ROBERT C ROM IE 
 
 Author of 'A Plunge tiiio S

 
 A NEW MESSIAH
 
 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT CROMIE 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 A CRACK OF DOOM," " A PLUNGE INTO SPACE," 
 "A ROMANCE OF POISONS," ETC., ETC. 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 LONDON 
 DIGBY, LONG & CO. 
 
 1 8 Bouverie Street, Fleet Street, E.C. 
 
 1903
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. A CURIOUS COUNTRY HOUSE 
 
 II. A TERRIBLE ALTERNATIVE . 
 
 III. THE VENGEANCE OF THE VEHM. 
 
 IV. ANOTHER VICTIM . 
 V. THE FORBIDDEN ROOM 
 
 VI. THE DAWN OF LIBERTY 
 
 VII. THE NEW VEHMGERICHTE 
 
 VIII. A CHIEF OF POLICE . 
 
 IX. GREEK JOINS GREEK . 
 
 X. THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND 
 
 XI. CRUCIFY HIM ! CRUCIFY HIM ! . 
 
 XII. IN THE GREAT DEEP . 
 
 XIII. VAN RANNSLER'S FATE 
 
 XIV. THE MAN WHO WAS TAKEN ALIVE 
 XV. PEACE — AND WAR 
 
 PAGK 
 
 9 
 
 28 
 
 43 
 
 57 
 
 73 
 
 91 
 
 106 
 
 120 
 
 136 
 
 152 
 
 171 
 
 179 
 
 195 
 
 212 
 
 226
 
 8 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 XVI. PLIGHT 
 
 XVII. CAPTUEED . 
 
 XVIII. IN A STRANGE LAND . 
 
 XIX. A DUEL TO THE DEATH 
 
 XX. THE DEAD SLEEP DEEP 
 
 PAGE 
 
 . 243 
 . 264 
 . 279 
 . 295 
 . 310
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A CURIOUS COUNTRY HOUSE 
 
 The trees whined drearily as the breeze in- 
 creased and the withered foliage came fluttering 
 down, sometimes in single twirling spots of 
 yellow, bronze, or brown ; sometimes tumul- 
 tuously when the Angel of Death that was in 
 the frosty air breathed on it as he passed. 
 Many times a belated chestnut frond would 
 let go its grip, and hurtle awkwardly across 
 the twilight sky, like a bat out for his first 
 flight, and blinded by the last of the evening 
 afterglow. And always the wind droned most 
 lonesomely through the waving branches 
 aloft, barer by every blast, and, swirling round 
 the great trunks beneath, rustled the dying 
 leaves. 
 
 A young fellow and a young girl strolled to 
 and fro on the shaven sward. From their 
 animated manner and cheerfully frivolous con- 
 
 9
 
 10 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 versation, they were both apparently gifted 
 with a good store of the optimism of youth. 
 Their chatter was as irresponsible and inconse- 
 quent as the cawing of the homing rooks — and 
 as satisfying to themselves. In its way, the 
 scene might be called idyllic, but there was 
 a tragic element in it. It was the opening 
 scene, simple as it was, in a tragedy. A man 
 was looking on — watching it. In his hands 
 the tragic element was in good keeping 
 
 This man was well dressed, of medium 
 height, squarely built. Leaning lazily against 
 an oak tree with a mammoth trunk, he was a 
 noticeable figure in the rustic scene. But 
 even when he walked in Regent Street, or 
 strolled in the Park, this man did so with an 
 air that claimed attention. Once you saw 
 him you saw no one else — only a crowd. 
 There was a curiously evanescent expression 
 on his interesting face as he stood there leaning 
 against the tree. His eyes changed according 
 to the fitful tenor of his mind, with catlike 
 facility. They were tender, anxious, angry, 
 even ferocious in turn. His well-groomed 
 appearance, the slender white fingers with 
 which he stroked his strong chin, his dis-
 
 A CUKIOUS COUNTRY HOUSE H 
 
 tinguished manner, even the cut of his once jet 
 black and now grey-streaked hair marked him 
 for what the average man would describe in 
 a word — aristocrat ! He was something more 
 than that. ' 
 
 For some minutes, Leslie Zietsman watched 
 the young people saunter back and forth on 
 the lawn, with what might have seemed an 
 indolent interest. But his interest in them 
 was far from indolent. The girl was his 
 daughter, Nell ; the young fellow, Dick Beres- 
 ford, was almost her only companion of her 
 own age, or anything much nearer it than her 
 father's. Why her circle of friendship should 
 be so small, he himself only knew. It cer- 
 tainly was not owing to any want of attrac- 
 tiveness in the girl herself. As she and her 
 friend turned in their walk, and moved away 
 from him, Zietsman muttered : 
 
 "They are young and thoughtless — care 
 will come soon enough. They like each other 
 — and are glad. They may love each other, 
 and be happy — for a time. They will at least 
 be rich and greatly courted— while the money 
 lasts. While the money lasts! Faugh! 
 While Money lasts ! "
 
 12 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 The last enigmatical clause was added with 
 a vehemence which almost carried the speaker's 
 voice to those who had so innocently aroused 
 his temper. After he had spoken, Zietsman 
 waited for a moment irresolute. Then he 
 flung away violently the end of the cigar he 
 had been smoking, and went into his house. 
 His manner at the moment was as singular 
 as his monologue. 
 
 It was a curious country house this, some 
 twenty miles from London. Outwardly it was 
 remarkable for its splendid conservatories and 
 fine trees in the extensive grounds, and 
 inwardly for much that must wait for the 
 story. The master of this house spent most 
 of his leisure (which was slight), when at home 
 (which was seldom), in the largest of these, 
 conservatories. This fine structure abutted a 
 wing of the house facing directly away from the 
 main avenue, and overlooking a secluded 
 portion of the grounds which was kept abso- 
 lutely private by the erection of an enormous 
 gaol-like wall around it. The plot thus 
 enclosed was similar in character to the rest 
 of the domain save in one respect. In it you 
 were cut off, not only from the household,
 
 A CURIOUS COUNTRY HOUSE 13 
 
 but from all of the house except the particular 
 wing to which it was attached. It was as 
 completely isolated as though in a different 
 county. 
 
 Zietsman went at once to this conservatory 
 and stayed there for the remainder of the 
 evening, with a brief interval for dinner. Like 
 the house to which it belonged, the con- 
 servatory was in some ways a curious variant 
 on its type. Bright-plumaged little birds 
 twittered and nestled in miniature forests 
 of unfamiliar trees. Beautiful flowers from 
 many lands rioted in rainbow hues throughout 
 its whole extent : edelweiss from the moun- 
 tains ; lichens from the poles ; growths from the 
 ocean beds; — the ends of the earth had been 
 ransacked to fill this emporium from all lati- 
 tudes ; the depths of the sea contributed 
 to its marvels. Neither zone nor element 
 mattered. Herein no habitat was sacred. 
 Geography was abolished. 
 
 This extraordinary compound was strangely 
 lighted when the sun went down ; not by gas, 
 nor by electricity, but by some new illuminant, 
 beside which the handiwork of Edison and 
 Swan was of no more account than the rush-
 
 14 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 light of our fathers. For here was light itself 
 rather than its caricatures. Press a knob — up 
 rose the sun ! Touch a button, and the 
 daylight died ! This, in brief, was a practical 
 application of a recent invention or discovery 
 made by Zietsman, partly for the occupation 
 of his leisure, but mainly with an ulterior 
 purpose. Another more far-reaching develop- 
 ment of the same principle had already been 
 achieved by him, as will duly appear, but, 
 meantime, we are in the conservatory which 
 was in every way unique. It was here, in this 
 storehouse of miracles, that Leslie Zietsman 
 always retired, it was supposed, to work out 
 the more abstruse problems of the mysterious 
 business by which he had amassed a consider- 
 able fortune, of the real nature of which not 
 even his own daughter had the vaguest idea. 
 He often did unravel difficult mental puzzles 
 here, but on the present occasion he threw 
 himself into a chair, lit a cigar and said 
 p osaically enough for the most commonplace 
 surroundings : 
 
 "They will never miss me." 
 
 He did not speak in a hurt or complaining 
 tone, and in his voice there was now no
 
 A CURIOUS COUNTEY HOUSE 15 
 
 vehemence. He simply spoke as though he 
 stated an obvious fact. And he was rio-ht. 
 The young people did not miss him, or not 
 inconsolably. Zietsman did not read as he sat 
 there alone, or visibly occupy himself in 
 any way except by smoking placidly and 
 continuously. From time to time, and always 
 as he was lighting a fresh cigar, he glanced up 
 leisurely at a clock set in the wall opposite to 
 him, and muttered to himself audibly but with- 
 out impatience. He was expecting a visitor, 
 although the hour was late. The clock had 
 struck nine, and the sound of the last chime 
 was dying away when his man opened the 
 door leading from the house, and announced : 
 "Mr. O'Mara!" 
 
 " Very glad to see you, O Mara ; better late 
 than never I " Zietsman said, cordially, as he 
 arose to meet his visitor. O'Mara, an Irishman 
 and a detective— not always a congenial 
 profession for a full-blooded Celt — advanced 
 with enthusiasm, and exclaimed with a brogue 
 which age could not wither nor custom stale : 
 " Begob, I'm on their track at last ! " 
 O'Mara's circular face and close-cropped hair 
 gave him a bull-dog appearance, which was all
 
 16 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 one would remember of him — except his eyes. 
 Like those of his host, O'Mara's eyes were 
 peculiar. Think of the eyes of a carnivore robbed 
 of its kill, and you may, by exaggerating the 
 comparison, imagine O'Mara's. They were in- 
 human in their restless energy, incessantly 
 asking questions and seeking answers for them. 
 He could not, it is true, from the fold in a man's 
 trousers describe the hotel at which he was 
 staying, but he could make a fair guess at his 
 character by the way they bagged at the knee. 
 
 " I am very glad to hear it," Zietsman said, 
 warmly, in answer to O'Mara's exclamation. 
 " But that, important as it is, will keep. How 
 is the ' Caoutchouc Substitute ' going ? My 
 agents have not wired as they promised." 
 
 "Going!" said O'Mara, sharply. "It isn't 
 going. It's gone." He banged his fist on a 
 table fitted with every contrivance a smoker 
 could desire. " Yes, the ' Caoutchouc Sub- 
 stitute' is gone to — er — smash. It is prac- 
 tically taken up by your own agents." 
 
 " The wreckers again ! " Zietsman cried. 
 
 " Confound them ! " O'Mara added. 
 
 Zietsman arose from his chair and took a 
 few steps from it, then back to it. He kept
 
 A CURIOUS COUNTRY HOUSE 17 
 
 his eyes away from O'Mara, who watched 
 him with a sympathy that was more than 
 professional. The fact that Zietsman's scheme 
 was planned fundamentally to fleece the public 
 was a matter entirely outside the interest of 
 the man of law. The public had not retained 
 him in this particular business. Zietsman had. 
 
 " These miserable investors, will they never 
 learn that the wretches who pursue us are 
 preying on them ? " 
 
 "Not a bit of them," O'Mara interrupted. 
 " Besides, it was your own infernal pride. 
 You refused to square the papers — I mean 
 advertise. Divil thank you ! What could 
 you expect? " 
 
 " I did not advertise this, because I did 
 not think it necessary. The prospectus should 
 have floated itself, although it had not a title 
 on the title-page," Zietsman said, with a touch 
 of weariness as he resumed his seat. 
 
 " It should," O'Mara agreed, lighting a 
 cigar. " It should have swum, but it happens 
 to have sunk. My bit of money is gone too, 
 so I'm on this job with a heart and a half, as 
 the saying is. By the way, Mr. Zietsman, your 
 tips are very in-and-out sort of prophesying.
 
 18 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 One day you land a man on an extraordinarily 
 easy winner, the next you give him a non- 
 starter. But I'll say this, you always back 
 your own fancy." 
 
 " You will recover whatever money you have 
 lost," Zietsman replied, coldly, " and something 
 over before long." 
 
 " I hope so," O'Mara snapped. Then he 
 asked, " Is it too late for business ? Like to 
 hear where these gentlemen who wrecked the 
 ' Caoutchouc ' meet ? Name of street, number 
 of house, and such details ? " O'Mara ticked 
 off the items on his fingers with relish. 
 
 "Go on," Zietsman said, after a pause, in 
 which both men smoked silently — and watched 
 each other. " You have a clue ? " 
 
 " I have a dozen of clues. I have a well- 
 blazed trail. You yourself nearly had it when 
 you sent me to Edinburgh that last journey." 
 
 11 And you found ? " 
 
 "No I didn't. I didn't find anything. I 
 lost something there." 
 
 "Lost what?" 
 
 " I lost the trail there." 
 
 Zietsman passed the decanter, and O'Mara 
 helped himself without demur. " And you
 
 A CURIOUS COUNTRY HOUSE 19 
 
 tell me you have now discovered ? " 
 
 Zietsman was beginning again when O'Mara 
 interposed. 
 
 " I have discovered that some men meet in 
 an empty house, No. 25, John Street, Soho. 
 It seems stretching the long arm of coincidence 
 far to connect them with the wreckers of all 
 the companies you have floated, promoted, 
 financed, or whatever you call it, in the last 
 month. But I have more than suspicion to go 
 on. I have reasons for the opinion I have 
 formed, and later on, I will have evidence. 
 I am almost sure already they are your men. 
 On Friday next, I will be quite sure — or 
 sorry." 
 
 "Why, Friday?" 
 
 " Because I am going to grab the lot on 
 Thursday. That is their night, or one of their 
 nights, of meeting. By the way, Zietsman, it 
 does seem a bit 'off' doesn't it, that the law 
 should make such nice distinctions ; that it 
 should be so very legal to wreck a company 
 one way, and so grossly illegal to wreck it 
 another. These men certainly did lift a good 
 bit of your money, but others have done the 
 same, in a more respectable way, of course.
 
 20 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 Still there doesn't really seem so much 
 difference " 
 
 "Ethically, you mean," Zietsman corrected. 
 " Practically, there is a great difference. The 
 one ' operator ' goes to the House of Lords, and 
 the other to gaol. That is a serious difference." 
 
 " All the same," O'Mara persisted, " it's six 
 of one and half-a-dozen of the other." 
 
 "The positions, indeed, might often be 
 reversed with great propriety," Zietsman said, 
 airily, and deftly turned the conversation from 
 that phase of the subject. 
 
 They sat for another hour discussing the 
 possible capture and other matters unconnected 
 with it. Then O'Mara got up, threw his 
 cloak — which he had brought in with him — 
 carelessly over his shoulders, and said, with 
 an emphasis which suggested that the iteration 
 was intentional : 
 
 " About these John Street men ! Last time 
 you nearly put me on the right track. This 
 time there will be no mistake. My ar- 
 rangements are complete. The men are 
 mine." 
 
 " I hope so," Zietsman said, slowly ; " but 
 it would be a pity to spoil everything by being
 
 A CURIOUS COUNTRY HOUSE 21 
 
 in too great a hurry. Take my advice and — 
 er — let your plan mature." 
 
 " My plan's matured," O'Mara answered, 
 positively, and left the conservatory. A man 
 — the same who had shown him in — was 
 waiting in an adjoining anteroom to see him 
 out. As the strong light from the open door 
 of the conservatory fell full on this man's 
 face O'Mara started suddenly, and stepped 
 back. The man moved imperceptibly into a 
 shadow thrown by a dwarfed Japanese tree, 
 and the detective said with a laugh : 
 
 " Begob, Johnson, you gave me a start." 
 
 " I am not very well to-day, sir," Johnson 
 explained, suavely ; " and in the strong light 
 I am afraid my face is rather ghastly." 
 
 " Ghastly is not the word, Johnson. 
 c Ghostly ' is nearer it, but not quite right, 
 either," O'Mara rattled out. " It's something 
 curiously suggestive — er — illusive about your 
 face Johnson, that bothers me, and I hate to 
 be puzzled by a face. Professional interest, 
 you know, Johnson, purely professional. Your 
 face interests me. I'll think it over. Good- 
 night ! " 
 
 Johnson bowed Mr. O'Mara out with correct
 
 22 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 impassivity and closed the door with, as it 
 were, lingering regret. Then he went back 
 to the conservatory and had a little talk with 
 his master. When this was over, Zietsman 
 went quickly up the main staircase, and on 
 his way looked into a room which was called 
 the library, but which was more like a stock- 
 broker's office than a storehouse of literature. 
 Prospectuses were there in lieu of portfolios, 
 and great heaps of share lists instead of books. 
 A telephone instrument was out of place in 
 a chamber usually sacred to the classics. The 
 fire had burnt low. Before the remains of it 
 a young girl sat cosily curled up in an arm- 
 chair and fast asleep. The book which had 
 proved a sufficient soporific lay open on her 
 lap. Her dark hair fell in a silky mass over 
 her bosom. Her long lashes and well marked 
 brows showed black against the clear com- 
 plexion of her face. It is not given to many 
 to look attractive when asleep. This girl was 
 one of the happy exceptions. Her dreams 
 must have been pleasant. A soft tenderness 
 was on the sleeping face. A thousand little 
 loves played in the red curves of her parted 
 lips. To-night she was the sweetest child.
 
 A CUKIOUS COUNTRY HOUSE 23 
 
 To-morrow — but who knows what a day may 
 bring forth. Time is cruel. Time is always in 
 a hurry. And sometimes we would rather wait. 
 
 As Zietsman stood looking down at the 
 sleeping girl a wonderful change passed over 
 his face, altering its expression so absolutely 
 as to render him in appearance literally a 
 new man. There was more than tenderness 
 in his eyes — tenderness and remorse, perhaps 
 despair. The clenched fingers of his clasped 
 hands were painfully interlaced ; his attitude 
 was that of a man torn by intense mental 
 anguish and counter purposes. At last he 
 whispered, in a hoarse grasp : 
 
 " Ah Nellie, Nellie — and I would have died 
 for you ! " 
 
 Then he put aside his emotion, or the 
 appearance of it, and gently awakened the 
 girl. She started with a nervous cry, but 
 when she recognized her disturber, she said 
 with relief: 
 
 " Why, dad, you frightened me. I thought 
 it was a burglar." 
 
