Wolf lost no time in demonstrating that he was complete master of the situation.
At nine o'clock next morning two armed guards, whom he had never seen in the house before, entered Norman's room and handed him the first official order of the new regents. The deposed young leader read it with amusement at first, but as his eyes rested on its brief words of command, something of their sinister meaning began to dawn in his mind.
"All citizens of the State of Ventura are ordered to immediately surrender their arms. By order of"Herman Wolf,"Regent."
"All citizens of the State of Ventura are ordered to immediately surrender their arms. By order of
"Herman Wolf,"Regent."
Norman looked at the revolvers in the holsters of the guards and dryly remarked:
"But the State will kindly continue their use, I see!"
Norman surrendered his revolver, and his room was searched in every nook and corner for weapons he might have concealed.
"Why this insult?" he demanded.
The guardsman saluted.
"Special orders of the regent, sir. We are to take no man's word for it."
Norman sat in silence while the men opened his trunks, ransacked his drawers, and searched in every conceivable spot where a weapon of any kind might be hid.
"I could have told you at first that I had no other guns. The entire colony is being disarmed this morning?"
"Yes, sir, the work will be completed by two o'clock."
"Indeed!"
The man fumbled in his pocket and drew out another order.
"And this one for you personally, sir."
"Oh—after the disarming?"
"Yes, sir!"
Norman read the second order and the lines of his mouth tightened suddenly. The note was brief but to the point:
"Comrade Norman Worth will report to the regent at ten o'clock for orders."Herman Wolf,"Regent."
"Comrade Norman Worth will report to the regent at ten o'clock for orders.
"Herman Wolf,"Regent."
For five minutes after the guards had gone Norman stood in silence staring at this order.It was the first he had ever received in his life except the one from his own father which he had disobeyed.
To be driven into another man's presence to take orders as from a master to a servant was an idea that had never entered his imagination. He had seen such things. He had given orders, but he had never, somehow, counted himself in the class of men who took them.
For the first time he began to realize the meaning of the work he had been doing, and began to see how deftly and unconsciously he had been forging the chains of a system of irresponsible slavery on his fellow men. While the motive which impelled him was one of unselfish love, and he had thought only of their best interest, he saw now in a flash with what crushing cruelty this power could be used.
It all seemed simple enough when he regarded his own will as the centre and source of power. Now that another man had grasped the lever and applied this power, the whole scheme of artificial life which he had created took on a new and darker meaning.
What should he do?
His first impulse was to walk into Wolf's presence, denounce him as a scheming scoundrel, and defy his power. That Wolf would fight was notto be questioned for a minute. His first act of disarming the colony was a master-stroke, and the longer the young leader thought of it the more hopeless his present situation became.
Beyond a doubt Wolf had been selecting the new regent's guard with the same patience and skill with which he had executed his political coup. This guard was composed now only of his tried and trusted henchmen. A single false step on Norman's part would simply play into the wily brute's hands, and he would destroy himself at a single stroke.
He must use his brain. He must fight the devil with fire. He must submit for the moment, plan and work and wait with infinite patience, and when the work of patience was complete, then strike and strike to kill.
And yet the blood rushed to his heart and strangled with the thought of submission to such a man. But there was no other way. He had himself set the trap of steel he now felt crash into his own flesh.
To appeal to his father was unthinkable—his pride forbade it, even if it were possible.
To escape was out of the question. Every way had been cut and that by his own order. The mail was inspected. The steamer held no communication with the people of the island.No boat was allowed to land, and no boat, even the smallest sail or row boat, was permitted to a member of the Brotherhood on any pretext.
Besides, resignation or flight could not be thought of for another reason. To retreat now and leave thousands of people behind whom he had led into this enterprise would be the act of a coward.
There was nothing left except to fight it out on the lines he had himself laid down.
The one thing that hurt him most was the ugly suspicion that Barbara must have known something of this deeply laid scheme by which the Wolfs had gained control of the Brotherhood. And yet her surprise had been genuine, her anger real. He couldn't be mistaken about it. To believe her capable of such treachery and double-dealing was to doubt the very existence of truth and purity.
And yet, when he recalled how little he really knew of her past life, what dark secrets might lurk in the story of the years she had spent under the same roof with these people, he grew sick at the thought.
