Comrades: A Story of Social Adventure in California

CHAPTER XXVII
THE FRUITS OF PATIENCE

The next morning Norman asked Barbara to take breakfast alone with him in the little rose bower on the lawn where she had first announced her choice of work so oddly and charmingly.

She entered with a timid hesitation and a half-frightened look he was quick to note. He was sure from the expression of her eyes that she had not slept.

"You did not sleep well?" he asked.

"I didn't sleep at all," she confessed.

He attempted to take her hand and she drew back trembling.

"Now, you are afraid of me?"

"Yes. I'm afraid I am," she stammered.

"Why of me? The one man of all men on earth – the man who loves you?"

"Perhaps that's just why I'm afraid of you," she said, with an effort to smile. "But, to tell you the truth, I think it's just because you are a man. Last night I lay awake thinking it all over. I'm quite sure that I shall always be afraid of men. I like you better than any man I've ever known, but now that you've told me you love me I'm uneasy when I'm near you. I think you'd better give me up at once. I'm sure I'm hopeless as a sweet-heart. I know I could never marry. The domestic instinct seems utterly missing in my nature. I love man in the abstract, but I can never surrender to any particular man. It seems like suicide. I want to be myself. I hate the idea of losing myself in another's being – I can't endure it, and if you make love to me any more I shall be very unhappy – and – I'll have to keep out of your way. You won't do this any more will you? Promise me, and we will be our old selves again – just comrades."

Norman bowed with a smile.

"I promise never to speak another word of love to you until you tell me that you love me!"

"Honestly?" she laughed.

"On my word of honour," he answered, gravely.

"Then I shall be happy again," she cried.

"You will not try to avoid me?"

"No."

"You will help and cheer me in the work I've planned?"

"Every day," she promised.

"Then I shall bide my time." He drew the deeds to the island from his pocket and handed them to her.

"The title to a kingdom which I joyfully deliver by order of the queen-regent!"

"You are sure you do this because I asked you?"

"Do you really doubt it?"

"No," was the candid reply. "And I'll be frank enough to confess that I feel very proud of my power. You flattered my vanity as never before. You have put me under a sense of gratitude for which I fear I can never reward you."

"I have my reward in your approval."

She smiled and lifted her finger in warning.

"I'll not forget my promise," he said. "From to-day we understand each other perfectly. I am permitted to love you in silence. You graciously permit this as long as I am silent. In my wounded pride I have vowed that you yourself shall break this silence or it shall remain unbroken forever. This is our compact?"

"Yes," she answered extending her hand. He felt it tremble at his first touch and then rest contentedly and confidently in his strong grasp for a moment before they parted.

When once his decision was made, Norman threw every doubt to the winds and devoted himself with tireless zeal to establishing the Brotherhood on the vast scale he had originally planned.

In every step of the expanding life of the colony Barbara was his constant companion and silent inspiration.

The transfer of the property was duly made under Wolf's keen gray eyes, with every detail of the law carefully guarded.

A second colony of two thousand enthusiasts was landed and established in the new building. Under Norman's inspiring leadership their work was quickly organized.

A new central administrative colony of five thousand was planned, and the foundation of its buildings laid with inspiring ceremonies. The huge structure was formed in the shape of a quadrangle covering ten acres of ground. In the centre of the court rose the house of the regents, in reality a palace of imposing splendour. The assembly hall was located in the regents' palace and formed the dining-room of their colony. At one end of the magnificent room was placed on an elevated platform the table at which the board of governors would sit, while at each end of the table stood the gilded chairs of state to be occupied by the regent and his consort.

The scheme of imposing grandeur was suggested by Wolf. Norman objected at first, but yielded at last, convinced by his past experiences that a central authority of undisputed power was essential to the existence of any state founded on the socialistic ideal.

At each corner of the quadrangle a public building was placed connected by the dormitories; on one corner was placed a theatre, on another a music hall, on another a school and nursery, on the other a lyceum to be used for public gatherings of all kinds, religious, social, or political. Each section of the outer buildings was connected with the regent's palace in the centre of the court by covered walk ways.

The entire force of the four thousand members of the Brotherhood (except the farmers) were placed at work to complete this structure at the earliest possible moment.

