CHAPTER XXXVI.
LOVE AND DUTY.
An hour later he walked back to the settlement, looking five yearsolder than he had done a couple of hours before, but with his nervessteady and with the light of a solemn resolve burning in his eyes. Hewent straight to the _Ithuriel_, and made a minute personalinspection of the whole vessel, inside and out. He saw that everycylinder was charged, and that there was an ample supply of spareones and ammunition on board, including a number of his newfire-shells. Then he went to Lieutenant Marston's quarters, and toldhim to have the crew in their places by half-past eleven; and thisdone, he paid a formal visit to the Master to report all ready.
Natas received him as usual, just as though nothing out of the commonhad happened; and if he noticed the change that had come over him, hemade no sign that he did so. When Arnold had made his report, hemerely said--
"Very good. You will start at twelve. The Chief has told you thenature and purpose of the voyage you are about to make, I presume?"
He bowed a silent affirmative, and Natas went on--
"The Chief and Anna Ornovski will go with you as witnesses forMichael Roburoff and Natasha, and the Chief will be provided with mysealed orders for your guidance in the immediate future. Therendezvous is a house on one of the spurs of the Alleghany Mountains.What time will it take to reach there?"
"The distance is about seven thousand miles. That will be from thirtyto thirty-five hours' flight according to the wind. With a fair windwe shall reach the Alleghanies a little before sunrise on the 18th."
"Then to make sure of that, if possible, you had better start an hourearlier. Natasha is making her preparations, and will be on board ateleven."
"Very well; I will be ready to start then," replied Arnold, speakingas calmly and formally as Natas had done. Then he saluted and walkedout.
When he got into the open air he drew a deep breath. His teeth cametogether with a sharp snap, and his hands clenched. So it was true,then, this horrible thing, this sacrilege, this ruin, that had fallenupon his life and hers. Natas had spoken of giving her to this man asquietly as though it had been the most natural proceeding possible,an understood arrangement about which there could be no question.Well, he had sworn, and he would obey, but there would be a heavyprice to pay for his obedience.
He did not see Natasha again that night. When the _Ithuriel_ roseinto the air she was in her cabin with the Princess, and did notappear during the voyage save at meals, when all the others werepresent, and then she joined in the conversation with a composurewhich showed that, externally at least, she had quite regained herhabitual self-control.
Arnold spent the greater part of the voyage in the deck-saloon withTremayne, talking over the events of the war, and arranging plans offuture action. By mutual consent the object of their present voyagewas not mentioned. As Arnold was more than two months and a halfbehind the news, he found not a little relief in hearing fromTremayne of all that had taken place since the recapture of the_Lucifer_.
The two men, who were now to be the active leaders of the Revolutionwhich, as they hoped, was soon to overturn the whole fabric ofSociety, and introduce a new social order of things, conversed inthis fashion, quietly discussing the terrific tragedy in which theywere to play the leading parts, and arranging all the details oftheir joint action, until well into the night of the 17th.
About eleven Tremayne went to his cabin, and Arnold, going to theconning-tower, told the man on the look-out to go below until he wascalled. Then he took his place, and remained alone with his thoughtsas the _Ithuriel_ sped on her way a thousand feet above the desertedwaters of the Atlantic, until the dark mass of the American Continentloomed up in front of him to the westward.
As soon as he sighted land he went aft to the wheel-house, andslightly inclined the air-planes, causing the _Ithuriel_ to soarupwards until the barometer marked a height of 6000 feet. At thiselevation he passed over the mouth of the Chesapeake, and acrossVirginia; and a little more than an hour before sunrise the_Ithuriel_ sank to the earth on one of the spurs of the Alleghanies,in sight of a lonely weather-board house, in one of the windows ofwhich three lights were burning in the form of a triangle.
This building was used ostensibly as a shooting and hunting-box byMichael Roburoff and a couple of his friends, and in reality as ameeting-place for the Inner Circle or Executive Council of theAmerican Section of the Brotherhood. This Section was, numericallyspeaking, the most important of the four branches into which theOuter Circle of the Brotherhood was divided--that is to say, theBritish, Continental, American, and Colonial Sections.
All told, the Terrorists had rather more than five million adherentsin America and Canada, of whom more than four millions were men inthe prime of life, and nearly all of Anglo-Saxon blood and Englishspeech. All these men were not only armed, but trained in the use offirearms to a high degree of skill; their organisation, which hadgradually grown up with the Brotherhood for twenty years, was knownto the world only under the guise of the different forms ofindustrial unionism, but behind these there was a perfect system ofdiscipline and command which the outer world had never evensuspected.
The Section was divided first into squads of ten under the command ofan eleventh, who alone knew the leaders of the other squads in hisneighbourhood. Ten of these squads made a company, commanded by oneman, who was only known to the squad-captains, and who alone knew thecaptain of the regiment, which was composed of ten companies.
