accepted the proffered grasp.
'And now,' resumed the lodger, 'now that I hold in mine your loyal
hand, I lay by my apprehensions, I dismiss suspicion, I go further-
-by an effort of will, I banish the memory of what is past. How
you came here, I care not: enough that you are here - as my guest.
Sit ye down; and let us, with your good permission, improve
acquaintance over a glass of excellent whisky.'
So speaking, he produced glasses and a bottle: and the pair
pledged each other in silence.
'Confess,' observed the smiling host, 'you were surprised at the
appearance of the room.'
'I was indeed,' said Somerset; 'nor can I imagine the purpose of
these changes.'
'These,' replied the conspirator, 'are the devices by which I
continue to exist. Conceive me now, accused before one of your
unjust tribunals; conceive the various witnesses appearing, and the
singular variety of their reports! One will have visited me in
this drawing-room as it originally stood; a second finds it as it
is to-night; and to-morrow or next day, all may have been changed.
If you love romance (as artists do), few lives are more romantic
than that of the obscure individual now addressing you. Obscure
yet famous. Mine is an anonymous, infernal glory. By infamous
means, I work towards my bright purpose. I found the liberty and
peace of a poor country, desperately abused; the future smiles upon
that land; yet, in the meantime, I lead the existence of a hunted
brute, work towards appalling ends, and practice hell's
dexterities.'
Somerset, glass in hand, contemplated the strange fanatic before
him, and listened to his heated rhapsody, with indescribable
bewilderment. He looked him in the face with curious
particularity; saw there the marks of education; and wondered the
more profoundly.
'Sir,' he said - 'for I know not whether I should still address you
as Mr. Jones - '
'Jones, Breitman, Higginbotham, Pumpernickel, Daviot, Henderland,
by all or any of these you may address me,' said the plotter; 'for
all I have at some time borne. Yet that which I most prize, that
which is most feared, hated, and obeyed, is not a name to be found
in your directories; it is not a name current in post-offices or
banks; and, indeed, like the celebrated clan M'Gregor, I may justly
describe myself as being nameless by day. But,' he continued,
rising to his feet, 'by night, and among my desperate followers, I
am the redoubted Zero.'
Somerset was unacquainted with the name, but he politely expressed
surprise and gratification. 'I am to understand,' he continued,
'that, under this alias, you follow the profession of a dynamiter?'
{3}
The plotter had resumed his seat and now replenished the glasses.
'I do,' he said. 'In this dark period of time, a star - the star of
dynamite - has risen for the oppressed; and among those who practise
its use, so thick beset with dangers and attended by such
incredible difficulties and disappointments, few have been more
assiduous, and not many - ' He paused, and a shade of embarrassment
appeared upon his face - 'not many have been more successful than
myself.'
'I can imagine,' observed Somerset, 'that, from the sweeping
consequences looked for, the career is not devoid of interest. You
have, besides, some of the entertainment of the game of hide and
seek. But it would still seem to me - I speak as a layman - that
nothing could be simpler or safer than to deposit an infernal
machine and retire to an adjacent county to await the painful
consequences.'
'You speak, indeed,' returned the plotter, with some evidence of
warmth, 'you speak, indeed, most ignorantly. Do you make nothing,
then, of such a peril as we share this moment? Do you think it
nothing to occupy a house like this one, mined, menaced, and, in a
word, literally tottering to its fall?'
'Good God!' ejaculated Somerset.
'And when you speak of ease,' pursued Zero, 'in this age of
scientific studies, you fill me with surprise. Are you not aware
that chemicals are proverbially fickle as woman, and clockwork as
capricious as the very devil? Do you see upon my brow these
furrows of anxiety? Do you observe the silver threads that mingle
with my hair? Clockwork, clockwork has stamped them on my brow -
chemicals have sprinkled them upon my locks! No, Mr. Somerset,' he
resumed, after a moment's pause, his voice still quivering with
sensibility, 'you must not suppose the dynamiter's life to be all
gold. On the contrary, you cannot picture to yourself the
bloodshot vigils and the staggering disappointments of a life like
mine. I have toiled (let us say) for months, up early and down
late; my bag is ready, my clock set; a daring agent has hurried
with white face to deposit the instrument of ruin; we await the
fall of England, the massacre of thousands, the yell of fear and
execration; and lo! a snap like that of a child's pistol, an
offensive smell, and the entire loss of so much time and plant!
