Part 60 (2/2)
Be wiser than that, my friends! Do not soil your hands either with the body of Carl Perousse or his ill-gotten dwelling. What we want for him is Disgrace, not Death! Death is far too easy! An innocent child may die; do not give to a false-hearted knave the simple exit common to the brave and true! Disgrace!--disgrace! Shame, confusion, and the curse of the country,--let these be your vengeance on the man who seeks to clutch the reins of government!--the man who would drive the people like whipped horses to their ruin!”
Another roar answered him, but this time it was mingled with murmurs of dissatisfaction. Thord caught these up, and at once responded to them.
”I hear you, O People! I hear the clamour of your hearts and souls, which is almost too strong to find expression in speech! You cannot wait, you would tell me! You would have Perousse dragged out here,--you would tear him to pieces among you, if you could, and carry the fragments of him to the King, to prove what a people can do with a villain proposed to them as their Prime Minister!” Loud and ferocious shouts answered these words, and he went on; ”I know--I understand!--and I sympathise! But even as I know you, you know me! Believe me now, therefore, and hear my promise! I swear to you before you all”--and here he extended both arms with a solemn and impressive gesture--”that this month shall not be ended before the dishonesty of Carl Perousse is publicly and flagrantly known at every street corner,--in every town and province of the land!--and before the most high G.o.d, I take my oath to you, the People,--that he shall never be the governing head of the country!”
A hurricane of applause answered him--a tempest of shouting that seemed to surge and sway through the air and down to the earth again like the beating of a powerful wind.
”Give me your trust, O People!” he cried, carried beyond himself with the excitement and fervour of the scene--”Give me yourselves!”
Another roar replied to this adjuration. He stood triumphant;--the people pressing up around him,--some weeping--some kneeling at his feet--some climbing to kiss his hand. A few angry voices in the distance cried out--'The King!'--and he turned at once on the word.
”Who needs the King?” he demanded; ”Who calls for him? What is he to us? What has he ever been? Look back on his career!--see him as Heir-Apparent to the Throne, wasting his time with dishonest a.s.sociates,--dealing with speculators and turf gamblers--involving himself in debt--and pandering to vile women, who still hold him in their grasp, and who in their turn rule the country by their caprice, and drain the Royal coffers by their licentious extravagance! Now look on him as the King,--a tool in the hands of financiers--a speculator among speculators--steeped to the very eyes in the love of money, and despising all men who do not bear the open blazon of wealth upon them,--what has he done for the people? Nothing! What will he ever do for the People? Nothing! Flattered by self-seekers--stuffed with eulogy by a paid Press--his name made a byword and a mockery by the very women with whom he consorts, what should we do with him in Our work! Let him alone!--let him be! Let him eat and drink as suits his nature--and die of the poison his own vices breed in his blood!--we want naught of him, or his heirs! When the time ripens to its full fruition, we, the People, can do without a Throne!”
At this, thousands of hats and handkerchiefs were tossed in the air,--thousands of voices cheered to the very echo, and to relieve their feelings still more completely the vast crowd once more took up 'The Song of Freedom' and began singing it in unison steadily and grandly, with all that resistless force and pa.s.sion which springs from deep-seated emotion in the soul. And while they were singing, Thord, glancing rapidly about him, saw Johan Zegota close at hand, and to his still greater satisfaction, Pasquin Leroy; and beckoning them both to his side whispered his brief orders, which were at once comprehended.
The day was breaking; and in the purple east a line of crimson showed where the sun would presently rise. A few minutes' quick organisation worked by Leroy and Zegota, and some few other of their comrades sufficed to break up the mob into three sections, and in perfect order they stood blocked for a moment, like the three wings of a great army.
Then once more Thord addressed them:
”People, you have heard my vow! If before the end of the month Carl Perousse is not ejected with contempt from office, I will ask my death at your hands! A meeting will be convened next week at the People's a.s.sembly Rooms where we shall make arrangements to approach the King. If the King refuses to receive us, we shall find means to make him do so!
He _shall_ hear us! He is our paid servant, and he is bound to serve us faithfully,--or the Throne shall be a thing of the past, to be looked back upon with regret that we, a great and free people, ever tolerated its vice and tyranny!”
Here he waited to let the storm of plaudits subside,--and then continued: ”Now part, all of you friends!--go your ways,--and keep order for yourselves with vigilance! The soldiery are here, but they dare not fire!--the police are here, but they dare not arrest! Give them no cause even to say that it would have been well to do either! Let the spiritual force of your determined minds,--fixed on a n.o.ble and just purpose, over-rule mere temporal authority; let none have to blame you for murder or violence,--take no life,--shed no blood; but let your conquest of the Government,--your capture of the Throne,--be a glorious moral victory, outweighing any battle gained only by brute force and rapine!”
