The Everlasting Arms
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He beckoned Dick to him, and spoke in low tones.
"Be surprised at nothing you see or hear," he advised in a whisper. "There is no danger for either you or me. This is London, eh? And yet those who love England, and are thinking and working for her welfare, are obliged to meet in secret."
"Still, I'd like to know where we are going," protested Dick. "I don't like this."
"Wait, my young friend. Wait just five minutes. Now, follow me in silence."
Had not the spirit of adventure been strong upon the young fellow, he would have refused. There was something sinister in the adventure. He could not at all reconcile Mr. John Brown's membership of the club he had visited that afternoon with this Egyptian darkness in a London slum.
"Follow without remark, and without noise," commanded the older man, and then, having led the way a few yards farther, he flashed a light upon some narrow stone steps.
Dick was sure he heard the movement of a large body of water. He was more than ever convinced that they were close to the Thames.
Mr. Brown descended the steps, while Dick followed. His heart was beating rapidly, but he had no fear. A sense of curiosity had mastered every other feeling. At the bottom of the steps Mr. Brown stopped and listened, but although Dick strained his powers of hearing, he could detect no sound. The place might have been exactly what it appeared in the darkness – a deserted warehouse.
"Now, then," whispered Mr. Brown, and there was excitement in his voice.
A second later he tapped with his stick on what appeared to be the door of the warehouse. Dick, whose senses were keenly alert, counted the taps. Three soft, two loud, and again two soft ones.
The door opened as if by magic. There was no noise, and Dick would not have known it was opened save for the dim light which was revealed. A second later he had entered, and the door closed.
In the dim light Dick saw that he was following two dark forms. Evidently the person who had opened the door was leading the way. But he could discern nothing clearly; he thought they were passing through some kind of lumber room, but he could have sworn to nothing. After that there was a passage of some sort, and again they descended some more steps, at the bottom of which Dick heard what seemed the confused murmur of voices…
Dick found himself standing in a kind of vestibule, and there was a sudden glare of light. Both he and Mr. John Brown were in a well-lit room, in which some two hundred people had gathered.
When Dick's eyes had become accustomed to the light, he saw that he was in the midst of one of the most curious crowds he had ever seen. The people seemed of many nationalities, and the sexes appeared equally divided. Very few old people were present. In the main they were well dressed, and might have been comfortably situated. Nevertheless, it was a motley crowd – motley not so much because of any peculiarity in their attire as because of their personalities. What impressed Dick more than anything else was the look of fierce intelligence on their faces, and the nervous eagerness which characterised their every movement. Every look, every action spoke of intensity, and as Dick swept a hasty glance around the room, he felt that he was breathing an atmosphere which was altogether new to him – an atmosphere which was electric.
The room was evidently arranged for a meeting. At one end was a platform on which was placed a table and half a dozen chairs, while the people who formed the audience were waiting for the speakers to appear.
Then Dick realised that all eyes were turned towards himself and that a sudden silence prevailed. This was followed by what Dick judged to be a question of some sort, although he could not tell what it was, as it was asked in a language unknown to him.
"It is all right. I, John Brown, vouch for everything."
"But who is he?" This time the question was in English, and Dick understood that it referred to himself.
"It is all right, I repeat," replied Mr. Brown. "My companion is a comrade, a friend, whom you will be glad to hear. Who is he? He is a Labour leader, and is chosen by the working people of Eastroyd to represent them in the British Parliament."
A great deal of scornful laughter followed this. It might have been that Mr. Brown were trying to play a practical joke upon them.
"Listen," said Mr. Brown. "I am not unknown to you, and I think I have proved to you more than once that I am in sympathy with your aims. Let me ask you this: have I ever introduced anyone who was not worthy and whose help you have not gladly welcomed?"
There was some slight cheering at this, and Mr. Brown went on:
"I need not assure you that I have taken every precaution —every precaution – or tell you that, if good does not come of my being here, harm will surely not come of it. This, my friends, is Mr. Richard Faversham of Eastroyd, whose fiery zeal on behalf of the world's toilers cannot be unknown to you."