If,' he concluded, musingly, 'we had been merely able to recover
the lost bags, I believe with but a touch or two, I could have
remedied the peccant engine. But what with the loss of plant and
the almost insuperable scientific difficulties of the task, our
friends in France are almost ready to desert the chosen medium.
They propose, instead, to break up the drainage system of cities
and sweep off whole populations with the devastating typhoid
pestilence: a tempting and a scientific project: a process,
indiscriminate indeed, but of idyllical simplicity. I recognise
its elegance; but, sir, I have something of the poet in my nature;
something, possibly, of the tribune. And, for my small part, I
shall remain devoted to that more emphatic, more striking, and (if
you please) more popular method, of the explosive bomb. Yes,' he
cried, with unshaken hope, 'I will still continue, and, I feel it
in my bosom, I shall yet succeed.'
'Two things I remark,' said Somerset. 'The first somewhat staggers
me. Have you, then - in all this course of life, which you have
sketched so vividly - have you not once succeeded?'
'Pardon me,' said Zero. 'I have had one success. You behold in me
the author of the outrage of Red Lion Court.'
'But if I remember right,' objected Somerset, 'the thing was a
fiasco. A scavenger's barrow and some copies of the Weekly Budget-
-these were the only victims.'
'You will pardon me again,' returned Zero with positive asperity:
'a child was injured.'
'And that fitly brings me to my second point,' said Somerset. 'For
I observed you to employ the word "indiscriminate." Now, surely, a
scavenger's barrow and a child (if child there were) represent the
very acme and top pin-point of indiscriminate, and, pardon me, of
ineffectual reprisal.'
'Did I employ the word?' asked Zero. 'Well, I will not defend it.
But for efficiency, you touch on graver matters; and before
entering upon so vast a subject, permit me once more to fill our
glasses. Disputation is dry work,' he added, with a charming
gaiety of manner.
Once more accordingly the pair pledged each other in a stalwart
grog; and Zero, leaning back with an air of some complacency,
proceeded more largely to develop his opinions.
'The indiscriminate?' he began. 'War, my dear sir, is
indiscriminate. War spares not the child; it spares not the barrow
of the harmless scavenger. No more,' he concluded, beaming, 'no
more do I. Whatever may strike fear, whatever may confound or
paralyse the activities of the guilty nation, barrow or child,
imperial Parliament or excursion steamer, is welcome to my simple
plans. You are not,' he inquired, with a shade of sympathetic
interest, 'you are not, I trust, a believer?'
'Sir, I believe in nothing,' said the young man.
'You are then,' replied Zero, 'in a position to grasp my argument.
We agree that humanity is the object, the glorious triumph of
humanity; and being pledged to labour for that end, and face to
face with the banded opposition of kings, parliaments, churches,
and the members of the force, who am I - who are we, dear sir - to
affect a nicety about the tools employed? You might, perhaps,
expect us to attack the Queen, the sinister Gladstone, the rigid
Derby, or the dexterous Granville; but there you would be in error.
Our appeal is to the body of the people; it is these that we would
touch and interest. Now, sir, have you observed the English
housemaid?'
'I should think I had,' cried Somerset.
'From a man of taste and a votary of art, I had expected it,'
returned the conspirator politely. 'A type apart; a very charming
figure; and thoroughly adapted to our ends. The neat cap, the
clean print, the comely person, the engaging manner; her position
between classes, parents in one, employers in another; the
probability that she will have at least one sweet-heart, whose
feelings we shall address: - yes, I have a leaning - call it, if you
will, a weakness - for the housemaid. Not that I would be
understood to despise the nurse. For the child is a very
interesting feature: I have long since marked out the child as the
sensitive point in society.' He wagged his head, with a wise,
pensive smile. 'And talking, sir, of children and of the perils of
our trade, let me now narrate to you a little incident of an
explosive bomb, that fell out some weeks ago under my own
observation. It fell out thus.'
And Zero, leaning back in his chair, narrated the following simple
tale.
