Caesar's Column Part 31

"No one knows. He took several of his trusted followers, of his own nation, with him. It is rumored that he has gone to Judea; that he proposes to make himself king in Jerusalem, and, with his vast wealth, re-establish the glories of Solomon, and revive the ancient splendors of the Jewish race, in the midst of the ruins of the world."

"What effect has his flight had on the mob?" I asked.

"A terrible effect. They are wild with suspicions and full of rumors.

They gathered, in a vast concourse, around the Cabano palace, to prevent Caesar leaving them, like the cripple. They believe that he, too, has another hundred millions hidden in the cellars of the palace. They clamored for him to appear. The tumult of the mob was frightful.

"I rose to address them from the steps of the palace. I told them they need not fear that Caesar would leave them--he was dead drunk, asleep in bed. If they feared treachery, let them appoint a committee to search the palace for treasure. But--I went on--there was a great danger before them which they had not thought of. They must establish some kind of government that they would all obey. If they did not they would soon be starving. I explained to them that this vast city, of ten million inhabitants, had been fed by thousands of carloads of food which were brought in, every day, from the outside world. Now the cars had ceased to run, The mob had eaten up all the food in the shops, and tomorrow they would begin to feel the pangs of starvation.

And I tried to make them understand what it meant for ten million people to be starving together.

"They became very quiet. One man cried out:

"'What would you have us do?'

"'You must establish a provisional government. You must select one man to whose orders you will all submit. Then you must appoint a board of counselors to a.s.sist him. Then the men among you who are engineers and conductors of trains of cars and of air-lines must rea.s.sume their old places; and they must go forth into the country and exchange the spoils you have gathered for cattle and flour and vegetables, and all other things necessary for life.'

"'He wants to make himself a king,' growled one ruffian.

"'Yes,' said another, 'and set us all at work again.'

"'He's a d----d aristocrat, anyhow,' cried a third.

"But there were some who had sense enough to see that I was right, and the mob at once divided into two clamorous factions. Words led to blows. A number were killed. Three wretches rushed at me. I shot one dead, and wounded another; the third gave me a flesh wound on the head with a sword; my hat broke the force of the blow, or it would have made an end of me. As he raised his weapon for a second stroke, I shot him dead. My friends forced me through the door of the palace, in front of which I had been standing; we double-locked it to keep out the surging wild beasts; I fled through the back door, and reached here.

"All hope is gone," he added sadly; "I can do nothing now but provide for our own safety."

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

THE FLIGHT

"Yes," I replied, "we cannot remain here another night. Think what would be the effect if a fire broke out anywhere in this block!"

He looked at me in a startled way.

"True," he said; "we must fly. I would cheerfully give my life if its sacrifice would arrest these horrors; but it would not."

Christina came and stood beside him. He wrote a letter to General Quincy. He made three copies of it. Selecting three of his best men, he gave each a copy, and told them to make their way together, well armed, to the armory of the airs.h.i.+ps. It was a perilous journey, but if either of them reached his destination, he was to deliver his copy of the letter to the general. In it Max asked General Quincy to send him one of the "Demons," as promised, that night at eight o'clock; and he also requested, as a signal that the messengers had reached him and that the air-s.h.i.+p would come, that he would send up a single Demon, high in the air, at once on receiving the letter.

We went to the roof with our field-gla.s.ses. In two hours, we thought, the messengers, walking rapidly, would reach the armory. Two hours pa.s.sed. Nothing was visible in the heavens in the direction of the armory, although we swept the whole region with our gla.s.ses. What if our messengers had all been slain? What if General Quincy refused to do as he had agreed, for no promises were likely to bind a man in such a dreadful period of anarchy? Two hours and a quarter--two hours and a half pa.s.sed, and no signal. We began to despair. Could we survive another night of horrors? At last

Estella, who had been quietly looking to the west with her gla.s.s, cried out:

"See! there is something rising in the air."

We looked. Yes, thank heaven! it was the signal. The Demon rose like a great hawk to a considerable height, floated around for awhile in s.p.a.ce, and then slowly descended.

It would come!

All hands were set at work. A line was formed from the roof to the rooms below; and everything of value that we desired to carry with us was pa.s.sed from hand to hand along the line and placed in heaps, ready for removal. Even the women joined eagerly in the work. We did not look for our messengers; they were to return to us in the air-s.h.i.+p.

The afternoon was comparatively quiet. The mobs on the street seemed to be looking for food rather than treasure. They were, however, generally resting, worn out; they were sleeping--preparing for the evening. With nightfall the saturnalia of death would begin again with redoubled force.