Again there was some cheering, and Dick noted that the glances cast towards him were less hostile, less suspicious.
Mr. Brown seemed on the point of speaking further, but did not. At that moment a curtain at the back of the platform was drawn aside, and three men accompanied by two women appeared. It would seem that the time for the commencement of the meeting had come.
Dick had some remembrance afterwards that one of the men addressed the meeting, and that he spoke about the opportunities which the times offered to the struggling millions who had been crushed through the centuries, but nothing distinct remained in his mind. Every faculty he possessed was devoted to one of the two women who sat on the platform. He did not know who she was; he had never seen her before, and yet his eyes never left her face.
Never before had he seen such a woman; never had he dreamed that there could be anyone like her.
Years before he had seen, and fancied himself in love with, Lady Blanche Huntingford. He had been captivated by her glorious young womanhood, her abundant vitality, her queenly beauty. But, compared with the woman on the platform, Blanche Huntingford was as firelight to sunlight.
Even as he sat there he compared them – contrasted them. He remembered what he had thought of the proud Surrey beauty; how he had raved about her eyes, her hair, her figure; but here was a beauty of another and a higher order. Even in his most enthusiastic moments, Lady Blanche's intellectuality, her spirituality, had never appealed to him. But this woman's beauty was glorified by eyes that spoke of exalted thoughts, passionate longings, lofty emotions.
Her face, too, was constantly changing. Poetry, humour, passion, pity, tenderness, scorn were expressed on her features as she looked at the speaker. This woman was poetry incarnate! She was pity incarnate! She was passion incarnate!
Dick forgot where he was. He was altogether unconscious of the fact that he was in a meeting somewhere in the East End of London, and that things were being said which, if known to the police, would place the speaker, and perhaps the listeners, in prison. All that seemed as nothing; he was chained, fascinated by the almost unearthly beauty of the woman who sat on the little shabby-looking platform.
Then slowly the incongruity of the situation came to him. The audience, although warmly dressed and apparently comfortably conditioned, belonged in the main to the working classes. They were toilers. Most of them were malcontents – people who under almost any conditions would be opposed to law and order. But this woman was an aristocrat of aristocrats. No one could doubt it any more than he could doubt the sunlight. Her dress, too, was rich and beautiful. On her fingers costly rings sparkled; around her neck diamonds hung. And yet she was here in a cellar warehouse, in a district where squalor abounded.
The speaker finished; evidently he was the chairman of the meeting, and after having finished his harangue turned to the others on the platform.
Dick heard the word "Olga," and immediately after the room was full of deafening cheers.
The woman he had been watching rose to her feet and waited while the people continued to cheer. Fascinated, he gazed at her as her eyes swept over the gathering. Then his heart stood still. She looked towards him, and their eyes met. There might have been recognition, so brightly did her eyes flash, and so tender was the smile which came to her lips. She seemed to be saying to him, "Wait, we shall have much to say to each other presently." The air of mystery, which seemed to envelop her, enveloped him also. The hard barriers of materialism seemed to melt away, and he had somehow entered the realm of romance and wonder.
Then her voice rang out over the audience – a voice that was rich in music. He did not understand a word she said, for she spoke in a language unknown to him. And yet her message reached him. Indeed, she seemed to be speaking only to him, only for him. And her every word thrilled him. As she spoke, he saw oppressed peoples. He saw men in chains, women crushed, trodden on, little children diseased, neglected, cursed. The picture of gay throngs, revelling in all the world could give them in pleasure, in music, in song, and wine, passed before his mind side by side with harrowing, numbing want and misery.
Then she struck a new note – vibrant and triumphant. It thrilled him, made his heart beat madly, caused a riot of blood in his veins.
Suddenly he realised that she was speaking in English, that she was calling to him in his own language. She was telling of a new age, a new era. She described how old things had passed away, and that all things had become new; that old barriers had been broken down; that old precedents, old prejudices which for centuries had crushed the world, were no longer potent. New thoughts had entered men's minds; new hopes stirred the world's heart. In the great cataclysm through which we had passed, nations had been re-born, and the old bad, mad world had passed away in the convulsions of the world's upheaval.
