Comrades: A Story of Social Adventure in California

The daily New Era received a number of protests against the outrage of the inventor's arrest and imprisonment. Two protests were signed by the names of the writers, Diggs and the Bard. There appeared in the paper a warning editorial against sneaks who, under cover of the cause of justice, were seeking to aid treason and rebellion against the State.

Diggs and the Bard were summoned before Wolf in person.

The regent fixed his gray eyes on Diggs, and the man of questions forgot to smile.

"You are not dealing with an amateur now, Diggs," Wolf said, with a sneer. "The insulting letter you wrote – "

"I – I – beg your pardon, Mr. Regent," Diggs stammered, "my questions were asked in the spirit of honest inquiry."

"I understand their spirit, sir," Wolf growled. "And don't you interrupt me again when I'm talking! Your article was seditious. I've a mind to imprison you a year, but as this is your first offence I'll simply transfer you from the department of accounts to that of garbage and sewerage. Report at once to the overseer."

Diggs's lips quivered and he tried to speak, but Wolf froze him with a look and he dropped to a seat.

"I said report at once, sir, to the overseer of the department of garbage and sewerage. Did you hear me?" Wolf thundered.

Diggs leaped to his feet stammering and retreating.

"Yes, sir! Yes, sir! Excuse me. I was only waiting for Comrade Adair, sir! Excuse me, sir, I'll go at once!"

He stumbled through the door and disappeared.

The Bard of Ramcat watched this scene with increasing terror. He had prepared an eloquent and daring appeal for freedom of speech. He tried to open his mouth, but Wolf's gaze froze the blood in his veins. His tongue refused to move. He sat huddled in a heap, trembling and shifting uneasily in his seat.

At length the regent spoke with sneering patronage:

"You wield a facile pen, Adair. I admire the glib ability with which you pour out gaseous matter from your overheated imagination."

The Bard scrambled to his feet and bowed low in humble submission, fumbling his slouch hat tremblingly.

"I meant no harm, sir, I assure you. A great leader of your power and genius can make allowances for poetic fervour. I'm sure you know that my whole soul is aflame with enthusiasm for our noble Cause!"

"Well, upon my word," Wolf laughed, "you're developing into a nimble liar! You used to be quite brutal in the frankness of your criticisms."

"But I see the error of my way, sir," the Bard humbly cried.

"Then I'll remit your prison sentence also and merely transfer you to the stone-quarry. We need more common labourers on the rock-pile there preparing the macadam for the court of the regent's palace. Report at once to the foreman of that gang."

"Thank you, sir," the Bard stammered, feebly, as he backed out of the room.

The poet bent his proud back over the stone-pile for two weeks and suddenly disappeared.

His hat was found on a rustic seat on a high cliff whose perpendicular wall was washed by the sea. Beneath this hat lay his last manuscript protest to the world. It was entitled:

"The Journal of Roland Adair, Bard of Ramcat." It was written in blank verse and proved a most harrowing recital of the horrors he had suffered at the hands of the tyrant regent. With eloquence fierce and fiery he called on the slaves who were being ground beneath his heel to rise in their might and slay the oppressor. He had chosen to die that his death-song might stir their souls to heroic action.

Search was made on the beaches for his body in vain. His wife's grief was genuine and a few of his friends gathered with her on the tenth day after his disappearance to express their sorrow and appreciation in a brief formal service.

Diggs was delivering a funeral oration bombarding Death, Hell, and the Grave with endless questions, when suddenly the Bard appeared, pinched with hunger, his clothes covered with dirt, his long hair dishevelled and unkempt. He had evidently been sleeping in the open.

His friends stood in wonder. His wife shrieked in terror.

The Bard solemnly lifted his hand and cried:

"I stood on the hills and waited for slaves to rise and fight their way to death or freedom. And no man stirred! Did they not find my death-song?"

Diggs spoke in timid accents:

"The regent destroyed it."

"Yes, yes, but before my death I anticipated his treachery. I left ten mimeographed copies where they could be found by the people. If they have not been found my death would have been vain. I waited to be sure. I've come to ask."