He knew now that the blond beast with the red scar on his neck and the slender, dark-eyed madonna-like mate who had always been his shadow were capable of anything. Two peoplewho could smile in treacherous silence for a year and suddenly grip the throat of the man who had been their best friend, needed no written biography to tell their past. It was luminous. And in the glare in which he read it he shuddered at the sinister light it threw on the beautiful girl whom they had reared as their own.
He took from his mantel a little picture made one day in San Francisco by a tintype man. It was a singularly beautiful likeness of Barbara, taken on a sudden impulse without a moment's thought or preparation. Her laughing face looked out at him, wreathed in a garland of wayward ringlets of dark brown hair. Truth, sincerity, beauty, intelligence, and a childlike innocence were stamped in every line.
A thousand times since he had seen her just like that. And from the moment of their advent on the island this impression of girlish innocence and sincerity had grown rather than decreased. The more he saw of her in the simpler, quieter moments of their association, the stronger, deeper, and more tender his love became, and the deeper grew his utter faith in the purity of her soul and body.
"I'll sooner doubt an angel of God!" he said at last, as he placed it back on the mantel.
He would see Wolf at once, learn his plans, and then carefully make his own.
He dressed with care and at the appointed hour rapped for admission at the executive office where the day before he sat as master.
He was told the regent was busy with others and ordered to wait his turn. He flushed with anger, recovered himself, waited a half hour, and was ushered into the presence of the new ruler.
Wolf sat in the big revolving chair at his desk with conscious dignity and power. Two of his guards stood outside the door, grim reminders of the substantial character of the new administration.
Norman seated himself with careless ease without invitation and waited for the older man to speak.
Wolf smiled grimly, stroked his thick, coarse reddish beard, and looked at Norman thoughtfully a moment.
"Well, my boy," the regent began, with friendly patronage, "we'd as well come to the point without ceremony. You are down and out. The new board of governors will do what I wish. I am in supreme command of the ship of state. Do you want to fight or work?"
"It's a poor doctor, Wolf," Norman said, coolly, "who can't take his own medicine. I came here to work."
"Congratulations on your good sense!" the regent replied. "I've no desire to make troublefor you. I have nothing against you personally. I had to put you out and take command to save the colony from ruin. You meant well, but you were a bungling amateur, and you can be of greater service in the ranks than in command. I know you don't like me after what has happened, but you don't have to. I'll be generous. What sort of work would you like to have assigned you?"
"Thanks, that's very kind of you, Wolf, I'm sure. I believe the warden of every penitentiary is equally generous to all convicts. However, that's a minor detail, seeing that I assisted in the creation of this ideal world."
Wolf smashed the desk top with his big fist and suddenly glared at Norman, his cold eyes gleaming angrily.
"Come to the point! I've no time to waste! Have you any choice as to the kind of work to which you wish to be assigned?"
"I have a decided choice. Our mines have all failed. I'll redeem the failure by perfecting and completing the big dredge for mining gold from the low-grade sands on the beach."
"A waste of time and money," Wolf snapped. "I can't afford to spare the men on any more fool inventions. Such things must stop."
"You mean to stop all progress by stopping inventions?" Norman asked.
"So far as the State is concerned, yes," said the regent, with emphasis. "Under your slipshod administration we spent nearly two hundred thousand dollars during the past year on so-called inventions. Every fool in the colony has invented something. Not one in a hundred has produced an idea that is practicable. We cannot afford to waste the capital of the State in such idiocy."
"Give me twenty men and I'll complete the dredge."
"Labour is capital in the Socialist State. I can't afford to waste it."
"But you are not wasting it," Norman pleaded. "I've spent sixty thousand already on this invention. Unless the machine is completed the capital will be lost to the colony."
"It will be lost anyhow," Wolf answered, impatiently. "Your whole conception is a piece of childish folly. You can't make a profit operating a dredge in sand containing only twenty cents' worth of gold to a ton of dirt."
"I can do better," Norman urged with enthusiasm. "I can make a hundred per cent. on the investment if the dirt pans out ten cents to the ton. If it pans twenty cents a ton I can make millions."
"So every crank has claimed for his particular piece of idiocy. I'll not permit another dollar oranother day's labour to be thrown away on any such crazy experiment."
Norman's face reddened with a rush of uncontrollable anger.
"Look here, Wolf, you can't be serious in this."