The next step in the organisation was the brigade, consisting of tenregiments, the captains of which alone knew the commander of thebrigade, while the commanders of the brigades were alone acquaintedwith the members of the Inner Circle or Executive Council whichmanaged the affairs of the whole Section, and whose Chief was theonly man in the Section who could hold any communication with theInner Circle of the Brotherhood itself, which, under the immediatecommand of Natas, governed the whole organisation throughout theworld.
This description will serve for all the Sections, as all weremodelled upon exactly the same plan. The advantages of such anorganisation will at once be obvious. In the first place, no memberof the rank and file could possibly betray more than ten of hisfellows, including his captain; while his treachery could, ifnecessary, be made known in a few hours to ten thousand others, notone of whom he knew, and thus it would be impossible for him toescape the invariable death penalty. The same is, of course, equallytrue of the captains and the commanders.
On the other hand, the system was equally convenient for thetransmission of orders from headquarters. An order given to tencommanders of brigades could, in a single night, be transmittedindividually to the whole of the Section, and yet those in command ofthe various divisions would not know whence the orders came, save asregards their immediate superiors.
It will be necessary for the reader to bear these few particulars inmind in order to understand future developments, which, without them,might seem to border on the impossible. It is only necessary to addthat the full fighting strength of the four Sections of theBrotherhood amounted to about twelve millions of men, a considerableproportion of whom were serving as soldiers in the armies of theLeague and the Alliance, and that in its cosmopolitan aspect it wasknown to the rank and file as the Red International, whose membersknew each other only by the possession of a little knot of red ribbontied into the button-hole in a peculiar fashion on occasions ofmeetings for instruction or drill.
The three lights burning in the form of a triangle in the window ofthe house were a prearranged signal to avoid mistake on the part ofthose on board the air-ship. When they reached the earth, Arnold,acting under the instructions of Tremayne, who was his superior onland though his voluntary subordinate when afloat, left the_Ithuriel_ and her crew in charge of Lieutenant Marston and AndrewSmith, the coxswain.
The remainder disembarked, and then the air-ship rose from the groundand ascended out of sight through a layer of clouds that hung someeight hundred feet above the high ground of the hills. LieutenantMarston's order
s were to remain out of sight for an hour and thenreturn.
Arnold had not seen Natasha for several hours previous to thelanding, and he noticed with wonder, by no means unmixed withsomething very like anger, that she looked a great deal more cheerfulthan she had done during the voyage. She had preserved her composureall through, but the effort of restraint had been visible. Now thishad vanished, although the supreme hour of the sacrifice that herfather had commanded her to make was actually at hand. When her feettouched the earth she looked round with a smile on her lips and aflush on her cheeks, and said, in a voice in which there was noperceptible trace of anxiety or suffering--
"So this is the place of my bridal, is it? Well, I must say that amore cheerful one might have been selected; yet perhaps, after all,such a gloomy spot is more suitable to the ceremony. Come along; Isuppose the bridegroom will be anxiously waiting the coming of thebride. I wonder what sort of a reception I shall have. Come, my Lordof Alanmere, your arm; and you, Captain Arnold, bring the Princess.We have a good deal to do before it gets light."
These were strange words to be uttered by a girl who but a few hoursbefore had voluntarily confessed her love for one man, and was on theeve of compulsorily giving herself up to another one. Had it been anyone else but Natasha, Arnold could have felt only disgust; but hislove made it impossible for him to believe her guilty of suchunworthy lightness as her words bespoke, even on the plain evidencebefore him, so he simply choked back his anger as best he might, andfollowed towards the house, speechless with astonishment at themarvellous change that had come over the daughter of Natas.
Tremayne knocked in a peculiar fashion on the window, and thenrepeated the knock on the door, which was opened almost immediately.
"Who stands there?" asked a voice in French.
"Those who bring the expected bride," replied Tremayne in German.
"And by whose authority?" This time the question was in Spanish.
"In the Master's name," said Tremayne in English.
"Enter! you are welcome."
A second door was now opened inside the house, and through it a lightshone into the passage. The four visitors entered, and, passingthrough the second door, found themselves in a plainly-furnishedroom, down the centre of which ran a long table, flanked by fivechairs on each side, in each of which, save one, sat a masked andshrouded figure exactly similar to those which Arnold had seen whenhe was first introduced to the Council-chamber in the house onClapham Common. In a chair at one end of the table sat another figuresimilarly draped.
The door was closed as they entered, and the member of the Circle whohad let them in returned to his seat. No word was spoken until thiswas done. Then Natasha, leaving her three companions by the door,advanced alone to the lower end of the table.
As she did so, Arnold for the first time noticed that she carried hermagazine pistol in a sheath at her belt. He and Tremayne were, as amatter of course, armed with a brace of these weapons, but this wasthe first time that he had ever seen Natasha carry her pistol openly.Wondering greatly what this strange sight might mean, he waited withbreathless anxiety for the drama to begin.
