamoured, I expostulated, pleading 161the friendship I had borne to his mother, and the possibility that she, too, had not yet stirred. His words to her had necessarily been more or less enigmatical. Let me, then, go and watch over the fate of her also. I had moved him, for there was a long pause. After what seemed ages of waiting came his reply. “The Attila cannot descend, but it crosses Hyde Park shortly. If the case is urgent, take my parachute. The fall will not be of more than five or six hundred feet.”
This alternative was gruesome, but there was no help for it. I wavered an instant and accepted. Shortly afterwards Norris appeared on deck, and bade me follow him into the citadel. I entered it, crouching low down to the deck with the fire of the guns darting forth above me, and down the steep stair we went till we reached the door of the dynamite room. My guide pushed the door open and we entered.
A solitary electric lamp dispelled the gloom of the chamber and revealed the figures of Schwartz and two other men standing by the trap-hole, now for the moment closed. I was struck with the caution with which their work, judging from appearances, was done. From a cabinet in the right-hand corner sloped a stoutly-made tube of network, well stayed 162by bands and roping to the ceiling. It was evidently along this that the dangerous bombs were guided, rolling into a bag-like compartment immediately over the trap. I had scarcely entered when the trap was lifted, the compartment lowered, its terrible passenger released, and the bag sharply pulled in. To forego a glance was impossible. I leant over the aperture and listened for the voice of the fatal messenger. It exploded near Oxford Street below us, apparently in a house, for the secondary rattle was tremendous, suggesting the crash of ruined walls on the roadway. Schwartz was about to launch another when a ting of the call-bell arrested him. He telephoned to Hartmann, and received the order to cease dropping bombs for the present. The reason was simple enough, they were about to utilize a new weapon, the petroleum, which up to this time had done duty only on the hideous occasion already mentioned.
Norris now stepped up to Schwartz and told him of my determination. The German’s wicked eyes twinkled.
“Good. I, too, descend to-morrow, and we may meet.”
“Better luck,” I said bitterly; “I have done with the Attila for ever.”
163“So, ah! you Socialists have much to learn. Well, we are teaching you something in London.”
I managed to keep my temper, for these were not men to be played with. But how I would have liked to have hurled the miscreant down that trap-hole.
Norris muttered that the mob might teach me something too, and I realized, then, that the descent was not my greatest danger.
What if the parachute were to be seen by any one? I should be torn to pieces or worse. The possibility was an appalling one. Still the darkness would prove a very serviceable shield. Once clear of the Park, I could pilot myself through the streets without trouble.
“Here, the captain sent you this revolver. You may need it to defend yourself, not that I care a cent. And now look sharp, we are coming over Park Lane in a minute.” Norris pointed to the trap-hole, and I saw swinging at the side a long rope-ladder.
“What, climb down that?”
“Yes, if you want to go. There’s no other take-off good enough. Come, yes or no, we shall be spinning across the Park before you’ve done thinking.”
“But the parachute?”
“There it is in the corner. It is a case of clinging 164on with your hands. We will lower it to you, and at the word ‘Go,’ drop it. The only risk is trees and the cursed vermin underneath. Will you go?”
There was no help for it. I clenched my teeth savagely, and backed kneeling on to the edge of the trap-hole, grasping the bomb-tube with my left hand to steady myself. Schwartz and another man got ready the parachute and thrust its stem down the opening. It was lucky the Attila did not pitch, for these tactics might have proved my death-warrant. As it was, I succeeded in working my toes into the top, and thence into the lower rungs of the ladder. Having thus worked my way down I looked for the parachute, and transferred my left hand from the tube to the trap-edge. Slowly I climbed down; the oscillations of the ladder were startling, and feeling for the rungs was a purgatory. At last I was clear of the well, and under the bottom of the aëronef hanging in a clear space between the huge wheels which studded it. “Now’s your time!” yelled Norris, and I grabbed the rope-handles of the parachute fiercely—now with my right hand, then, as the ladder threatened to run away from under me, with my left. One look below—we were full over the Park, five hundred feet or so from the turf.
HOW I LEFT THE ATTILA.
166“Let go!” I shouted, and flung my legs from the 167ladder on which they were resting obliquely. For a second and a half my heart seemed to leap into my mouth, for I fell as falls a spent rocket. Then with a welcome tug on me, the parachute bellied out, and fear gave place to confidence, nay, to exhilaration.
What a spectacle! Above me fled the Attila like some evil bird of night; north, west, south, east rose the crimson hues of the smoke-wreaths; below I heard the clamours of the populace, and saw the darker tree-tops stand out against the dark face of the Park. The wind blowing strongly I was borne south near a patch of trees, and had reason to fear for the moment that a nasty mishap was imminent. Happily fortune favoured me, and gliding oilily and without shock to the ground, I made off rapidly in the direction of Bayswater.