A day before the annual meeting of the Brotherhood at which the board of governors and the two regents were to be elected for the term of four years, Norman established a daily newspaper, The New Era, and the event was celebrated in the evening by a banquet and ball.

As he walked among the joyous throngs of the Brotherhood as they moved through the brilliantly lighted ball-room he began to feel for the first time the conscious joy of a great achievement.

Beyond a doubt the Brotherhood was an accomplished fact. Its fame was stirring the world beyond their little island. Pictures of the future flashed through his imagination, and always in greater and more alluring splendour.

He saw himself becoming more and more the guiding spirit of the great enterprise. If men opposed his plans he would mould their wills in his.

Gradually he meant to remove the hard and painful elements of force on which the efficiency of the colony now rested. The discipline of an army with its stern laws of physical violence back of its clock-like precision was not to his liking. He winced at the thought of that grim relic of barbarism, the whipping-post, which they had found necessary to temporarily revive. The jail, guard-house, and penal colony were thorns in his flesh which he would remove at the earliest possible moment. The one excuse for their existence was the inheritance of evil in man's nature due to his wrongs and suffering under the system of capitalism. They would outgrow them.

Again and again he encountered Wolf and Catherine in the highest spirits, laughing, joking, chatting, shaking hands with each one they met.

Suddenly it struck him for the first time that he had a poor memory for names and faces. He wondered how Wolf could remember the name of the most obscure member of the colony without an effort. He had been so absorbed in the big problems of the Brotherhood that he had given little or no time to cultivating the personal acquaintance of its individual members. The arts of the politician were foreign to his nature. He had never stooped in his thoughts even to consider them. He had always lived in a different world.

Never for a moment had the idea occurred to him that he might have to fight for his position as leader of the colony which he had created, yet when he took his seat beside Barbara the following night to preside over the annual meeting, he was conscious instantly that through the crowd of eager faces before him there ran a strong current of personal hostility.

It was a disagreeable surprise. But as he recalled the many unpopular decisions he had been called on to make during the past year it seemed but natural there should be a lingering soreness in some minds. It was not until he saw Wolf in deep consultation with Diggs's glasses, and Catherine whispering to the smooth, gray-haired woman who had demanded the expulsion of Blanche, that he knew an organized plot had been formed to depose him from power.

His first impulse was one of blind rage. He recalled now with lightning flashes of memory the long hours Wolf and his wife had spent in soothing the anger of rebellious and troublesome members. At every public meeting he recalled their smiling faces at the door or moving through the hall. The whole scheme was plain, its low chicanery, its shallow hypocrisy, its fawning acceptance of his leadership! They had been patiently waiting for him to finish the work of strong, legal, invincible, powerful organization to step in and take the reins from his hands.

And they had done it with such consummate skill, such infinite care and patience, that not one of his own personal followers had discovered the plot.

When the smooth, gray-haired woman rose to nominate candidates for regent he knew, before she spoke, the names she would pronounce. He looked at her with a feeling of contempt and to save his life he couldn't recall her name.

She repeated her address to the chair with angry emphasis:

"Comrade Chairman!"

"I beg your pardon," Norman answered, "but I could not for the moment recall your name. The comrade on my right (the woman without a soul, he added in low tones) has the floor."

Barbara started at his tone of anger and whispered:

"How could you be so rude – what is wrong?"

"We are about to retire from office."

"What!" Barbara gasped as the little woman began to speak.

"Listen – you will understand," he said, with a sudden curve of his lip.

"Comrades," the deep, calm voice began, "I place in nomination for the office of regents for the four ensuing years the names of a man and woman whom every member of the old colony entitled to vote to-night has learned to love and honour – a man and woman whose ripe experience, whose sound judgment, whose sense of right, whose powers of reasoning, whose executive genius will give to us all the guarantee of perfect justice and perfect order – "

"You bet they will, old girl," Tom cried with enthusiasm, waving his hand admiringly toward Norman and Barbara.

The speaker paused, regarded Tom a moment with quiet scorn, and continued:

"I have the honour to name for the highest honour in the gift of the Brotherhood for the regency of the new State of Ventura Comrades Herman and Catherine Wolf."

"What's that you say?" old Tom yelled with anger, leaping to his feet, and glaring around the room in a dazed surprise.

