Part 17 (1/2)

”Ah! I see you distrust me. You think that because I have the power to be a despot, that therefore I may forget my oath and become one. I forgive you for the thought, unworthy of you as it is, and also, I hope, of me. No, Natasha; I am no skilled hand at love-making, for I have never wooed any mistress but one before to-day, and she is won only by plain honesty and hard service; just what I will devote to the winning of you, whether you are to be won or not--but I must have expressed myself clumsily indeed for you to have even thought of treason to the Cause.

”You are no more devoted adherent of it than I am. You have suffered in one way and I in another from the falsehood and rottenness of present-day Society, but you do not hate it more utterly than I do, and you would not go to greater lengths than I would to destroy it.

Yours is a hatred of emotion, and mine is a hatred of reason. I have proved that, as Society is const.i.tuted, it is the worst and not the best qualities of humanity that win wealth and power, and such respect as the vulgar of all cla.s.ses can give. But it is not such power as this that I would lay at your feet, when I ask you to share the world-empire with me. It is an empire of peace and not of war that I shall offer to you.”

”Then,” said Natasha, taking a step towards him, and laying her hand on his arm as she spoke, ”when you have made war impossible to the rivalry of nations and races, and have proclaimed peace on earth, then I will give myself to you, body and soul, to do with as you please, to kill or to keep alive, for then truly you will have done that which all the generations of men before you have failed to do, and it will be yours to ask and to have.”

As she spoke these last words Natasha bowed her proudly-carried head as though in submission to the dictum that her own lips had p.r.o.nounced; and Arnold, laying his hand on hers and holding it for a moment unresisting in his own, said--

”I accept the condition, and as you have said so shall it be. You shall hear no more words of love from my lips until the day that peace shall be proclaimed on earth and war shall be no more; and when that day comes, as it shall do, I will hold you to your words, and I will claim you and take you, body and soul, as you have said, though I break every other human tie save man's love for woman to possess you.”

Natasha looked him full in the eyes as he spoke these last words. She had never heard such words before, and by their very strength and audacity they compelled her respect and even her submission. Her heart was still untamed and unconquered, and no man was its lord, yet her eyes sank before the steady gaze of his, and in a low sweet voice she answered--

”So be it! There never was a true woman yet who did not love to meet her master. When that day comes I shall have met my master, and I will do his bidding. Till then we are friends and comrades in a common Cause to which both our lives are devoted. Is it not better that it should be so?”

”Yes, I am content. I would not take the prize before I have won it.

Only answer me one question frankly, and then I have done till I may speak again.”

”What is that.”

”Have I a rival--not among men, for of that I am careless--but in your own heart?”

”No, none. I am heart-whole and heart-free. Win me if you can. It is a fair challenge, and I will abide by the result, be it what it may.”

”That is all I ask for. If I do not win you, may Heaven do so to me that I shall have no want of the love of woman for ever!”

So saying, he raised her hand to his lips and kissed it, in token of the compact that was made between them. Then, intuitively divining that she wished to be alone, he turned away without another word, and walked to the after end of the vessel.

Natasha remained where she was for a good half-hour, leaning on the rail that surrounded the deck, and gazing out dreamily over the splendid and ever-changing scene that lay spread out beneath her.

Truly it was a glorious world, as she had said, even now, cursed as it was with war and the hateful atrocities of human selfishness, and the sordid ambition of its despots.

What would it be like in the day when the sword should lie rusting on the forgotten battle-field, and the cannon's mouth be choked with the desert dust for ever? What was now a h.e.l.l of warring pa.s.sions would then be a paradise of peaceful industry, and he who had the power, if any man had, to turn that h.e.l.l into the paradise that it might be, had just told her that he loved her, and would create that paradise for her sake.

Could he do it? Was not this marvellous creation of his genius, that was bearing her in mid-air over land and sea, as woman had never travelled before, a sufficient earnest of his power? Truly it was.

And to be won by such a man was no mean destiny, even for her, the daughter of Natas, and the peerless Angel of the Revolution.

Situated as they were, it would of course have been impossible, even if it had been in any way desirable, for Arnold and Natasha to have kept their compact secret from their fellow-travellers, who were at the same time their most intimate friends.

There was not, however, the remotest reason for attempting to do so.

Although with regard to the rest of the world the members of the Brotherhood were necessarily obliged to live lives of constant dissimulation, among themselves they had no secrets from each other.

Thus, for instance, it was perfectly well known that Tremayne, during those periods of his double life in which he acted as Chief of the Inner Circle, regarded the daughter of Natas with feelings much warmer than those of friends.h.i.+p or brotherhood in a common cause, and until Arnold and his wonderful creation appeared on the scene, he was looked upon as the man who, if any man could, would some day win the heart of their idolised Angel.

Of the other love that was the pa.s.sion of his other life, no one save Natasha, and perhaps Natas himself, knew anything; and even if they had known, they would not have considered it possible for any other woman to have held a man's heart against the peerless charms of Natasha. In fact they would have looked upon such rivalry as mere presumption that it was not at all necessary for their incomparable young Queen of the Terror to take into serious account.

In Arnold, however, they saw a worthy rival even to the Chief himself, for there was a sort of halo of romance, even in their eyes, about this serious, quiet-spoken young genius, who had come suddenly forth from the unknown obscurity of his past life to arm the Brotherhood with a power which revolutionised their tactics and virtually placed the world at their mercy. In a few months he had become alike their hero and their supreme hope, so far as all active operations went; and now that with his own hand he had s.n.a.t.c.hed Natasha from a fate of unutterable misery, and so signally punished her persecutors, it seemed to be only in the fitness of things that he should love her, win her for his own, if won she was to be by any man.