CHAPTER XIX.
THE DUMPLING'S SECRET.
Theman, as I have said before, was mad—stark, staring mad, and with a madman one must go warily. Had I too profusely protested my sympathy, too readily declared myself an adherent, his cunning would, I am persuaded, have led him to doubt my sincerity, in which case his promise to strangle the life, or to tear the heart out of me, would, I believe, have been fulfilled.
Under the circumstances I thought it best not to appear too eager.
"You can't frighten me with your threats," I said, quietly. "I did lose my nerve some time ago. But I've got it back again now, and while I'm willing to hear all you have to say about a cause with which I'm not only ready but anxious to throw in my lot, I'm not going to be bounced or threatened into doing so. The co-operation of a man who, in making so momentous a choice, is capable of being threatened or talkedinto standing in with you, who jumps, in fact, to your whistling, isn't worth having. There are more momentous matters than my life hanging to this, and before I say definitely I'm with you—as is my wish—there are one or two more questions I must ask."
With no one will an appeal to sanity find more favour than with the insane. "Do let us be reasonable" is the best of all arguments to use to those whose reason is affected. Evidently the man before me was favourably impressed by what I had said.
"You are quite right," he replied cordially. "We want the co-operation of no one who is not persuaded in his own mind of the righteousness of our cause. From what I've seen of you, Mr. Rissler, you are just the sort of man with whom I should like to be associated in my work. Your getting out of that opium den with a whole skin when, believing you to be Grant, I'd given the strictest orders that you shouldn't leave the place alive, proves you to be a man ready of resource and quick of brain, just such a man whose co-operation would ensure the final success of the cause. It will be a red-letter day for us if we could induce youto throw in your lot with us. Ask your questions, then, and I'll give you a straight reply."
"Well," I said, "tell me in a word what is the end at which you are aiming."
"I'm aiming," he said, "to create first in England, and afterwards all over the world, such an upheaval of the social order of things as took place in France at the time of the Great Revolution. But with this difference. The French Revolution was aimed at the aristocrat. You'll think me inconsistent, I fear, when I say that it is not with the aristocrat that I have my chief quarrel. I hold no brief for the aristocracy. Many of them—most of them, perhaps—are lazy, extravagant, self-indulgent, luxury-loving, selfish, and vicious, as I know to my cost. I don't blame them very much for that, any more than I blame the very poor for their want of cleanliness, their thriftlessness, their hand-to-mouth methods of living, and for seeking solace from the cold, the squalor, and the misery of their surroundings, in the warmth and light and companionship of the public-house. Both classes are to some extent the outcome of circumstances. The aristocracy have most of themtheir sense ofnoblesse oblige, and have the honour of a great name to keep up. On the whole, they do it tolerably well. They distribute largess generously, they entertain lavishly, they pay those who work for them fairly, and they treat those who work for them well. The aristocracy, it is true, has got, first, to give way, and, ultimately, to go, just as the monarchy has got to give way and to go before the advance of democracy.
"Do you know what King Edward—wise man! foreseeing man!—is reported to have said? I tell it to you as it was told to me. It may be true, or it may not. Personally, I believe it is, and it adds to the admiration to which, in spite of myself, I am compelled, for his wisdom and for his foresight. He is reported to have said, 'My grandson is likely to be the last King of England. The whole face of things is changing, not in this country only, but in Germany, Austria, Russia, in Europe, and all over the world. The monarchy will last my time. It may last my son's. Possibly it will last his son's time. I shall not be there to see. But those who are alive, when my grandson dies, may possibly see an end of the monarchy in England!'
"That is what King Edward is reported to have said, and whether he said it or did not say it, it is true. We are on the verge of a death struggle between the masses and the classes. Much will depend upon the side with which the great middle classes throw in their lot. If the middle classes decide for what we call the classes, the struggle will necessarily be prolonged. If the middle classes decide, as I believe they will, for the masses, the end will come soon, and with awful swiftness. One of the two—the masses or the classes—must go. Can you doubt for one moment which it will be? Even now the death-knell of the monarchy and the aristocracy is sounding. Already the day of democracy has dawned. King Labour is coming into his own.
"But the democracy of to-day doesn't see the real danger in front of it. It is so busy, abusing and striving to sweep away the monarchy and the aristocracy, that it doesn't see that it is playing into the hands of an infinitely greater danger—the plutocracy.