"I was never more serious in my life," the big jaws snapped. "I am going to issue an order to-day that hereafter any man or woman who conceives an invention can work it out himself without aid from the State. They must do this at odd hours after working the required time each day. They must put their own money into their machine."
"As the State only has capital," Norman protested, "this means the practical prohibition of all invention. No man can with his own hands make the machinery needed in the progress of humanity. We have abolished private capital by abolishing rent, interest, and profit. Do you propose thus to stop the progress of the world?"
"No," Wolf cried with a wave of his heavy hand. "Let the ambitious inventor work at night and build his own machine. I will grant, in my order on the subject, to each successful inventor the right to operate his own machine for ten years before it becomes the property of the State."
"Suppose he succeeds," said Norman, "under such hard conditions with his own hands and without capital in perfecting an invention of enormousvalue, such as the dredge I have begun, of what use will the results be if he cannot invest them in rent or interest, and all gifts and exchanges are prohibited?"
"He may build a home and lavish them on his wife and children, or he may become a great public benefactor and win the love and gratitude of the people by enriching the State and shortening the hours of labour. If your dredge can make a million, for example, as you claim—go ahead, work at night, perfect it, put it to work, build yourself a palace to live in, give millions to the Brotherhood. Shorten their hours from eight to four, and I'll guarantee you'll oust me from my position of power."
Norman's eye suddenly flashed with resolution.
"You will not grant me the labour to complete the dredge?" Norman asked.
"Not one man for one minute," was the curt reply.
"Then I'll finish it myself," Norman said, with determination.
"After you've worked eight full hours a day, under my direction—you understand!" the regent responded sullenly.
Norman sprang to his feet and the two men faced each other a moment, the big scar on Wolf's neck flashing red, his enormous fists instinctively closing.
"Wolf, this is an infamous outrage!"
"I'll teach you not to speak to me in that manner again, sir!" the regent slowly said, as he tapped his bell.
The guards sprang to his side.
"Show this gentleman to the barnyard—he is a good farmer. Put him at work with old Methodist John cleaning out the stables for the new cantaloup crop. He is very fond of cantaloups. If he makes any trouble tell the sergeant of your guard to give him thirty-nine lashes without consulting me."
Norman stepped closer, and, trembling from head to foot, said to Wolf:
"If ever one of your men lays the weight of his hand on me——"
"And yet we both agreed that under our system discipline must be enforced—the discipline of an army?" the regent interrupted.
Norman held his gaze fixed without moving a muscle, and slowly continued:
"If you ever try it, you'd better finish your job."
"I'll remember your advice," Wolf answered with a sneer. "Show him to his work."
When Catherine saw the furious look on Barbara's face as she descended from the platform the night of the election, she avoided a meeting and went to bed pleading a headache.
Early the next morning Barbara rapped for entrance, forced her way in, and stood, tense with anger, before the older woman, her eyes red from the long vigil of a sleepless night.
"You avoided me last night——"
Catherine laughed.
"My dear, I never saw you in quite such a rage. It might be serious if it were not so silly."
"You'll find it serious before you are through with this performance," Barbara retorted, angrily.
"Remember, I am in supreme authority now. Don't you dare speak to me in that manner, you ungrateful little wretch!"
"I'll dare to tell you the truth—even if you were the mother who bore me—even if I had not repaid you a hundredfold for every dollar you have spent on me."
"Hush, hush, my dear, I do not wish to quarrel," Catherine said, recovering herself. "I know your pride is wounded over your defeat. I've watched your growing vanity in high office with much amusement for the past year."
"I'm not thinking of myself," Barbara said with emphasis.
"Of course not—what woman ever does?" Catherine sneered.
"I am glad to be relieved of the annoyance of such a position. But your treatment of the brave and daring young spirit who conceived this colony and created its wealth and influence——"
"Am I responsible?"
"Yes. Herman is incapable of conceiving such a plot without your suggestion. It is your work. You have always loved luxury and power."
"Perhaps I love a man also," Catherine interrupted, as her full sensuous lips curled in a curious smile.
"Yes, I give you credit for that too," the girl admitted. "Though I confess the secret of your infatuation for that hulking brute has always been one of the black mysteries of life to me."