 " Nellie, you must not sit up in this way," 
 Zietsman remonstrated ; " you must be off 
 to bed at once instead of catching cold here."
 
 24 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 " Very well, I'll go on one condition," Nell 
 promised, " that you don't sit up here either. 
 It's horrible the way you lock yourself up in 
 this room night after night, with these hateful 
 financial papers. Besides, I really believe you 
 go to sleep. Last night I knocked at the 
 door ever so often and you never answered." 
 
 " You must not do that again, Nell," 
 Zietsman said, almost sharply. Then he added 
 hastily, in his usual manner with her : "I 
 was experimenting in what I might call the 
 higher Finance, and did not wish to be dis- 
 turbed. The way of the company promoter 
 is hard," he added, with a mirthless laugh. 
 
 " You were just asleep, that was all," Nell 
 protested. 
 
 " But, Nell, you really must not disturb 
 me here again — er — of course I heard you 
 last night. When I lock this door it means, 
 ' no admittance,' on or off business. It really 
 does." 
 
 "I wish you would not sit up so late at 
 night, and so many nights," Nell persisted a 
 little irrelevantly. " You are getting quite 
 old — not, of course, really old — I mean old 
 looking, this last year."
 
 A CURIOUS COUNTRY HOUSE 25 
 
 " Which is a pity — but you must not scold 
 me to-night. I am tired — or worried." 
 
 " Scold you ! The idea ! " Her disclaimer 
 was playfully cut short and further remon- 
 strance postponed. 
 
 An hour later, when the house was still, 
 a man with snow-white hair — a very old man 
 — stole out of it with as much caution as if 
 he had robbed it. He went by a curious way, 
 too. Having entered the library and locked 
 the door after him, he fumbled for a moment 
 at a massive bookcase standing in a corner 
 of the room. After many intricate devices 
 he released a confining- lever and moved the 
 heavy piece of furniture easily and noise- 
 lessly back on a hinge. A corridor was thereby 
 exposed, and as the old man entered this 
 passage the bookcase swung to again silently 
 and fastened itself automatically as firmly as 
 before. 
 
 The corridor was at first in absolute dark- 
 ness, but the old man carried a lamp which, 
 when he had shot back the shutters, showed 
 him sufficient light to see his way. He went 
 down many steep steps and then walked 
 quickly along a fairly level, concrete-walled
 
 26 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 passage which dipped under the foundations 
 of the house and outside ran for a considerable 
 distance under ground. The exit door from 
 this was opened by a repetition of the hocus- 
 pocus at the book-case, and the old man 
 emerged from the corridor in a garden-house 
 situated in the specially enclosed grounds and 
 some score of yards distant from the house 
 itself. There the old man put out his lamp 
 and went cautiously by an over-grown path 
 through the shrubbery to a little gate in the 
 high wall. 
 
 Passing through this gate, the old man 
 made his way with a facility that suggested 
 familiarity among some still denser wood to 
 a main road. This was not the highway off 
 which the avenue to the house ran, nor was 
 there indeed much similarity in the two roads, 
 although the distance between them was not 
 great. Slight as that distance was, the whole 
 character of the landscape was widely different. 
 On one side it was strictly suburban, notwith- 
 standing its distance from town. On the 
 other, the open country stretched out for 
 miles. Also, on the one road a heavy traffic 
 was in constant movement, while on the other
 
 A CURIOUS COUNTRY HOUSE 27 
 
 nearly an unbroken solitude prevailed. Here, 
 on this lonely road a cab was waiting. The 
 driver was not only awake but on the alert. 
 It was a strange place to expect a fare. 
 
 Into this cab the decrepit old man climbed 
 with the feebleness of age. He seated himself 
 with painstaking care, lest his old bones should 
 suffer, and the cab was immediately driven 
 off at speed on the way to London town.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 A TERRIBLE ALTERNATIVE 
 
 Next morning Zietsman was late for breakfast. 
 He usually kept shocking hours. Nell saw 
 with anxiety that the grey streaks in his 
 hair were showing more plainly than ever, 
 and that the crow's-feet under his eyes were 
 more deeply graven than she had thought. 
 Certainly, her protest of the previous night 
 had not been made too soon. Her father 
 was ageing fast. That truth admitted no 
 denial. It was too obvious. Under the 
 circumstances it was heartless, she told 
 herself, to think of young Beresford's visit, 
 a daily duty which was always promised 
 beforehand with as much earnestness as if 
 it had been preceded by a long series of 
 defaults. Under ordinary circumstances of 
 course such agreeable reflection would have 
 been pardonable — but her father was looking 
 far from well. 
 
 28
 
 A TERRIBLE ALTERNATIVE 29 
 
 During the day the brain -weary financier 
 brightened noticeably, and when the afternoon 
 and Dick Beresford arrived simultaneously, he 
 appeared to be almost in his usual health. 
 Dick and Nell spent the evening out of doors 
 as was their custom, so Zietsman was un- 
 disturbed at his studies in the library, to 
 which he retired early. He had important 
 business to discharge. This was Wednes- 
 day, and on the next night O'Mara's 
 coup was to be brought off. The 
 nefarious syndicate which had certainly 
 wrecked his last, and had most probably 
 wrecked many of his prior well-considered 
 schemes for the transference of other people's 
 money to his own banking account — this 
 syndicate's days were numbered. O'Mara 
 had as much evidence as would convict 
 the whole gang of various criminal con- 
 spiracies. 
 
 Nell could not induce the solitary librarian 
 to come to dinner that evening, but although 
 this gave her some concern, it must be 
 admitted that she and Beresford got on very 
 well without him. This was their first 
 tite-d-tete meal, and in the agreeable
 
 30 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 amenities of that novel experience they found 
 much to interest them. Altogether, they 
 bore the absence of the master of the house 
 with considerable fortitude. Their con- 
 versation had no particular narrative value, 
 save for one biographical interlude which may 
 be given. 
 
 " Isn't it strange, Nellie," (they had got 
 so far) said Beresford, when in another room 
 they had drawn their chairs up to the fire, 
 and within a measurable distance of each 
 other, " we know each other so little, yet 
 know each other so well ? Sounds paradoxical, 
 doesn't it ? " 
 
 " What does it matter how it sounds, when 
 it's true ? " said Nell. 
 
 " All the same," Beresford continued, " I 
 think we should tell each other at least 
 who we individually are now that we are 
 getting such — er — chums." 
 
 " J think it would be very desirable," Nell 
 agreed with great solemnity, " now that we 
 are such — er — chums." 
 
 " Then here goes," Beresford began deter- 
 minedly. " I live, as you know, over the 
 way — five miles over the way. My mother 
 
 &
 
 A TERRIBLE ALTERNATIVE 31 
 
 is an invalid, who does not go out, and does 
 not receive. That you also know, likewise 
 that I have passed my final in medicine. Now 
 for more light on this interesting subject ! 
 My uncle is a retired Indian officer, who lives 
 in Brighton as best he can, seeing he has 
 no liver. He proposes that I should go for 
 a voyage round the world, and then settle 
 down in a practice here, for both of which 
 he is willing to pay, so it's not for me to 
 object. I have no other near relations in 
 this country, a few cousins in Australia, and — 
 that's all ! " 
 
 " My name's Nellie — Eleanor Evelyn Ziets- 
 man, in full. We are not foreigners, although 
 ' Zietsman ' has a foreign look about it. My 
 father kept me at school, until I was 
 practically, if politely, turned out of it as 
 past the age-limit at the place. After that, 
 we have lived here when we are at home. My 
 father is — is something in the city. It is some- 
 thing bringing in plenty of money, which is not 
 a bad thing in moderation. But it is killing 
 him with anxiety, which is horrible. We 
 seem to spend an awful lot of money — I don't 
 know how; and live very retired — I don't
 
 32 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 know why. And I think that's really all 
 there is to say on my side." 
 
 Thereon the conversation changed to Beres- 
 ford's voyage round the world, and similar 
 extensive subjects of an impersonal nature, 
 so we need not follow it. When it was over, 
 and her partner in it gone — after many false 
 starts — Nell went to look for her father, but 
 found that, although he had spent some time 
 in the conservatory, he had not remained there 
 very long, and it was believed he had returned 
 to the library. Here, Nell did not care to 
 intrude in view of the warning she had so 
 recently received. Then with a touch of regret 
 for sending her "chum" away so early, only 
 to discover that her father did not desire her 
 society, she went to her room, and finding 
 some scrappy notes she had received from 
 Beresford, on various shadowy pretexts, she 
 read them all over again very carefully, lest 
 any important matters mentioned in them 
 might have heen overlooked. 
 
 Late that night the singular old gentleman 
 again left Beechmount by the same singular 
 and devious route. He met his cab at the 
 same place, got into it with the same feeble-
 
 A TERRIBLE ALTERNATIVE 33 
 
 ness of great age, and drove off at the same 
 smart pace on the road to London. Five 
 miles city-ward this cab was driven, and then 
 pulled up. The old gentleman stepped down, 
 said something to his driver in a low voice, 
 and dismissed him without the formality of 
 a fee. It seemed therefore that the cab- 
 man's job was a permanency, or that he 
 trusted his fare. A hundred yards further 
 on, another cab awaited the aged but now 
 more active traveller. In this he drove 
 right into the city. He paid this cab- 
 man off on the Embankment, and, calling 
 a hansom, drove to the neighbourhood of 
 Soho. 
 
 Very late that night, or very early next 
 morning, for the midnight hour was past, 
 a man so well muffled as to be almost dis- 
 guised, stopped at the door of 25, John Street. 
 There was nothing surreptitious about his 
 movements, and his gait would have been 
 recognised anywhere, by anyone who had ever 
 noticed it. Zietsman's particular swing, it 
 could not be called a swagger, was unmis- 
 takeable. He opened the door with a latch- 
 key, and went into the house. There was
 
 34 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 no one in the hall, but apparently he was 
 not expecting any one there, for he passed 
 on quickly with a strange confidence of 
 movement, considering the house and the 
 locality. He certainly knew his way. The 
 stairs creaked audibly as he went up the 
 worm-eaten steps, and sometimes there was 
 a crunch of rotten wood as he trod on a 
 mouldering patch. Up and up he went to 
 the garret at last, and there knocked in a 
 peculiar way on a closed door. A rough voice 
 bade him enter. He did so. 
 
 " You are late, Mr. Chairman," the same 
 rough voice said, harshly, as Zietsman entered 
 the room. 
 
 " That is my business," Zietsman answered, 
 coldly. He took his place immediately at 
 the head of a plain deal table, where it 
 seemed the seat had been reserved for him. 
 On this table, and all over the room, on chairs, 
 side-tables, and on the floor, prospectuses 
 of public companies were lying promiscuously, 
 in an untidy litter. There were only four 
 other men in the room at the time, but from 
 the unoccupied chairs, it was evident that 
 the company was unusually small. In fact,
 
 A TERRIBLE ALTERNATIVE 35 
 
 it was only the chiefs — the inner circle of the 
 society — who were present. 
 
 Two of these were in appearance ordinary 
 City men. They were really extraordinary 
 City men. Their faces were as well known 
 in the back streets of " Change " as that of 
 the speaker in the House of Commons. 
 They were perhaps the most efficient 
 company wreckers in the world — swindlers 
 with, at least, a European reputation. One of 
 the other two, he who had spoken, was a 
 coarse, sensual-looking, and in every way 
 repellent man. He is easily introduced. 
 He had many times oifended Society, and 
 in consequence Society had wisely put him 
 under restraint — for a time. Thereafter 
 Society had unwisely turned him adrift to 
 fend for himself, with no resource save to 
 prey on it. He was doing so. The fourth 
 was only a rascal on the make, a gentleman 
 beginning to go wrong, and taking an interest 
 in it. On the table, a shaded and shabby 
 oil-lamp shed a poor light and pungent fumes 
 over the apartment. Bad as this light was, 
 it showed where the plaster had fallen in 
 places from the walls and the sloped ceiling
 
 36 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 of the wretched room. Altogether, it was 
 the last place in the world, and the last 
 company, in which one would expect to find 
 a cultured suburban gentleman, with a taste 
 for company promoting, and the higher 
 finance. 
 
 " Is it all right ? " Zietsman asked, abruptly. 
 
 " Yes, it is all right," the heavy-faced man 
 answered shortly, and not in the best humour. 
 
 " What do we draw ? " 
 
 " Twenty thousand." 
 
 " Pah ! It should have been four times 
 that. It's not so very right then in that 
 direction, and it's all wrong in another." 
 
 " All wrong ! ' the four men exclaimed in 
 chorus. 
 
 " Yes, all wrong. That idiot, O'Mara, is 
 not so easily fooled as I thought. He has 
 happened on our real trail at last — by chance, 
 probably. He will be here to-morrow." 
 
 " Here to-morrow ! " 
 
 Down in the street below there was a crash 
 that shook the house. 
 
 " He is here to-night ! " Zietsman could 
 be imperturbable when he tried, but he 
 flinched for a second as he said this.
 
 A TERRIBLE ALTERNATIVE 37 
 
 " Heavens ! What is that ? " the heavy- 
 faced man gulped, with a fat gasp. 
 
 " It's the street door burst in," Zietsman 
 answered, now as cool as if he were receiving 
 company in his own house. The fat man 
 partially collapsed. The other three looked at 
 their chief steadily. They were courageous 
 men, and in addition they had a belief as 
 strong as faith that while Zietsman was with 
 them their courage would not be too severely 
 tried. They were wrong for once. There 
 are cracks in the best creed. 
 
 " The door inside is stronger," Zietsman 
 went on hastily. " It will stop them for some 
 minutes, unless they have a blasting charge. 
 I did not think O'Mara would be here to-night. 
 We must get away. You must get away. 
 Get out somehow ! Get on the roof ! Get 
 anywhere ! I can deal with O'Mara by 
 myself, but not if you are here." 
 
 To this Hemmingway, the fat man, said 
 half-heartedly : 
 
 " What do we care about the police any 
 more than you ? These " — indicating the 
 litter of prospectuses — " would not incriminate 
 us. If they did where do you come in ? "
 
 38 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 " When you get out," Zietsman snarled 
 His eyes were ugly. His expression had 
 altered at the first note of danger till his best 
 friend, if he had one, would hardly have 
 recognized him. He said suddenly and 
 savagely to Hemmingway : "I could have 
 you hanged, and you know it. And you, 
 you fool, you do not even know my name." 
 
 Hemmingway's blotchy face went white 
 in curious patches. He was not prepared for 
 Zietsman's sudden fury. He had never before 
 seen him in the ferocious mood. He was 
 overmatched as well as unnerved. But he 
 did not give in without a word. It cost him 
 dear. He went over to Zietsman and said 
 in a low voice so that the others should not 
 hear : 
 
 " I know more than you think. And I 
 will tell more than you expect — when it suits 
 myself." 
 
 " I shall remember that," Zietsman answered, 
 without looking at him. 
 
 While this wrangle was going on, the 
 other men waited with a stolid patience for 
 Zietsman's action. The futility of any ordinary 
 attempt at flight was too obvious to stand a
 
 A TERRIBLE ALTERNATIVE 39 
 
 moment's examination. So they did nothing 
 with the best possible grace, and waited on their 
 leader. He did not keep them long. Placing 
 a chair on one of the side-tables which he had 
 moved directly under the skylight in the roof, 
 he said quietly, but decisively, for there was 
 not a moment to lose : 
 
 " You had better chance it, gentlemen. The 
 inside door won't stand long if they hew 
 on it like that, and our side exit is already 
 in their hands." Great hammering could be 
 heard far down on the ground floor. To 
 Hemmingway, Zietsman cautioned : " You 
 are not active, so be careful. You may lose 
 your life if you do get out ; but you are certain 
 to lose your liberty if you don't." 
 
 All but Hemmingway got through the sky- 
 light without much trouble. The fat man 
 had a harder job to get his big body out. 
 Besides, he strongly objected to leave even 
 the temporary security of the garret for the 
 immediate danger of the roof. He had an 
 excellent head for brandy, but a poor 
 one for climbing ; and many a mountaineer 
 would have hesitated at this venture. It was 
 a terrible alternative, but it was too late now
 
 40 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 to flinch from it, for the door below was burst 
 in with a great crash, and there was the sound 
 of many feet running up the stairs. He was 
 already nearly out. Another moment and he 
 was on the roof — and sorry for it. 
 
 Willie Penrose, the youngest man of the 
 party, had, as has been suggested, still some 
 conscience left. He was waiting to help 
 Hemmingway up to the apex of the roof where 
 the other two had scrambled. As the second 
 pair crawled up the sloping roof Hemming- 
 way's nerve gave way utterly. He slipped 
 downward a couple of feet and caught 
 hold of Penrose who was keeping close to 
 him. 
 
 " For God's sake let me go ! " Penrose cried. 
 
 The men above shuddered, but did not stir. 
 
 " You'll drag us both down if you hold me 
 like that. Let me go and I'll help you up." 
 But Penrose might as well have pleaded in 
 ten fathoms of water with a man who 
 could not swim. Worse than that, he was 
 talking to a man in the most dangerous stage 
 of temporary insanity, a maniac, mad with 
 fear — murderous and suicidal. 
 
 " Come down ! ' Hemmingway whispered.
 
 A TERRIBLE ALTERNATIVE 41 
 
 " Down — down ! ' He clutched Penrose's 
 throat with his right hand, and, putting his 
 full weight on the strain, twisted his victim 
 head downward toward the eave. 
 
 The men above shut their eyes and held 
 on hard where they were. 
 
 Penrose did not plead any more. He cupped 
 his hands instinctivelv like suckers on the 
 smooth slates and strove desperately to hold 
 on. But they still slipped slowly down. The 
 perspiration broke in beads on the young 
 fellow's forehead. His breath came in great 
 gulps. Their slow progress was once, in some 
 unaccountable way, arrested, but before Penrose 
 could cry out for Zietsman's help his fast 
 paralysing hands let go, and they slipped 
 again. Half the street below was now in 
 their view. A little more and they were 
 staring — perpendicularly down. 
 
