Part 17 (1/2)
He rose from his desk with a sigh of relief as Barbara entered the room, her cheeks flushed with joy, her eyes sparkling with excitement from the ovation she had just received from the crowd which packed the corridor.
His first impulse was to ask her to accompany him to the country, rest and play for a day. His heart beat more quickly at the thought, but as the question trembled on his lips, his eyes rested on Wolf's s.h.a.ggy head bending over the piles of papers on his desk, and a grim fear shadowed his imagination. Elena's laughter suddenly echoed through his memory. He recalled his father's questions. A frown slowly settled on his brow, and a firm resolution took shape in his mind.
”No woman's spell to blind your senses! Clear thinking, my boy! You're on trial before the man who gave you life. You're on trial before the men whose faith gave you a million dollars to put you to the test.
Success first, and then, perhaps, the joy of living!”
Barbara felt the chill of a sudden barrier between them, and looked at him with a little touch of wounded pride.
He merely nodded pleasantly and hurried from the room.
He gave his whole energies at once to the larger business of the enterprise. The t.i.tle to the property was searched with the utmost thoroughness and found to be perfect. Enormous sums of money had been spent on the island by the bankrupt wild-cat real-estate company which had bought it in for improvement and exploitation. They had built a magnificent hotel with accommodations for one thousand five hundred guests, had planted vineyards, established a winery planted vast orchards of plums, apricots, olives, peaches, and oranges, built flour mills, an ice factory, and had started a number of mining and manufacturing enterprises. When the bubble burst the company was bankrupt and the lawyers got the rest. A careful inventory showed to Norman that they had acquired a property of enormous value. The improvements alone had cost $1,250,000, and they were worth twice that sum now to the colony.
He chartered a corporate society, known as ”The Brotherhood of Man,”
for the purpose of legalizing the new social State of Ventura when it had pa.s.sed the experimental stage and he could surrender to it the t.i.tle and money held in trust under the deed of gift. Two hundred thousand dollars was paid in cash for the island, and the remaining capital held for work. A steamer was purchased to serve the colony by plying between the island, Santa Barbara, and San Francisco.
The Wolfs advised Norman that no mail service be asked or permitted.
”The reasons are many, comrade,” the old leader urged. ”The first condition of success in this work is the complete isolation of the colony from outside influences. If modern civilization is h.e.l.l, you can't build a heaven with daily communication between the two places.”
”Every man and woman who enters,” Catherine added, ”must sign a solemn contract to remain five years, enlist as soldier, and communicate with the outside world only by permission of the authority of the Brotherhood.”
”I see,” laughed Norman. ”I must have the Czar's power to examine suspected mail if treason or rebellion threatens.”
”Exactly,” cried Wolf.
”A large power to put in one man's hands!” Norman protested.
”There's not a man or woman going to that island who wouldn't trust you with life, to say nothing of a mail pouch,” Catherine declared, with a look of genuine admiration.
”You think such drastic measures to prevent communication with the outside world will be needed?” Norman argued.
”Let us hope not,” Wolf quickly replied. ”But it's better to be on the safe side. The history of every experiment made in Socialism by the heroes and pioneers of the cause in the past shows that failure came in every case from just this source. We will start under the most favourable conditions ever tried. Our island will be a little world within itself. Cut every line of possible communication with modern compet.i.tive society, and we can prove the brotherhood of man a living fact. Open our experiment to the lies and slanders of our enemies from without, and they can destroy us before the work is fairly begun. Our colony would be overrun with hostile reporters from the capitalist press, for example----”
”You're right,” exclaimed Norman.
”Let every volunteer enlist in the service of humanity for five years,” repeated Catherine, ”agreeing to hold no communication with the world. Make that agreement one impossible for them to break, and our success is as sure as that man is made in the image of G.o.d. All we ask is a chance to prove it without interference.”
”I agree with you,” cried Norman, at last. ”Five years' service, with every bridge burned behind us--we'll fight it out on that line.”
A look of triumph came from beneath Wolf's s.h.a.ggy brows as his eyes rested again on the smiling madonna-like face of the woman by his side.
CHAPTER XIV
THE NEW WORLD
On a beautiful Sunday morning in May, 1899, the steams.h.i.+p _Comrade_ slowly swept through the Golden Gate with two thousand enthusiastic Socialists crowding her decks, shouting, cheering, laughing, crying, singing their joy and faith in the new world of human brotherhood for which they had set sail.