ZERO'S TALE OF THE EXPLOSIVE BOMB. {4}
I dined by appointment with one of our most trusted agents, in a
private chamber at St. James's Hall. You have seen the man: it
was M'Guire, the most chivalrous of creatures, but not himself
expert in our contrivances. Hence the necessity of our meeting;
for I need not remind you what enormous issues depend upon the nice
adjustment of the engine. I set our little petard for half an
hour, the scene of action being hard by; and the better to avert
miscarriage, employed a device, a recent invention of my own, by
which the opening of the Gladstone bag in which the bomb was
carried, should instantly determine the explosion. M'Guire was
somewhat dashed by this arrangement, which was new to him: and
pointed out, with excellent, clear good sense, that should he be
arrested, it would probably involve him in the fall of our
opponents. But I was not to be moved, made a strong appeal to his
patriotism, gave him a good glass of whisky, and despatched him on
his glorious errand.
Our objective was the effigy of Shakespeare in Leicester Square: a
spot, I think, admirably chosen; not only for the sake of the
dramatist, still very foolishly claimed as a glory by the English
race, in spite of his disgusting political opinions; but from the
fact that the seats in the immediate neighbourhood are often
thronged by children, errand-boys, unfortunate young ladies of the
poorer class and infirm old men - all classes making a direct appeal
to public pity, and therefore suitable with our designs. As
M'Guire drew near his heart was inflamed by the most noble
sentiment of triumph. Never had he seen the garden so crowded;
children, still stumbling in the impotence of youth, ran to and
fro, shouting and playing, round the pedestal; an old, sick
pensioner sat upon the nearest bench, a medal on his breast, a
stick with which he walked (for he was disabled by wounds)
reclining on his knee. Guilty England would thus be stabbed in the
most delicate quarters; the moment had, indeed, been well selected;
and M'Guire, with a radiant provision of the event, drew merrily
nearer. Suddenly his eye alighted on the burly form of a
policeman, standing hard by the effigy in an attitude of watch. My
bold companion paused; he looked about him closely; here and there,
at different points of the enclosure, other men stood or loitered,
affecting an abstraction, feigning to gaze upon the shrubs,
feigning to talk, feigning to be weary and to rest upon the
benches. M'Guire was no child in these affairs; he instantly
divined one of the plots of the Machiavellian Gladstone.
A chief difficulty with which we have to deal, is a certain
nervousness in the subaltern branches of the corps; as the hour of
some design draws near, these chicken-souled conspirators appear to
suffer some revulsion of intent; and frequently despatch to the
authorities, not indeed specific denunciations, but vague anonymous
warnings. But for this purely accidental circumstance, England had
long ago been an historical expression. On the receipt of such a
letter, the Government lay a trap for their adversaries, and
surround the threatened spot with hirelings. My blood sometimes
boils in my veins, when I consider the case of those who sell
themselves for money in such a cause. True, thanks to the
generosity of our supporters, we patriots receive a very
comfortable stipend; I myself, of course, touch a salary which puts
me quite beyond the reach of any peddling, mercenary thoughts;
M'Guire, again, ere he joined our ranks, was on the brink of
starving, and now, thank God! receives a decent income. That is as
it should be; the patriot must not be diverted from his task by any
base consideration; and the distinction between our position and
that of the police is too obvious to be stated.
Plainly, however, our Leicester Square design had been divulged;
the Government had craftily filled the place with minions; even the
pensioner was not improbably a hireling in disguise; and our
emissary, without other aid or protection than the simple apparatus
in his bag, found himself confronted by force; brutal force; that
strong hand which was a character of the ages of oppression.
Should he venture to deposit the machine, it was almost certain
that he would be observed and arrested; a cry would arise; and
there was just a fear that the police might not be present in
sufficient force, to protect him from the savagery of the mob. The
scheme must be delayed. He stood with his bag on his arm,
pretending to survey the front of the Alhambra, when there flashed
into his mind a thought to appal the bravest. The machine was set;
at the appointed hour, it must explode; and how, in the interval,
was he to be rid of it?
Put yourself, I beseech you, into the body of that patriot. There
he was, friendless and helpless; a man in the very flower of life,
for he is not yet forty; with long years of happiness before him;
and now condemned, in one moment, to a cruel and revolting death by
dynamite! The square, he said, went round him like a thaumatrope;
he saw the Alhambra leap into the air like a balloon; and reeled
against the railing. It is probable he fainted.
When he came to himself, a constable had him by the arm.
'My God!' he cried.
'You seem to be unwell, sir,' said the hireling.
