[Illustration: I WAS BEING CARRIED OVER LONDON IN THE CRAFT OF HARTMANN THE ANARCHIST]
I was being carried over London in the craft of Hartmann the Anarchist.
Horrified with my thoughts—for the potentialities of this fell vessel dazed me—I clung fiercely to Burnett’s arm.
“Deck of the _Attila_,” put in Burnett. “Behold the craft that shall wreck civilization and hurl tyrannies into nothingness!”
But my gaze was fixed on those lights far below, and my thought was not of the tyrannies I had left, but of the tyranny this accursed deck might minister to. And Hartmann, they said, was remorseless.
“Yes,” growled Thomas hoarsely, “I live for the roar of the dynamite.”
Schwartz, stirred to enthusiasm, shouted a brutal parody of Tennyson.
“The dynamite falls on castle walls And splendid buildings old in story. The column shakes, the tyrant quakes, And the wild wreckage leaps in glory. Throw, comrade, throw: set the wild echoes flying; Throw, comrade; answer, wretches, dying, dying, dying.”
If the remainder of the crew resembled this sample, I was caged in a veritable inferno. As yet, of course, I knew nothing of their numbers or feelings, but my expectations were far from being roseate.
“But, man!” I cried, turning to Burnett, “would you massacre helpless multitudes? you, who prate of tyranny, would you, also, play the _rôle_ of tyrants?”
Before the gathering horror all my wonder at the _Attila_ had vanished. I felt only the helpless abject dismay with which one confronts an appalling but inevitable calamity. At that moment some disaster to the aëronef would have been welcome. The masterful vice of the fanatics maddened me. Rebel, however, as I might, I was of no account. The snake that snapped at the file had more in his favour.
“We don’t argue here,” said Burnett, “we act. If you want arguments, you must wait till you see the captain. Disputes with us are useless.”
So even he was becoming surly. It was natural enough, however, as a moment’s reflection showed. The alligator on land is ordinarily mild enough, in his element he is invariably a terrible monster. The “suspect” anarchist of Stepney was courteous and argumentative, but the free and independent anarchist of the _Attila_ dogmatic and brutal. It was obviously best policy to humour him, for he alone, perhaps, might stand by me at a pinch. I endeavoured to throw oil on the troubled waters.