CHAPTER XX.
THE NEW NAPOLEON.
"Yousay—I read it in your eyes—that I am mad," the Dumpling went on, after a pause. "Wait and see. If mad I am, then mad were Cæsar, Alexander, Moses—mad even perhaps the Christ Himself.
"You say—again I see it in your eyes—you say: 'This man claims to be Napoleon, and condescends to become a criminal, a thief, a concocter of plots to entrap and kidnap millionaires.' But listen. Napoleon is unchanged. Should I, a hundred years ago, have hesitated to torture a rich Jew—had I so chosen—to wring from him his millions for the carrying on of my wars? Money I must have. Money I will have, if I am to lead the legions of Labour to victory. These millionaires, these wealthy parvenus whom I hold to ransom, are but the base pawns in the game, from whom I wring the means of carrying on my war. I stop at nothing. I scruple at nothing, so long as I achieve my end. At this moment themines are laid for a revolution which shall shake England to its centre. I, who hold the strands of the whole network of the conspiracy in my single hand, have not scrupled, in laying and carrying out my plans, to use base tools—thieves and rogues and criminals. What are they to me? I achieve my purpose. That is enough.
"And now again I read your thoughts, and this time you say: 'This man, this Cæsar in conception, this criminal in act, preaches humanity and practises inhumanity; this man speaks of the poor with Christ-like compassion, even while his hands are red with his fellow-creatures' blood.' But whom have I slain?Myenemies? Never!Myenemies,mydeadliest enemy, I would not stoop so much as to strike across the face. But God's enemies, the enemies of God's cause, against them I will use all the cunning and craft of my brain, to wipe them off the face of the earth. This negro of whom you have spoken, this man Black Sam—he was slain at my command because he was the enemy of God, the enemy of God's cause. It was he who betrayed us to Grant, the detective. Therefore I slew him. Therefore would I slay a thousand such as he. When I wason earth a hundred years ago, I never counted the cost. I have sent regiments to certain destruction that I might carry out my end. And am I changed? Yes; changed, inasmuch as, to-day, I would sacrifice not a regiment, but an army—not a legion, but a whole nation—so long as I attained my end. Am I not Napoleon? And does Napoleon ever count the cost?"
Then, all in a moment, he ceased his restless pacings, starting back and staggering wildly at some sudden thought, as a hit soldier starts and staggers when he feels the bullet.
"My God!" he cried piteously, "I am forgetting! This man, this young Grant whom to-night I killed, thinking him to be his brother, was no enemy of the Cause! My hands are red with innocent blood. I have done murder! I have slain an innocent man. Ah! if he have wife and child—a wife whom I have made a widow, a child whom my hands have orphaned! My God! My God! Have pity on them! Protect them, comfort them, for I Thy servant have done this thing. I have taken innocent blood!"
I have seen strange sights in my somewhat adventurous life, but a stranger spectaclethan this madman, this wholesale murderer, the blood of whose recent victims was surely as yet wet and warm upon his hands, pacing backwards and forwards, his face literally distorted by anguish of soul, as he cried out upon God to have pity upon the victims of his crime, I am not likely soon to see again.
As he spoke, and as I stood watching him in amazement, there was a sound like the scrunching of feet on the loose gravel outside.
Then a voice:
"There's someone in there, I'll swear, sergeant. Didn't you hear 'em speaking? Turn your bullseye this way a moment, will you?... Ah! Would you? Lay hold of him, sergeant; he's past me. Quick—or he'll get away!"
At the first hint of a sound outside, the Dumpling had turned off the gas and stepped softly, swiftly to the door. As it opened I saw the figures of the two policemen, their helmets and shoulders outlined darkly but clearly against the light which streamed from the incandescent gas-lamp in the side street, their lower limbs and feet lost in the shadow thrown by the garden wall. I wastoo dazzled by the sudden flashing of the bullseye to see more than that the Dumpling was making a desperate dash for liberty; but my ears told me the rest.
"THE DUMPLING WAS MAKING A DESPERATE DASH FOR LIBERTY."
The Dumpling had got clean away, perhaps to put the fuse to the mines of which he had spoken as laid and ready, and to spring upon a startled country the surprise of his great rebellion.
I heard his footsteps and the footsteps of his out-distanced, defeated pursuers die away in the distance, and then, creeping noiselessly out, I scaled the wall and made my way home to my own rooms and to bed. I had had more than enough of adventure for one night.