'I feel better now,' cried poor M'Guire: and with uneven steps,
for the pavement of the square seemed to lurch and reel under his
footing, he fled from the scene of this disaster. Fled? Alas,
from what was he fleeing? Did he not carry that from which he fled
along with him? and had he the wings of the eagle, had he the
swiftness of the ocean winds, could he have been rapt into the
uttermost quarters of the earth, how should he escape the ruin that
he carried? We have heard of living men who have been fettered to
the dead; the grievance, soberly considered, is no more than
sentimental; the case is but a flea-bite to that of him who should
be linked, like poor M'Guire, to an explosive bomb.
A thought struck him in Green Street, like a dart through his
liver: suppose it were the hour already. He stopped as though he
had been shot, and plucked his watch out. There was a howling in
his ears, as loud as a winter tempest; his sight was now obscured
as if by a cloud, now, as by a lightning flash, would show him the
very dust upon the street. But so brief were these intervals of
vision, and so violently did the watch vibrate in his hands, that
it was impossible to distinguish the numbers on the dial. He
covered his eyes for a few seconds; and in that space, it seemed to
him that he had fallen to be a man of ninety. When he looked
again, the watch-plate had grown legible: he had twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes, and no plan!
Green Street, at that time, was very empty; and he now observed a
little girl of about six drawing near to him, and as she came,
kicking in front of her, as children will, a piece of wood. She
sang, too; and something in her accent recalling him to the past,
produced a sudden clearness in his mind. Here was a God-sent
opportunity!
'My dear,' said he, 'would you like a present of a pretty bag?'
The child cried aloud with joy and put out her hands to take it.
She had looked first at the bag, like a true child; but most
unfortunately, before she had yet received the fatal gift, her eyes
fell directly on M'Guire; and no sooner had she seen the poor
gentleman's face, than she screamed out and leaped backward, as
though she had seen the devil. Almost at the same moment a woman
appeared upon the threshold of a neighbouring shop, and called upon
the child in anger. 'Come here, colleen,' she said, 'and don't be
plaguing the poor old gentleman!' With that she re-entered the
house, and the child followed her, sobbing aloud.
With the loss of this hope M'Guire's reason swooned within him.
When next he awoke to consciousness, he was standing before St.
Martin's-in-the-Fields, wavering like a drunken man; the passers-by
regarding him with eyes in which he read, as in a glass, an image
of the terror and horror that dwelt within his own.
'I am afraid you are very ill, sir,' observed a woman, stopping and
gazing hard in his face. 'Can I do anything to help you?'
'Ill?' said M'Guire. 'O God!' And then, recovering some shadow of
his self-command, 'Chronic, madam,' said he: 'a long course of the
dumb ague. But since you are so compassionate - an errand that I
lack the strength to carry out,' he gasped - 'this bag to Portman
Square. Oh, compassionate woman, as you hope to be saved, as you
are a mother, in the name of your babes that wait to welcome you at
home, oh, take this bag to Portman Square! I have a mother, too,'
he added, with a broken voice. 'Number 19, Portman Square.'
I suppose he had expressed himself with too much energy of voice;
for the woman was plainly taken with a certain fear of him. 'Poor
gentleman!' said she. 'If I were you, I would go home.' And she
left him standing there in his distress.
'Home!' thought M'Guire, 'what a derision!' What home was there
for him, the victim of philanthropy? He thought of his old mother,
of his happy youth; of the hideous, rending pang of the explosion;
of the possibility that he might not be killed, that he might be
cruelly mangled, crippled for life, condemned to lifelong pains,
blinded perhaps, and almost surely deafened. Ah, you spoke lightly
of the dynamiter's peril; but even waiving death, have you realised
what it is for a fine, brave young man of forty, to be smitten
suddenly with deafness, cut off from all the music of life, and
from the voice of friendship, and love? How little do we realise
the sufferings of others! Even your brutal Government, in the
heyday of its lust for cruelty, though it scruples not to hound the
patriot with spies, to pack the corrupt jury, to bribe the hangman,
and to erect the infamous gallows, would hesitate to inflict so
horrible a doom: not, I am well aware, from virtue, not from
philanthropy, but with the fear before it of the withering scorn of
the good.
But I wander from M'Guire. From this dread glance into the past
and future, his thoughts returned at a bound upon the present. How
had he wandered there? and how long - oh, heavens! how long had he
been about it? He pulled out his watch; and found that but three
minutes had elapsed. It seemed too bright a thing to be believed.