We ate our dinner at six; and then Mr. Phillips suggested that we should all join in family prayers. We might never have another opportunity to do so, he said. He prayed long and earnestly to G.o.d to save the world and protect his dear ones; and we all joined fervently in his supplications to the throne of grace.

At half past seven, equipped for the journey, we were all upon the roof, looking out in the direction of the west for the coming of the Demon. A little before eight we saw it rise through the twilight above the armory. Quincy, then, was true to his pledge. It came rapidly toward us, high in the air; it circled around, and at last began to descend just over our heads. It paused about ten feet above the roof, and two ladders were let down. The ladies and Mr. Phillips were first helped up to the deck of the vessel; and the men began to carry up the boxes, bales, trunks, money, books and instruments we had collected together.

Just at this moment a greater burst of tumult reached my ears. I went to the parapet and looked down. Up the street, to the north, came a vast concourse of people. It stretched far back for many blocks. My first notion was that they were all drunk, their outcries were so vociferous. They shouted, yelled and screamed. Some of them bore torches, and at their head marched a ragged fellow with a long pole, which he carried upright before him. At the top of it was a black ma.s.s, which I could not make out in the twilight. At this instant they caught sight of the Demon, and the uproar redoubled; they danced like madmen, and I could hear Max's name shouted from a hundred lips.

"What does it mean?" I asked him.

"It means that they are after me. Hurry up, men," he continued, "hurry up."

We all sprang to work; the women stood at the top and received the smaller articles as a line of men pa.s.sed them up.

Then came a thunderous voice from below:

"Open the door, or we will break it down."

Max replied by casting a bomb over the parapet. It exploded, killing half a dozen men. But this mob was not to be intimidated like the thieves. The bullets began to fly; fortunately the gathering darkness protected us. The crowd grew blacker, and more dense and turbulent.

Then a number of stalwart fellows appeared, bearing a long beam, which they proposed to use as a battering-ram, to burst open the door, which had resisted all previous attacks.

"Bring down one of the death bombs," said Max to the men in the Demon.

Two stout fellows, belonging to the air-s.h.i.+p, carried down, carefully, between them, a great black sphere of iron.

"Over with it!" cried Max.

There was a crash, an explosion; the insurgents caught a whiff of the poisoned air; the men dropped the beam; there was a rush backward amid cries of terror, and the street was clear for a considerable s.p.a.ce around the house.

"Hurry, men, hurry!" cried Max.

I peeped over the parapet. A number of the insurgents were rus.h.i.+ng into a house three doors distant. In a few moments they poured out again, looking behind them as they ran.

"I fear they have fired that house," I said to Max.

"I expected as much," he replied, quietly.

"Hurry, men, hurry," he again cried.

The piles on the roof were diminis.h.i.+ng rapidly. I turned to pa.s.s up bundles of my precious books. Another sound broke on my ears; a roaring noise that rapidly increased--it was the fire. The mob cheered. Then bursts of smoke poured out of the windows of the doomed house; then great arms and hands of flame reached out and snapped and clutched at the darkness, as if they would drag down ancient Night itself, with all its crown of stars, upon the palpitating breast of the pa.s.sionate conflagration. Then the roof smoked; then it seemed to burst open, and vast volumes of flame and smoke and showers of sparks spouted forth. The blaze brought the mob into fearful relief, but fortunately it was between us and the great bulk of our enemies.

"My G.o.d," said Max, "it is Caesar's head!"

I looked, and there, sure enough, upon the top of the long pole I had before noticed, was the head of the redoubtable giant. It stood out as if it had been painted in gory characters by the light of the burning house upon that background of darkness. I could see the glazed and dusty eyes; the protruding tongue; the great lower jaw hanging down in hideous fas.h.i.+on; and from the thick, bull-like neck were suspended huge gouts of dried and blackened blood.

"It is the first instinct of such mobs," said Max, quietly, to suspect their leaders and slay them. They killed Caesar, and then came after me. When they saw the air-s.h.i.+p they were confirmed in their suspicions; they believe that I am carrying away their treasure."

I could not turn my eyes from that ferocious head. It fascinated me.

It waved and reeled with the surging of the mob. It seemed to me to be executing a hideous dance in mid-air, in the midst of that terrible scene; it floated over it like a presiding demon. The protruding tongue leered at the blazing house and the unspeakable horrors of that a.s.semblage, lit up, as it was, in all its awful features, by the towering conflagration.