IN THE STREETS OF THE BURNING CITY.
Thus far I had fared unexpectedly well. By the luckiest of chances I had alighted without having been observed, and this was the more remarkable seeing that the Park swarmed with noisy multitudes which I could not have sighted from the trap-hole. Not thirty yards from my landing-place some brawl or outrage was in progress, and the deep curses of men mingled with the shrieks and appeals of women told me that it was no mild one. As I neared the Bayswater Road, I came upon crowds of fugitives from the fire, and the almost equally cruel mob, now master of the streets. Delicate ladies and children, invalids shivering in their wraps, aristocrats, plutocrats, and tradespeople were huddled into groups of the oddest imaginable composition. Many of the men carried weapons, and it was well for them and their convoys when they did so, for bands of ruffians 169were prowling round robbing, insulting, and murdering at random. One savage brute rushed at me, but a seasonable click of my revolver sufficed to sober him. All this time I was being devoured by anxiety. The terrible licence here boded no good for Carshalton Terrace, always supposing the Northertons had received no benefit from the guarded hints given to Mrs. Hartmann. Bearing in mind my interview with the old lady, I had grave cause to fear that these hints had been far too vaguely worded, in which case nothing was more likely than that they had been ignored. Who, unless clearly warned, would have looked for a revolution so sudden and mysterious as this? Hartmann had wished to spare his mother new revelations during his short visit, but he had of course wished also to warn her of these impending horrors. He might have well fallen between two stools, and robbed his well-meant caution of the emphasis and impressiveness it called for. The upshot of the night proved that my fears were only too well founded.
A bright light shot downwards from the sky on a patch of buildings which were immediately lapped in flames. I understood; the drama was running into its third act; the Attila, then soaring some two miles away over Kensington, had exchanged the rôle of 170dynamitard for that of an aërial pétroleuse. A more frightful conception had surely never entered the mind of man. All the more reason for despatch in case things had gone wrong at the Terrace. Hurriedly fighting my way out of the Park, I joined the tumultuous yelling mob that flowed like a river in freshet along the Bayswater Road in the direction of Notting Hill. But what a gauntlet I had to run! The mansions lining the thoroughfare were being looted by the dozen and their inmates shamefully maltreated or butchered, while in many places the hand of the incendiary was crowning the work of destruction. It was opposite these last-mentioned places that the struggles of the mob were most arduous. After a house had been alight for some time, the passage past it necessarily became dangerous, but owing to the steady pressure of the mass of people from behind, no one once entangled in the mob could hope to avoid it. Numberless deaths occurred by the mere forcing of the fringe of the crowd on to the red-hot pavements, and into the yellow and ruddy mouths of the outleaping jets of flame, and these deaths were terrible sights to witness.
OVER KENSINGTON.
172For myself I had seen from the first that the press could no more be stemmed by me than rapids can be stemmed by a cork. One could get into the 173stream easily enough, but getting free of it was quite out of the question. It was a case of navigating between Scylla and Charybdis. On the one side I saw men and women crushed, trampled on, and suffocated against the railings. On the other I saw scores forced into the flames which their own comrades had kindled. The safest place was in the current that was now sweeping me along, a current which ran some three feet off the pavement on the left, a place fairly out of reach of the flames and blasts of heat from the houses on the opposite side. By dint of great efforts I managed to keep in this, though strong cross-currents often threatened my safety, and at last, sorely bruised and battered, with face scarlet with the scorching heat, found myself opposite the Queen’s Road. Here I seized my opportunity and, working clear of the stream, dodged in among a thinner crowd, wearied, but still intent on my purpose.
As I rushed in and out of the groups and files of self-absorbed people, I became aware that I should speedily be left almost alone. Thinner and thinner grew the groups, and the reason was easy to discover. Right ahead of me, from the Queen’s Road Station downwards to Westbourne Grove, the streets on both sides were being fired by bands of red-capped ruffians 174followed by armed companies of marauders with their vilest passions unchained. Not a soldier, volunteer, or policeman was visible—the whole organization of society seemed to have fallen through. Ever and anon sharp revolver cracks and rifle reports testified to hideous scenes in these houses, and women, chased by flames, or even more cruel men, could be seen to rush shrieking into the street. I knew how severe a gauntlet had to be run, but, clutching my revolver, made a dash along the centre of the roadway. As I passed a shop vomiting clouds of smoke and sparks, a miserable woman rushed out and clung to my knees in a frenzy, entreating me for the love of heaven to save
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