The old miner was too shrewd a politician to doubt now for a moment the situation. He made the only possible attack on the programme that promised results.

"In view of the fact, feller comrades," he shouted, "that half the present members er this here Brotherhood have not been here long enough to vote, I move that in justice to the new members we postpone this election for six months."

Joe seconded the motion, and the chairman asked:

"Are there any remarks on the motion?"

The Bard moved as if to rise, when Diggs snatched him back into his seat.

Amid a silence that was ominous the chairman put the question:

"All in favour of postponing this election for six months that our new members may be able to vote will say 'Aye.'"

The response was feeble. Tom and Joe yelled very loudly, but their effort was obvious.

"All in favour say 'No.'"

The whole audience seemed to shout in solid trained chorus "No!"

Tom hastened to nominate Norman and Barbara. The old miner's speech was couched in plain, uncouth words, but they came from the heart and their rugged eloquence stirred the crowd with surprising power. Diggs glanced over the audience through his flashing glasses, and his perpetual smile faded into a look of uneasiness as a round of applause swept the house.

He tiptoed to Wolf's side and whispered:

"Any danger?"

"Not the slightest. I want him to get some votes. It's better so."

The programme went through without a hitch. Wolf and Catherine were elected regents by an overwhelming majority and a new board of governors chosen with not a single one whom Norman knew personally.

The young leader sat in sullen silence, and watched the proceedings with contempt. Barbara looked on in increasing wonder and pain.

When the result was announced and the cheering had died away she bent her beautiful head close to his and whispered:

"This is a complete surprise. You believe me?"

"Yes," he quickly answered, "and one touch of your hand will rob defeat of its sting."

She pressed his hand with lingering tenderness and sought Catherine with a flash of anger in her brown eyes that boded trouble for the house of Wolf.

CHAPTER XXVIII
THE NEW MASTER

Wolf lost no time in demonstrating that he was complete master of the situation.

At nine o'clock next morning two armed guards, whom he had never seen in the house before, entered Norman's room and handed him the first official order of the new regents. The deposed young leader read it with amusement at first, but as his eyes rested on its brief words of command, something of their sinister meaning began to dawn in his mind.

"All citizens of the State of Ventura are ordered to immediately surrender their arms. By order of

"Herman Wolf,

"Regent."

Norman looked at the revolvers in the holsters of the guards and dryly remarked:

"But the State will kindly continue their use, I see!"

Norman surrendered his revolver, and his room was searched in every nook and corner for weapons he might have concealed.

"Why this insult?" he demanded.

The guardsman saluted.

"Special orders of the regent, sir. We are to take no man's word for it."

Norman sat in silence while the men opened his trunks, ransacked his drawers, and searched in every conceivable spot where a weapon of any kind might be hid.

"I could have told you at first that I had no other guns. The entire colony is being disarmed this morning?"

"Yes, sir, the work will be completed by two o'clock."

"Indeed!"

The man fumbled in his pocket and drew out another order.

"And this one for you personally, sir."

"Oh – after the disarming?"

"Yes, sir!"

Norman read the second order and the lines of his mouth tightened suddenly. The note was brief but to the point:

"Comrade Norman Worth will report to the regent at ten o'clock for orders.

"Herman Wolf,

"Regent."

For five minutes after the guards had gone Norman stood in silence staring at this order. It was the first he had ever received in his life except the one from his own father which he had disobeyed.

To be driven into another man's presence to take orders as from a master to a servant was an idea that had never entered his imagination. He had seen such things. He had given orders, but he had never, somehow, counted himself in the class of men who took them.

For the first time he began to realize the meaning of the work he had been doing, and began to see how deftly and unconsciously he had been forging the chains of a system of irresponsible slavery on his fellow men. While the motive which impelled him was one of unselfish love, and he had thought only of their best interest, he saw now in a flash with what crushing cruelty this power could be used.

It all seemed simple enough when he regarded his own will as the centre and source of power. Now that another man had grasped the lever and applied this power, the whole scheme of artificial life which he had created took on a new and darker meaning.

What should he do?

His first impulse was to walk into Wolf's presence, denounce him as a scheming scoundrel, and defy his power. That Wolf would fight was not to be questioned for a minute. His first act of disarming the colony was a master-stroke, and the longer the young leader thought of it the more hopeless his present situation became.