 " It will be a long drop," Hemmingway 
 said, in a conversational tone. 
 
 Penrose groaned once, then held his breath. 
 
 " Excuse me if I pain you, but I wish to 
 make sure that you will come with me," 
 Hemmingway added, and clutched Penrose by 
 the throat more tightly still.
 
 42 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 The men above heard the maniac jabber. 
 But what could they do ? 
 
 Penrose gasped with the choking grip on 
 his throat, and fought hard to hold on. The 
 street lamps seemed an abysmal depth down. 
 A midge in a great-coat stalked to and fro — 
 pretending it was a policeman. They would 
 be over in a moment. And then ! 
 
 Penrose's foot caught on a rafter where a 
 damaged slate had given way under them as 
 they were slipping down. There was a chance 
 of life yet. It would have been impossible 
 to drag himself back if the maniac had main- 
 tained his choking grip. But Hemmingway's 
 hysteria seemed to pass with this chance of 
 life, in so far at least that he lay still, and 
 did not hinder if he did not help his own 
 rescue. 
 
 They got back at last. How they did it 
 Penrose never really knew. He regained 
 normal consciousness to find himself holding 
 on to a shaky chimney, and Hemmingway 
 sitting astride the coping and chattering some 
 imbecile gibberish.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE VENGEANCE OF THE VEHM 
 
 O'Mara left some of his men to search the 
 lower rooms of the house while he himself, 
 with the remainder, made their way with 
 speed to the garret in which Zietsman was 
 waiting for them. They found him with a 
 sheaf of prospectuses in his hands. He did 
 not seem surprised to see them, and if he was 
 pleased they thought he disguised his satis- 
 faction very well. His manner was frankly 
 indifferent. 
 
 " Good night, O'Mara ! " Zietsman said, 
 coolly. " You don't wait to be asked to come 
 in, or knock, or any of that ceremonious 
 nonsense. You don't even wait for the front 
 door to be opened. You just walk in — and 
 bring it with you." 
 
 " In the name of heaven, Zietsman, what 
 are you doing here ? " O'Mara stammered. 
 He took a chair and sat down as if he were 
 
 43
 
 44 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 paying an afternoon visit. He really did 
 not know what he was doing for a full 
 minute. 
 
 " I am going over these," Zietsman answered, 
 throwing the papers on the table. " I see 
 they have been on our track longer than we 
 thought — since the beginning, indeed." He 
 looked sharply at the policemen and then 
 towards O'Mara. The detective asked his 
 men to step outside the room and wait on 
 the landing. Zietsman pushed the door to 
 after them and went on carelessly : " What I 
 said was good enough for your men. It is 
 hardly good enough for you." 
 
 " Hardly," O'Mara agreed, drily. 
 
 " Quite so. You meant to make a raid 
 here. I wanted to get some information here. 
 You could, no doubt, have sent the gang, if 
 you had caught them, to penal servitude. I 
 wanted to find out from them how the thing 
 was done. It would, I suppose, have been 
 your duty to warn them that anything they 
 said would be used as evidence against them, 
 and so forth. It would have been my business 
 to get all they knew from them and let them 
 go to— er — Spain without further interference.
 
 THE VENGEANCE OF THE VEHM 45 
 
 " If you convicted a score of men, or a 
 hundred, what difference would it make to 
 me ? You would have discharged your duty. 
 What do I care about you or your duty when 
 my own purpose — the purpose for which, 
 directly or indirectly, I employed you — is not 
 furthered ? The ends of justice ? Justice be 
 hanged. I want the money these men have 
 robbed me of, or the money their fellows will 
 continue to rob me of. You hunted them 
 down, I will admit. And possibly my inter- 
 ference has been ill-timed. If so, it's my own 
 loss. Anyhow, the birds have flown." 
 
 "So it seems. How did you get through 
 that inside door in the passage which we had 
 to burst in ? ' : O'Mara asked. His face was 
 now a mask as impenetrable as that of the 
 man to whom he spoke. In the stress of 
 circumstances the question was utterly un- 
 foreseen by Zietsman. It did not, however, 
 stagger him for a moment. 
 
 " If I told you that, O'Mara, you would 
 know as much as I do. I have a way of my 
 own of getting through doors ; and my way 
 is not your way." 
 
 " It is not," O'Mara said, stolidly.
 
 46 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 "No," said Zietsman, "it is not." He did 
 not add another word, pending O'Mara's next 
 move. He had not long to wait. 
 
 " You allowed me to tell you I was coming 
 here to-morrow night and did not think it 
 necessary to inform me that you proposed to 
 forestall me ? " 
 
 " I had not formed that purpose at the 
 time," Zietsman explained. " But we need 
 not argue the matter further. It seems as 
 if we have made a mess of it between us. 
 Perhaps I should not have come at all. And 
 you will forgive me if I say I don't think 
 you should have come — the way you have 
 come. They will hardly trouble this place 
 again when they find the front door off its 
 hinges, and the — er — other little structural 
 alterations you have made in the premises. 
 Oh, Scotland Yard ! " Zietsman cried in a 
 boisterous tone, as he pulled on his overcoat, 
 "The evil that you have done will long live 
 after you." 
 
 " How did you propose to communicate 
 with the Yard if the gang had turned up ? " 
 O'Mara asked, in the same frigid voice he 
 had used since he recovered from the shock
 
 THE VENGEANCE OF THE VEHM 47 
 
 of meeting Zietsman. " Would you have 
 surrounded them and taken them prisoners 
 as my illustrious countryman did the seven 
 French ? ' 
 
 " Something simpler would have served," 
 Zietsman answered, drawing on his gloves. 
 
 On this O'Mara arose, and stood with his 
 back to the door. It was an act of unconscious 
 caution on his part, for the policemen on the 
 landing would have prevented an escape if 
 it had been attempted. Zietsman observed 
 O'Mara's movement but paid no attention to 
 it. He went over to a corner of the room 
 where some ramshackle remnants of furniture 
 had been piled. These he threw aside and 
 discovered thereby a telephone instrument, 
 evidently newly fitted to the wall. 
 
 " I have had this place specially connected 
 with the Yard," Zietsman said, lazily, " for 
 this special business. It is strictly irregular, 
 of course, but even the official mind is amenable 
 to circumstances — some circumstances. Don't 
 ask me, just at the moment how I managed 
 it. It is too long a story to tell you now. 
 Some day, I may inflict it on you " 
 
 " I will put up with the infliction for the
 
 48 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 sake of the information," O'Mara snapped. 
 " Go on. You interest me extremely." 
 
 " So glad ! " Zietsman remarked, carelessly 
 and resumed : " I had to get the landlord's 
 consent here, too, but that was easier. He 
 charged liberally for it, however, and might 
 have kept my secret better. He must have — 
 er — acquainted his regular tenants. Sort of 
 esprit de corps, I assume. He is certainly the 
 greatest ruffian of them all. Better ring up 
 the Yard to see if the special wire has been 
 well and truly laid." 
 
 O'Mara rang on the instrument and was 
 answered directly. 
 
 " Who are you ? " O'Mara called. 
 
 " Ask me another," came back to him. 
 " Who are you ? " 
 
 " Peter O'Mara, at 25, John Street," 
 
 " Peter the Great ! " 
 
 " No. Peter O'Mara," the detective, said, 
 crossly. He was in no humour for the slightest 
 levity. Through the instrument came : 
 
 '* My remark was intended as a compliment. 
 This is the Criminal Investigation Department, 
 Scotland Yard. You've got them ? " 
 
 " No, I've missed them. Did you know
 
 THE VENGEANCE OF THE VEHM 49 
 
 there was another man in this ? And if so, 
 why wasn't I informed ? " 
 
 " He was only a harmless crank. We paid 
 no attention to him." 
 
 " You were quite right ; which remark 
 is intended as a sarcasm," O'Mara said, 
 bitterly, and replaced the receiver with a 
 smack. 
 
 "Will you answer me one question, Mr. 
 Zietsman ? What's your game ? I am — 
 directly or indirectly — your confidential agent, 
 you know. What is the real meaning of all 
 this tomfoolery ? " 
 
 " Current fiction ! " Zietsman answered, with 
 a shrug. " At the moment, no one can over- 
 look this branch of liberal education. One 
 might as well ignore gambling at Monte 
 Carlo, or golf at St. Andrew's, as the curri- 
 culum of the amateur detective in this 
 interesting city. Any further questions ? " 
 
 " Not at present," O'Mara said, and passed 
 out. 
 
 When the sound of the receding footsteps 
 had died away on the creaking stairs, and 
 the men who had occupied the commanding, 
 but otherwise undesirable, point of view from
 
 50 A. NEW MESSIAH 
 
 the roof were dragged back through the 
 skylight, Zietsman remarked, languidly : 
 
 " It was a close call that." 
 
 " Too close for us," one of the City men 
 said shortly, as he helped to bandage an ugly 
 tear on his friend's hand. "We have been 
 considering our positions while you were 
 interviewing your detective associate, and we 
 have come to the result that this is not quite 
 our line of business. So you will take our 
 resignations as from to-night, if you please." 
 
 " I will," said Zietsman, " and if I didn't 
 please I wouldn't take them." 
 
 Penrose was still very white. He had, by 
 no means, recovered from the recent shock. 
 Hemmingway was absolutely livid. The 
 latter poured out a glass of raw spirits from 
 a flask, but his hand shook so he could hardly 
 raise the tumbler to his lips. When he did 
 manage this the glass clattered uncannily 
 against his chattering teeth. Fortified for a 
 few moments and then half dazed by the 
 liquor, Hemmingway proposed an immediate 
 retreat, and his suggestion was quickly acted 
 on. " Resignation," he said, thickly, as they 
 prepared to go, " hardly describes the position,
 
 THE VENGEANCE OF THE VEHM 51 
 
 nor disband — dispersed by the police is nearer 
 the mark, but even that is better than arrested 
 by the police." He laughed vacuously at his 
 own obviously accurate remark and when 
 halfway through his hilarity stopped abruptly 
 and burst out crying. He was still very 
 hysterical. 
 
 Zietsman was the last to leave the room. 
 Before following his friends, or associates, he 
 went to the telephone which, though still 
 uncovered, had not been noticed by the others. 
 What he said into the instrument was there- 
 fore heard by no one but himself— and the man 
 at the other end of the wire. It was a short, 
 but important message, and it had a far-reaching 
 influence on the future careers of the extra- 
 ordinary City men whose resignations had 
 been recently accepted. The men all left 
 the house by an alley which led out in another 
 street some distance from that by which 
 O'Mara had entered it, where indeed he had 
 still a number of men posted on the watch. 
 As Zietsman and his party were hurrying 
 along this foetid quagmire, Hemmingway 
 lagged behind. His slow waddle was not a 
 speedy gait at best and where the "going"
 
 52 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 was so unconscionably heavy, it was the worst 
 possible means of transit. Approaching the 
 street which by comparison might be called 
 a thoroughfare, Penrose noticed that the com- 
 pany was a man short, and drew Zietsman's 
 attention to the absentee. 
 
 " Which reminds me," Zietsman said enig- 
 matically, and then added : " Push on to the 
 street. I'll go back for Hemmingway and 
 drag him on. You have had your share of 
 him, Penrose, for one night " 
 
 " A number of nights," Penrose corrected. 
 
 " And it would not be fair to give you 
 another turn with him. Wait for me — I mean 
 us— at the corner. But don't show yourself 
 in the street. You, gentlemen — to the resigned 
 members — I will not detain further. You 
 are free from this moment. You can go, if 
 you wish, straight to Scotland Yard with a 
 full account of this night's proceedings. But 
 it is only fair to tell you that — er — in fact, 
 you are expected there. They will be, so to 
 speak, waiting up for you." 
 
 " What do you mean ? ' one of the men 
 asked through his set teeth. " How do you 
 know that we've been informed on ? "
 
 THE VENGEANCE OF THE VEHM 53 
 
 " I know it because I informed on you 
 myself. I did so before leaving our committee 
 room. I have had a telephone fitted up there, 
 which, I noticed, escaped your attention. 
 Good-night ! " 
 
 Zietsman went back up the alley and the 
 others hurried on towards the street, two of 
 them swearing at length and with emphasis. 
 Penrose said nothing. 
 
 " Well, lazybones, can't you get up a bit 
 more speed than that ? ' Zietsman said, in a 
 friendly voice, when he encountered Hemming- 
 way groping his way, ankle-deep in the mud. 
 " Take my arm, and I'll give you a tow." 
 
 Hemmingway put out his left arm which 
 was nearest Zietsman, and muttered crossly : 
 
 " Here, take hold of me and haul me on. 
 It has been quite an interesting night out, 
 all things considered." He stopped and said 
 passionately, " It's the last for me at all 
 events." 
 
 " It is ! " said Zietsman. 
 
 Zietsman raised the arm outstretched to 
 him as though to get a firm grip of it. He 
 held it up a moment and, passing his free 
 hand under it, did something which caused
 
 54 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 Hemming way to start violently and then sit 
 down in the mud in which he had been stand- 
 ing. Hemmingway pressed both his hands 
 convulsively to his side ; cleared his throat 
 once or twice in an unconvincing way as 
 though he wished to speak but had forgotten 
 what he wanted to say. Then he sank 
 down on his side, turned over on his face, 
 and lay still. 
 
 " Where's Hemmingway ? ' Penrose whis- 
 pered, when Zietsman joined him — alone. 
 
 " He's all right, come on ! ' : 
 
 " They hurried on for many streets without 
 further speech, and at last Zietsman hailed a 
 belated hansom. In this they drove to the 
 Embankment. They alighted there and walked 
 a hundred yards before Zietsman spoke. He 
 stopped suddenly and said : 
 
 " Steady ! Wait a minute. It is as I 
 expected. • I was followed to No. 25, and 
 there's the man talking to the cabby who 
 was to wait for me here." Continuing in 
 the staccato sentences in which he was 
 speaking, Zietsman gave Penrose his orders : 
 "Remain here in the shadow. I am certain 
 to be followed. This isn't a man of O'Mara's.
 
 THE VENGEANCE OF THE VEHM 55 
 
 His men are probably after us too. We must 
 dodge this fellow if we can't out-drive him. 
 He is sure to have a cab. There it is. You 
 can scarcely see it from here. When my man 
 drops his whip and stops, you slip in. They 
 need not know there are two of us. I do not 
 wish them to know that there are two of us. 
 Understand ? " 
 
 Penrose assented and took his place. Ziets- 
 man walked on openly ; hailed his hansom with 
 apparent unconcern ; got into it and drove 
 back toward Penrose's hiding place. At 
 this point the cab stopped as arranged, and 
 the cabman ofot down from his seat and went 
 back a few paces looking for the whip which 
 he had dropped according to his instructions. 
 He was nearly run over by another cab which 
 was following at a furious pace. Before the 
 strong language used by both cabmen had 
 subsided, Penrose was in the first hansom 
 along with Zietsman. The pursuers must 
 then be engaged only on a tracking down ex- 
 pedition, for if they intended any immediate 
 action they could not have had a better oppor- 
 tunity. Thus the race began. 
 
 "About Hemmingway!" Penrose said, as
 
 56 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 soon as they were bowling along at the best 
 pace the horse could show. " You did not 
 tell me how you got rid of him." 
 
 " I did not." 
 
 " You said you were going to bring him 
 along." 
 
 " I did. But you see I did not bring him 
 along. In short, and to dismiss an uninterest- 
 ing subject, Hemmingway had ceased to be 
 useful to me. From a remark he let fall be- 
 fore you took him out on the roof I gathered 
 that it was his intention to become dangerous 
 to me. There could, of course, be only one 
 end to that." 
 
 " What on earth do you mean ? What 
 happened to him ? " 
 
 The answer was short : 
 
 " The Vengeance of the Vehm ! "
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 ANOTHER VICTIM 
 
 Zietsman's driver tried several smart tricks 
 to elude the pursuers, but they would not be 
 shaken off. They stuck closely to the chase, 
 and the interminable lines of lamps and 
 suburban avenues were still with them when 
 the foremost horse began to show distress. No 
 doubt the following horse must be equally hard 
 pressed, but he was not worse, for no alteration 
 in the pace made the least difference to the 
 length of the lead. The streets at last were 
 behind them, the terraces followed, and even 
 the villas became slowly fewer and farther 
 between. Yet the pursuit still kept on, not a 
 yard was gained, nor a chance of easing the 
 foaming horse further than what was afforded 
 by the macadam under his hoofs instead of the 
 paving of the streets. The rattle and clatter 
 of the two horses and cabs, which had crashed 
 through silent thoroughfares with a riot that 
 
 57
 
 58 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 made many a sleepy policeman stare, was now 
 reduced to a more melodious hum on a road 
 dulled with the mud of recent rain, A 
 thick crust coated the racing cabs ; the 
 hedges went past in two vague lines of con- 
 tinuous but ragged shadows ; the cold night 
 wind rushed refreshingly in the faces of the 
 excited travellers. But whenever the first 
 horse broke from the hard trot into a harder 
 gallop the second horse did the same, until the 
 cabs rocked like boats on a beam sea. At 
 last after a hard fight they neared the place 
 where Zietsman had another cab waiting, 
 and this, he thought, must surely bring a 
 change. 
 
 The driver of the leading cab was then told 
 that he had only another mile to go, and a 
 good road, so he flogged his horse again into a 
 gallop, and the animal, an old racer, seemed to 
 grasp the meaning of the spurt for which he 
 had been asked. It meant that the race had 
 yet to be won — which it would be hardly 
 reasonable to suppose could interest him. But 
 it also meant, to the best of his recollection of 
 the old days on the flat, that the race was 
 nearly over — and that was cheerful news. He
 
 ANOTHER VICTIM 59 
 
 stretched himself out with a colourable cari- 
 cature of his old form and made that hansom 
 cab spin. A faint streak of dawn broadened in 
 the east, and the darkness was lifting all round. 
 There was not light enough yet to have driven 
 with any accuracy on a difficult or crowded 
 highway, but this road was good and there was 
 neither man, beast, nor vehicle on it, as far 
 ahead as the driver could see. Of what may 
 have been beyond that not very distant limit 
 he had no idea. But he gave the horse a slack 
 rein, and the length of his lash ; balanced 
 himself as well as he could on his swaying seat, 
 and took his chance. 
 