He glanced at the church clock; and sure enough, it marked an hour
four minutes faster than the watch.
Of all that he endured, M'Guire declares that pang was the most
desolate. Till then, he had had one friend, one counsellor, in
whom he plenarily trusted; by whose advertisement, he numbered the
minutes that remained to him of life; on whose sure testimony, he
could tell when the time was come to risk the last adventure, to
cast the bag away from him, and take to flight. And now in what
was he to place reliance? His watch was slow; it might be losing
time; if so, in what degree? What limit could he set to its
derangement? and how much was it possible for a watch to lose in
thirty minutes? Five? ten? fifteen? It might be so; already, it
seemed years since he had left St. James's Hall on this so
promising enterprise; at any moment, then, the blow was to be
looked for.
In the face of this new distress, the wild disorder of his pulses
settled down; and a broken weariness succeeded, as though he had
lived for centuries and for centuries been dead. The buildings and
the people in the street became incredibly small, and far-away, and
bright; London sounded in his ears stilly, like a whisper; and the
rattle of the cab that nearly charged him down, was like a sound
from Africa. Meanwhile, he was conscious of a strange abstraction
from himself; and heard and felt his footfalls on the ground, as
those of a very old, small, debile and tragically fortuned man,
whom he sincerely pitied.
As he was thus moving forward past the National Gallery, in a
medium, it seemed, of greater rarity and quiet than ordinary air,
there slipped into his mind the recollection of a certain entry in
Whitcomb Street hard by, where he might perhaps lay down his tragic
cargo unremarked. Thither, then, he bent his steps, seeming, as he
went, to float above the pavement; and there, in the mouth of the
entry, he found a man in a sleeved waistcoat, gravely chewing a
straw. He passed him by, and twice patrolled the entry, scouting
for the barest chance; but the man had faced about and continued to
observe him curiously.
Another hope was gone. M'Guire reissued from the entry, still
followed by the wondering eyes of the man in the sleeved waistcoat.
He once more consulted his watch: there were but fourteen minutes
left to him. At that, it seemed as if a sudden, genial heat were
spread about his brain; for a second or two, he saw the world as
red as blood; and thereafter entered into a complete possession of
himself, with an incredible cheerfulness of spirits, prompting him
to sing and chuckle as he walked. And yet this mirth seemed to
belong to things external; and within, like a black and leaden-
heavy kernel, he was conscious of the weight upon his soul.
I care for nobody, no, not I,
And nobody cares for me,
he sang, and laughed at the appropriate burthen, so that the
passengers stared upon him on the street. And still the warmth
seemed to increase and to become more genial. What was life? he
considered, and what he, M'Guire? What even Erin, our green Erin?
All seemed so incalculably little that he smiled as he looked down
upon it. He would have given years, had he possessed them, for a
glass of spirits; but time failed, and he must deny himself this
last indulgence.
At the corner of the Haymarket, he very jauntily hailed a hansom
cab; jumped in; bade the fellow drive him to a part of the
Embankment, which he named; and as soon as the vehicle was in
motion, concealed the bag as completely as he could under the
vantage of the apron, and once more drew out his watch. So he rode
for five interminable minutes, his heart in his mouth at every
jolt, scarce able to possess his terrors, yet fearing to wake the
attention of the driver by too obvious a change of plan, and
willing, if possible, to leave him time to forget the Gladstone
bag.
At length, at the head of some stairs on the Embankment, he hailed;
the cab was stopped; and he alighted - with how glad a heart! He
thrust his hand into his pocket. All was now over; he had saved
his life; nor that alone, but he had engineered a striking act of
dynamite; for what could be more pictorial, what more effective,
than the explosion of a hansom cab, as it sped rapidly along the
streets of London. He felt in one pocket; then in another. The
most crushing seizure of despair descended on his soul; and struck
into abject dumbness, he stared upon the driver. He had not one
penny.
'Hillo,' said the driver, 'don't seem well.'
'Lost my money,' said M'Guire, in tones so faint and strange that
they surprised his hearing.
The man looked through the trap. 'I dessay,' said he: 'you've
left your bag.'
M'Guire half unconsciously fetched it out; and looking on that
black continent at arm's length, withered inwardly and felt his
features sharpen as with mortal sickness.