"When you're older," again the round lips quivered with a smile, "perhaps you will understand. And now, my child, I've been patientwith you. But don't you ever again call Herman a brute in my presence."
"Take care he doesn't prove it to you!" the girl warned.
Catherine suddenly paled.
"What do you mean by that?" she whispered, glancing about the room.
"Nothing! nothing! nothing! Only that in every deed of the devil there is the seed of death. You have planted the seed. The harvest is sure."
"My dear——"
"Don't call me that again! I hate you!" Barbara spoke with deliberate passion.
"Have you gone mad?" Catherine cried, with impatience.
"Yes, mad with hatred. From to-day we are enemies, and I'll hate you forever!"
The older woman looked at her in astonishment and spoke with a deliberate sneer:
"As you like. Remember, then, from this moment that you are a servant under my command. I am no longer your foster-mother. Leave this room instantly, take your things to the domestic servants' quarters, and report to the head-woman for duty in the corridors of this wing of the building."
"And you think I'll submit to this?" Barbara gasped.
Catherine rang the bell, and Barbara gazed at her with a look of mingled terror and rage. A sudden light flashed in her brown eyes.
"You mean this?"
"I'll show you in a moment," was the calm reply.
"Then it's war between us," Barbara cried.
She sprang to the door and Catherine caught her arm.
"Where are you going?"
"To Herman."
"He cannot interfere with my decisions."
Barbara threw her off and bounded through the door crying:
"We shall see!"
The girl rushed past the guard at the door of Wolf's office, trembling with rage, her eyes filled with blinding tears.
Wolf sprang to his feet in astonishment and met her with outstretched hands.
"What's the matter, child?" he asked as his big coarse fists closed over the hot little fingers and his gray eyes lighted at the sight of her dishevelled hair and bare throat.
Barbara choked back the sobs, and looked appealingly into Wolf's face.
"We have quarrelled about last night. You understand, Herman. Catherine has orderedme to leave my room and join the servants in the halls. You—you will not allow me to be degraded thus—will you?"
Wolf drew the trembling girl into his arms, pressed her close a moment, stroked her curls with his gnarled hand, and his face flushed with a look of triumph.
"Don't worry, dear, I'll protect you," he answered, bending and kissing her forehead. "Go back to your room, and if any one dares to disturb you, call for me."
Barbara murmured through her tears:
"Thank you, Herman."
Wolf's eyes sparkled as he watched the graceful little figure proudly leave the room.
Catherine's fight with Wolf was long and bitter. For hours she struggled to force him to leave in her hands the discipline of the women members of the colony. Her tears and threats fell on ears equally deaf to all pleading. At last the guards listening outside heard only the low sobbing of a woman's voice near the door for a half hour without a sound from the man.
And then his short, sharp words came quick and curt and stinging:
"Are you done now with this fool performance?"
The answer was a sob.
"Understand once for all," the cold, hard voice went on, "I am the master here. Your office as regent is one of courtesy only as my wife. My word alone is supreme. When you cease to be my wife another regent will be chosen and I do the choosing. I not only propose to do the work of disciplining the women, but it is the one kind of work to which I shall devote myself with pleasure."
"Herman!" Catherine sobbed, as if she had sunk beneath a blow.
The man laughed with brutal enjoyment.
"You'd as well know this now as later. You can be getting used to it."
Her eyes red with weeping, her proud shoulders drooped for the first time in her life, Catherine slowly walked from Wolf's office back to her room.
Barbara passed her on the stairs without a word or a glance, and hurried again to see the regent, her whole being alert with quick intelligence.
The guard had received instructions that she was the one privileged person in the colony who could enter his office at all hours, day or night, without ceremony or delay. They showed her in immediately.
"I've just heard of your order sending Norman to the work of a common farm-hand, Herman," Barbara began.
Wolf scowled.
"You must not interfere in this little affair between my rival and myself, Barbara," he said, sternly.
"I will interfere," she quickly replied, "both for your sake and his. You've made a serious mistake, Herman. Correct it at once."
"I had to show him his place."
"It isn't fair. The men will resent it. You will make enemies. Your power is complete. You can afford to be generous."
Wolf looked at her with hungry, admiring gaze.
"Perhaps you're right," he said slowly.
"Of course I'm right!" she replied, "and you know it. You've made him a martyr and a hero on the first day of his fall from power. Your true policy is just the opposite. Let him do what he pleases for a time. Above all things don't put yourself in the position of his enemy. Your strength lies in standing as his patron and friend."