 The fresh horse was waiting at the appointed 
 place, which fortunately for those who were 
 trying to escape — was round a sharp bend in 
 the road. Zietsman and Penrose jumped down 
 from one cab and into the other smartly, and 
 the race began again. There were now three 
 in it, with about a hundred yards between each. 
 The driver of the empty cab in the middle 
 slowed down according to orders, and allowed 
 himself to be gradually overtaken. The last 
 cab soon drew level with him, and the drivers 
 of these two walked their blown horses and
 
 60 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 exchanged irrelevant observations on the 
 regrettable indiscretions of each other's 
 parents. The police who were in the last 
 cab, never suspected that the man they 
 wanted, or whose place of abode they 
 wanted, was now rattling along behind a 
 fresh horse a mile ahead. It was an easy 
 win after all. 
 
 It was nearly daylight when this cab got 
 to Beechmount. Zietsman dismissed the man 
 on the back road, and led the way through the 
 wood to the postern gate in the high wall. 
 Penrose, who had not seen the place before, 
 followed without comment. He knew Ziets- 
 man's often irritable disposition too well to 
 worry him with inconsequent questions, and his 
 own brain was still in a whirl from what he 
 had undergone that night. He had become 
 indifferent to such a commonplace as going 
 round by a back door to a man's house when 
 the front gate was open. He had temporarily 
 lost the faculty of surprise. Thus, without the 
 interchange of a sentence, the two men passed 
 into Zietsman's grounds ; into the garden 
 house ; into the corridor connecting it with 
 the house itself; and finally faced each other
 
 ANOTHER VICTIM 61 
 
 in the library — still silent. Zietsman was the 
 first to speak. 
 
 "I shall show you your room now. I am 
 rather tired. I wish to have a long talk with 
 you in the morning." 
 
 " I wish to have a short talk with you now," 
 Penrose said, resolutely. 
 
 " No, no ; I tell you I am tired. What you 
 want to say will keep a few hours." 
 
 " It won't keep five minutes. It's about 
 Hemmingway. I understand that you are 
 connected in some way with this atrocious 
 assassination society, the New Vehmgerichte 
 as they call themselves. You were always 
 full of surprises but this beats all previous 
 experiences and some of them were sufficiently 
 outrageous. Now about this man, Hem- 
 mingway ; I take it that you murdered 
 him ? " 
 
 "'Killed' is the term. You are verv 
 careless in your language." 
 
 " If you don't like my language you can 
 leave it. What I want to know is this. If 
 Hemmingway threatened you — I thought I 
 overheard something like that— so that you 
 found it necessary to — murder him, was
 
 62 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 it quite worth my while to hold on to 
 him on the roof at the risk of my own 
 life ? " 
 
 " I understood it was he who held on to 
 you f 
 
 " Well, have it so. But I did try to save 
 1m. 
 
 " Why should you weary me and worry me 
 with this ? Why didn't you let him drop 
 into the street ? It would have saved trouble 
 — later." Zietsman spoke very harshly. His 
 livid face was haggard. Normally handsome, 
 it was not now a pleasant sight. Many a man 
 would have shrunk from it. Penrose was not 
 yet done with it, and would not give up until 
 he had said his say. 
 
 "I suppose if I, too, had fallen into the 
 street " 
 
 " You would certainly have been killed. 
 Existence would still have been possible 
 for mankind — and me. If that sounds rude 
 blame yourself." 
 
 " And if this sounds rude, you can blame 
 yourself. When I heard how handsomely you 
 dished Hibbert and Forbes (the extraordinary 
 City men) I thought I could not follow a
 
 ANOTHER VICTIM 
 
 63 
 
 better model, so I did a little informing on 
 my own — about Hemmingway." 
 
 " Zietsman's haggard face hardened in a 
 flash. Penrose did not flinch. He stood his 
 ground and held his head up. 
 
 " This is rather interesting. What did you 
 do ? " Zietsman asked, quietly — too quietly. 
 
 " I sent a card to O'Mara telling him to 
 search that blind alley for Hemmingway's 
 body." 
 
 " How did you send it ? " 
 
 " I gave it and a sovereign to the man 
 who drove us out of London. He will be at 
 O'Mara's address by this time." 
 
 " Dear me, is that all ? " Zietsman said, with 
 so pointed an affectation of relief that a closer 
 observer than Penrose would have suspected 
 the relief was not wholly affected. Zietsman 
 searched one pocket and then another care- 
 lessly, as one will feel for a trivial coin or a 
 tradesman's bill (matters easily mislaid) ; and 
 presently found what he sought. He threw 
 a coin and a card on the table and said, 
 languidly : " There is your sovereign and your 
 card." 
 
 " It is certainly my card," Penrose muttered,
 
 64 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 picking it up, " the card which I gave to the 
 
 man." 
 
 " The card which you gave to my man," 
 Zietsman corrected He went on in a voice 
 that was almost sympathetic : "I am rather 
 sorry about this. But I had really no alter- 
 native. You know they will find that 
 Hemmingway was stabbed with a dagger, for 
 they will find the dagger itself. It has on 
 one side of the hilt, the motto of ' The New 
 Vehmgerichte.' The blade is almost an exact 
 copy of the historic weapon." 
 
 " It is making history," Penrose commented. 
 
 " Our motto is on one side of the dagger. 
 Your name is on the other." 
 
 '■ My name Penrose gasped with staring 
 eyeballs. 
 
 " Yes. We always do this to throw the 
 police off the trail. The man whose name 
 is on the dagger can always prove an alibi — 
 or nearly always prove it. I am doubtful 
 about your's, however. I am afraid the dagger 
 and that cab drive will be connected. A man 
 was seen escaping -one man escaping. You 
 remember the police who followed us only 
 saw one man get into the cab ? But get to
 
 ANOTHER VICTIM 65 
 
 bed and have a good sleep. You will want 
 all your wits about you to-morrow. Put the 
 whole thing meantime out of your mind — yes, 
 this is your room — or you will have only night- 
 mares instead of sleep. It isn't any good — 
 comfortable room, isn't it ? — dreaming of your 
 alibi. What we have to do — lovelv view in 
 the early morning — is to prove it — if it can be 
 proved. Good-night ! or Good morning ! " 
 
 Zietsman had scarcely closed the door when 
 he re-opened it and said, impressively : 
 
 " By the way, don't get wandering about 
 in your sleep. There is a room in this wing 
 in which I should not like you to awake from 
 a somnambulistic tour. And you would not 
 like it either. Good-night again, and don't 
 forget what I have just told you." 
 
 What he had just said troubled Penrose 
 not at all. Such a triviality was easily for- 
 gotten in what had preceded it. And that 
 returned with new force as soon as he was 
 alone. "The Vehmgerichte, the Vehm- 
 gerichte ! " he groaned as he writhed in the 
 bed. " The most wanton murderers since the 
 Middle Ages ! They have reduced murder to 
 more than a fine art; they have made it an 
 
 5 
 
 V
 
 66 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 exact science. I shall be hanged for the death 
 of Hemmingway, or assassinated if I tell the 
 truth about it and incur its vengeance — 'the 
 Vengeance of the Vehm,' as he said. And I am 
 another victim. Oh, my God! what is this thing 
 that I have done ? Why did I ever associate 
 with this man — this monster, Zietsman — I have 
 
 sold myself body and soul — I — I " and so 
 
 on, writhing and tossing in mental anguish. 
 
 A strange thing happened to Penrose when 
 the torture had become almost insupportable. 
 He fell sound asleep and had a refreshing 
 rest. How much this may have been owing 
 to absolute physical exhaustion, and how much 
 to a powder, which Zietsman mixed in a 
 glass of wine he had made him swallow, it 
 is not necessary to determine. But the 
 morning came all too soon, and with it the 
 knowledge of his hopeless position, and his 
 helplessness to better it. He thought long, 
 and thought hard, and in the end he came 
 to a decision, which was so obvious he might 
 have reached it sooner. He expressed his 
 thought aloud as he stepped out of bed : 
 
 " Zietsman is the only human being who 
 can save me — if he will ? "
 
 ANOTHER VICTIM 67 
 
 " Of course he will," Zietsman himself 
 interposed, in an agreeable voice, as he opened 
 the door, and entered the room. So admirably 
 was his appearance timed to fit the words 
 he might almost have been listening on the 
 landing. 
 
 " Certainly I will save you — if you make 
 it worth my while," Zietsman continued as 
 cheerfully as if he had come into the room to 
 announce breakfast. " But of course you 
 will make it worth my while." 
 
 " It doesn't seem as if I had much choice," 
 Penrose remarked not very cheerfully. " You 
 took some pains to cut off my retreat." 
 
 " I did," Zietsman agreed. " It was, as 
 I hinted, necessary for various reasons." He 
 poured out a draught, and offered it to Penrose, 
 saying, " Drink that off. It will pull you 
 together. It isn't poison." 
 
 " I wish it was," Penrose answered shortly, 
 and tossed off the drink. For a short time 
 he was almost disappointed to find it was 
 not fatal. Later, when his strength increased, 
 and his spirits rose somewhat, he was glad 
 it was both harmless and invigorating. You 
 must not suppose, however, that even then
 
 68 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 he felt on intimate terms with his physician. 
 That he should speak to such a man at 
 all — and speak before long courteously, 
 if not cordially — would have puzzled him- 
 self, if he had chanced to think of it. But 
 he was temporarily incapable of normal 
 thought. 
 
 The two men breakfasted by themselves, 
 in a room overlooking a wide lawn kept 
 so carefully that there was not at first a trace 
 on it of the leaves which must have fallen 
 overnight. But as they sat over their meal, 
 little points of russet and gold flickered on 
 the still air, and then, where they fell, 
 stippled the green sward. The majesty of 
 the great ancestral trees, which spread their 
 giant arms across the lawn, gave it the 
 appearance of a corner in a park, or some 
 grand domain, wherein an old abbey, or its 
 ruins, might shelter secure from the blasts of 
 centuries. 
 
 " These old trees," Zietsman said dreamily, 
 in answer to a listless question from his guest, 
 " date back to the mists of history. They 
 must have been well grown in the good old 
 days, when England was Merry England ;
 
 ANOTHEE VICTIM 69 
 
 when witches were properly sought out, and 
 correctly drowned ; and men and women were 
 roasted alive for a matter of opinion ; and 
 the thumbscrew and the rack testified to the 
 glory of the Lord." 
 
 It was not an exhilarating speech. Penrose, 
 whose appetite was slight, pushed away his 
 plate with a gesture of disgust which was 
 hardly well-mannered. Zietsman himself ate 
 sparingly, and his guest might feast or starve 
 as he pleased. That was his host's method 
 of hospitality at all times, and it fitted the 
 present case exactly. Nor was Penrose 
 worried either to talk about his perilous 
 position, or refrain from talking about it. 
 If he did speak of it, Zietsman said a few 
 words reassuringly. If he changed the 
 subject, Zietsman made no objection. With 
 one adjunct of the meal, Penrose would 
 gladly have dispensed — the man who served 
 it. That this man broke no plates, moved 
 noiselessly, always seemed to be where 
 he was wanted, and never where he was not ; 
 that he was altogether an ideal servant did 
 not weigh with Penrose. He disliked the 
 man, — why, he could not tell intelligibly. 
 
 V
 
 70 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 That the man had picked up some subordinate 
 tricks of movement, manner, and even speech 
 hitherto associated only with Zietsman himself 
 should not have been surprising, and was not 
 without precedent. Characters like Zietsman 
 unintentionally, and often unconsciously, stamp 
 their own personality more or less vividly on 
 most of the humanity which surrounds them. 
 Nevertheless, Penrose disliked the man who 
 waited at table, with or without reason. The 
 man of course noticed nothing. How could 
 he ? — a serving man ! 
 
 When they had finished breakfast, or the 
 pretence at it, Zietsman led the way to the 
 lawn, offered his cigar case, and then for the 
 first time took the initiative in speaking 
 of the dreadful event of the previous night. 
 
 " I am going to town," he said, in the 
 easy manner which is usually the accom- 
 paniment of a good conscience. " I shall 
 keep absolutely clear of financial business 
 for some time, but I have other matters as 
 important to attend to — if that were possible," 
 he added with a rather bitter smile. " I 
 shall be away most of the day, and probably 
 have news for you in the evening. Keep 
 
 >>
 
 ANOTHER VICTIM 71 
 
 up your heart, and don't leave the grounds — 
 or this portion of them. The man who 
 waited on us at breakfast will get you every- 
 thing you require. It will be safer so." 
 
 " That man gives me the creeps," Penrose 
 said irrelevantly. 
 
 " What, Johnson ? Nonsense ! " 
 
 " It may be nonsense. There doesn't seem 
 much sense in anything lately. Anyhow, 
 if you go to town, I wish you would take 
 Johnson with you. He gets on my nerves. 
 You might as well take him out of this, 
 and let me have peace — while it lasts." 
 
 "Johnson is indispensable — to me," Ziets- 
 man replied, coldly, " and necessary — to you." 
 
 The incident was closed. 
 
 "Before you go, Zietsman, will you answer 
 me a couple of questions ? " Penrose pleaded, 
 as his mysterious host turned to leave him. 
 
 " It depends," Zietsman answered with 
 a smile. 
 
 They walked a few steps on the gravelled 
 path. 
 
 "It is only to relieve my mind. You 
 surely don't take pleasure in unnecessary 
 cruelty." 
 
 V
 
 72 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 " You may assume that." They turned 
 again, and retraced their steps. 
 
 "Then tell me why you were so anxious 
 to implicate me in this murder — oh, curse 
 it, I mean — er — killing — last night, and this 
 morning you seem not unwilling to get me 
 out of it." 
 
 " I will tell you — but not now." 
 
 " Was it true then, what you said about 
 the dagger having my name on it ? " Again 
 the sentry-go on the path was paced. 
 
 " Quite true." 
 
 " It will be the first thing they will look 
 for, when they find the man — the thing he 
 was killed with." 
 
 " I should not be surprised if it was the 
 first thing they looked for." 
 
 Penrose made a gesture of despair. 
 
 " But they might not find it, you know," 
 Zietsman added, and changed the subject. 
 Shortly afterwards he left the house in haste, 
 and Penrose to the cheerless comfort of his 
 own company.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE FOKBIDDEN ROOM 
 
 Penrose spent a miserable morning wandering 
 round the portion of the grounds to which 
 he had been warned to keep. His nervous 
 system had been seriously upset by the 
 events of the previous night, but even that 
 tragic memory, he found, was almost sup- 
 portable, in comparison with the strain of 
 waiting and waiting for he knew not what. 
 He fancied that hidden eyes were watching 
 him from every shrub ; every tree-trunk had 
 a potential policeman behind it ; and at last, 
 his nerves in rags, his heart thumping as if 
 it would burst, he came on what he had so 
 vividly foreseen. A man was brushing some 
 dead leaves on a bye-path. His whole 
 bearing, the tender, not to say lazy way in 
 which he swept up the fallen leaves ; the 
 
 73 
 
 s.
 
 74 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 overdone familiarity with the handling of 
 his brush ; the very angle of the crook in 
 his back might easily have imposed on a 
 casual observer, but not on a man with 
 Penrose's quickened perceptivity. With that 
 lightning-like induction by which the mind, 
 under stress of circumstance, will, in far- 
 fetched fiction, tear the heart out of a mystery, 
 and in prosaic fact leap to a wrong conclusion, 
 he summed up the man before him. A 
 gardener forsooth ! A policeman in disguise ! 
 The man, of course, was really a gardener, 
 and the shock with which Penrose discovered 
 his own induction to be wrong, was useful 
 in so far as it nearly made him laugh, and 
 thus relieved the strain on his nerves — for 
 a couple of minutes. But before long he was 
 hard at it again, locating a Vehmgerichte 
 assassin in every clump of underwood, deducing 
 a detective from every bush. He had fretted 
 himself into a distressing state, when Johnson 
 intervened, with the announcement of lunch. 
 Penrose could not eat. It occurred to him, 
 however, that if he could make even the 
 poorest pretence at food, it would give him 
 an excuse to drink. And he was so far run
 
 THE FORBIDDEN ROOM 75 
 
 down by this time, that he must find some 
 form of relief, whether deleterious, or other- 
 wise. 
 
 Johnson did what slight service was 
 necessary at table, and by way of distraction 
 Penrose observed the man more closely 
 than he had hitherto done, and tried to 
 analyse more intimately his own feelings 
 towards him. There was really nothing in 
 Johnson's appearance, to justify the extra- 
 ordinary repulsion which Penrose felt. His 
 manner was as near perfection as possible. 
 He was neither obsequious nor familiar, 
 neither unduly servile nor offensively in- 
 dependent. But this made no difference to 
 Penrose, who shrank with an animal-like 
 intuition whenever the faultless serving-man 
 came near him. Where had he seen the 
 man as well as his mannerisms before ? Had 
 he ever seen him before ? If not, how explain 
 the curious feeling of personal grievance against 
 a man he had never seen before ? And so on, 
 until he decided the whole question in the 
 only sensible way — he himself was over- 
 wrought, and hypersensitive, and there was an 
 end to it. 
 
 V
 
 76 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 After some half-hearted efforts, Penrose 
 gave up the attempt to eat, but he drew liber- 
 ally on the decanter. Fortified, temporarily, 
 thereby, he went back to the grounds, and 
 made bold to smoke. He did not really wish 
 to smoke, but he must pass the time away 
 somehow, and it helped to naturalize the 
 abnormal situation. So, lighting a cigar, 
 and walking past the detective-gardener of set 
 purpose to enjoy the improvement in his own 
 nerves, he commenced to explore leisurely the 
 limits of his liberty. 
 