'This is not mine,' said he. 'Your last fare must have left it.
You had better take it to the station.'
'Now look here,' returned the cabman: 'are you off your chump? or
am I?'
'Well, then, I'll tell you what,' exclaimed M'Guire; 'you take it
for your fare!'
'Oh, I dessay,' replied the driver. 'Anything else? What's IN
your bag? Open it, and let me see.'
'No, no,' returned M'Guire. 'Oh no, not that. It's a surprise;
it's prepared expressly: a surprise for honest cabmen.'
'No, you don't,' said the man, alighting from his perch, and coming
very close to the unhappy patriot. 'You're either going to pay my
fare, or get in again and drive to the office.'
It was at this supreme hour of his distress, that M'Guire spied the
stout figure of one Godall, a tobacconist of Rupert Street, drawing
near along the Embankment. The man was not unknown to him; he had
bought of his wares, and heard him quoted for the soul of
liberality; and such was now the nearness of his peril, that even
at such a straw of hope, he clutched with gratitude.
'Thank God!' he cried. 'Here comes a friend of mine. I'll
borrow.' And he dashed to meet the tradesman. 'Sir,' said he,
'Mr. Godall, I have dealt with you - you doubtless know my face -
calamities for which I cannot blame myself have overwhelmed me.
Oh, sir, for the love of innocence, for the sake of the bonds of
humanity, and as you hope for mercy at the throne of grace, lend me
two-and-six!'
'I do not recognise your face,' replied Mr. Godall; 'but I remember
the cut of your beard, which I have the misfortune to dislike.
Here, sir, is a sovereign; which I very willingly advance to you,
on the single condition that you shave your chin.'
M'Guire grasped the coin without a word; cast it to the cabman,
calling out to him to keep the change; bounded down the steps,
flung the bag far forth into the river, and fell headlong after it.
He was plucked from a watery grave, it is believed, by the hands of
Mr. Godall. Even as he was being hoisted dripping to the shore, a
dull and choked explosion shook the solid masonry of the
Embankment, and far out in the river a momentary fountain rose and
disappeared.
THE SUPERFLUOUS MANSION (Continued)
Somerset in vain strove to attach a meaning to these words. He
had, in the meanwhile, applied himself assiduously to the flagon;
the plotter began to melt in twain, and seemed to expand and hover
on his seat; and with a vague sense of nightmare, the young man
rose unsteadily to his feet, and, refusing the proffer of a third
grog, insisted that the hour was late and he must positively get to
bed.
'Dear me,' observed Zero, 'I find you very temperate. But I will
not be oppressive. Suffice it that we are now fast friends; and,
my dear landlord, au revoir!'
So saying the plotter once more shook hands; and with the politest
ceremonies, and some necessary guidance, conducted the bewildered
young gentleman to the top of the stair.
Precisely, how he got to bed, was a point on which Somerset
remained in utter darkness; but the next morning when, at a blow,
he started broad awake, there fell upon his mind a perfect
hurricane of horror and wonder. That he should have suffered
himself to be led into the semblance of intimacy with such a man as
his abominable lodger, appeared, in the cold light of day, a
mystery of human weakness. True, he was caught in a situation that
might have tested the aplomb of Talleyrand. That was perhaps a
palliation; but it was no excuse. For so wholesale a capitulation
of principle, for such a fall into criminal familiarity, no excuse
indeed was possible; nor any remedy, but to withdraw at once from
the relation.
As soon as he was dressed, he hurried upstairs, determined on a
rupture. Zero hailed him with the warmth of an old friend.
'Come in,' he cried, 'dear Mr. Somerset! Come in, sit down, and,
without ceremony, join me at my morning meal.'
'Sir,' said Somerset, 'you must permit me first to disengage my
honour. Last night, I was surprised into a certain appearance of
complicity; but once for all, let me inform you that I regard you
and your machinations with unmingled horror and disgust, and I will
leave no stone unturned to crush your vile conspiracy.'
'My dear fellow,' replied Zero, with an air of some complacency, 'I
am well accustomed to these human weaknesses. Disgust? I have
felt it myself; it speedily wears off. I think none the worse, I
think the more of you, for this engaging frankness. And in the
meanwhile, what are you to do? You find yourself, if I interpret
rightly, in very much the same situation as Charles the Second
(possibly the least degraded of your British sovereigns) when he
was taken into the confidence of the thief. To denounce me, is out
of the question; and what else can you attempt? No, dear Mr.