As Natasha took her stand at the opposite end of the table, thefigure in the chair at the top rose and unmasked, displaying thepallid countenance of the Chief of the American Section. He looked toArnold anything but a bridegroom awaiting his bride, and the ceremonywhich was to unite him to her for ever. His cheeks and lips werebloodless, and his eyes wandered restlessly from Natasha to Tremayneand back again. He glanced to and fro in silence for several moments,and when he at last found his voice he said, in half-choked, brokenaccents--
"What is this? Why am I honoured by the presence of the Chief and theAdmiral of the Air? I asked only that if the Master consented togrant my humble petition in reward for my services, the daughter ofNatas should come attended simply by a sister of the Brotherhood andthe messenger that I sent."
They let him finish, although it was with manifest difficulty that hestammered to the end of his speech. Arnold, still wondering at thestrange turn events had taken, saw Tremayne's lips tighten and hisbrows contract in the effort to repress a smile. The other maskedfigures at the table moved restlessly in their seats, and glancedfrom one to another. Seeing this, Tremayne stepped quickly forward toNatasha's side, and said in a stern, commanding tone--
"I am the Chief of the Central Council, and I order every one here tokeep his seat and remain silent until the daughter of Natas hasspoken."
The ten masked and hooded heads instantly bowed consent. ThenTremayne stepped back again, and Natasha spoke. There was a keen,angry light in her eyes, and a bright flush upon her cheek, but hervoice was smooth and silvery, and in strange contrast to the wordsthat she used, almost to the end.
"Did you think, Michael Roburoff, that the Master of the Terror wouldsend his daughter to her bridal so poorly escorted as you say? Surelythat would have been almost as much of a slight as you put upon mewhen, instead of coming to woo me as a true lover should have done,you contented yourself with sending a messenger as though you weresome Eastern potentate despatching an envoy to demand the hand of thedaughter of a vassal.
"It would seem that this sudden love which you do me the honour toprofess for me has destroyed your manners as well as your reason. Butsince you have assumed so high a dignity, it is not seemly that youshould stand to hear what I have to say; sit down, for it looks asthough standing were a trouble to you."
Michael Roburoff, who by this time could scarcely support himself onhis trembling limbs, sank suddenly back into his chair and coveredhis face with his hands.
"That is not very lover-like to cover your eyes when the bride thatyou have asked for is standing in front of you; but as long as youdon't cover your ears as well, I will forgive you the slight. Now,listen.
"I have come, as you see, and I have brought with me the answer ofthe Master to your request. Until an hour ago I did not know what itwas myself, for, like the rest of the faithful members of theBrotherhood, I obey the word of the Master blindly.
"You, as it would appear, maddened by what you are pleased to callyour love for me, have dared to attempt to make terms where you sworeto obey blindly to the death. You have dared to place me, thedaughter of Natas, in the balance against the allegiance of theAmerican Section on the eve of the supreme crisis of its work, thusimperilling the results of twenty years of labour.
"If you had not been mad you would have foreseen the results of suchtreachery. As it is you must learn them now. What I have said hasbeen proved by your own hand, and the proof is here in the hand ofthe Chief. This is the answer of Natas to the servant who would havebetrayed him in the hour of trial."
She took a folded paper from her belt as she spoke, and, unfoldingit, read in clear, deliberate tones--
Michael Roburoff, late chief of the American Section of the Brotherhood. When you joined the Order, you took an oath to obey the directions of its chiefs to the death, and you acknowledged that death would be the just penalty of perjury. My orders to you were to complete the arrangements for bringing the American Section into action when you received the signal to do so. Instead of doing that, you have sought to bargain with me for the price of its allegiance. That is treachery, and the penalty of treachery is death.
NATAS.
"Those are the words of the Master," continued Natasha, throwing thepaper down upon the table with one hand, and drawing her pistol withthe other. "It rests with the Chief to say when and where thesentence of the Master shall be carried out."
"He dropped back into his chair with a bullet in hisbrain."
_See page 275._]
"Let it be carried out here, and now," said Tremayne, "and let himwho has anything to say against it speak now, or for ever hold hispeace."
The ten heads bowed once more in silence, and Natasha went on stilladdressing the trembling wretch who sat huddled in the chair in frontof her.
"You have asked for a bride, Michael Roburoff, and she has c
ome toyou, and I can promise you that you shall sleep soundly in herembrace. Your bride is Death, and I have chosen to bring her to youwith my own hand, that all here may see how the daughter of Natas canavenge an insult to her womanhood.
"You have been guilty of treachery to the Brotherhood, and for thatyou might have been punished by any hand; but you would also havecondemned me to the infamy of a loveless marriage, and that is aninsult that no one shall punish but myself. Look up, and, if you can,die like a man."
Roburoff took his hands from his face, and with an inarticulate crystarted to his feet. The same instant Natasha's hand went up, herpistol flashed, and he dropped back again into his chair with abullet in his brain. Then she replaced the pistol in her belt, andgoing up to Arnold held out both her hands and said, as he claspedthem in his own--
"If the Master's reply had been different, that bullet would by thistime have been in my own heart."
The Angel of the Revolution: A Tale of the Coming Terror Page 37