 The grounds were surrounded on all sides, 
 so far as he could see, by the high boundary 
 wall, through which he had passed with 
 Zietsman on the previous night. The portion 
 of these to which he was confined, was 
 walled off separately, as has been described, 
 and overlooked only by one wing of the 
 house — that in which he had slept, and had 
 had his meals. At one end of this wing, the 
 enormous conservatory — more like that of 
 a public Botanical Garden than the " bit 
 of glass" belonging to a private house- 
 arrested his attention. He must have seen 
 this sooner, only that on leaving the house
 
 THE FORBIDDEN ROOM 77 
 
 in the morning, he had walked away from 
 it with his head bent, his eyes downcast, his 
 wits wool-gathering. The size and appearance 
 of the conservatory now struck him with 
 surprise. One of the doors, he found, was 
 unlocked. He opened it, and went in. While 
 he is exploring, a brief reference may be made 
 to the Society, of which he stood in unaffected 
 terror. 
 
 The New Vehmgerichte at this time was 
 fast making a name for itself in the records 
 of European and Transatlantic crime. As 
 to the real motives of the Society, only 
 the wildest surmises were current. Its 
 foundation, organization, membership, all 
 these were mystery. But its actions were 
 sufficiently atrocious to startle the most stolid 
 and shock the most reckless. Murder so 
 wanton and unprovoked had never been done 
 before, except by maniacs. And certainly, 
 never before had maniacs displayed such 
 impenetrable ingenuity in hiding themselves, 
 while advertising their crimes. These crimes 
 were all curiously alike in that respect. So 
 far from the slightest attempt being made 
 to cover their transgressions these criminals
 
 78 NEW MESSIAH 
 
 boasted of them. Their victims were always 
 done to death in some place so public, or 
 by some means so barbarous, or were persons 
 of such prominence, that there was no chance 
 of the deed's being overlooked, if the doer 
 of it was never traced. The last of these 
 three conditions was almost always fulfilled, 
 that of the quality of the victim. No matter 
 where the man was murdered, or how he was 
 murdered, he was nearly always a prominent 
 man, often a man of world-wide reputation, 
 whether for good or evil did not seem to 
 matter. The victim must be well known : 
 how he was known was a matter for himself. 
 This terrible Society had published its 
 sinister name — The New Vehmgerichte — 
 around the world. No genius had been able 
 to discover its secret : no police were able 
 to cope with it : no nation was free from 
 it. It had declared war upon Society, and 
 was waging it literally to the death. The 
 victorious general home from a great killing ; 
 the humane statesman engaged in remedial 
 legislation ; the princely spendthrift dissi- 
 pating his own fortune ; the Trust King- 
 collecting the fortunes of others ; every man
 
 THE FORBIDDEN ROOM 79 
 
 whose name was known three blocks away from 
 his own street door, went with good cause in 
 fear of it. You can judge then, of the feelings 
 and fears of a young fellow like Penrose, when 
 he found himself in the toils of such a body, 
 and apparently under the immediate sur- 
 veillance of one of its most ferocious, if 
 polished, agents. 
 
 The temperature inside the conservatory 
 was higher than was at first agreeable, 
 but Penrose found that in a few minutes 
 one became accustomed to it, and did not 
 suffer from it. This was partly owing to 
 the quality of the air, the temperature of 
 which was regulated by what may be called 
 natural instead of artificial means. It was 
 warmed by true solar heat instead of mere 
 furnaces or steam pipes. Whilst speculating on 
 the extraordinary nature of the place into which 
 he had drifted by chance, Penrose suddenly 
 became aware of something more interesting 
 than even this most extraordinary con- 
 servatory. 
 
 She was picking a bunch of splendid blooms, 
 too gorgeous for the aesthete who sometimes 
 confuses decayed optic nerves with esoteric
 
 80 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 culture. She had a basket nearly full of 
 flowers and was heaping it up. She was good 
 looking, had a very winning expression, and 
 was very neatly dressed. It was also all too 
 evident that she was Leslie Zietsman's 
 daughter; but that could not be helped. 
 Penrose came forward, mumbled something by 
 way of introducing himself and asked if he 
 might assist. Anything in the nature of a 
 distraction would have been welcome to him, 
 as we know, and what more delightful form 
 could any distraction assume. Nell bowed and 
 said pleasantly that she hoped he was better. 
 
 " Oh, yes," Penrose answered " as well as I 
 am likely to be." The last clause was added 
 in an inaudible "aside." 
 
 " I am very glad. My father was anxious 
 about you this morning ? " 
 
 " He is very kind," Penrose said coldly. 
 The reference was not happy. 
 
 " I always think," Nell went on with a 
 pardonable and pretty enthusiasm, " that he 
 troubles himself far too much about people, 
 many of whom never thank him for his 
 kindness — Oh, gracious, I don't mean you ! ' 
 Nell's sudden dismay and the little ripple of
 
 THE FORBIDDEN ROOM 81 
 
 laughter following it brightened Penrose's face 
 somewhat, but he said gloomily enough : 
 
 " Mr. Zietsman is far too generous." On 
 which he immediately changed the subject — 
 for a few moments. 
 
 The girl gave him the basket to hold, as he 
 wanted to do something for civility's sake, and 
 clipped more of the great blossoms which were 
 hanging overhead. While she was doing so, 
 Penrose had time to recognise a new feature, 
 to him, in Zietsman's complex character. He 
 had evidently retained his daughter's respect 
 as well as love. Nell was too frankly sincere 
 to be doubted for a moment. Was it the fatal 
 fascination which the greatest criminal so 
 often possesses for the most innocent ? Or 
 was the girl too — no, no, that was unthinkable. 
 These reflections were interrupted by Nell 
 who said, still harping on a topic which was 
 dear to her : 
 
 " Some people don't believe my father to be 
 nearly so tender-hearted a man as he really is." 
 
 " You surprise me," Penrose protested, with 
 a wan smile. He did not again try to turn 
 her from the subject which he would have 
 gladly forgotten.
 
 82 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 " But, of course, they do not know him 
 properly," she continued, in all innocence. 
 
 "Indeed they do— not." The last word 
 came slowly. 
 
 " Those who really know him " 
 
 " Hope to see him hanged," Penrose 
 reflected. 
 
 " Know his real worth." 
 
 " They do," he agreed. 
 
 " Are you one of those who know my father 
 very well, Mr. Penrose ? " 
 
 " I may say that I am," he admitted. 
 
 " Ah, then you will understand him better 
 than the others ; the outsiders ! " 
 
 " Yes, I think I understand him better than 
 most. I have had — er — exceptional oppor- 
 tunities for studying him." 
 
 " It is very good of you to speak so kindly," 
 the girl said, with a grateful touch of colour in 
 
 her face. 
 
 " Don't mention it," Penrose deprecated, 
 drily. Then he went on more positively. 
 " Believe me, Miss Zietsman, if you yourself 
 knew as much about your father as I do you 
 would understand that— er — I have said too 
 little, rather than too much."
 
 THE FORBIDDEN ROOM 83 
 
 " I am sure from the way you speak you 
 understand him thoroughly." 
 
 " I shouldn't like to say quite that," Penrose 
 reflected. By this time the heaped basket was 
 incapable of holding another bunch, so Nell 
 took it from him and turned to go into the 
 house. 
 
 " Won't you come ? ' she asked. 
 
 " If you wish it," he answered. 
 
 " Well, of course, if you don't wish " she 
 
 was beginning when she seemed to recollect 
 an instruction, and broke off. Then she 
 added with a playful, shy look, which 
 sent him tingling. " I forgot, you are 
 practically an invalid and so must be 
 humoured and " 
 
 " Coaxed ! ' he suggested, tentatively. 
 
 " Coaxed ! ' she repeated. " And — and — " 
 
 " Petted ! " he ventured boldly. 
 
 At this they both laughed, and he noticed 
 that her eyes were even finer than he thought 
 at first. 
 
 " We'll waive the petting — for the present," 
 the girl said, with another playfully roguish 
 look, "and consider the coaxing, coaxed. The 
 immediate question is — Are you coming in ? " 
 
 V
 
 84 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 " The immediate answer is that I am 
 practically an invalid — and very weak. Will 
 you — take my arm ? " 
 
 She hesitated for a moment — and took his 
 arm. He noticed that her hands were 
 exquisitely shaped, and that, although she was 
 not noticeably tall, she walked with a splendid 
 carriage, and that her figure was perfect. 
 Passing into the house he pretended to walk 
 very feebly for the fun of having her make 
 believe to assist him. And this made them 
 laugh again, so when they reached the large 
 room off which the conservatory opened, Nell 
 released her hand, which he was keeping with 
 the privilege of extreme indisposition, and said 
 gaily : 
 
 " A short walk if a merry one ! " 
 
 " I wish it had been a thousand miles," 
 Penrose cried, with enthusiasm, " A thousand 
 miles — er — in a thousand hours. I wish we 
 had " 
 
 " The evening papers : Just arrived ! ' 
 Johnson announced, deferentially, coming into 
 the room from the hall. 
 
 " Mr. Penrose ! You are really ill ! " Nell 
 cried in distress. " While I have been chaffing
 
 THE FORBIDDEN ROOM 85 
 
 stupidly. I did not know, indeed, I did not 
 know." 
 
 Her sympathy was lost. He hardly heard 
 what she said. 
 
 " Only a passing spasm. Almost gone 
 already," he stammered. " Think I'll go and 
 lie down for half an hour." 
 
 " Do please. That will be best. Johnson 
 will go with you. Is there anything you 
 would care for 1 " 
 
 " Nothing. At least, just a glass of wine. 
 And to pass the time I'll borrow one of 
 those papers." 
 
 She handed him the whole parcel and with 
 this he went straight to his room. Then, 
 locking the door after him, he sat down on his 
 bed, unfolded a paper with trembling hands 
 and read in letters an inch long the headlines : 
 
 " Another Horrible Murder." " The Vehm- 
 gerichte Assassination Society Again." 
 
 He put down the paper and stretched 
 himself on the bed — physically sick. The man, 
 Johnson, came to the door and knocked, but 
 Penrose begged him to go away, saying he 
 wanted nothing except to rest an hour 
 undisturbed. Johnson mumbled something
 
 86 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 about Miss Zietsman's compliments — very- 
 sorry — hoped Mr. Penrose would feel better — 
 and went away. Left to himself, Penrose 
 remained for a time perfectly stupefied ; all 
 sentient thought was abandoned. But sub- 
 consciously his brain must have been at work. 
 For after some hours prostration he arose 
 and said aloud in that curious new habit of 
 soliloquy which was growing on him in the 
 stress of events : 
 
 "I must get out of this house no matter 
 what happens. Zietsman is keeping me 
 bottled up here to produce me when it suits 
 him. I'll go now and take my chance." 
 
 It was easier to say this than do it, for 
 when he switched on the light and looked at 
 his watch he found that the time was near 
 midnight — not a very convenient hour to make 
 his way out of that confused labyrinth of 
 staircases and corridors and semi-detached 
 wings. But there was nothing to be gained 
 by standing there thinking of how he would 
 go. He must go at once ; he must at least 
 make the attempt. He switched off the light 
 and left the room, closing the door carefully 
 after him lest it should be set a-clashing by
 
 THE FORBIDDEN ROOM 87 
 
 untimely draughts and so draw attention to his 
 escape. The house was in darkness, and 
 silent. He crept downstairs feeling his way 
 cautiously. 
 
 After many failures he found the front 
 door ; and found it locked, and the key 
 gone. Then he journeyed rather aimlessly, 
 and with a fluttering heart, up one set of 
 stairs, and down another ; reversed the 
 direction many times, until at last, in a 
 long corridor on the ground floor, far from 
 the inhabited portion of the house, he landed 
 on another locked door. This, could he have 
 opened it, would, he believed, have given him 
 his freedom. But he could not open it, so he 
 had, wearily, to retrace once more his steps. 
 
 It was now that for the first time a weird 
 thought, which had long been struggling 
 for existence in his brain, took definite shape. 
 His reason, the evidence of his senses, told 
 him that he had been so far alone. But 
 that mysterious sensation of sceptical faith, 
 of unbelieving belief to which all imaginative 
 minds are susceptible — that other entity to 
 which the mind itself is as subordinate and 
 as subservient as are the muscles of the body
 
 88 THE NEW MESSIAH 
 
 to the mind — that told him with chilling 
 emphasis, he was not alone. 
 
 Overwhelmed with this new and in- 
 describable dread, Penrose came slowly back 
 along the passage. His groping fingers had 
 some time before fallen by a curious and 
 convenient chance on a small lamp. He 
 kept turning the light from this over his 
 shoulder, at the pall of darkness which was 
 closing in after him — following him. He 
 struggled against the terror he knew must 
 soon overcome him, but his efforts were 
 useless. That terror, once established is, as 
 all men know, not the less immediate because 
 it is impalpable. The dew was heavy on 
 his forehead, and he had to clench his teeth 
 to keep them from chattering, as he walked 
 slowly on — that nameless thing still following. 
 His resolution gave way under the super- 
 natural influences which barred his escape, 
 and when he reached the foot of a 
 staircase, he said to himself with a gasp : 
 
 " I'll go back to my room. This — thing — 
 this house will kill me." 
 
 It would not now be easy to find his 
 room. It proved impossible. "If I could
 
 THE FORBIDDEN ROOM 89 
 
 only get at a bell ! " he muttered to himself, 
 " I would ring someone up, if I wakened 
 the whole house — including Johnson." The 
 name stuck in his throat, and he shivered. 
 Then, careless where he was going, so that 
 he got back to that portion of the house in 
 which at least people lived, he passed up 
 this flight of stairs. One door was slightly 
 open, and a light came from it. ' At 
 last ! " he gasped, standing a moment on the 
 threshold, to get his breath. Two or three 
 great breaths he drew, and then he pushed 
 open the door, and went into the room. 
 
 The apartment was plainly, but comfortably 
 furnished. A fire still smouldered in the 
 grate, although the hour was very late. 
 On the table a few books were scattered. 
 The room was lighted from the ceiling, 
 as all the rooms were, and by the same 
 solar light, which shone rather than burned. 
 An easy chair was drawn back a little 
 distance from the hearth, and — the sensation 
 of a steel wire twisted round his heart, caused 
 the intruder's breath again to stop — there 
 was some one, or some thing, sitting in 
 the chair. The extreme top of a head, 
 
 V
 
 90 ANEW MESSIAH 
 
 or what seemed to be a head, just showed 
 above the chair-back, and moved in a 
 slow rhythm. And there was a sound of 
 soft but unnatural breathing, a low, guttural 
 sound, as of a candle which had burned 
 unattended deep into the socket of its 
 holder. 
 
 Penrose put his lamp down on the table. 
 It touched an ill-balanced book, which fell 
 with a thump of crushed leaves. The sound 
 from the chair changed into a low wheeze, 
 like a cross between a churchyard cough 
 and an asthma risen from the dead ; the 
 wheezing stopped, — and then, what was 
 seated there, slowly, leaning heavily on each 
 arm of the chair, arose — and faced round. 
 
 " My God ! " Willie Penrose screamed, 
 and fell forward senseless on the floor.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE DAWN OF LIBERTY 
 
 When Penrose recovered consciousness, not 
 from his first sleep after his visit to the 
 forbidden room, but from the severe illness 
 of which it was the exciting cause, he found 
 Zietsman at his bedside. An invalid now by 
 more than courtesy, he was still weak and 
 completely bewildered as to where he was 
 and in what condition. Unhappily for him 
 that knowledge would soon arrive. Meantime 
 he had a brief respite. 
 
 " Well," said Zietsman, in a soothing voice, 
 " Better at last ? " 
 
 " Better — better — then I have been ill ? " 
 " Yes, you have been very ill indeed. But 
 you are better now, and will soon be well. 
 Don't worry." 
 
 Events slowly began to shape themselves 
 in the sick man's misty brain and out of the 
 
 91
 
 92 THE NEW MESSIAH 
 
 clouds which were still hanging over it, one 
 terrible and inevitable thought loomed up, 
 very nebulous at first but growing in distinct- 
 ness with distressing rapidity. 
 
 " What is it ? ' ; Zietsman asked, encourag- 
 ingly. It was better that the invalid should 
 ask even awkward questions than brood. In- 
 trospection was the worst possible mental 
 state for him. 
 
 " Who has been attending me ? " Penrose 
 asked presently, in a weak voice. 
 
 " I have," Zietsman replied. " I hope you 
 don't think I called in our local doctor to listen 
 to all the nonsense you talked about precipices, 
 and house-roofs and — er — murdered men 
 and " 
 
 " And " 
 
 " A room in this house into which I forbade 
 you to go. You remember that ? " 
 
 " I do." 
 
 " I told you you would be sorry if you 
 disobeyed me. You did so and you are sorry," 
 Zietsman said, holding up his hand in warning. 
 Penrose must not talk too much. But the 
 invalid would not be restrained until he 
 explained :
 
 THE DAWN OF LIBERTY 93 
 
 "I did not do it willingly." He buried 
 his head in the pillow and went on with a 
 shudder, " I was trying to get out. I could 
 not help it." 
 
 " So you have told me a hundred times. 
 You need not go over the whole rhyme 
 again. It's done now and can't be helped. 
 You won't go wandering over this house again 
 by yourself in the middle of the night " 
 
 " Such a house ! " Penrose moaned, " in such 
 a place ! " 
 
 "The house and the place are admirably 
 suited," Zietsman remonstrated, in an in- 
 dulgent tone. " What would you have ? 
 Ought I to remove from this locality where 
 my next neighbour knows nothing of my 
 business, and cares nothing for it, and set up 
 in some remote region where the aborigines 
 would be afraid to mention my house by day 
 if even partially sober ; and would never dare 
 to pass it at night unless hopelessly drunk ? 
 But I mustn't tire you. Get well as soon 
 as you can, and so get up, and then you 
 will get out. The mere thought of that 
 makes you feel better, doesn't it ? " 
 
 " It does," Penrose answered quickly and 
 
 V
 
 94 THE NEW MESSIAH 
 
 submissively. He was still so weak that he 
 was very obedient. " To get out ! " he 
 whispered to himself. "Away from here — 
 away — away ! ' 
 
 " He'll do now, Johnson. We can leave 
 him for awhile," Zietsman said, gently, as 
 though he spoke of an ailing child. 
 