"They were found all right," his wife cried, angrily. "And if Wolf finds you now – "

She had scarcely spoken when an officer of the secret service suddenly laid his hand on the Bard's shoulder and quietly said:

"Come. We'll give you something to sing about now worth while!"

His wife clung to the tottering, terror-stricken figure for a moment and burst in tears. His friends shrank back in silence.

The regent had him flogged unmercifully; and Roland Adair, the Bard of Ramcat, ceased to sing. He became a mere cog in the wheel of things which moved on with swift certainty to its appointed end.

The social system worked now with deadly precision and ceaseless regularity. No citizen dared to speak against the man in authority over him or complain to the regent, for they were his trusted henchmen. Men and women huddled in groups and asked in whispers the news.

Disarmed and at the mercy of his brutal guard, cut off from the world as effectually as if they lived on another planet, despair began to sicken the strongest hearts, and suicide to be more common than in the darkest days of panic and hunger in the old world.

A curious group of three huddled together in the shadows discussing their fate on the day the Bard was publicly flogged.

Uncle Bob led the whispered conference of woe.

"I tells ye, gemmens, dis beats de worl'! Befo' de war I wuz er slave. But I knowed my master. We wuz good friends. He say ter me, 'Bob you'se de blackest, laziest nigger dat ebber cumber de groun'! And I laf right in his face an' say, 'Come on, Marse Henry, an' le's go fishin' – dey'll bite ter-day'! An' he go wid me. He nebber lay de weight er his han' on me in his life. He come ter see me when I sick an' cheer me up. He gimme good clothes an' a good house an' plenty ter eat. He love me, an' I love him. I tells ye I'se er slave now an' I don't know who de debbil my master is. Dey change him every ten days. Dey cuss an' kick me – an' I work like a beast. Dis yer comrade business too much fer me."

"To tell you the truth, boys," said a bowed figure by old Bob's side, "I lived in a model community once before."

"Oh, go 'long dar, man, dey nebber wuz er nudder one!" Bob protested.

"Yes. We all wore the same thickness of clothes, ate the same three meals regularly, never over-ate or suffered from dyspepsia; all of us worked the same number of hours a day, went to bed at the same time and got up at the same time. There was no drinking, cursing, carousing, gambling, stealing, or fighting. We were model people and every man's wants were met with absolute equality. The only trouble was we all lived in the penitentiary at San Quentin – "

"Des listen at dat now!" Bob exclaimed.

"Yes, and I found the world outside a pretty tough place to live in when I got out, too. I thought I'd find the real thing here and slipped in. What's the difference? In the pen we wore a gray suit. We've got it here with a red spangle on it. There they decided the kind of grub they'd give us. The same here. There we worked at jobs they give us. The same here. There we worked under overseers and guards. So we do here. I was sent up there for two years. It looks like we're in here for life."

"How long, O Lord, how long, will Thy servant wait for deliverance?" cried Methodist John, in plaintive despair. "If I only could get back to the poorhouse! There I had food and shelter and clothes. It's all I've got here – but with it work, work, work! and a wicked, sinful, cussin' son of the devil always over me drivin' and watchin'!"

John's jaw suddenly dropped as a black cloud swept in from the sea and obscured the sun. A squall of unusual violence burst over the island with wonderful swiftness. The darkness of twilight fell like a pall, and a sharp peal of thunder rang over the harbour.

John watched the progress of the storm with strange elation, quietly walked through the blinding, drenching rain to the barn, and drew from the forks of two trees a lightning-rod about thirty feet long which Norman had finally made for him in answer to his constant pleading. The tip of the rod was pointed with a dozen shining spikes.

John seized this rod, held it straight over his head, and began to march with firm step around the lawn. He walked with slow, measured tread past the two big colony houses to the amazement of the people who stood at the windows watching the storm. He held his lightning-rod as a soldier a musket on dress-parade, his eyes fixed straight in front. As he passed through the floral court between the two buildings he burst into an old Methodist song, his cracked voice ringing in weird and plaintive tones with the sigh and crash of the wind among the foliage of the trees and shrubbery:

"I want to be an angel,And with the angels stand,A crown upon my forehead,A harp within my hand."