Somerset, your hands are tied; and you find yourself condemned,
under pain of behaving like a cad, to be that same charming and
intellectual companion who delighted me last night.'
'At least,' cried Somerset, 'I can, and do, order you to leave this
house.'
'Ah!' cried the plotter, 'but there I fail to follow you. You may,
if you please, enact the part of Judas; but if, as I suppose, you
recoil from that extremity of meanness, I am, on my side, far too
intelligent to leave these lodgings, in which I please myself
exceedingly, and from which you lack the power to drive me. No,
no, dear sir; here I am, and here I propose to stay.'
'I repeat,' cried Somerset, beside himself with a sense of his own
weakness, 'I repeat that I give you warning. I am the master of
this house; and I emphatically give you warning.'
'A week's warning?' said the imperturbable conspirator. 'Very
well: we will talk of it a week from now. That is arranged; and
in the meanwhile, I observe my breakfast growing cold. Do, dear
Mr. Somerset, since you find yourself condemned, for a week at
least, to the society of a very interesting character, display some
of that open favour, some of that interest in life's obscurer
sides, which stamp the character of the true artist. Hang me, if
you will, to-morrow; but to-day show yourself divested of the
scruples of the burgess, and sit down pleasantly to share my meal.'
'Man!' cried Somerset, 'do you understand my sentiments?'
'Certainly,' replied Zero; 'and I respect them! Would you be
outdone in such a contest? will you alone be partial? and in this
nineteenth century, cannot two gentlemen of education agree to
differ on a point of politics? Come, sir: all your hard words
have left me smiling; judge then, which of us is the philosopher!'
Somerset was a young man of a very tolerant disposition and by
nature easily amenable to sophistry. He threw up his hands with a
gesture of despair, and took the seat to which the conspirator
invited him. The meal was excellent; the host not only affable,
but primed with curious information. He seemed, indeed, like one
who had too long endured the torture of silence, to exult in the
most wholesale disclosures. The interest of what he had to tell
was great; his character, besides, developed step by step; and
Somerset, as the time fled, not only outgrew some of the discomfort
of his false position, but began to regard the conspirator with a
familiarity that verged upon contempt. In any circumstances, he
had a singular inability to leave the society in which he found
himself; company, even if distasteful, held him captive like a
limed sparrow; and on this occasion, he suffered hour to follow
hour, was easily persuaded to sit down once more to table, and did
not even attempt to withdraw till, on the approach of evening,
Zero, with many apologies, dismissed his guest. His fellow-
conspirators, the dynamiter handsomely explained, as they were
unacquainted with the sterling qualities of the young man, would be
alarmed at the sight of a strange face.
As soon as he was alone, Somerset fell back upon the humour of the
morning. He raged at the thought of his facility; he paced the
dining-room, forming the sternest resolutions for the future; he
wrung the hand which had been dishonoured by the touch of an
assassin; and among all these whirling thoughts, there flashed in
from time to time, and ever with a chill of fear, the thought of
the confounded ingredients with which the house was stored. A
powder magazine seemed a secure smoking-room alongside of the
Superfluous Mansion.
He sought refuge in flight, in locomotion, in the flowing bowl. As
long as the bars were open, he travelled from one to another,
seeking light, safety, and the companionship of human faces; when
these resources failed him, he fell back on the belated baked-
potato man; and at length, still pacing the streets, he was goaded
to fraternise with the police. Alas, with what a sense of guilt he
conversed with these guardians of the law; how gladly had he wept
upon their ample bosoms; and how the secret fluttered to his lips
and was still denied an exit! Fatigue began at last to triumph
over remorse; and about the hour of the first milkman, he returned
to the door of the mansion; looked at it with a horrid expectation,
as though it should have burst that instant into flames; drew out
his key, and when his foot already rested on the steps, once more
lost heart and fled for repose to the grisly shelter of a coffee-
shop.
It was on the stroke of noon when he awoke. Dismally searching in
his pockets, he found himself reduced to half-a-crown; and when he
had paid the price of his distasteful couch, saw himself obliged to
return to the Superfluous Mansion. He sneaked into the hall and
stole on tiptoe to the cupboard where he kept his money. Yet half
a minute, he told himself, and he would be free for days from his
obseding lodger, and might decide at leisure on the course he
should pursue. But fate had otherwise designed: there came a tap
at the door and Zero entered.