 Johnson, who had been sitting in a bay 
 window so that Penrose could not see him, 
 got up without speaking and left the room 
 with his master. They locked the door after 
 them. 
 
 Penrose had ample time before he was 
 allowed out to reconsider his extraordinary 
 position from every possible point of view. 
 This contemplation added nothing to his 
 knowledge of it, or his restoration to health. 
 His own previous history was so simple, a 
 few words will indicate it. He had found 
 himself in London at three or four-and-twenty 
 possessed of more money than he knew how 
 judiciously to dispose of, and unembarrassed 
 with any near relatives. He made haste to 
 dispose of the money injudiciously, and easily 
 got rid of it and the esteem as well as ac- 
 quaintance of his distant relatives. He had
 
 THE DAWN OF LIBERTY 95 
 
 no natural bent for dissipation, but acquired 
 a taste for it without inconvenience. It is 
 said that good habits can be as easily formed 
 as bad habits. But that, it is to be feared, 
 is only an amiable dialectic. In its initial 
 stages at all events the way of the transgressor 
 is not very hard ; indeed, it is usually rather 
 agreeable than otherwise for the first few 
 miles. Penrose certainly found the broad 
 road an attractive promenade after he had 
 got his journey properly started. Thereafter 
 the narrow way became an increasingly 
 repellent and dingy avenue, and when he 
 first met Zietsman he was blocked by the 
 notice boards "no thoroughfare" in both — 
 the one for want of cash and the other for 
 want of inclination. 
 
 Zietsman simplified matters in so far as 
 the broad road was concerned. The barrier, 
 with his assistance, was removed and Penrose 
 was soon going gaily along it as before. In 
 most of the more shady financial schemes, or 
 frauds, which Zietsman carried out success- 
 fully, Penrose acted as an informal private 
 secretary. The duties were not arduous, if 
 distinctly disreputable, and the pay, or the
 
 96 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 loot was considerable. Penrose frankly dis- 
 liked the situation and always meant to 
 throw it up after the next big dividend — and 
 went on meaning it. The story is too familiar 
 to bear repetition. Briefly, the way was very 
 broad, the down gradient very steep and the 
 pace proportionately rapid. 
 
 Only once had Penrose ventured to ask his 
 employer, as it were, what was at the bottom 
 of the hill. To this question he got no satis- 
 factory reply. So impatiently, indeed, had he 
 been answered that he persisted with some 
 temper on this occasion : 
 
 " If I don't get to like this job something 
 better I mean to chuck it." 
 
 " When you choose," Zietsman retorted. 
 
 " Perhaps I'd better go now ? " 
 
 " Very well, you can go now — to jail." 
 
 As that was not provided for in the draft 
 of Penrose's application for the position he 
 occupied, he asked with an earnestness which 
 could hardly be denied : 
 
 Why did you ever employ me in this sort 
 of work, Zietsman ? " 
 
 " To which that gentleman answered suc- 
 cinctly :
 
 THE DAWN OF LIBERTY 97 
 
 " Because you have neither nerves nor 
 brains." 
 
 That was the whole of the only confidential, 
 or quasi confidential consultation Penrose ever 
 had with his chief. It did not encourage 
 fresh enquiries and so the subject was per- 
 manently, if tacitly dropped. Now, lying on 
 a sick bed— he had leisure to review it — and 
 regret many things. He had no doubt been 
 a fool in rather a large way, and more than 
 once — but it must be said it was in ignorance 
 — he had connived at crime, also in a fairly 
 large way. Still, he felt he had never done 
 anything quite foolish enough or quite wrong 
 enough to deserve the calamitous condition 
 in which he was now placed. It did not 
 improve anything by thinking on it. 
 
 When he was convalescent, Penrose was 
 recommended — or permitted - outdoor exercise 
 in the reserved grounds. His strength came 
 back quickly owing to an originally good 
 constitution and the circumstance that he 
 had not yet had sufficient time, if an excellent 
 opportunity, to wreck it. The first day he 
 walked out was a delight in which, for a 
 little while, he forgot a great deal he did 
 
 V
 
 98 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 not wish to remember. Winter was approach- 
 ing, but doing so in a leisurely fashion. The 
 air was still mild, although the last leaves 
 had fallen. A small bird, heartened by the 
 bright morning, scraped its bill on a twig by 
 way of tuning up, and ventured on a few notes 
 in memory of the Spring. Big clouds were 
 drifting with slow dignity across an azure 
 sky. A domesticated rabbit sat up and ob- 
 served him carefully as he approached its 
 pasture. 
 
 "It is too much ! ' the convalescent mur- 
 mured, tremulously. He was still not very 
 strong. " This air, the beautiful woods, all 
 this happiness ! " 
 
 There was a little more of the last in store. 
 It was supplied by Miss Zietsman, who came 
 down a side path, stopped, and enquired after 
 his health with that feminine solicitude which 
 a man must be getting over a serious illness 
 to appreciate at its full weight and worth. 
 It was the last drop in his brimming cup, and 
 Penrose had to steady himself before he could 
 answer. 
 
 Nell was genuinely shocked at the change 
 in his appearance. The last, and first, time
 
 THE DAWN OF LIBERTY 99 
 
 she saw him he was rather a fine looking 
 young fellow, whose naturally open countenance, 
 although wearing a strangely anxious ex- 
 pression (at the beginning of their interview), 
 had not yet been sicklied o'er by the pale 
 cast of late hours and bad company. Now, 
 he was hollow-cheeked, shrunken, far too tall 
 for his weight, a poor substitute for his former 
 self, almost a protest against her own radiant 
 health. Her sympathy was unaffected. She 
 was really sorry for him — and let him know 
 it. When they had exchanged a few suitable 
 commonplaces, Nell said warmly, 
 
 " I am so glad you are getting strong. 
 You know we are leaving immediately. I felt 
 quite anxious about you — you really would 
 have been the worse of travelling while so 
 weak." 
 
 " I don't understand," Penrose exclaimed, 
 blankly. " Travel ! Where am I supposed 
 to be travelling to ? " 
 
 " That is what I cannot tell you. My 
 father is getting so reserved. He just tells 
 me now that such a thing must be done — 
 and it is done. A little time ago he would 
 have told me why it must be done. It is 
 
 X
 
 100 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 hateful to think that he is beginning to have 
 such trivial secrets from me. But," she 
 laughed and threw her head back with a 
 pretty air of authority, " I mean to find out 
 what these mysterious secrets are." She 
 was plainly trying to rouse him, or interest 
 him. 
 
 He felt grateful for the effort he knew 
 she was making on his behalf, but the subject 
 did not lend itself readily to raillery, and he 
 could only answer lugubriously : 
 
 " I am afraid you won't." 
 
 " I won't be happy until I do," she per- 
 sisted. 
 
 " You will never be happy afterwards," 
 Penrose objected more gloomily still. A 
 moment afterwards he could have kicked 
 himself for his gaucherie. He jerked out 
 hastily, hardly thinking of what he was saying, 
 so that he said something : " I mean, it is 
 always unwise to pry into matters that are kept 
 from us, from motives of friendship or affec- 
 tion. Of course, your father does not really 
 keep anything from you, except his business. 
 Naturally he does not wish you to be worried 
 about it."
 
 THE DAWN OF LIBEKTY 101 
 
 " Do you know, Mr. Penrose," the girl said, 
 now very serious, " I sometimes almost hope 
 his business affairs are going badly " 
 
 " I sincerely hope so, too," Penrose re- 
 flected. 
 
 "And I am sure that the best thing 
 he could do would be to give the whole 
 thing up while there is time to get out 
 of it." 
 
 " If you could only persuade him to do 
 that," Penrose cried, " what an amount of 
 misery you might save — yourself. I mean, 
 of course, that it must make you unhappy to 
 see him worried and — er — overworked and 
 
 overanxious." 
 
 Nell, thinking that his agitation proceeded 
 from the effects of his recent illness, and that 
 the subject was unfairly distressing him, 
 changed it easily. They were soon walking 
 in the long avenue and chatting comfortably, 
 considering that one of them was really 
 anxious about her father's peace of mind, and 
 the other in unaffected fear for his life. But 
 if there is really a time and place for every- 
 thing, then this was no place for funereal 
 anticipations, so Penrose decided to close his 
 
 V
 
 102 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 mind to what he did not wish to remember, 
 and clasp it with a clasp. Thus they walked 
 slowly along the tree-roofed avenue and 
 exchanged very pleasantly slight confidences, 
 forgetting, as humanity will at times, its most 
 serious engagements. And surely these two 
 were seriously placed ; for one was practically 
 engaged to be married and the other nearly 
 sure to be hanged. 
 
 While these two in the old woods without 
 were so innocently employed, indoors some 
 men were putting the last polish on their plans 
 for murder on the most wholesale scale the 
 history of the world presents — private murder 
 at least ; not, of course, to be likened to the 
 magnificent slaughter necessary in the manu- 
 facture of a great hero, the elucidation of an 
 obscure point of dogma, or any of the sublimely 
 ridiculous aberrations of mankind. 
 
 " Johnson ! ' Zietsman called sharply from 
 the door of the conservatory. The man was 
 engaged with some plants which required 
 attention. He left his work and answered, 
 automatically : 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " There is — er — a new man to be here to-
 
 THE DAWN OF LIBEKTY 103 
 
 night." As he spoke Zietsman turned and 
 went into an adjacent room. The man 
 followed. His livid face may have gone a 
 shade greener, or it may have been the 
 peculiar light in which he stood as he once 
 explained to O'Mara. He answered steadily : 
 
 "Very well, sir. Is the left wing — is — is — 
 it — required ? " 
 
 " Yes. It is necessary." 
 
 Johnson bowed and left the room. When 
 he was gone Zietsman struck a stage attitude 
 and said softly ; 
 
 " Now, by St. Paul, the work goes bravely 
 on." He threw himself into a chair with a 
 sudden revulsion of feeling, and sat with his 
 cheek resting on his hand — a study in de- 
 jection ; despair personified. He sat thus 
 for some minutes, and then arose, as if the 
 inaction was intolerable. Then he strode to 
 and fro in the room, muttering to himself at 
 every measured step— always muttering. The 
 low voice was hoarse and unnatural. His eyes 
 were wild, blazing with the fervour and the 
 fury which sent the Christians triumphant at 
 the lions ; the martyrs exulting to the flames ; 
 the Ironsides singing Psalms as they went 
 
 V
 
 104 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 forth to slay with the sword of the Lord and 
 of Gideon. The low muttering became louder. 
 He went on with suppressed but passionate 
 vehemence : 
 
 " Ay, the work goes bravely on, and every 
 step is steeped in blood. But the end is 
 always nearer. The end ! Will there ever 
 be an end ? Yes, yes ; there is finality to 
 everything human, therefore there must be 
 finality to this slavery that has been since 
 the world began. But the means to end it 
 are very terrible. What of that ? Has there 
 ever been a forward step without its hecatomb 
 of slaughter ? And the blood of my martyrs 
 rises in a scarlet incense that yet will reach 
 the throne of God and stir the slow vengeance 
 of Omnipotence. We must slay our thousands 
 in the Cause. Ambition has slain his tens of 
 thousands for his sport. Oppression has been 
 deaf to the cry that has echoed through the 
 centuries — the long drawn agony of mankind. 
 But at last we will burst his bonds and set his 
 fettered free. Free ! Liberty ! Thy dawn 
 is red upon the sky ! In thy name no man 
 or race of men shall be spared. A thousand 
 Christs must be crucified to gain thy triumph.
 
 THE DAWN OF LIBERTY 105 
 
 And I — I dare to hesitate when the govern- 
 ment of thy armies is laid upon my shoulders ! 
 I dare to flinch because it is my hand which 
 must point their way ! Then God strengthen 
 my arm, for my heart will never fail ! '
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE NEW VEHMGERICHTE 
 
 At a quarter to twelve o'clock that night, 
 Zietsman shot back the bolts which held the 
 movable bookcase in its place in the room 
 which was called the library. Johnson was 
 there at the time, and, as Zietsman made no 
 effort at concealment, the secret passage was 
 evidently no secret to the man. He received 
 his last instructions from Zietsman, about the 
 important business which was toward, without 
 a tremor, although he had previously shown un- 
 mistakeable agitation. Whatever his emotion 
 may have been when he got his first order, 
 it must now have passed, for he listened to 
 what was said to him as unconcernedly as if 
 the instructions given were for the guidance 
 of the under-gardeners. As soon as Zietsman 
 had let himself into the corridor, and the 
 bookcase swung to on its hinge, Johnson left 
 the room and locked the door on the outside. 
 
 106
 
 THE NEW VEHMGEKICHTE 107 
 
 Thereupon, he went directly to the end of the 
 disused wing, into which Penrose had wandered 
 on the night he received the mental shock 
 which resulted so seriously. Here Johnson 
 came to a closed door. He did not knock, 
 although he stood for a moment outside it, 
 irresolute. Then he went into the room 
 without further hesitation. 
 
 The corridor along which Zietsman passed 
 was different in one respect from what 
 it had been on the night he last used it. 
 Then it was dark as Erebus ; now it was as 
 bright as noon. There was nothing noticeable 
 about it except the light — plain walls, concrete 
 floor and ceiling, and no furniture or lumber 
 whatever. At a point about half way to the 
 exit in the garden-house there was a door 
 in the side-wall which, notwithstanding the 
 bright light, one might easily pass if not 
 looking particularly for it. Zietsman stopped 
 at this door, opened it and entered a moderately 
 sized room, well lighted like the corridor, and 
 floored and ceiled throughout with cement. 
 
 Five men were seated at a table in the 
 middle of the room and talking on common- 
 place subjects. A sixth stood with hands in 
 
 V
 
 108 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 his pockets in a careless attitude, and paid no 
 attention to the conversation of the others. 
 They ceased speaking on Zietsman's entrance, 
 and busied themselves with batches of papers, 
 of which one parcel lay before each. These, 
 from the class of the paper, the manner in 
 which each was fastened together at the left 
 top corner, and the intentness with which it 
 was apparently perused, might be reports — 
 one to be presented by each delegate, if such 
 they were. 
 
 This, without further preamble, was an 
 assembly of the European chiefs of the New 
 Vehmgerichte, a society which differed sharply 
 in ceremonial from the secret branch of its 
 prototype. No figures cloaked and masked, 
 men answering only to numbers, not to names, 
 were here ; no mysterious ritual ; no mutual 
 mistrust. Everything was open and above 
 board as in an ordinary County Court. In 
 the new society everything was different from 
 the old save these : both pretended to execute 
 justice by means outside ostensible law and 
 neither flinched, in this object, at the most 
 lawless acts. And before the power of the 
 new, organised law seemed as impotent — for
 
 THE NEW VEHMGERICHTE 109 
 
 a time — as it had been before the old. But 
 as organised law had displaced the one it 
 was hoped it would ultimately triumph over 
 the other, even though that other had per- 
 verted all the resources of civilization to aid 
 the strong hand of barbarism. 
 
 Zietsman took the presiding chair without 
 formality, declared the meeting open, and 
 commanded the members present to proceed 
 to business. The man who had been standing 
 on Zietsman's entrance took a chair, but did 
 not draw forward to the table around which 
 the others sat ; and across which they now 
 handed in their reports to the chairman. 
 These reports were curious documents. It 
 would not be desirable to give them in extenso. 
 The precis which Zietsman hastily made of 
 their contents, and aiterwards read out, may 
 only be indicated. It took some time to 
 prepare this precis, for in all cases but one 
 he had to translate the language and convert 
 the figures in the money columns into British 
 currency before any intelligible idea could 
 be conveyed of what the total represented. 
 These translations and conversions might 
 easily have been prepared beforehand but that 
 
 V
 
 110 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 Zietsman would only deal with original docu- 
 ments. When he had finished his rapid 
 calculations, he read out, in a calm, distinct 
 voice, like that of the chairman of a Railway 
 Company or a Bank at his annual meeting : 
 
 " France, eighteen ; a hundred and ten 
 millions. Germany, twenty-two ; one hundred 
 and sixty-seven millions. Austria, eight ; 
 forty millions. Itaty, ten ; sixty millions. 
 Russia, thirteen ; a hundred and eight millions. 
 And Great Britain, thirty-five ; two hundred 
 and twenty millions. Or, say roughly — allow- 
 ing for accidents which should not occur— one 
 hundred persons in Europe, owning seven 
 hundred millions sterling, will presently have 
 relieved the earth of their useless and de- 
 leterious existence. It is not much, but it is 
 a beginning." 
 
 " A very tolerable start," the man who was 
 holding himself aloof said, in a sarcastic voice. 
 He spoke with a slight foreign accent, but his 
 idiom was as British as his diction. 
 
 " And when we add the American statistics," 
 Zietsman was going on when the same man 
 again interposed : 
 
 " I like the word ' statistics.' "
 
 THE NEW VEHMGERICHTE m 
 
 " We have at least a result which marks 
 the first great assault in the war which will 
 reconstruct human society, mould anew men's 
 aspirations, and scatter undreamt of possi- 
 bilities in their lives." 
 
 " It seems to me that your immediate object 
 is to scatter a considerable amount of death 
 amongst the lives of a large section of civilised 
 communities," the man again interrupted. It 
 was singular how patient Zietsman was with 
 him. It was not always the great financier 
 suffered interruption so benignly. He only 
 said, with a politeness which had every appear- 
 ance of sincerity : 
 
 " But, my dear baron, it is necessary, and — " 
 he smiled blandly — " we have been very gentle 
 with you, have we not ? " 
 
 " I suppose," said the baron, " you would 
 have murdered me as you propose to murder 
 all those whose names you have down on 
 that preposterous list " 
 
 " That list," Zietsman interrupted, sternly, 
 " may merit many epithets, but 'preposterous' 
 is not one that fits it easily." 
 