Beyond a doubt Wolf had been selecting the new regent's guard with the same patience and skill with which he had executed his political coup. This guard was composed now only of his tried and trusted henchmen. A single false step on Norman's part would simply play into the wily brute's hands, and he would destroy himself at a single stroke.

He must use his brain. He must fight the devil with fire. He must submit for the moment, plan and work and wait with infinite patience, and when the work of patience was complete, then strike and strike to kill.

And yet the blood rushed to his heart and strangled with the thought of submission to such a man. But there was no other way. He had himself set the trap of steel he now felt crash into his own flesh.

To appeal to his father was unthinkable – his pride forbade it, even if it were possible.

To escape was out of the question. Every way had been cut and that by his own order. The mail was inspected. The steamer held no communication with the people of the island. No boat was allowed to land, and no boat, even the smallest sail or row boat, was permitted to a member of the Brotherhood on any pretext.

Besides, resignation or flight could not be thought of for another reason. To retreat now and leave thousands of people behind whom he had led into this enterprise would be the act of a coward.

There was nothing left except to fight it out on the lines he had himself laid down.

The one thing that hurt him most was the ugly suspicion that Barbara must have known something of this deeply laid scheme by which the Wolfs had gained control of the Brotherhood. And yet her surprise had been genuine, her anger real. He couldn't be mistaken about it. To believe her capable of such treachery and double-dealing was to doubt the very existence of truth and purity.

And yet, when he recalled how little he really knew of her past life, what dark secrets might lurk in the story of the years she had spent under the same roof with these people, he grew sick at the thought.

He knew now that the blond beast with the red scar on his neck and the slender, dark-eyed madonna-like mate who had always been his shadow were capable of anything. Two people who could smile in treacherous silence for a year and suddenly grip the throat of the man who had been their best friend, needed no written biography to tell their past. It was luminous. And in the glare in which he read it he shuddered at the sinister light it threw on the beautiful girl whom they had reared as their own.

He took from his mantel a little picture made one day in San Francisco by a tintype man. It was a singularly beautiful likeness of Barbara, taken on a sudden impulse without a moment's thought or preparation. Her laughing face looked out at him, wreathed in a garland of wayward ringlets of dark brown hair. Truth, sincerity, beauty, intelligence, and a childlike innocence were stamped in every line.

A thousand times since he had seen her just like that. And from the moment of their advent on the island this impression of girlish innocence and sincerity had grown rather than decreased. The more he saw of her in the simpler, quieter moments of their association, the stronger, deeper, and more tender his love became, and the deeper grew his utter faith in the purity of her soul and body.

"I'll sooner doubt an angel of God!" he said at last, as he placed it back on the mantel.

He would see Wolf at once, learn his plans, and then carefully make his own.

He dressed with care and at the appointed hour rapped for admission at the executive office where the day before he sat as master.

He was told the regent was busy with others and ordered to wait his turn. He flushed with anger, recovered himself, waited a half hour, and was ushered into the presence of the new ruler.

Wolf sat in the big revolving chair at his desk with conscious dignity and power. Two of his guards stood outside the door, grim reminders of the substantial character of the new administration.

Norman seated himself with careless ease without invitation and waited for the older man to speak.

Wolf smiled grimly, stroked his thick, coarse reddish beard, and looked at Norman thoughtfully a moment.

"Well, my boy," the regent began, with friendly patronage, "we'd as well come to the point without ceremony. You are down and out. The new board of governors will do what I wish. I am in supreme command of the ship of state. Do you want to fight or work?"

"It's a poor doctor, Wolf," Norman said, coolly, "who can't take his own medicine. I came here to work."

"Congratulations on your good sense!" the regent replied. "I've no desire to make trouble for you. I have nothing against you personally. I had to put you out and take command to save the colony from ruin. You meant well, but you were a bungling amateur, and you can be of greater service in the ranks than in command. I know you don't like me after what has happened, but you don't have to. I'll be generous. What sort of work would you like to have assigned you?"

"Thanks, that's very kind of you, Wolf, I'm sure. I believe the warden of every penitentiary is equally generous to all convicts. However, that's a minor detail, seeing that I assisted in the creation of this ideal world."

Wolf smashed the desk top with his big fist and suddenly glared at Norman, his cold eyes gleaming angrily.