Over and over he sang this stanza with increasing fervour as he marched steadily on through every path around the buildings, his rain-soaked clothes clinging to his flesh and flopping dismally about his thin legs. As the storm suddenly lifted he stopped in front of the kitchen, dropped his rod, and sank with a groan to his knees taking up again his old refrain:

"How long, O Lord, how long?"

Old Bob ran out and shook him.

"Name er God, man, what de matter wid you? Is you gone clean crazy? What you doin' monkeyin' wid dat lightnin'-rod?"

John lifted his drooping head and sighed:

"You see, neighbour, I don't like to kill myself. It's against my religion. It seems like taking things out of the hands of God. But I thought the Lord, in His infinite wisdom and mercy, might be kind enough to spare me a bolt if I lifted my rod and put myself in the way. If he had only seen fit to do it, I'd be at rest now in the courts of glory!"

"Dis here's a sad worl', brudder," Bob said comfortingly. "'Pears lak ter me de Lawd doan' lib here no mo'."

Before John could reply, a guard arrested him for disorderly conduct. The regent kicked him from his office and ordered him to prison on a diet of bread and water for a week.

The slightest criticism of his reign Wolf resented with instant and crushing cruelty. His system of spies was complete and his knowledge of every man's attitude accurate and full. Where-ever he appeared, he received the most cringing obeisance.

Especially did women tremble at his approach and count themselves happy if he condescended to smile.

CHAPTER XXXIV

A BROTHER TO THE BEAST

At the end of three months from the time he took possession of the dredge, Wolf's men had built five duplicates, and they were all at work. More than three thousand dollars' worth of gold he weighed daily and stored in secret vaults whose keys never left his grasp.

The new colony he landed in groups of two hundred at intervals of sufficient time to assign each new member to work where the least trouble could be given. The strictest search for arms and weapons of every kind was made before each person was allowed to land.

It took only about two weeks to bring the new group into perfect subjection. Spies reported every word of surprise and criticism that fell from the lips of a newcomer.

The overseer of each gang of labourers was required to complete the task assigned to him by the standard of the very best records labour had ever made, and to secure these results it was necessary to constantly lengthen the hours of each day's service. As the efficiency of labour decreased the entire colony gradually gravitated to the basis of convict service. As no man received more than food, clothes, and shelter there could be no conceivable motive to induce any one to work harder than was necessary to escape the lash of the overseer. Consequently the hours of labour were increased from nine to ten.

The one ambition now of every man was to win the favour of the authorities, and become one of the regent's guard, an overseer, or find relief from the hard, brutal tasks imposed on the great majority. The road to promotion could not be found in achievement.

The power to assign and enforce work was the mightiest force ever developed in the hand of man.

Under the system of capitalism wealth was desirable because it meant power over men. But this power was always limited. Under the free play of natural law no man, even the poorest, could be commanded to work by a superior power. He could always quit if he liked. He might choose to go hungry, or apply to the charity society for help in the last resort, but he was still master of his own person. His will was supreme. He, and he alone, could say, I will, or I will not.

Here all was changed. A new force in human history had been created. Wealth beyond all the dreams of passion and avarice was in the grasp of the regent and his henchmen. He wielded the most autocratic and merciless power over men conceivable to the human imagination – a power final and resistless, from which there could be no appeal save in death itself.

The results of this power quickly began to show in the development of life around the regent and each of his trusted minions.

By the time the theatre and music hall were finished and opened, Wolf had selected more than a hundred of the prettiest girls in the colony for the two stages.

His method of selection was always the same. The girl he desired he secretly ordered to be assigned to a dirty or disgusting form of labour. He allowed her to rave in hopeless anger at her tasks until she found that all appeal was in vain and her doom sealed.

He then made it his business to call, express his surprise at the task to which she had been assigned, and smile vaguely at her eager appeal for a change.

If she proved charming to the regent she was promptly assigned to the chorus of the State theatre and given luxurious quarters in the building adjoining.

Their tasks were light and agreeable. They studied music and dancing and elocution. But, above all, they studied day and night the art of pleasing the regent, whose frown could send any of them instantly to the washtub or the scrubbing-brush.