"By Jove, Barbara," Wolf cried, "what a wise head on your little shoulders! Come, be honest with me now—you're not in love with this man?"
The girl smiled demurely:
"He is with me, I think," she admitted.
"Yes, yes, of course—so we all are," he cried, with a smile. "But you have not accepted his love?"
"No."
"I thought you had better sense. I'll change my order at your suggestion."
"I knew you would," she cried, joyfully.
Wolf sat down at his desk and wrote:
"Comrade Norman Worth is transferred from the field to thefoundry, with permission, after his day's work, to employ his time in the shops perfecting any invention in which he may be interested."Wolf—Regent."
"Comrade Norman Worth is transferred from the field to thefoundry, with permission, after his day's work, to employ his time in the shops perfecting any invention in which he may be interested.
"Wolf—Regent."
He handed the order to Barbara.
"Take this to the youngster and tell him I did it at your suggestion, and hereafter give him a wide berth if you wish to be friendly with me."
Barbara dropped her eyes and Wolf touched her chin with his coarse, short fingers.
"A hint to the wise is sufficient, little girl. You understand?"
Barbara took the order, turned toward the door, paused and smiled coquettishly:
"I understand, Herman."
She found Norman at work with Methodist John cleaning out a stable. To her amazement he was whistling and joking about something with the old man. She stopped and listened a moment.
"But what on earth do you want a lightning-rod for, John?" Norman asked.
"That's my secret, sir," the old man answered, "but I must have one—won't you get it for me?"
"I'm sorry, John, but I have no more power now in the State of Ventura than you have."
"But didn't you get the million dollars and didn't you make all the money for 'em—a hundred and fifty thousand dollars on the cantaloups the others didn't have sense enough to plant? Surely they'll give you enough to get me a thirty-foot lightning-rod?"
"I'm afraid not, John, still I'll do my best. I don't like to press you for the secrets of your inner life, old man, but I've immense curiosity to know what you want with that lightning-rod? You say you're not afraid of lightning?"
"No, sir, I'm not afraid of nothin'."
"Then why——"
"'Tain't no use in askin' sir, I can't tell ye. But I want it. I'm going to pray every night for it till I get it. Maybe the Lord will send me one by an angel——"
Barbara suddenly appeared in the door of the stall.
"Speaking of angels," Norman cried, laughing.
"I have an order for you," Barbara said, quickly.
Norman threw his pitchfork full of manure out of the window of the stall, stood the fork in the corner, brushed his hands, and bowed before Barbara.
"What an exquisite picture you make standing in the doorway there with that ocean of blossomingpeach trees stretching up the slope until it kisses the sky line. I wish I were an artist."
She looked at him with amazement.
"I expected to find you with murder in your heart. I can't understand."
Norman took the note from her white fingers.
"Because I'm laughing?"
"Yes."
"Well, isn't the joke on me? I've been preaching, preaching, preaching, about the dignity of all labour. I kicked the first few moments, I confess. The medicine was bitter, but I soon began to find that it was good for the soul. I'm getting acquainted with myself——"
Norman paused, read Wolf's order, and looked tenderly into Barbara's eyes.
"So you heard of my fall and came to my rescue. It's worth the jolt to be rescued by such a hand."
He stooped and kissed the tips of her fingers.
"Come with me up the hill yonder among those blossoming trees," he said, leading her toward the orchard. "I want to tell you about a vision I saw in that stable a while ago while I wielded the pitchfork and talked to my old pauper friend, both of us now comrade equals."
They walked on in silence through the long, clean rows of fruit trees in full bloom, the air redolent with sweet perfume and quivering withthe electric hum of growing life. On the top of the hill they paused and looked toward the sea that stretched away in solemn, infinite grandeur. Below, on the next plateau, rolled in apparently endless acres, the great white carpet of flowering plum trees and further on the tender budding grapes and beyond, lower still, the deep green valley with orange trees flashing their golden fruit.
"What a glorious world!" Barbara cried.
"Yes," he answered with a sigh, "a world of endless beauty in which after all there's nothing vile but man. And I once thought that in such a world angels only could live."
"Must we despair because one man or woman proves false," she asked.