'Have I caught you?' he cried, with innocent gaiety. 'Dear fellow,
I was growing quite impatient.' And on the speaker's somewhat
stolid face, there came a glow of genuine affection. 'I am so long
unused to have a friend,' he continued, 'that I begin to be afraid
I may prove jealous.' And he wrung the hand of his landlord.
Somerset was, of all men, least fit to deal with such a greeting.
To reject these kind advances was beyond his strength. That he
could not return cordiality for cordiality, was already almost more
than he could carry. That inequality between kind sentiments
which, to generous characters, will always seem to be a sort of
guilt, oppressed him to the ground; and he stammered vague and
lying words.
'That is all right,' cried Zero - 'that is as it should be - say no
more! I had a vague alarm; I feared you had deserted me; but I now
own that fear to have been unworthy, and apologise. To doubt of
your forgiveness were to repeat my sin. Come, then; dinner waits;
join me again and tell me your adventures of the night.'
Kindness still sealed the lips of Somerset; and he suffered himself
once more to be set down to table with his innocent and criminal
acquaintance. Once more, the plotter plunged up to the neck in
damaging disclosures: now it would be the name and biography of an
individual, now the address of some important centre, that rose, as
if by accident, upon his lips; and each word was like another turn
of the thumbscrew to his unhappy guest. Finally, the course of
Zero's bland monologue led him to the young lady of two days ago:
that young lady, who had flashed on Somerset for so brief a while
but with so conquering a charm; and whose engaging grace,
communicative eyes, and admirable conduct of the sweeping skirt,
remained imprinted on his memory.
'You saw her?' said Zero. 'Beautiful, is she not? She, too, is
one of ours: a true enthusiast: nervous, perhaps, in presence of
the chemicals; but in matters of intrigue, the very soul of skill
and daring. Lake, Fonblanque, de Marly, Valdevia, such are some of
the names that she employs; her true name - but there, perhaps, I go
too far. Suffice it, that it is to her I owe my present lodging,
and, dear Somerset, the pleasure of your acquaintance. It appears
she knew the house. You see dear fellow, I make no concealment:
all that you can care to hear, I tell you openly.'
'For God's sake,' cried the wretched Somerset, 'hold your tongue!
You cannot imagine how you torture me!'
A shade of serious discomposure crossed the open countenance of
Zero.
'There are times,' he said, 'when I begin to fancy that you do not
like me. Why, why, dear Somerset, this lack of cordiality? I am
depressed; the touchstone of my life draws near; and if I fail' - he
gloomily nodded - 'from all the height of my ambitious schemes, I
fall, dear boy, into contempt. These are grave thoughts, and you
may judge my need of your delightful company. Innocent prattler,
you relieve the weight of my concerns. And yet . . . and yet . .
.' The speaker pushed away his plate, and rose from table.
'Follow me,' said he, 'follow me. My mood is on; I must have air,
I must behold the plain of battle.'
So saying, he led the way hurriedly to the top flat of the mansion,
and thence, by ladder and trap, to a certain leaded platform,
sheltered at one end by a great stalk of chimneys and occupying the
actual summit of the roof. On both sides, it bordered, without
parapet or rail, on the incline of slates; and, northward above
all, commanded an extensive view of housetops, and rising through
the smoke, the distant spires of churches.
'Here,' cried Zero, 'you behold this field of city, rich, crowded,
laughing with the spoil of continents; but soon, how soon, to be
laid low! Some day, some night, from this coign of vantage, you
shall perhaps be startled by the detonation of the judgment gun -
not sharp and empty like the crack of cannon, but deep-mouthed and
unctuously solemn. Instantly thereafter, you shall behold the
flames break forth. Ay,' he cried, stretching forth his hand, 'ay,
that will be a day of retribution. Then shall the pallid constable
flee side by side with the detected thief. Blaze!' he cried,
'blaze, derided city! Fall, flatulent monarchy, fall like Dagon!'
With these words his foot slipped upon the lead; and but for
Somerset's quickness, he had been instantly precipitated into
space. Pale as a sheet, and limp as a pocket-handkerchief, he was
dragged from the edge of downfall by one arm; helped, or rather
carried, down the ladder; and deposited in safety on the attic