"As things stand now, King and Court and House of Lords are some sort of check upon the encroachments of the plutocracy.Sweep King and Court and House of Lords away, and the country will be at the mercy of the mere man of money. And what will the poor get out ofhim? Better a thousand times for the poor to be in the hands—be under the heels, if you like—of the monarchy and the aristocracy, than be given over, tied hand and foot, to the tender mercies of the mere money-grabber, with no name to uphold, no sense of chivalry to inspire, no conscience to control, no object in life, save to get and keep and grind out money from man, woman, and child. It isnotthe monarchy or the aristocracy who is the enemy of the people. It is your capitalist, your mill and factory owner, your middleman, your wholesale and retail merchants, your employers of labour. It is against him and all of his tribe that I would stir up a revolution in England which should make as clean a sweep of the lot of them as the French Revolution made of the aristocrat.
"Do I carry you with me thus far, Mr. Rissler? If not, it were idle to say more."
"You carry me completely," I replied, "But—forgive me asking—how is what you propose accomplishing to be done? Thusfar you have dealt only in generalisations, but generalisations by themselves never yet brought about a revolution."
"You are absolutely right," he replied quickly. "In the ordinary way I should say it could not be done for another twenty, thirty, perhaps another hundred years. There is only one way; but thereisa way. There is only one man who can do it; but there is such a man, as you yourself will admit when you hear his name."
He stopped, and for at least half a minute looked at me searchingly, as if uncertain how far he was justified in taking me into his confidence, but muttering to himself meanwhile, in language which, by the word or two I caught, I knew to be French. So close was his face to mine that I saw what at first I thought was my own face mirrored in his eyes. But, as I looked, the picture-face in his eyes became more definite, and I knew that the face I saw there was not mine. It was a face there was no mistaking; a face which every schoolboy, every child, would have recognised at sight.
And now it seemed to be growing larger until what had been a tiny picture, in thepupils of the Dumpling's eyes, was the life-size head of a man, looking at me with eyes of its own—eyes so stern, so cold, so cruel, so commanding, that the bidding of the set lips beneath them few men would dare to disobey. At the bidding of those lips, at one glance from those eyes—men, regiments, an army, even, had gone forth unhesitatingly to die.
That all this could be seen in the picture, which is formed in the pupils of one man's eyes, sounds incredible, and I can only explain it by saying that what I saw lay not in the pupils themselves, but lay behind those pupils, through which I looked as one looks through a window.
Then suddenly the face which I had seen faded away. Silhouetted against the sky, I saw the solitary figure of a man standing upon the rocky point of an island, and looking out—the soul of him more lonely than that lone island, so far away from other land, and surrounded by a wasteful wilderness of waters—the heart of him torn with unrest, wilder, sadder, more hopeless, than the surging, sobbing unrest of those surrounding seas.
Then, too, this picture faded, and I waslooking upon the face of the Dumpling, and listening to the words which fell sharply, incisively, from his lips.
Clearly he had decided to trust me with his great secret, and something of the excitement which I saw upon his face communicated itself to me as I listened.
"Why has the Great Revolution, why has the cause of Labour failed thus far?" he asked, turning upon me almost savagely. "I will tell you," he went on, without waiting for an answer. "Because great revolutions are only brought about by great men; and for ten, twenty, thirty years, perhaps more, the womb of England has been barren of great men. The histories of religions, we are told, are written in the life-stories of great men. The histories of politics are no more than the life-stories of great men. To-day there are parties, but no politics. What are your Labour party, your Liberal party, if you like—your Campbell-Bannermans, Asquiths, Bryces, Birrells, Morleys, Burnses, Keir Hardies? Amiable men, able men, capable men, well-meaning men, conscientious men, but spoken of in a comparative sense, as compared with your real makers of history, of statecraft, whatare they? Mediocrities, every one of them. Parnell had it in his power to have been a great man had he lived, and had he not made a mess of his life, but for the rest"—he stopped short for a moment—"for the rest," he went on, "judged by any standard of greatness, for the rest"—he snapped his fingers contemptuously—"that! The whole of them combined couldn't do in a year what one great man—a Napoleon, for instance—could do in an hour. The great revolution has failed of coming thus far, the cause of Labour has failed thus far, for one reason, and one reason only—there is no Napoleon to lead the people to victory. Once find Labour her Napoleon, and Labour will rule the land.
"Listen!
"I who stand before you am he—not Labour's Napoleon only, not merely the Napoleon of Labour, but Napoleon the Corsican, Napoleon the First Consul, Napoleon the Emperor himself! In me you see not only Napoleon re-incarnate, but Napoleon's very self—the conqueror of Europe, the Cæsar of France, now come again to earth, even as the Christ came two thousand years ago, to save and to redeem the people. Iam here to lead the leaderless armies of Labour to victory—I am here to set King Labour on his rightful throne. The world has waited over-long for the coming of Napoleon. But at last he is come. I who stand before you am he!"