"No," he answered cheerily, leading her to a boulder and taking his seat by her side.
"I don't despair. I've been seeing visions to-day—visions as old as the beat of the human heart, perhaps, yet always new."
He drew the order of Wolf from his pocket and looked at it.
"From the moment of my awakening last night from the fool's paradise in which I've been living the past year my mind has been at work on solving the one unsolved problem in this dredge to which he refers. It came to me like a flash while at work this morning."
"Your invention will succeed?" she interrupted.
"Beyond the shadow of a doubt," he said, with enthusiasm. "I didn't solve it before because I lacked the incentive to apply my mind to it."
"And you got the incentive in your defeat?" she asked, in surprise.
"Yes. Deprived of my toys, I came back to myself, the source of power."
"But your incentive—I don't understand—in such an hour?"
"A very simple, very old, but very powerful one, I'm beginning to think, the source of all human progress—the determination to build a home here in one of these flower-robed hills overlooking the sea, and bring my bride to it some glorious day like this when every tree is festooned with joy! I don't want a modest cottage. My bride was born a queen. Every line of her delicate and sensitive face proclaims her royal ancestry. She shall have a palace. Love, Beauty, Music, Art, and Truth shall be her servants. I shall be the magician who will create all this out of the dirt men are now trampling under foot along the beach."
Barbara drew a deep breath, trembled, and looked away.
"I promised her never to speak of love again until her own dear lips called me, and I will not, though I fear sometimes the waiting seems long."
"And if she never calls?" the girl asked, dreamily.
"Then my palace shall remain silent and empty. Her hand alone can open its doors."
"And if I do not see you often while your palace is building, you may know at least I have not forgotten—and you will understand?"
"Yes, I will understand," he answered, with elation.
With untiring zeal Norman gave himself to work on the dredge. Wolf refused to modify his original order that a full day should first be given as a labourer in the foundry and machine shops before he could devote himself to his invention.
This proved an advantage rather than a hindrance. By his unfailing courtesy, good fellowship, skill, and wit, Norman won his fellow workmen as warm personal friends. He was able thus to secure all the assistance he needed in his work.
Within two months the big dredge was finished.
From the first the regent had regarded Norman's fad with contempt. That he could succeed in making money out of dirt containing but twenty cents' worth of gold to a ton was an absurdity on its face.
While the young inventor worked day and night with tireless energy the regent quietly perfected his grip on the life of the rapidly growing colony. To render escape from the island or communication with the coast more impossible than ever, heestablished the strict system of double patrol around each community. No member of the Brotherhood was allowed to leave his room at night without permission. Beyond the outer patrol a mounted guard was established and the entire line of beach was guarded by watchmen in relays who reported each hour, day and night, by telephone to the commandant.
At the end of two months of Wolf's merciless rule the efficiency of labour had so decreased, it was necessary to lengthen the number of hours from eight to nine. As every inducement to efficiency of labour had been removed there was no incentive to any man to do more than he must without a fight with his guard or overseer. No vote was permitted on the question of increasing the hours of labour. The board of governors passed the order which Wolf wrote out for them without a dissenting voice.
Norman had no trouble in getting a gang of willing hands to push the monster gold-digger into position on one of the sand-points inside the harbour.
It was mounted on a float twenty-five feet wide and sixty-five feet long. For power it carried two fifty-horse-power distillate engines. Tom was in charge of one and Joe of the other. For raising the sand and gravel containing the goldtwo big Jackson gravel-pumps were located on opposite corners at the front end of the float.
Old Tom blew the whistle, the engines started, and in an hour the pumps had raised a hundred tons of sand and gravel and deposited them in the concentrating flumes. Norman worked the dredge all night without a moment's pause and in twelve hours his pumps had lifted fifteen hundred tons of sand, showing a capacity of 3,000 tons per day. When the gold was extracted and weighed it was found that the dredge had averaged twenty cents from each ton of sand and that it would cost less than three cents a ton to operate the entire machinery of its production. The first experimental machine alone would net $500 dollars a day, or $150,000 a year. He could put five of these machines to work in three months and make $3,000 a day.
The invention stirred the colony to its depths. Norman's appearance was the signal for a burst of cheering wherever he went.
Wolf was dumfounded. He called his board of governors together at once and ordered them to enact a new law to meet the situation.
