Air Trust
Page 39
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
VISIONS.
Thus perished Flint and Waldron, scourges of the earth. Thus they died,slain by the very force which they had planned would betray mankind anddeliver it into their chains. Thus vanished, forever, the most sinisterand cruel minds ever evolved upon this planet; the greatest menace thehuman race had ever known; the evil Masters of the World.
And as they died, massed around their perished Air Trust plant, a throngof silent, earnest watchers stood, with faces illumined by the symbolic,sacrificial flames--a throng of emancipated workers, of toilers fromwhose bowed shoulders now forever had been lifted the frightful menaceof a universal bondage.
Explosion after explosion burst from the tortured Inferno of the vastplant. Buildings came crashing, reeling, thundering down; walls fell,amid vast, belching clouds of dust and smoke; a white, consuming sheetof flame crackled across the sinister and evil place; and in its wakeglowed incandescent ruins.
Then, in one final burst of thunderous tumult, the hugest tank of all,exploding with a roar like that of Doom itself, hurled belching flameson high.
For many miles--in Buffalo, Rochester, Toronto and scores of cities onboth sides of the Great Lakes--silent multitudes watched the glareagainst the midnight sky; and many wept for joy; and many prayed. Allunderstood the meaning of that sight. The light upon the heavens seemeda signal and a beacon--a promise that the Old Times had passed awayforever--a covenant of the New.
And, as the final explosion shattered the Temple of Bondage to wreckage,flung it far into the rushing river and swept it over the leaping,thundering Falls, the news flashed on a thousand wires, to all citiesand all lands; and though the mercenaries of the two dead world-mastersstill might struggle and might strive to beat the toilers back toslavery again, their days were numbered and their powers forever broken.
Together in the doorway of the refuge at Port Colborne, Catherine stoodwith Gabriel, watching the beacon of liberty upon the heavens. Thelight, a halo round her eager face, showed his powerful figure and thesmile of triumph in his eyes. His left arm, broken by the fall in theaeroplane, now rested in a sling. His right, protecting in its strength,was round the girl. And as her head found shelter and rest, at length,upon his shoulder, she, too, smiled; and her eyes seemed to see visionsin the glory of the sky.
"Visions!" said she, softly, as though voicing a universal thought. "Doyou behold them, too?"
He nodded.
"Yes," he answered, "and they are beautiful and sweet and pure!"
"Visions that we now shall surely see?"
"Shall surely see!" he echoed; and a little silence fell. Far off, theyseemed to hear a vast and thousand-throated cheering, that thenight-wind brought to them in long and heart-inspiring cadences.
"Gabriel," she said, at last.
"Well?"
"I wish _he_ might have seen them, and have understood! In spite of allhe did, and was, he was my father!"
"Yes," answered Gabriel, sensing her grief. "But would you have had himlive through this? Live, with the whole world out of his grasp, again?Live, with all his plans wrecked and broken? Live on in this new time,where he could have comprehended nothing? Live on, in misery and rageand impotence?
"Your father was an old man, Catherine. You know as well as Ido--better, perhaps--the whole trend of his life's thought and ambition.Even if he'd lived, he couldn't have changed, now, at his age. It wouldhave been an utter impossibility. Why say more?"
Catherine made no reply; but in her very attitude of trust andconfidence, Gabriel knew he read the comfort he had given her.
Silence, a while. At last she spoke.
"Visions!" she whispered. "Wonderful visions of the glad, new time! Howdo you see them, Gabriel?"
"How do I see them?" His face seemed to glow with inspiration under theshining light in the far heavens. "I see them as the realization of atime, now really close at hand, when this old world of ours shall be, asit never yet has been, in truth civilized, emancipated, free. When thenight of ignorance, kingcraft, priestcraft, servility and prejudice,bigotry and superstition shall be forever swept away by the dawn ofintelligence and universal education, by scientific truth and light--byunderstanding and by fearlessness.
"When Science shall no longer be 'the mystery of a class,' but shallbecome the heritage of all mankind. When, because much is known by all,nothing shall be dreaded by any. When all mankind shall be absolutelyits own master, strong, and brave, and free!"
"Like you, Gabriel!" the girl exclaimed, from her heart.
"Don't say that!" he disclaimed. "Don't--"
She put her hand over his mouth.
"Shhhh!" she forbade him. "You mustn't argue, now, because your arm'sjust been set and we don't want any fever. If my dreams include you,too, Gabriel, don't try to tell me I'm mistaken--because I'm not, tobegin with, and I _know_ I'm not!"
He laughed, and shook his head.
"Do you realize," said he, "that when it comes to bravery, and strength,and the splendid freedom of an emancipated soul, I must look to _you_for light and leading?"
"Don't!" she whispered. "Look only to the future--to the newer, betterworld now coming to birth! The time which is to know no poverty, nocrime, no children's blood wrung out for dividends!
"The future when no longer Idleness can enslave Labor to its tasks. Whenevery man who will, may labor freely, whether with hand or brain, andreceive the full value of his toil, undiminished by any theft orpurloining whatsoever!"
"The future," he continued, as she paused, "when crowns, titles, swords,rifles and dreadnaughts shall be known only by history. When the earthand the fulness thereof shall belong to all Earth's people; and when itssoil need be no longer fertilized with human blood, its crops no longerbe brought forth watered by sweat and tears.
"Such have been my visions and my dreams, Catherine--a few of them. Nowthey are coming true! And other dreams and other visions--dreams of youand visions of our life together--what of them?"
"Why need you ask, Gabriel?" she answered, raising her lips to his.
The sound of singing, a triumphal chorus of the accomplished Revolution,a vast and million-throated song, seemed wafted to them on the wings ofnight.
And the pure stars, witnessing their love and troth, looked down uponthem from the heavens where shone the fire-glow of the GreatEmancipation.
THE END.
[Transcriber's note: In the following paragraph, I corrected the second"Flint" to "Waldron":
"Very likely," answered Flint, who had now at last entirely recoveredhis sang-froid. "But in that event, our work would be at a standstill.No, Flint, we mustn't oppose this fellow. Better let the check gothrough, if he has nerve enough to fill it out and cash it. He won'tdare gouge very deep; and no matter what he takes, it won't be a drop inthe ocean, compared to the golden flood now almost within our grasp!"]