In like manner around the personality of each guard, overseer, secret-service man, superintendent, and governor of departments there grew a coterie of favoured ones whose position depended solely on the whim of the man in power.

The State only could manufacture arms. The State only could bear arms. And the system of law which Socialism developed was so full, so minute in its touch on every detail of human life, and so merciless in its system of espionage, the very idea of revolution was slowly dying in the despairing hearts of the colonists.

So sure was Wolf of his victim when once he had marked her, he was merely amused rather than displeased over Barbara's defiance of his wishes.

A few days before the opening and dedication of the regent's palace, when all his preparations were complete, Wolf summoned Catherine.

"I have here," he began, "my proclamation for the complete establishment of a perfect Social State. I publish it to-morrow morning. It goes into effect immediately:

"'From to-day the State of Ventura enters upon the reign of pure Communism which is the only logical end of Socialism. All private property is hereby abolished. The claim of husband to the person of his wife as his own can no longer be tolerated. Love is free from all chains. Marriage will hereafter be celebrated by a simple declaration before a representative of the State, and it shall cease to bind at the will of either party. Complete freedom in the sex-relationship is left to the judgment and taste of a race of equally developed men and women. The State will interfere, when necessary, to regulate the birth-rate and maintain the limits of efficient population.'"

"Which means for me?" Catherine inquired.

"That you are divorced and free to marry whom you please."

The woman uttered a cry of anguish, threw her arms around Wolf's big neck, and burst into sobs.

"Oh, Herman, surely you have some pity left in your heart! For God's sake, don't cast me out of your life in this cruel, horrible way!"

He turned his stolid face away with cold indifference.

She lifted her tapering hand timidly and smoothed the coarse hair back from his forehead with a tender gesture.

"Can you forget," she went on, in low, passionate tones, "all we have been to one another through the long, dark years of our fight with poverty and oppression? All I have done for your sake? That I broke my husband's heart – for he loved me even as I love you – I left my babies, and have never seen them since; broke with every friend and loved one on earth for you! Have you forgotten all I have done in this work? The tireless zeal with which I've fought your battles? Can you kick me from your presence now as though I were a dog?"

Wolf pursed his thick lips and scowled.

"No, I mean that you shall stay where you are and take charge of my new household. Barbara will need your assistance."

"Barbara!" she gasped.

"I have chosen her as the new regent," Wolf calmly answered. "I will announce our marriage at the dedication of the palace."

"And you think that I will accept such shame?"

"I'm sure you will!" he quickly answered with an ominous threat in his tone.

The woman sprang to her feet and faced him, her tall, lithe figure tense with passion.

"I dare you to try it!"

"Dare?" Wolf repeated in a low growl.

"I said it!" she cried, defiantly. "From the very housetop I'll shout the story of our life. I'll show you I'm a power you must reckon with – "

"And I'll show you," Wolf answered "that there's but one power that counts now in the world of realities in which we live – the elemental force of tooth, and nail, and claw – do you understand?"

He thrust his big, ugly face into hers and a look of terror flashed from her eyes as she saw his features convulsed with fury.

"Please, Herman!" she pleaded at last in a feeble, childish voice.

"You are still daring me?"

"No, I give up – surely you will not strike me!" she gasped.

"Not unless I have to," he answered, with cold menace.

CHAPTER XXXV

LOVE AND LOCKSMITHS

Barbara sat in the little rose bower on the lawn puzzling her brain for the thousandth time over impossible schemes to communicate with Norman.

From day to day she had watched with increasing fear the rapid growth of Wolf's cruel instincts under the conditions of tyranny he had established.

She had appealed in vain to every man in authority. Everywhere the same answer. The regent's power inspired a terror which no appeal could penetrate.

She started with a sudden thought. Among the guards who stood watch at Wolf's door was the nineteen-year-old boy who had acted as usher and shown Norman to a seat in the Socialist Hall the night they met.

She had caught a peculiar look in his face the last time she entered Wolf's office. Could it be possible he was in love with her in the helpless, heroic, boy fashion of his age? She would put him to the test. It was worth trying.

