Caesar's Column Part 14

"Your air-vessels are in perfect order?"

"Yes; we drill and exercise with them every day."

"You antic.i.p.ate an outbreak?"

"Yes; we look for it any hour."

"Have you any further questions to ask General Quincy?" inquired the Prince.

"None."

He was bowed out and the door locked behind him. The Prince returned to his seat.

"Gentlemen," he said, "that matter is settled, and we are safe for the present. But you can see the ticklish ground we stand on. These men will not rest satisfied with the immense concessions we have made them; they will demand more and more as the consciousness of their power increases. They know we are afraid of them. In time they will a.s.sume the absolute control of the government, and our power will be at an end. If we resist them, they will have but to drop a few of their death-bombs through the roofs of our palaces, and it is all over with us."

"What can we do?" asked two or three.

"We must have recourse to history," he replied, "and profit by the experience of others similarly situated. In the thirteenth century the sultan of Egypt, Malek-ed-Adell the Second, organized a body of soldiery made up of slaves, bought from the Mongols, who had taken them in battle. They were called the _Bahri Mamelukes_. They formed the Sultan's bodyguard. They were mounted on the finest horses in the world, and clad in the most magnificent dresses. They were of our own white race--Circa.s.sians. But Malek had unwittingly created, out of the slaves, a dangerous power. They, not many years afterward, deposed and murdered his son, and placed their general on the throne.

For several generations they ruled Egypt. To circ.u.mscribe their power a new army of Mamelukes was formed, called the _Borgis_. But the cure was as bad as the disease. In 1382 the _Borgi Mamelukes_ rose up, overthrew their predecessors, and made their leader, Barkok, supreme ruler. This dynasty held power until 1517, when the Ottoman Turks conquered Egypt. The Turks perceived that they must either give up Egypt or destroy the Mamelukes. They ma.s.sacred them in great numbers; and, at last, Mehemet Ah beguiled four hundred and seventy of their leaders into the citadel of Cairo, and closed the gates, and ordered his mercenaries to fire upon them. But one man escaped. He leaped his horse from the ramparts and escaped unhurt, although the horse was killed by the prodigious fall.

"Now, let us apply this teaching of history. I propose that after this outbreak is over we shall order the construction of ten thousand more of these air-vessels, and this will furnish us an excuse for sending a large force of apprentices to the present command to learn the management of the s.h.i.+ps. We will select from the circle of our relatives some young, able, reliable man to command these new troops.

We will then seize upon the magazine of bombs and arrest the officers and men. We will charge them with treason. The officers we will execute, and the men we will send to prison for life; for it would not be safe, with their dangerous knowledge, to liberate them. After that we will keep the magazine of bombs and the secret of the poison in the custody of men of our own caste, so that the troops commanding the air-s.h.i.+ps will never again feel that sense of power which now possesses them."

These plans met with general approval.

"But what are we to do with the coming outbreak?" asked one of the councilors.

"I have thought of that, too," replied the Prince. "It is our interest to make it the occasion of a tremendous ma.s.sacre, such as the world has never before witnessed. There are too many people on the earth, anyhow. In this way we will strike such terror into the hearts of the _canaille_ that they will remain submissive to our will, and the domination of our children, for centuries to come."

"But how will you accomplish that?" asked one.

"Easily enough," replied the Prince. "You know that the first step such insurgents usually take is to tear up the streets of the city and erect barricades of stones and earth and everything else they can lay their hands on. Heretofore we have tried to stop them. My advice is that we let them alone--let them build their barricades as high and as strong as they please, and if they leave any outlets un.o.bstructed, let our soldiers close them up in the same way. We have then got them in a rat-trap, surrounded by barricades, and every street and alley outside occupied by our troops. If there are a million in the trap, so much the better. Then let our flock of Demons sail up over them and begin to drop their fatal bombs. The whole streets within the barricades will soon be a sea of invisible poison.

If the insurgents try to fly they will find in their own barricades the walls of their prison-house; and if they attempt to scale them they will be met, face to face, with our ma.s.sed troops, who will be instructed to take no prisoners. If they break into the adjacent houses to escape, our men will follow from the back streets and gardens and bayonet them at their leisure, or fling them back into the poison. If ten millions are slain all over the world, so much the better. There will be more room for what are left, and the world will sleep in peace for centuries.

"These plans will be sent out, with your approval, to all cities, and to Europe. When the rebellion is crushed in the cities, it will not take long to subdue it among the wretched peasants of the country, and our children will rule this world for ages to come."

CHAPTER XVI.