He was answered by a strenuous cheer; and then the three great sections of the mult.i.tude began to move. Out of the square in perfect order they marched,--still singing; one huge ma.s.s of people being headed by Pasquin Leroy, the other by Johan Zegota,--the third by Sergius Thord himself.
The soldiery, seeing there was no cause for interference, withdrew,--the police dispersed, and once again an outbreak of popular disorder was checked and for a time withheld.
But this second riot had startled the metropolis in good earnest.
Everyone became fully alive to the danger and increasing force of the disaffected community,--and the Government,--lately grown inert and dilatory in the transaction of business,--began seriously to consider ways and means of pacifying general clamour and public dissatisfaction.
None of the members of the Cabinet were much surprised, therefore, when they each received a summons from the King to wait upon him at the Palace that day week,--'to discuss affairs of national urgency,' and the general impression appeared to be, that though Carl Perousse dismissed the 'street rowdyism,' as he called it, with contempt, and spoke of 'disloyal traitors opposed to the Government,' he was nevertheless riding for a fall; and that his chances of obtaining the Premiers.h.i.+p were scarcely so sure as they had hitherto seemed.
Meanwhile, Pequita, whose childish rage against the King for not noticing her dancing or applauding it, had been the trifling cause of the sudden volcanic eruption of the public mind, became more than ever the idol of the hour. The night after the riot, the Opera-house was crowded to suffocation,--and the stage was covered with flowers. Among the countless bouquets offered to the triumphant little dancer, came one which was not thrown from the audience, but was brought to her by a messenger; it was a great cl.u.s.ter of scarlet carnations, and attached to it was a tiny velvet case, containing the ring promised to her by Pasquin Leroy, when, as he had said, she 'should dance before the King.' A small card accompanied it on which was written 'Pequita, from Pasquin!' Turning to Lotys, who, in the event of further turbulence, had accompanied her to the Opera that night to take care of her, and who sat grave, pale, and thoughtful, in one of the dressing-rooms near the stage, the child eagerly showed her the jewel, exclaiming:
”See! He has kept his promise!”
And Lotys,--sighing even while she smiled,--answered:
”Yes, dear! He would not be the brave man he is, if he ever broke his word!”
Whereat Pequita slipped the ring on her friend's finger, kissing her and whispering:
”Take care of it for me! Wear it for me! For tonight, at least!”
Lotys a.s.sented,--though with a little reluctance,--and it was only while Pequita was away from her, performing her part on the stage, that this strange lonely woman bent her face down on the hand adorned with the star-like gem and kissed it,--tears standing in her eyes as she murmured:
”My love--my love! If you only knew!”
And then the hot colour surged into her cheeks for sheer shame of herself that she should love!--she--no longer in her youth,--and utterly unconscious that there was, or could be any beauty in her deep l.u.s.trous eyes, white skin, and dull gold hair. What had she to do with the thoughts of pa.s.sion?--she whose life was devoted to the sick and needy,--and who had no right to think of anything else but how she should aid them best, so long as that life should last! She knew well enough that love of a great, jealous, and almost savage kind, was hers if she chose to claim it--the love of Sergius Thord, who wors.h.i.+pped her both as a woman and an Intellect; but she could not contemplate him as her lover, having grown up to consider him more as a sort of paternal guardian and friend. In fact, she had thoroughly resigned herself to think of nothing but work for the remainder of her days, and to entirely forego the love and tenderness which most women, even the poorest, have the natural right to win; and now slowly,--almost unconsciously to herself,--Love had stolen into her soul and taken possession of it;--secret love for the man, who brave almost to recklessness, had joined his fortunes in with Sergius Thord and his companions, and had a.s.sisted the work of pus.h.i.+ng matters so far forward, that the wrongs done to the poor, and the numerous injustices of the law, which for years had been acc.u.mulating, and had become part and parcel of the governing system of the country, now stood a fair chance of being remedied. She, with her quick woman's instinct, had perceived that where Sergius Thord, in his dreamy idealism, halted and was uncertain of results, Pasquin Leroy stepped into the breach and won the victory. And, like all courageous women, she admired a courageous man. Not that Thord lacked courage,--he had plenty of the physical brute force known as such,--but he had also a peculiar and uncomfortable quality of rousing desires, both in himself and others which he had not the means of gratifying.
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