She found him on guard in the corridor outside Wolf's door, approached him cautiously, touched his hand timidly, and whispered:

"Jimmy, I'm in great distress."

"I wish I could help you, Miss Barbara," he answered in low, earnest tones, sweeping the corridor with a quick look.

"Even at the risk of your life?"

"I'd jump at the chance to die for you!" was the simple answer.

Barbara's voice choked and her little hand caught the boy's gratefully. His conquest was too easy, his love too big and generous! "I wish I could do it, Jimmy, without letting you risk your life, but I must see Norman."

"I'll help you if I can, Miss Barbara, but I don't know how. The jailer won't let me in without an order from the regent."

"I'll go in now," she went on, "get a piece of paper from his desk, forge the order, and sign his name. I can imitate his handwriting. I'll give it to you immediately, and watch until you get back to your post."

"I'll do it!" the boy answered, his eyes shining.

"Tell Norman," Barbara whispered, "that I have found Saka in the hills. He has built a skiff and has it ready to sail with his message for relief."

"I understand."

She entered Wolf's office unannounced and surprised him with her girlish buoyancy of spirit.

With a light laugh she sprang on his big desk, sat down among his papers, and deftly closed her hand over one of his small official order-pads.

"I cannot see Norman, to-day?" she asked.

"Not to-day, my dear. A little later, yes, but not to-day!"

He laughed carelessly and turned in his armchair to a messenger:

"Take that order to the captain of the guard and tell him to report to me at seven o'clock to-night."

While he spoke, the girl slipped from her place on the desk and thrust the order pad in her pocket.

"Then I'm wasting breath to plead with you?"

"Decidedly. But I congratulate you on the rational way you are beginning to look at things."

As she moved to the door she smiled over her shoulder: "Time will work wonders, perhaps!"

"I told you so," he laughed.

She hurried to her room and wrote the order signing Wolf's name without a moment's hesitation:

"Admit the guard bearing this order for the delivery of a personal message to the prisoner, Norman Worth.

"Wolf —Regent."

She stood at the window and watched the boy enter the jail. He stayed an interminable time! Each tick of the tiny watch in her hand seemed an hour. One minute, two, three, four, five minutes slowly dragged. Merciful God, would he never return? A thousand questions began to strangle her. Had Wolf suspected and played with her? Had the jailer recognized the trick and arrested the boy? Had Wolf discovered the boy's absence from his post?

She looked at her watch again. He had been gone seven minutes! The door of the jail suddenly opened and the boy appeared.

Her hand was tingling with a curious pain. She looked, and the nails of her fingers had cut the flesh as she had stood in agony counting the seconds.

The boy walked with leisurely precision as though on an ordinary errand for the regent. Barbara waited until he resumed his position on guard at the door and quickly reached his side.

He pressed a note into her hand, whispering:

"The jailer held me up at first – but I found him!"

Barbara glanced down the corridor with a quick look threw her arms around the boy's neck and kissed him tenderly.

He smiled, drew a deep breath, and said:

"Now, I'm ready to die!"

"No. To live and fight," she cried. "Fight our way back to freedom. You must help me!"

She turned and flew to her room. The note in her hand was burning the soft flesh.

She locked her door and read:

"Heart of My Heart:

"Iron bars have held my body but my soul has been with you! I've seen you walking among the flowers a hundred times and tried to force my message through the walls. I enclose a telegram to my father and one to the Governor of California. Send Saka to Santa Barbara with them. The troops should arrive in forty-eight hours. All I ask of God now is the chance to fight. I love you!

"Always yours,Norman."

She kissed the note, tore it into fragments, and burned the pieces.

When night had fallen, Jimmy safely passed the patrol lines, delivered his message to Saka, helped him launch the skiff, watched the little sail spread before a fair wind, and returned to his post.

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE SHINING EMBLEM

When Wolf's patrol telephoned two days later that a company of troops had suddenly landed on the other side of the island, he called the captain of the guard:

"A detail of men to move the gold aboard the ship. Order the steam up. I'll divide with you. We must beat those soldiers back until we can sail. Fight them at every possible stand as they cross the hills. I'll join you if the guard is driven in."