 " I won't dispute the word ; call it what 
 you please. I say that you would probably
 
 112 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 have murdered me as you propose to murder 
 all those persons on that list if you had 
 dared." 
 
 " Dared ! " Zietsman's eyes were terrible. He 
 struck his hand with a crash on the table. 
 " Dared ! We have dared to take you 
 alive ! " 
 
 The baron, who had risen from his chair, 
 sat down again with a gesture as though the 
 point was not worth disputing. But there 
 was a look on his face that belied his pre- 
 tended calmness. He had, however, a dogged 
 courage that would not allow him to give 
 way altogether to the dictates of discretion. 
 When he had recovered from the shock caused 
 by Zietsman's fury, he asked bluntly : 
 
 " If not against the rules of this — er — 
 humanitarian society of yours, might I ask, 
 as a particular favour, why you dared, as you 
 say, to take me alive when you propose to 
 take so many other persons' lives ? " 
 
 " I will answer that, but do not ask too 
 many questions," Zietsman replied, coldly. 
 " These other persons have done us personally 
 no harm, and against them personally we have 
 no grievance. For all that we know they
 
 THE NEW VEHMGERICHTE H3 
 
 may be, according to their lights, very 
 estimable individuals. Their — er — removal is, 
 indeed, physically repellent to us, and we gain 
 nothing directly by their deaths. For one 
 reason or another we can hope for no pecuniary 
 advantage from their execution, but indirectly 
 it is necessary — much more has been necessary, 
 much more probably will be necessary — in 
 order to shock public opinion so intensely 
 that our ulterior motives may be furthered. 
 When Society is aghast at our deeds it will 
 listen to any alternative which may mitigate 
 them. In other words, when men are afraid 
 they are open to conviction. It is necessary 
 to make the slow social organisation of our 
 times thoroughly afraid before we can convince 
 it of the errors of its way. Thus, we are 
 making it afraid. So much for the others. 
 Your case differs from theirs. We have taken 
 you alive, not for the pleasure of your society, 
 but because we want your money. You have, 
 you are aware, an immense amount of money 
 at call in London. You intended, you re- 
 member, to take up the whole State debt 
 of that troublesome South American Republic 
 and make yourself President, with a better 
 
 V
 
 114 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 claim certainly than the man you should depose. 
 We give you an outlet for this money, vaster 
 in its as yet unknown potentialities, far more 
 splendid in its immediate results, and of 
 incalculable historic glory. We give you all 
 that in return for your absurd gold. But, 
 of course — " Zietsman smiled pleasantly — " It 
 will be necessary tor us to get the money 
 first." 
 
 " It will, and it will remain necessary," the 
 baron said, firmly. 
 
 " You think so now, but you will change 
 your mind later." 
 
 " We shall see," said the baron. 
 
 " Inside an hour," said Zietsman. 
 
 The baron's face was firm, but his lips were 
 dry as he asked steadily : 
 
 " Physical torture ? " 
 
 " No ; mental ! If you refuse to draw 
 cheques, write letters, send telegrams, in short 
 to act as our financial chief clerk till the 
 last pound of your money is drawn, we propose 
 to drive you mad, or rather imbecile to the 
 degree when hypnotic suggestion will as 
 easily and successfully control your brain, and 
 therefore your actions, as if the cerebration of
 
 THE NEW VEHMGERICHTE 115 
 
 the operator was in direct contact with your 
 own sensory nerves. In that condition you 
 will act in all things quite as satisfactorily 
 for us as if your brain functioning was pro- 
 ceeding from your own volition. Then, when 
 we have used you for our purpose we will 
 kill you, not necessarily because we are blood- 
 thirsty, but because it would be unsafe for 
 us to restore your mental power, and brutal 
 to continue you in that miserable subconscious 
 existence. That is all we will require of 
 you." 
 
 " Is that quite all ? " the baron asked, with 
 a frigid sneer. 
 
 " A moment ! " Zietsman exclaimed, as a 
 new thought struck him. " It would save 
 you much — er — discomfort, and us very con- 
 siderable pain, if you would join us. That 
 would simplify all." 
 
 " You would trust me, of course ? " 
 
 " Not at present. But we would trust you 
 after you had been initiated. No man — 
 although we have had many suicides — no man 
 who has been initiated has betrayed us. Have 
 you ever considered one phase of even an 
 every-day society like, say, the Freemasons — 
 
 V
 
 116 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 the preservation of the ritual ? A mason 
 may sink to any or all manner of crime or 
 vice — but he never tells. He may be cast 
 off by his brethren — but he never tells. He 
 may become unfit for human society — but, 
 mark me, he never tells. Now if a man, 
 once a mason is always a mason in that respect, 
 believe me a man who is admitted to the 
 
 Yehmgericht e 
 
 " The Vehmgerichte ! " the baron gasped, 
 wide-eyed. He staggered back till he stumbled 
 against the wall. 
 
 " Such a man never quits it voluntarily or 
 involuntarily save by one way," Zietsman 
 went on, calmly. " And assuredly he never 
 tells." 
 
 Zietsman paused a second or two in the 
 deathly silence. The baron's breathing was 
 like the sound of suppressed sobs. The sphinx- 
 like faces of the men round the table showed 
 no shadow of feeling, hardly even interest. 
 Zietsman resumed : 
 
 " What do you say ? Will you join us ? " 
 " The Vehmgerichte ! The Vehmgerichte ! " 
 the baron muttered to himself, like a boy who 
 was trying to commit an unfamiliar word to
 
 THE NEW VEHMGERICHTE 117 
 
 memory. " So, all that assassination pro- 
 gramme was fact, not farce ? " 
 
 " Then you elect, instead of joining us," 
 Zietsman said, harshly, " a few lunatic 
 months of life in which you will do every- 
 thing you are required without knowing why 
 you are doing it ? " 
 
 " You give me a choice in these— attractive 
 — alternatives ? " The man's blood had begun 
 to flow again, and he bore himself bravely. 
 
 " The alternatives are not seductive. But 
 they are all you have to choose from. Do 
 you join f 
 
 " I do not," the baron cried, hoarsely. " I 
 will not voluntarily join the Vehmgerichte." 
 
 " Then there is nothing further to be said." 
 
 Zietsman touched a button at the end of 
 a flexible tube. The light mellowed down 
 to a soft dusk. The men at the table got 
 up and stood to one side of the room, leaving 
 a clear passage from the door to the opposite 
 wall. Zietsman went across to this wall 
 and shot back another door in what seemed 
 to be a solid side of the chamber. An inner 
 and smaller room was now exposed. It was 
 lighted dimly like the larger chamber. In
 
 118 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 another moment there was a knock at the 
 door leading to the corridor from the house. 
 Zietsman opened it at once and the man 
 Johnson appeared. He was carrying a bundle 
 covered with a light shawl. At sight of this 
 the four men turned their backs. The baron 
 looked on stolidly. He had taken his courage 
 in both hands. He would not flinch. Johnson 
 walked slowly across the chamber carrying 
 the bundle very carefully, so as to avoid 
 touching table, chairs, or any furniture on 
 his passage. 
 
 There was something in the attitude of 
 the men with their faces turned away, some- 
 thing in the way the bundle was carried ; 
 something in the face of the man Johnson, 
 that caused the baron's heart to stop in spite 
 of his stern resolution. But he determined 
 to go through with whatever was before him 
 and make no moan. 
 
 Zietsman said sternly : 
 
 " Go with them — him." He pointed toward 
 Johnson who was now passing through the 
 doorway to the inner room. Resistance was 
 useless. The captive was unarmed, out- 
 numbered six to one. Surely it was a sorry
 
 THE NEW VEHMGERICHTE 119 
 
 victory. He took a great breath and went 
 into the room. Zietsman pushed the door 
 almost close to after him, and looked through 
 the last crevice left by it. There was a 
 moment's silence, in which the men in the 
 council chamber could hear their own hearts 
 beat, and then a cry came from the inner 
 room, a cry like the anguish of a lost soul. 
 Zietsman closed the door.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 A CHIEF OF POLICE 
 
 Penrose improved gradually in health, and, 
 
 after that peculiar fashion of Nature, whereby 
 
 the back seems strengthed to fit the burthen, 
 
 his mind grew accustomed to and partly 
 
 oblivious of the extraordinary circumstances 
 
 under which he was placed. The incident of 
 
 the forbidden room was but one of many 
 
 which he found it convenient to forget. He 
 
 read the recurring paragraphs about the last 
 
 Vehmgerichte murder with lessening interest, 
 
 and before long he came to look upon it as 
 
 a matter with which he had nothing to do — 
 
 which indeed was the case. 
 
 But when Zietsman told him one morning 
 
 that he was going into town, and that he 
 
 thought it better his late secretary and present 
 
 guest, or prisoner, should accompany him, 
 
 Penrose found his old fears come back with 
 
 a rush. There was a sense of security in 
 
 120
 
 A CHIEF OF POLICE 121 
 
 Beechmount which had grown upon him as 
 every day made him more familiar with its 
 calm routine. For what conceivable purpose 
 could the minions of the law invade that 
 ostensibly law-abiding household. To avenge 
 a crime committed in a London alley ? Poof I 
 That was years ago. It was only a dream. 
 No such crime had ever been committed. 
 There was never such a man as Hemmingway. 
 London itself was only an hypothesis. 
 
 Again, Penrose had been greatly comforted 
 in his captivity by the society of Nell 
 Zietsman. On this, of course, young Beresford 
 had the first claim. But young Beresford 
 did not actually live at Beechmount. He 
 did so practically, it is true, but he was 
 absent sometimes, and these times were flash- 
 lights on the prisoner's life. The prisoner 
 indeed, being a just man, had decided that 
 it would never do to allow a fine, open, un- 
 suspecting lad like Dick Beresford to entangle 
 himself with a girl — however charming— who 
 was the daughter of such a man as Zietsman. 
 He himself would warn the lad rather than 
 see him run blindfold into so dreadful a snare. 
 This new life and this new responsibility were 
 
 V
 
 122 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 suddenly shredded away, by Zietsinan's pro- 
 posal, as completely as the old existence, from 
 which he had, as he hoped, escaped. The 
 climax was added to his acute distress by the 
 simple remark : 
 
 " Now, then, we'll just catch the ten-thirty. 
 It is a slow train, but all are slow that stop 
 at our station, so we may as well take that 
 as another." 
 
 " If you don't mind, I'd rather take none," 
 Penrose said, rather hopelessly. 
 
 " Nonsense ! You are moping here, or will 
 mope, and you are thoroughly strong again. 
 Only a sick man likes to dawdle. And I 
 have work for you that is no sick man's 
 work." 
 
 There was a force and directness in Ziets- 
 man's manner that overbore all ordinary 
 resistance, and Penrose was not of a mind 
 to offer open objection to anything his chief 
 might propose. What exactly their relations 
 at the moment were, master and servant, 
 employer and employee, host and guest, or 
 victor and victim, must be determined later. 
 
 On one element in their possible future 
 dealings he had made up his mind. From
 
 A CHIEF OF POLICE. 123 
 
 any transaction that seemed even suspicious, 
 much less dangerous, he would resolutely 
 abstain. His easy-going disposition was 
 hardening. He was, after all, a man, if only 
 on the make. He had had good reason to regret 
 deliberate crime, owing to the extreme incon- 
 venience attached to it, and now that he saw 
 the error of his easy-going ways he despised 
 it for its own sake. 
 
 Since his arrival at Beechmount, or his 
 incarceration there, Penrose had never been 
 so far as the main avenue gate, or, indeed, 
 the avenue itself. It was not by it they 
 entered the house on that memorable night 
 of his life. Nor was the road by which they 
 now left it that by which they had come 
 from London. As they drove through the 
 gate and out on the main road, Penrose found 
 that even security does not condone captivity, 
 and that, if danger had its drawbacks, it was 
 grand to be free. The horse had good pace, 
 and Zietsman made him show it, and very 
 soon the exhilaration of the movement made 
 the passenger's blood flow fast. There was 
 a sound of song in his ears, and — yes, he 
 could place it now — it was his first holiday 
 
 V
 
 124 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 from school. The joy of it had returned to 
 him. He wanted to cry out, to cheer. He 
 restrained himself with difficulty. 
 
 The train was slow as Zietsman had antici- 
 pated, but it was fast enough for Penrose. 
 He was in no hurry. Besides, he had a few 
 remarks to make to his companion, and, 
 although the opportunity for this conversation 
 might be easily bettered, it was more likely 
 to be worsened. There was no one in the 
 compartment but themselves. The noise of 
 the train rendered anything that was said 
 less intimate than if it had been spoken in 
 the silence of a room. They would soon be 
 nearing the city. Very well, he would begin. 
 
 " About this young fellow, Beresford," he 
 said, taking up the stick, as it were, by the 
 lighter end. He would lift the whole weight 
 presently. 
 
 "What about him?" Zietsman asked, care- 
 lessly. " Like this window up ? " 
 
 " No ; leave it as it is. You can see that 
 he is — er — your daughter, you know ? " 
 
 " I see it with ease — rather pretty bit of 
 wood that, even in its winter dress — I have — 
 er — seen it for some time."
 
 A CHIEF OF POLICE 125 
 
 " What, then, do you propose ? " 
 
 Zietsman lit a cigar leisurely, sniffed the 
 flavour and said, suavely : 
 
 " If I wished to be rude " 
 
 " I'll chance that." 
 
 " I might ask, what the devil is that to 
 you ? " 
 
 " You might." 
 
 " But, as I hate to give pain unnecess- 
 arily " 
 
 " Talk sense," Penrose interrupted, roughly. 
 He had not begun the subject to fool with it. 
 
 " I said ' unnecessarily,' " Zietsman repeated, 
 coldly. 
 
 " Your necessity certainly knows no law." 
 
 Zietsman waited a moment, then smiled as 
 if pleased, and went on : 
 
 "I'll. give you credit for that and pass it. 
 You need not, however, enquire further 
 about — about the matter you mentioned. 
 And I presume you will not, when I tell 
 you I arranged it myself." 
 
 " Then I will disarrange it," Penrose 
 said sharply. He could not have taken 
 Zietsman so resolutely a short time back — 
 when he was a sick man. 
 
 V
 
 126 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 " But why should you ? " Zeitsman asked, 
 still pleasantly. He was either keeping his 
 temper very well, or disguising its loss with 
 success. 
 
 " I do not think it fair " 
 
 The train rumbled into a station, put down 
 a few passengers, picked up a few in their 
 place, and rumbled on again to its connection 
 with the main line five miles away. 
 
 " I do not think it fair," Penrose said 
 again when the train was in motion, " that 
 a lad like Beresford should — er — contract an 
 alliance with your family — with, in short, 
 the daughter of a man like you." 
 
 " Why should you mind his contracting 
 an alliance which you contemplate yourself? 
 Oh, don't bother to interrupt or contradict. 
 And don't look so precious innocent. If 
 it is good enough for you, why shouldn't it 
 be good enough for him ? " 
 
 " There are several reasons. I will name 
 one. It would be good enough for me, 
 because while you are a murderer de facto, 
 I am one de jure." 
 
 " As you are wrong in your first reason, 
 we may dispense with the others. You
 
 A CHIEF OF POLICE 127 
 
 are not, so far as I am aware, a murderer even 
 dejiire." 
 
 "You say that seriously to me — you, who 
 arranged it yourself, as you said a minute ago." 
 
 " I did ; but I also disarranged it." 
 
 " The dagger ! " 
 
 " Has not been found — yet." 
 
 Penrose did not speak for a little. The 
 clatter of the train was pounding in his brain. 
 He had to close his eyes to the whirling 
 fields that went dancing past, and made him 
 feel giddy. His voice when he spoke was 
 pitiful. It was pathetic to see a recently reso- 
 lute young man pleading like a coaxing child. 
 
 " Zietsman — do you mean to let me off? ' 
 
 " That depends," Zietsman answered, and 
 did not speak again until the train drew 
 into the terminus in town, and he began 
 gossiping about his arrangements for the day. 
 The most important of these was the final 
 settlement of the date for a lecture he was 
 to deliver before the financial branch of the 
 Britannic Association, an important society 
 for the consideration of social subjects from 
 a practical basis. Notwithstanding its original 
 object, and indeed the terms of the articles
 
 128 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 on which the Association was founded, it 
 was generally felt that the discussions under 
 its auspices had tended more toward an 
 Academic than an Objective method of 
 treatment. And it was believed that Ziets- 
 man, whose name was a terror in the financial 
 world — although he had recently been 
 " resting," — was just the man to give the 
 right line in matters connected with money 
 at least. Zietsman, it is true, altered this 
 estimate when his great lecture on " Money " 
 was delivered. But no one in the financial 
 world could have foreseen the extraordinary 
 line he took on that memorable occasion. 
 
 It did not take long to arrange the date, 
 hour, and probable duration of the lecture, 
 all of which Zietsman left to the Secretary 
 of the branch he proposed to address. The 
 only conditions he made were, as to the 
 advertisements which were to be issued, and 
 the names of the persons invited. In the 
 list of invitations, he required a clear carte 
 blanche for himself, and used it liberally. 
 Everybody who was anybody in the world, 
 which has anything, was invited — and a 
 small, but important number in the world,
 
 A CHIEF OF POLICE 129 
 
 which has not. Representatives from the 
 most influential newspapers and Press 
 Associations in the country were solicited to 
 attend, and many of them eventually did so. 
 When this tedious but necessary business 
 had been transacted, Zietsman returned to the 
 hotel where he had left Penrose, and ordered 
 dinner for two, to be served at once in a 
 private room. As Penrose, with all London 
 before him, had spent the greater part of 
 the day in the hotel — the old fear now strong 
 upon him — the holiday had not been alto- 
 gether a pleasant episode. He did not 
 trouble Zietsman about it, however, until 
 they had dined, and were drinking some 
 of the best wine the house could supply. 
 Even then the conversation on the sub- 
 ject was not very long, and not at all 
 satisfactory. 
 