GABRIEL'S FOLLY

While the applause that followed this diabolical scheme rang loud and long around the council-chamber, I stood there paralyzed. My eyes dilated and my heartbeat furiously. I was overwhelmed with the dreadful, the awful prospect, so coolly presented by that impa.s.sive, terrible man. My imagination was always vivid, and I saw the whole horrid reality unrolled before me like a panorama. The swarming streets filled with the oppressed people; the dark shadows of the Demons floating over them; the first bomb; the terror; the confusion; the gasping of the dying; the shrieks, the groans--another and another bomb falling here, there, everywhere; the surging ma.s.ses rus.h.i.+ng from death to death; the wild flight; the barricades a line of fire and bayonets; the awful and continuous rattle of the guns, sounding like the grinding of some dreadful machinery that crunches the bones of the living; the recoil from the bullets to the poison; the wounded stumbling over the dead, now covering the streets in strata several feet thick; and still the bombs crash and the poison spreads. Death! death! nothing but death! _Ten million dead!_ Oh, my G.o.d!

I clasped my head--it felt as if it would burst. I must save the world from such a calamity. These men are human. They cannot be insensible to an appeal for mercy--for justice!

Carried away by these thoughts, I stooped down and unclasped the hooks; I pushed aside the box; I crawled out; the next moment I stood before them in the full glare of the electric lamps.

"For G.o.d's sake," I cried, "save the world from such an awful calamity! Have pity on mankind; even as you hope that the Mind and Heart of the Universe will have pity on you. I have heard all. Do not plunge the earth into horrors that will shock the very stars in their courses. The world can be saved! It can be saved! You have power. Be pitiful. Let me speak for you. Let me go to the leaders of this insurrection and bring you together."

"He is mad," said one.

"No, no," I replied, "I am not mad. It is you that are mad. It is the wretched people who are mad--mad with suffering and misery, as you with pride and hardness of heart. You are all _men_. Hear their demands. Yield a little of your superfluous blessings; and touch their hearts--with kindness, and love will spring up like flowers in the track of the harrow. For the sake of Christ Jesus, who died on the cross for all men, I appeal to you. Be just, be generous, be merciful. Are they not your brethren? Have they not souls like yourselves? Speak, speak, and I will toil as long as I can breathe. I will wear the flesh from off my bones, if I can reconcile the castes of this wretched society, and save civilization."

The Prince had recoiled with terror at my first entrance. He had now rallied his faculties.

"How did you come here?" he asked.

Fortunately the repulsive coldness with which the Council had met my earnest appeals, which I had fairly shrieked at them, had restored to some extent the balance of my reason. The thought flashed over me that I must not betray Rudolph.

"Through yonder open window," I replied.

"How did you reach it?" asked the Prince.

"I climbed up the ivy vine to it."

"What did you come here for?" he asked.

"To appeal to you, in the name of G.o.d, to prevent the coming of this dreadful outbreak."

"The man is a religious fanatic," said one of the Council to another; "probably one of the street preachers."

The Prince drew two or three of the leaders together, and they whispered for a few minutes. Then he went to the door and spoke to Rudolph. I caught a few words: "Not leave--alive--send for Macarius--midnight--garden."

Rudolph advanced and took me by the arm. The revulsion had come. I was dazed--overwhelmed. There swept over me, like the rush of a flood, the dreadful thought: "What will become of Estella?" I went with him like a child. I was armed, but an infant might have slain me.

When we were in the hall, Rudolph said to me, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper:

"I heard everything. You meant n.o.bly; but you were foolish--wild. You might have ruined us all. But there is a chance of escape yet. It will be an hour before the a.s.sa.s.sin will arrive. I can secure that much delay. In the meantime, be prudent and silent, and follow my directions implicitly."

I promised, very humbly, to do so.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE FLIGHT AND PURSUIT

He opened the door of a room and pushed me into it. "Wait," he whispered, "for my orders." I looked around me. It was Rudolph's room--the one I had been in before. I was not alone. There was a young gentleman standing at a window, looking out into the garden. He turned around and advanced toward me, with his hand extended and a smile on his face. It was Estella! looking more charming than ever in her masculine dress. I took her hand. Then my heart smote me; and I fell upon my knees before her.

"O Estella," I cried, "pardon me. I would have sacrificed you for mankind--you that are dearer to me than the whole human race. Like a fool I broke from my hiding-place, and appealed to those hearts of stone--those wild beasts--those incarnate fiends--to spare the world the most dreadful calamity it has ever known. They proposed to murder _ten million human beings_! I forgot my task--my duty--you--my own safety--everything, to save the world."

Her eyes dilated as I spoke, and then, without a trace of mock modesty, without a blush, she laid her hand upon my head and said simply:

"If you had done less, I should have loved you less. What am I in the presence of such a catastrophe? But if you are to die we can at least perish together. In that we have the mastery of our enemies. Our liberty is beyond their power."

"But you shall not die," I said, wildly, springing to my feet. "The a.s.sa.s.sin comes! Give me the poisoned knife. When he opens the door I shall slay him. I shall bear you with me. Who will dare to arrest our departure with that dreadful weapon--that instantaneous death--s.h.i.+ning in my hand. Besides, I carry a hundred lives at my girdle. Once in the streets, we can escape."

She took from the pocket of her coat the sheathed dagger and handed it to me.

"We must, however, be guided by the counsels of Rudolph," she quietly said; "he is a faithful friend."