"And now," she concluded, "what wait we for? We await the prophet, the leader, the Messiah. Who is he? How shall he come? Is he here? Is the man who is able to do what the world needs brave enough, great enough to say, like the old Hebrew prophet, 'Here am I, send me'?"
And even as she spoke Dick felt that her eyes were fastened upon him, even as her words thrilled his heart. Something, he knew not what it was, formed a link between them – gave this woman power over him.
There was no applause as she sat down. The feeling of the people was too intense, the magnetic charm of the speaker too great.
Still with her eyes fixed upon Dick, she made her way towards him. He saw her coming towards him, saw her dark, flashing eyes, her white, gleaming teeth, felt the increasing charm of her wondrous face.
Then there was a change in the atmosphere – a change indefinable, indescribable. Just above the woman's head Dick saw in dim outline what years before had become such a potent factor in his life. It was the face of the angel he had seen when he was sinking in the deep waters, and which appeared to him at Wendover Park.
"Mr. Richard Faversham," said the woman who had so thrilled him that night, "I have long been waiting for this hour."
CHAPTER XXII
"You and I Together"
For some time Dick Faversham was oblivious to the fact that the woman who had so fascinated him a few minutes before stood near him with hands outstretched and a smile of gladness in her eyes. Again he was under the spell of what, in his heart of hearts, he called "The Angel." Even yet he had no definite idea as to who or what this angel was, but there was a dim consciousness at the back of his mind that she had again visited him for an important reason. He was certain that her purposes towards him were beneficent, that in some way she had crossed the pathway of his life to help him and to save him.
Like lightning the memory of that fearful night when he was sinking in the stormy sea came surging back into his mind. He remembered how he had felt his strength leaving him, while the cold, black waters were dragging him into their horrible depths. Then he had seen a ray of light streaming to him across the raging sea; he had seen the shadowy figure above him with outstretched arms, and even while he had felt himself up-borne by some power other than his own, the words had come to him – "Underneath are the Everlasting Arms."
It was all shadowy and unreal – so much so that in later days he had doubted its objective reality, and yet there had been times when it had been the most potent force in his life. It had become such a great and glorious fact that everything else had sunk into insignificance.
Then there was that scene in the library at Wendover. He had been on the point of signing the paper which Count Romanoff had prepared for him. Under this man's influence, right and wrong had appeared to him but a chimera of the imagination. The alternative which had appeared before him stood out in ghastly clearness. He had only to sign the paper, and all the riches which he thought were his would remain in his possession. But he had not signed it. Again that luminous form had appeared, while a hand, light as a feather, but irresistible in its power, had been laid upon his wrist, and the pen had dropped from his fingers.
And now the angel had come to him again. Even as he looked, he could see her plainly, while the same yearning eyes looked into his.
"Mr. Faversham!"
He started, like a man suddenly wakened from a dream, and again he saw the woman who had been spoken of as Olga, and who had thrilled him by her presence and by the magic of her voice, standing by his side.
"Forgive me," he said, "but tell me, do you see anyone on the platform?"
The girl, for she appeared to be only two or three and twenty, looked at him in a puzzled kind of way.
"No," she replied, casting her eyes in that direction; "I see no one. There is no one there."
"Not a beautiful woman? She is rather shadowy, but she has wonderful eyes."
"No," she replied wonderingly.
"Then I suppose I was mistaken. You are Olga, aren't you?"
"Yes; I am Olga."
"And you made that wonderful speech?"
"Was it wonderful?" and she laughed half sadly, half gaily.
Suddenly the spell, or whatever it was, left him. He was Dick Faversham again – keen, alert, critical. He realised where he was, too. He had accompanied Mr. John Brown to this place, and he had listened to words which were revolutionary. If they were translated into action, all law and order as he now understood them would cease to be.
Around him, too, chattering incessantly, was a number of long-haired, wild-eyed men. They were discussing the speech to which they had just listened; they were debating the new opportunities which the times had created.