"Come to the point! I've no time to waste! Have you any choice as to the kind of work to which you wish to be assigned?"

"I have a decided choice. Our mines have all failed. I'll redeem the failure by perfecting and completing the big dredge for mining gold from the low-grade sands on the beach."

"A waste of time and money," Wolf snapped. "I can't afford to spare the men on any more fool inventions. Such things must stop."

"You mean to stop all progress by stopping inventions?" Norman asked.

"So far as the State is concerned, yes," said the regent, with emphasis. "Under your slipshod administration we spent nearly two hundred thousand dollars during the past year on so-called inventions. Every fool in the colony has invented something. Not one in a hundred has produced an idea that is practicable. We cannot afford to waste the capital of the State in such idiocy."

"Give me twenty men and I'll complete the dredge."

"Labour is capital in the Socialist State. I can't afford to waste it."

"But you are not wasting it," Norman pleaded. "I've spent sixty thousand already on this invention. Unless the machine is completed the capital will be lost to the colony."

"It will be lost anyhow," Wolf answered, impatiently. "Your whole conception is a piece of childish folly. You can't make a profit operating a dredge in sand containing only twenty cents' worth of gold to a ton of dirt."

"I can do better," Norman urged with enthusiasm. "I can make a hundred per cent. on the investment if the dirt pans out ten cents to the ton. If it pans twenty cents a ton I can make millions."

"So every crank has claimed for his particular piece of idiocy. I'll not permit another dollar or another day's labour to be thrown away on any such crazy experiment."

Norman's face reddened with a rush of uncontrollable anger.

"Look here, Wolf, you can't be serious in this."

"I was never more serious in my life," the big jaws snapped. "I am going to issue an order to-day that hereafter any man or woman who conceives an invention can work it out himself without aid from the State. They must do this at odd hours after working the required time each day. They must put their own money into their machine."

"As the State only has capital," Norman protested, "this means the practical prohibition of all invention. No man can with his own hands make the machinery needed in the progress of humanity. We have abolished private capital by abolishing rent, interest, and profit. Do you propose thus to stop the progress of the world?"

"No," Wolf cried with a wave of his heavy hand. "Let the ambitious inventor work at night and build his own machine. I will grant, in my order on the subject, to each successful inventor the right to operate his own machine for ten years before it becomes the property of the State."

"Suppose he succeeds," said Norman, "under such hard conditions with his own hands and without capital in perfecting an invention of enormous value, such as the dredge I have begun, of what use will the results be if he cannot invest them in rent or interest, and all gifts and exchanges are prohibited?"

"He may build a home and lavish them on his wife and children, or he may become a great public benefactor and win the love and gratitude of the people by enriching the State and shortening the hours of labour. If your dredge can make a million, for example, as you claim – go ahead, work at night, perfect it, put it to work, build yourself a palace to live in, give millions to the Brotherhood. Shorten their hours from eight to four, and I'll guarantee you'll oust me from my position of power."

Norman's eye suddenly flashed with resolution.

"You will not grant me the labour to complete the dredge?" Norman asked.

"Not one man for one minute," was the curt reply.

"Then I'll finish it myself," Norman said, with determination.

"After you've worked eight full hours a day, under my direction – you understand!" the regent responded sullenly.

Norman sprang to his feet and the two men faced each other a moment, the big scar on Wolf's neck flashing red, his enormous fists instinctively closing.

"Wolf, this is an infamous outrage!"

"I'll teach you not to speak to me in that manner again, sir!" the regent slowly said, as he tapped his bell.

The guards sprang to his side.

"Show this gentleman to the barnyard – he is a good farmer. Put him at work with old Methodist John cleaning out the stables for the new cantaloup crop. He is very fond of cantaloups. If he makes any trouble tell the sergeant of your guard to give him thirty-nine lashes without consulting me."

Norman stepped closer, and, trembling from head to foot, said to Wolf:

"If ever one of your men lays the weight of his hand on me – "

"And yet we both agreed that under our system discipline must be enforced – the discipline of an army?" the regent interrupted.

Norman held his gaze fixed without moving a muscle, and slowly continued:

"If you ever try it, you'd better finish your job."

"I'll remember your advice," Wolf answered with a sneer. "Show him to his work."