Norman announced in theErathat he would give the Brotherhood from the beginning one half the net earnings of his machines, and askedthe board of governors at once to grant him the men needed to build and operate enough dredges to reduce the hours of labour from nine to seven.
Wolf met the emergency with prompt and vigorous action. He suspended the editor for printing the announcement and set him to work carrying a hod.
He issued a proclamation as regent that the dredge in the hands of its inventor threatened the existence of the State, declared the law of inventions under which it was built suspended, and ordered Norman to at once operate the machine for the sole benefit of the State and begin the construction of twenty dredges of equal capacity.
When Norman received this order he set to work without a moment's delay and made a half-dozen dynamite bombs, gave one each to Tom and Joe and their assistants, laid in a supply of provisions, erected a tent on the beach beside the dredge, and set the big machine to work for all it was worth.
Wolf promptly ordered his arrest. The men who attempted to execute the order fled in terror at the sight of the bombs and reported for instructions.
Wolf came in person at the head of a picked company of fifty guards.
Norman had stretched a rope a hundred feet from the dredge and posted a notice that he would kill any man daring to cross it without his permission.
Wolf paused at the rope. Norman stood alone on one of the big pumps with his arms folded watching his enemy in silence.
The captain of the guard laid his hand on the regent's arm:
"You'd better not try it."
"He won't dare," Wolf growled.
"Yes, he will," the captain insisted.
"I'll risk it," the regent snapped.
"Are you mad? What's the use? He'll blow it up. You can't rebuild the dredge—no one understands it. Use common sense. Send the girl with a flag of truce and ask for a conference."
"A good idea—if it works," Wolf answered hesitating.
"It's worth trying," the captain urged.
Wolf returned to the house with his men, and in a few minutes Barbara came to Norman, her face white with terror, her voice quivering with pleading intensity.
"Please," she gasped, "for my sake, I beg of you not to do this insane thing! The regent asks for a conference under a flag of truce. He recognizes that it is impossible that you shouldremain here after what has happened. He asks for a half-hour's talk with you to offer an adjustment under which you can resign and return to San Francisco."
"It's a trick and a lie. He's deceiving you," Norman replied, sullenly.
"No, I swear it's true. He is in earnest, Catherine is beside herself with fear lest he be killed. He swore to her as he swore to me to respect your wishes. I'll gladly give my life if he proves false."
Norman turned his face away and looked over the still, blue waters, struggling with himself as he felt the tug of her soft hand on his heart.
Suddenly a hundred men with Wolf at their head sprang over the steep embankment and rushed to the dredge. Tom leaped to his feet and lifted his bomb without a word.
Norman covered Barbara and grasped his uplifted arm.
"It's all over boys. I've surrendered!" he shouted.
Barbara faced Wolf with blazing eyes:
"You have betrayed my trust!"
Wolf brushed her aside and confronted Norman, who had thrown the bomb he had taken from Tom's hand into the sea.
Norman paid no attention to Wolf, and seemedto see only the girl's face convulsed with passion. His eyes never left her for a moment.
Wolf turned and secured the other men who had defended the dredge, marching them with their hands tied behind their backs between two rows of guardsmen off to jail.
Norman spoke at last to Barbara in low, cold tones:
"I congratulate you."
"What do you mean?" she gasped.
"That you are a superb actress. You have played your part to perfection. Your rôle was very dramatic, too. A clumsy woman would have bungled it, and lost even at the last moment."
"You cannot believe that I willingly betrayed you?" she cried, in anguish.
"I wish I had died before I knew it," he answered, bitterly.
Barbara pressed close to his side and seized his hand fiercely. He turned away with a shudder.
"Look at me," she pleaded.
He turned and faced her with a look of anger.
"Words are idle. Deeds speak louder than words."
"Norman, you are killing me with this cruel doubt!" she sobbed. "I give up! I love you! I love you!"
She threw her arms around his neck and her head sank on his breast.
He resisted for a moment, then clasped her to his heart, bent and kissed her with passionate tenderness.
"You believe me now?" she cried, through her tears.
"God forgive me for doubting you for a moment!" he answered, earnestly.
The guard suddenly drew Norman from her arms, tied his hands, and led him away to prison while the little figure followed, sobbing in helpless anguish.
Wolf walked behind, his big mouth twitching with smiles he could not suppress.