"Ah, you two have met!" It was Mr. John Brown who spoke. "I am glad of that. This is Olga. She is a Princess in Russia, but because she loved the poor, and sought to help them, she was seized by the Russian officials and sent to Siberia. That was two years ago. She escaped and came to England. Since then she has lived and worked for a new Russia, for a new and better life in the world. You heard her speak to-night. Did you understand her?"
"Only in part," replied Dick. "She spoke in a language that was strange to me."
"Yes, yes, I know. But, as you see, she speaks English perfectly. We must get away from here. We must go to a place where we can talk quietly, and where, you two can compare ideas. But meanwhile I want you to understand, Mr. Faversham, that the people you see here are typical of millions all over Europe who are hoping and praying for the dawn of a new day. Of course there are only a few thousands here in London, but they represent ideas that are seething in the minds of hundreds of millions."
"Mr. Brown has told me about you," said Olga. "I recognised you from his description the moment I saw you. I felt instinctively what you had thought, what you had suffered, what you had seen in visions, and what you had dreamed. I knew then that you were the prophet – the leader that we needed."
Dick gave her a quick glance, and again felt the spell of her beauty. She was like no woman he had ever seen before. Her eyes shone like stars, and they told him that this was a woman in a million. The quickly changing expressions on her face, the wondrous quality of her presence, fascinated him.
"I shall be delighted to discuss matters with you," replied Dick. "That part of your speech which I understood made me realise that we are one in aim and sympathy. If you will come to my hotel to-morrow, we can speak freely."
Olga laughed merrily. "I am afraid you do not understand, Mr. Faversham," she said. "I am a suspect; I am proscribed by your Government. A price has been placed on my head."
Dick looked at her questioningly.
"No; I am afraid I don't understand," was his reply.
"Don't you see?" and again she laughed merrily. "I am looked upon as a dangerous person. News has come to your authorities that I am a menace to society, that I am a creator of strife. First of all, I am an alien, and as an alien I am supposed to subscribe to certain regulations and laws. But I do not subscribe to them. As a consequence I am wanted by the police. If you did your duty, you would try to hand me over to the authorities; you would place me under arrest."
"Are – are you a spy, then?" Dick asked.
"Of a sort, yes."
"A German?"
A look of mad passion swept over her face.
"A German!" she cried. "Heaven forbid. No, no. I hate Germany. I hate the accursed war that Germany caused. And yet, no. The war was a necessity. The destruction of the old bad past was a necessity. And we must use the mad chaos the war has created to build a new heaven and create a new earth. What are nationalities, peoples, country boundaries, man-made laws, but the instruments of the devil to perpetuate crime, brutality, misery, devilry?"
Dick shook his head. "You go beyond me," he said. "What you say has no appeal for me."
"Ah, but it has," she cried; "that is why I want to talk with you. That is why I hail you as a comrade – yes, and more than a comrade. I have followed your career; I have read your speeches. Ah, you did not think, did you, when you spoke to the people in the grimy north of this country about better laws, better conditions – ay, and when you made them feel that all the people of every country should be one vast brotherhood – that your words were followed, eagerly followed, by a Russian girl whose heart thrilled as she read, and who longed to meet you face to face?"
"You read my speeches? You longed to see me?" gasped Dick.
"Every word I read, Mr. Faversham; but I saw, too, that you were chained by cruel tradition, that you were afraid of the natural and logical outcome of your own words. But see, we cannot talk here!" and she glanced towards the people who had come up to them, and were listening eagerly.
"Come, my friend," whispered Mr. Brown, "you are honoured beyond all other men. I never knew her speak to any man as she speaks to you. Let us go to a place where I will take you, where we can be alone. Is she not a magnificent creature, eh? Did you ever see such a divine woman?"
