Part 26 (2/2)
”What a privilege to rid the world of this genius of evil!” is Nevins's inward comment as he reads the fatal slip and sees that upon him has fallen the lot to execute the sentence of annihilation upon James Golding, the King of Wall street.
CHAPTER XX.
IN THE ENEMY'S STRONGHOLD.
After an absence of weeks, during which time Harvey Trueman carries the war into the very heart of the Magnates' strongholds, he returns to Chicago. His first mission is to visit Sister Martha. She had been kept in touch with his movements by short notes and aggravatingly brief telegrams, which he sent her as occasion permitted. In the papers she finds but meagre notice of the progress which the Independence party is making, for the censor of the press has effectually silenced all the important mediums. The News a.s.sociations, even, are brought under the ban and are given to understand that a violation of the orders of the Plutocratic Party will mean a forfeiture of all privileges of transportation to papers using the offensive news.
The meeting of these two ardent patriots is fraught with emotion.
Trueman is the more moved by reason of the knowledge that he is regarded by Martha as the embodiment of all virtue, wisdom and power. He feels his incapacity to fill this exalted role, especially as the unrequited love he bears for Ethel Purdy is still burning in his heart.
”You do not seem yourself to-night,” Martha tells him frankly.
”No, that is true; I have so much to think about; so many details to keep in mind that I suffer from abstraction when I am not under the stress of actual labor.”
Trueman is seated beside a table in the centre of the Sisters' Home, which has come to be the only haven of rest he knows in the whole world.
He is in a communicative mood, and appreciating that the woman before him is an interested listener he is ready to review the events of the campaign.
”I have so many evidences of treachery in my own camp that at times I despair of the result of the struggle,” he says, half despondently.
”It is the accursed power of gold that is fighting you,” Martha breaks in vehemently. ”O, if we could only have a few thousand dollars to fight them with their own weapon.”
At the mention of so paltry a sum to be pitted against the unlimited millions of the Magnates, Trueman cannot repress a smile.
”I know it may seem ludicrous for a woman to talk politics,” continues his gentle adviser, apologetically. ”Yet it would not take as much as you imagine to nullify the effect of the millions of bribe money and tribute money that the Plutocrats are spending.
”What would you have me do with the money?”
”Use it in enlightening the people as to their true condition. It is impossible to conceive of men who would knowingly sell their birthright.
The perfidy of the press is the sin of sins in this age of unbridled iniquity,” she declares, her face flus.h.i.+ng with indignation. ”Free speech has not yet been totally interdicted. Speak to the people; tell them to emanc.i.p.ate themselves.”
”You make me wish, almost, that your s.e.x was not debarred from the exercise of suffrage,” Trueman declares. ”If I receive as staunch support from the men of the land as I have already been accorded by the women I shall triumph at the polls.
”Let me recount the events of the past few days that I have only hinted at in my letters. It will make you glad that you were born a woman.
”When I reached Milwaukee, ten days ago,” continues Trueman, ”I found that the committee of coercion had antic.i.p.ated my arrival and had issued its edict against the citizens turning out to see me. The police had received their instructions to keep the streets clear, and they were untiring in their efforts to earn the approbation of their masters. The train arrived at one-thirty in the afternoon. Ordinarily there would have been a large crowd at the depot; to our surprise we found the depot and the adjoining streets practically deserted.
”As our party moved in the direction of the hotel, I noticed that a woman was keeping pace with us on the opposite side of the street. She was dressed in a modest gown and would not have attracted attention had she not continually turned her head to look behind her.
”Yielding to an impulse of curiosity I turned my head and saw that at the distance of a block a squad of police was following us. Then it dawned upon me that the woman was endeavoring to give our party the cue.
When the steps of the hotel were reached I felt impelled to see where the woman would go. She stood on the corner of the street for half a minute and then disappeared around the corner.
”Half an hour later I was handed the card of a 'Mrs. Walton.' Upon going to the reception room I found that the strange woman had come to see me.
”Her first words, 'Are we alone?' made me feel that I should have a new element to meet. I suspected a trap of the enemy. When I a.s.sured her that she was at liberty to speak, Mrs. Walton went directly to the point.
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