"Hush!" whispered a voice. "Hold to the rope, Monsieur; give me your hand."
Mallow gave a gasp of joy and relief as Rouge hauled him, wet and exhausted, through the window. He would have fallen, but that the man kept him upright by main force, and carried him through the candle-lighted room out on to the landing. How he got down the stairs he never knew. In the grip of Rouge he seemed to be falling, falling, falling into eternal darkness. Then he must have fainted for the moment. When he came to he was in a hansom, his head lying on Aldean's shoulder, and Aldean holding him with a grip of iron.
"Thank God! Oh, thank God!" he heard Aldean say as in a dream. "And you, Rouge--how can I thank you?"
"Adieu, Monsieur!" said a far-away voice. "Forget not the prayer for Sophie and the little Therèse."
At the head of a bare deal table, set on a dais at one end of the cellar, stood Madame Death-in-Life. This subterranean place of congress comprised the whole area of the building. Excavations had been made, indeed, extending some way below the street. These were bricked in with stones, rough whitewashed. The low roof was actually the concrete floor of the basement. It was supported by pillars and arches. Entrance and exit were effected through a trapdoor with a movable ladder. There were neither chairs nor benches. The Brothers stood huddled together like sheep in a pen before the daïs--the tribune of their infernal parliament. The lanterns slung at intervals along the wall shed their faint gleam only to make obscurity more obscure. It was curious to note on the faces of these men--faces shaven and unshaven, fierce and dreamy, bearded and haggard--one common expression of determination. The flash of fanaticism was in the eye of every one of them. Some of well-nigh each European nation were present here; and their spokeswoman addressed them, first in one language, and then in another. She was no longer the icicle. She was the zealot. She made herself felt solely by means of the sense of conviction which consumed her by the right of imaginary wrong. She communicated her feelings to those about her. She dominated them by sheer force of her own enthusiasm. She renounced, she denounced, she exhorted. "Our ruler is our enemy," she declared. "We Anarchists are without rulers. We fight against all the usurpers of power--against those who wish to usurp it. Our enemy is the landowner who keeps the land for himself, who makes the peasant work for his advantage. Our enemy is the manufacturer who fills his factory with slaves. Our enemy is the State, be it Anarchical, Oligarchical, or Democratic. Its official and staff of officers, magistrates, police-spies--all these are our enemies. Our enemy is every thought of authority, call it God or the devil, in whose name the priests have so long ruled the people. Our enemy is the law which oppresses the weak by the strong to the justification and apotheosis of crime. But if the landowners, the manufacturers, the heads of the State, the priests, and the law are our enemies, we are theirs, and we boldly oppose them. We will reconquer the land and the factories, we will annihilate the State, under whatever name it may be concealed, we will regain our freedom in spite of priest and law. We despise all legal means. They are the negations of our rights. We want no so-called universal suffrage, since we cannot get away from our own personal sovereignty. We cannot and will not make ourselves accomplices in the crimes committed by our so-called representatives. We will remain our own masters, and he amongst us who strives to become a chief or leader is a traitor to our cause. Our work it is to conquer and defend common property, and to overthrow governments by whatever name they may be called. To do this we must work, we must invent, we must sacrifice. Brains, money, labour, lives--let all go for the attainment of our end. And I have a thought--a great and glorious thought, a master-thought, which, if put to execution, will give us victory." For the first time she threw out her hands, and shouted, "Air-ships! that is my thought. Conceive to yourselves, brothers, the value of this. It is superb--magnificent. There are men of genius amongst you. Get you to work, then, with all your powers. Think, strive, experiment; dedicate yourselves to the fulfilment of this great project. Succeed. You shall have money, time, help--what you will, but succeed. This is no idle dream, I say. It is the vision of my faith. I see it now before me. It rises from the ground, it soars over the earth, it poises like a vulture o'er the cities. Death--death--death it deals around. Unassailable, unapproachable, ever victorious, our engine or right.