"I'm perfectly willing," was Dick's reply, as he watched Olga move towards the man who had acted as chairman. Truly he had never seen such a woman. Hitherto he had been struck by her intellectual powers, and by what had seemed to him the spiritual qualities of her presence. But now he felt the charm of her womanhood. She was shaped like a goddess, and carried herself with queenly grace. Every curve of her body was perfect; her every movement was instinct with a glowing, abundant life. Her complexion, too, was simply dazzling, and every feature was perfect. A sculptor would have raved about her; an artist would have given years of his life to paint her. Her eyes, too, shone like stars, and her smile was bewildering.
A few minutes later they were in the street, Dick almost like a man in a dream, Mr. John Brown plodding stolidly and steadily along, while Olga, her face almost covered, moved by his side. Dick was too excited to heed whither they were going; neither did he notice that they were being followed.
They had just turned into a narrow alley when there was a quick step behind them, and a man in a police officer's uniform laid his hand on Olga's arm and said:
"You go with me, please, miss."
The girl turned towards him with flashing eyes.
"Take your hand from me," she said; "I have nothing to do with you."
"But I have something to do with you. Come, now, it's no use putting on airs. You come with me. I've been on the look out for you for a long while."
"Help her! Get rid of the man!" whispered Mr. Brown to Dick. "For God's sake do something. I've a weak heart and can do nothing."
"Now, then," persisted the policeman. "It's no use resisting, you know. If you won't come quiet, I may have to be a bit rough. And I can be rough, I can assure you!"
"Help! help!" she said hoarsely.
She did not speak aloud, but the word appealed to Dick strongly. It was sacrilege for the police officer to place his hands on her; he remembered what she had told him, and dreaded the idea of her being arrested and thrown into prison.
"You won't, eh?" grumbled the policeman. "We'll soon settle that."
Dick saw him put his whistle to his lips, but before a sound was made, the young fellow rushed forward and instantly there was a hand-to-hand struggle. A minute later the police constable lay on the pavement, evidently stunned and unconscious, while Dick stood over him.
"Now is our chance! Come!" cried Mr. Brown, and with a speed of which Dick thought him incapable, he led the way through a network of narrow streets and alleys, while he and the girl followed. A little later they had entered a house by a back way, and the door closed behind them.
"Thank you, Faversham," panted Mr. Brown. "That was a narrow squeak, eh?"
He switched on a light as he spoke, and Dick, as soon as his eyes had become accustomed to the light, found himself in a handsomely, even luxuriously, appointed room.
"Sit down, won't you?" said Olga. "Oh, you need not fear. You are safe here. I will defy all the police officers in London to trace me now. Ah! thank you, Mr. Faversham! But for you I might have been in an awkward position. It would have been horrible to have been arrested – more horrible still to be tried in one of your law courts."
"That was nothing," protested Dick. "Of course I could not stand by and see the fellow – "
"Ah, but don't you see?" she interrupted merrily. "You have placed yourself in opposition to the law? I am afraid you would be found equally guilty with me, if we were tried together. Did I not tell you? There is a price on my head. I am spoken of as the most dangerous person in London. And you have helped me to escape; you have defeated the ends of justice."
"But that is nothing," cried Mr. John Brown. "Of course, Mr. Faversham is with us now. It could not be otherwise."
Every event of the night had been somewhat unreal to Dick, but the reality of his position was by no means obscure at that moment. He, Dick Faversham, who, when he had advocated his most advanced theories, had still prided himself on being guided by constitutional methods, knew that he had placed himself in a most awkward position by what he had done. Doubtless, efforts would be made to find him, and if he were discovered and recognised, he would have a very lame defence. In spite of the honeyed way in which Mr. Brown had spoken, too, he felt there was something like a threat in his words.
But he cast everything like fear from his mind, and turned to the young girl, who had thrown off her cloak, and stood there in the brilliant light like the very incarnation of splendid beauty.
"I would risk more than that for this opportunity of talking with you," he could not help saying.
"Would you?" and her glorious eyes flashed into his. "I am so glad of that. Do you know why? Directly I saw you to-night, I felt that we should be together in the greatest cause the world has ever known. Do you think you will like me as a co-worker? Do you believe our hearts will beat in unison?"