 " Why did you bring me with you to-day ? " 
 he asked quietly. 
 
 " To get you out of the blues, for one 
 
 thing," Zietsman answered. " And for another 
 
 to shake you up a bit, before entrusting some 
 
 important work to you." 
 
 "I do not wish to have any further 
 
 9
 
 130 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 share in your — work," Penrose said, in a 
 low voice. 
 
 " But you've got to do it, all the 
 same," Zietsman retorted, and dropped the 
 subject. 
 
 Zietsman soon after paid the bill, and 
 they left for the railway station, where 
 they caught a train which got them home, 
 even by the meanderings of the branch 
 line, at a reasonable hour. During this 
 journey, disagreeable topics were put aside 
 by Zietsman so persistently that Penrose 
 gave up trying to get any further information 
 about his new " work," and spent the rest 
 of the time silently. When they got back 
 he would even have gone to his bedroom, 
 without further conversation, early as the 
 hour still was ; but Zietsman, relenting some- 
 what, brought him into the room which 
 was called the library, made him sit down 
 in a luxurious arm-chair, stirred the fire, 
 and said, to break the ice which was freezing 
 fast between them : 
 
 " You never asked me the subject of my 
 lecture before the Britannic Association. 
 It is going to make a stir. It is a good
 
 A CHIEF OF POLICE 131 
 
 subject, and if it is the root of all evil, it 
 is a plant most people desire to cultivate. 
 Money is my subject." 
 
 " You should handle that subject well," 
 Penrose remarked drily. " You have handled 
 a lot of it." 
 
 " I have," Zietsman agreed lazily. " More 
 than I wished." 
 
 " More than some people wished, at any 
 rate," Penrose corrected. 
 
 " I have had enough of it," said Zietsman. 
 
 " That's what they all say when they 
 have too much. The millionaires are always 
 groaning over the trouble it is to them," 
 Penrose ventured. 
 
 " They'll groan less in the near future." 
 
 " Get used to it ? Or more patient under 
 their affliction ? " 
 
 " No ; I mean there'll be fewer of them to 
 groan." 
 
 " I suppose we could worry along without 
 them," Penrose continued, without any exact 
 grasp of the other's meaning. 
 
 Their talk then simmered on in more 
 conventional grooves, Zietsman giving a few 
 hints as to the drift of his lecture, and Penrose 
 
 V
 
 132 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 agreeing that it would certainly be new to 
 the Britannic Association, and the world at 
 large. 
 
 " Yes, if they had any idea how new it 
 will be, I should never have the chance of 
 delivering it — not that the Britannic 
 Association guards itself so nervously against 
 the growth of knowledge, as some of our 
 institutions, founded and maintained appar- 
 ently for the perpetuation of ignorance. 
 But it suffers less or more, like the others, 
 from the blight of the Average Man." 
 
 " I think I remember hearing you speak 
 very feelingly of the Average Man, and all 
 you meant to do for him." 
 
 " You have, and I mean to do a lot for 
 him. But what I mean to do for him to-day, 
 or the day after to-morrow, he should have 
 done a thousand years ago for himself; and 
 would have done it, only for his stupidity. 
 The Average Man is an ass." 
 
 Penrose was tired after his first day out 
 of bounds, and he was oppressed again with 
 the nervousness which physical exhaustion 
 and darkness help to strengthen. But it 
 might be long before he found Zietsman
 
 A CHIEF OF POLICE 133 
 
 in so communicative a humour. It was now 
 or never, if he wanted to get any intelligible 
 idea of his position, and he preferred that 
 it should be now. He had partly forgotten 
 the rebuff of the morning, apart from which 
 he might have known his man better than 
 to expect any information from him, until 
 he himself chose to give it. 
 
 "May I ask you a plain question, Zietsman?" 
 Penrose said suddenly, in order that he should 
 not have time to consider the question too 
 long, and so postpone it. 
 
 " Half a dozen, if they are discreet ! ' : 
 
 " Discreet or not, I'll ask it, or them. In 
 plain English, who, and what, are you ? " 
 
 " Whom, and what do you suppose me to 
 be?" 
 
 " I suppose you to be a man called 
 Zietsman ; and I suppose you to be a 
 company promoter, a company wrecker, and 
 a financial swindler all round. I suppose 
 you to be a member, and one of the heads, 
 if not the head, of the most wanton murder 
 society ever formed ; a man of leisure, a 
 man of honour ; a man of education ; a man 
 of culture ; a good father, and an implacable
 
 134 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 scoundrel ; a philanthropist, a cut-throat, 
 a faddist, a farceur, a millionaire, and a 
 few other things. But what I cannot suppose, 
 or form any concept of, as you would say 
 in your lingo, is — how do you keep out of 
 the hands of the police ? I know you do 
 do it ; but I don't know how you do it." 
 
 " I'll waive all your introductory com- 
 pliments," Zietsman said calmly, " and 
 address myself to the final clause in your 
 oration — How do I keep out of the hands 
 of the police ? That is the most important 
 item in the complimentary and damnatory 
 — I borrow your antithetical method — 
 catalogue." 
 
 " Yes, how do you keep clear of the 
 police ? " 
 
 " There are various ways of getting into 
 their hands, and all have been fairly well re- 
 presented in the history of criminology. 
 Fight them ; dodge them ; fly from them ! 
 All these, and a hundred other well-known 
 ways of getting conveniently under legal 
 restraint have been consistently followed. 
 Curious, isn't it, that it should have remained 
 for me to invent the only sure method of
 
 A CHIEF OF POLICE 135 
 
 keeping out of it. It is very simple. I am 
 the police ! " 
 
 " You are amusing yourself." 
 
 " Perhaps that was rather bombastic. But 
 it was only a figure of speech. You were 
 talking about de jure and de facto this 
 morning. Well, that's the sense in which 
 I am the police personified. I have bought 
 them. It was a big deal, but I have made 
 it." He straightened himself, and said, with 
 a flash in his eyes that was the reverse of 
 laughter-provoking : 
 
 " De facto I am Chief of the European 
 police ? ' 
 
 " Mr. O'Mara ! " Johnson announced.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 GREEK JOINS GREEK 
 
 " Show him into the conservatory, Johnson." 
 Zietsman's voice was non-committal. If it 
 betrayed anything it was a trace of satisfaction 
 that his words should be so fittingly capped. 
 He had no sooner claimed to be a chief of 
 police than here came one of them to do his 
 bidding ! Nothing could be more appropriate. 
 " O'Mara prefers the conservatory to any 
 room in the house," Zietsman explained. " Our 
 business, as you would understand, is often of 
 the ' private and confidential ' order, and we 
 are safe from interruption there." Although 
 Zietsman said this in the pleasantest tone he 
 seemed to have trouble with his breathing for 
 a moment. Bronchial weakness is not easily 
 avoided in our climate. When he recovered 
 from this trivial discomfort he said slowly and 
 
 136
 
 GREEK JOINS GREEK 137 
 
 distinctly to Penrose, as though he wished his 
 hearer to weigh every word : 
 
 " I told you not long ago that I had work 
 for you. Here is one specific instruction to 
 which I must ask your careful attention. If 
 at any time, within the next five years, or — er 
 — five minutes, you receive a message from me 
 consisting of the word ' Act,' you will open 
 this paper, which I place in this drawer, of 
 which I give you this key, and you will do as 
 you are therein directed. That is all I have to 
 say at present. There's your key ! " 
 
 " Let us imagine," Penrose replied stub- 
 bornly, " that the moment you turn your back 
 I throw this key away, or, obtaining your 
 message, instead of acting on it I burn this 
 paper and give myself no concern as to its 
 contents." 
 
 " In other words," Zietsman snapped, " that 
 you either defy me or betray me.' 
 
 " Put it that way, if you wish." 
 
 " In the first case, then, you will be hanged 
 by law ; in the second, you will be put to death 
 by a power which is at present, and for some 
 time to come will be, above the law. That is 
 absolutely certain. But there, I do not wish
 
 138 THE NEW MESSIAH 
 
 to compel your service, if I can command it, 
 although I will compel it if it be neccessary. 
 I should prefer to have your help from 
 choice rather than fear, that is all. We are 
 beginning to understand each other better, are 
 we not ? " 
 
 " I don't profess to understand you very 
 clearly yet," Penrose answered stiffly. " At 
 least not clearly enough to brag about it." 
 
 " You will some day — soon, I hope," 
 Zietsman exclaimed and left the room. Before 
 joining O'Mara in the conservatory he went to 
 look for his daughter, and found her in a 
 boudoir drawing-room. He had a short but 
 earnest conversation with her. In this he 
 contrived very dexterously to convey a serious 
 message in a light tone. Very serious business 
 might require his presence at a distant point — 
 in a distant country indeed — at any moment. 
 This business, however, which might arise in a 
 moment, might be indefinitely postponed. 
 His absence, if he was called away, might only 
 be for a few days, but it might also be for a 
 few years. He had left full instructions as to 
 his wishes with Penrose, to whose care he 
 confided her, with provision for her own
 
 GREEK JOINS GREEK 139 
 
 absolute freedom of action until her marriage 
 — with Beresford, he hoped. There were 
 special reasons, for placing her under the 
 guardianship of a young fellow like Penrose — 
 reasons which could not be waived, and 
 suitable arrangement, for a chaperonage in 
 accordance with the conventions, had been 
 carefully made. 
 
 When Zietsman had run through this in the 
 pleasantest voice, he looked furtively at his 
 daughter's face to see how she had received it. 
 Nell was calm ; but for her white set face she 
 might have been thought altogether unmoved, 
 so quietly she bore herself. But her father 
 knew her better. Yet he said nothing to qualify 
 — much less withdraw — the least important of 
 his remarks. He might have accentuated 
 the probability of his unwelcome forecast's 
 indefinite postponement, the possibility of 
 its ultimate evasion. But he did neither. 
 When the girl had fought out for herself that 
 single-handed, silent fight with the mortal fear 
 which suddenly oppressed her in spite of her 
 father's cheerful tone and airy presentment of 
 these terrible possibilities, she said simply, but 
 her words cut him to the heart :
 
 140 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 " I know it is very selfish of me to place my 
 happiness before your — your business projects ; 
 but I am afraid I cannot pretend to take what 
 you have just told me as cheerfully as you 
 do—" 
 
 " Nell, Nell. You'll break my heart if you 
 speak like that ! " He turned and left the 
 room abruptly, and only that the girl saw in a 
 mirror as he passed it the reflection of his 
 haggard face — wilder, older than she had ever 
 before seen it — she might not have known what 
 those recent airy phrases had cost him to 
 compose. She went to her room with a new 
 expression on her own face. For the formless 
 dread which had been vaguely overshadowing 
 her life was now surely taking shape. As yet 
 she knew not what she feared — only that she 
 feared, and that one day her fear would be 
 fulfilled. This, then, was the beginning of the 
 end of her happiness. Her girlhood indeed 
 had been happy, for if the shadows of youth 
 are dark they lift easily, and the sun is as 
 bright as ever so soon as they have vanished. 
 But now she knew with a sure intuition that 
 the short day of her gladness was far spent. 
 And with this knowledge there came a
 
 GREEK JOINS GREEK 141 
 
 resolution to meet her future with a stout 
 heart, for she had something of her father's 
 will with all her girlish graces — but alas ! 
 
 When Zietsman left his daughter he went 
 hurriedly to the conservatory where O'Mara 
 was waiting for him. The visitor had certainly 
 been too long neglected. O'Mara, no doubt, 
 found endless interest in that strange 
 emporium, but that was hardly a sufficient 
 excuse for leaving him altogether to its 
 attractions. 
 
 " Hallo, O'Mara ! You'll pardon me, I know, 
 like a good fellow, for neglecting you," 
 Zietsman cried. " I was very busily engaged, so 
 I sent you in here as I know you like the 
 place. Besides, we are free from interruption 
 here." 
 
 " I hope so," O'Mara answered coldly. He 
 did not take Zietsman's hand. 
 
 Zietsman pushed a couple of the comfortable 
 armchairs over to the smoking-table, took one 
 himself and begged O'Mara to sit down and 
 talk at ease. He passed a box of cigars and a 
 decanter to his visitor, and helped himself, to 
 set a social example. O'Mara liked a good 
 cigar and good liquor, and when, as at
 
 142 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 present, they cost him nothing in cash or kind 
 he did not require pressing. He filled a wine- 
 glass and tossed the contents of the brimming 
 measure into his tumbler with the easy 
 familiarity of a man who had many times 
 performed the action. Then he passed over 
 the tumbler to be filled up from a syphon 
 Zietsman was holding ready, and said 
 slowly : 
 
 " I was about to say — a little more soda 
 please — that you have — drowned it, begob ! — 
 made a name for yourself by — the best 
 whisky I get anywhere — that speech of 
 yours — devilish good stuff — before it is 
 delivered." 
 
 O'Mara's remarks were slightly mixed like 
 the whisky he was drinking, which was really 
 blend ; but they were intelligible to Zietsman, 
 who answered lightly : 
 
 " Yes, we sent paragraphs to all the evening 
 papers. It is very good of you to run out — so 
 late too — to congratulate me on the honour 
 of addressing the Britannic Association. So 
 you tell me the news of it is going round 
 already." 
 
 " There is more news than that going round,"
 
 GREEK JOINS GREEK 143 
 
 O'Mara replied, stretching his legs out 
 luxuriously, and lazily watching a ring of 
 smoke he had accidentally blown. " Such as 
 strange disappearances of ships at sea, 
 no battles on hand just now, but lots of 
 murder and sudden death — and all that sort 
 of thing ! " 
 
 " There is generally a good deal of that sort 
 of thing going, isn't there ? " Zietsman asked 
 carelessly. " What do you make of it ? " He 
 did something surreptitiously to the light. It 
 softened almost imperceptibly from the usual 
 glare. 
 
 " My deduction," O'Mara said grimly, " is 
 copyright. It isn't entered at Stationer's Hall, 
 but all rights are reserved — for the present. 
 The world isn't up to the mark for it yet. 
 I shall have to educate my public, before I 
 spring it on them." 
 
 " Are you acting professionally, or privately; 
 for the authorities, or on your own ? " Zietsman 
 asked, politely interested. The light was 
 now very soft. He was nearly hid behind a 
 veil of sweet-smelling smoke. 
 
 ' On my own. The authorities are in a 
 denser fog than usual, if that were possible.
 
 144 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 They have, all and sundry, got their several 
 heads in bags." 
 
 " Is it allowable to ask, in a general way, 
 in what direction this private deduction of* 
 yours trends ? " 
 
 " It is not allowable — in a general way. 
 But I don't mind giving you a hint in 
 confidence. My deduction is that all these 
 disappearances, sudden deaths, murders, etc., 
 are planned by one man, and carried out by 
 one organization." 
 
 " You allude to the New Vehmgerichte, 
 of course. But I thought they took pains 
 to claim copyright, as it were, in their own 
 ciimes. It does not seem, therefore, a 
 great discovery, to find out what they openly 
 boast." 
 
 " The Vehmgerichte," said O'Mara, " usually 
 leave some evidence of their handiwork, 
 however marvellously they keep the secret 
 of their membership. But I am referring 
 now, to other, unclaimed, crimes. These 
 a'so bear evidence of their authorship. Their 
 completeness, their careful execution, the 
 absolute obliteration of all manner of trail, 
 the absence of all miscalculation, to my
 
 GREEK JOINS GREEK 145 
 
 mind, point to what I say — that these 
 occurrences are not accidental, or merely 
 coincidental. They are the work of one 
 man — just as the company promoting in this 
 country last year was all directly or indirectly 
 done by one man — you. Just as the company 
 
 wrecking ." O'Mara paused and puffed 
 
 pleasantly at his cigar. Zietsman did the 
 same. 
 
 " The Company wrecking you were saying ? " 
 
 " The Company wrecking was all done by 
 the same — gang ; the gang that used to meet 
 in that house in Soho where, between us — 
 between us," O'Mara repeated — " the whole 
 pack got clear away." 
 
 The light softened to a still duller glow — 
 imperceptibly. 
 
 " The deduction seems natural," Zietsman 
 
 agreed, looking very thoughtful, as a man 
 
 should who was weighing carefully the 
 
 evidence on which an important theory was 
 
 founded. He appeared to reflect for a few 
 
 moments, and then said absently : " This 
 
 public education — or education of the 
 
 public — you spoke of, how do you mean to 
 
 attack it ? " 
 
 - 10
 
 146 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 Certain little birds which had been twitter- 
 ing very gently on the branches where they 
 roosted, gave up their whispered trills, stretched 
 themselves in lieu of yawning, and then tucked 
 their heads under their wings cosily. 
 
 " For one thing," O'Mara replied, " I shall — 
 shove over that decanter, will you ? — familiarise 
 the public with the most startling rumours. 
 I shall have it given out that the most dis- 
 tinguished, world-famous, persons in fact, are 
 suspect, and have such rumours immediately 
 contradicted. In short, I shall seek to — shock 
 public opinion ! " 
 
 O'Mara emphasized the last clause, strangely. 
 Zietsman looked at him dreamily, and re- 
 peated : 
 
 " You will shock public opinion ? " He 
 knew very well the occasion on which he 
 had last used those words. How did O'Mara 
 know ? 
 
 " In this way," O'Mara went on, the 
 startling emphasis with which he had last 
 spoken slightly abashed, by Zietsman's de- 
 liberate repetition of his phrase ; "I will so 
 upset the balance of the public mind that it 
 will be ready to receive and assimilate any
 
 GREEK JOINS GREEK 147 
 
 new idea, or believe any man to be guilty 
 of these crimes. Why, I'll have the masses 
 in such a state of bewilderment that they 
 would believe, if they were told it, that these 
 crimes were committed by, or planned by — " 
 he cast about for an extravagant illustration — 
 " by you yourself! " 
 
 As he said this, O'Mara leaned forward and 
 struck Zietsman playfully on the knee, taking 
 advantage of his position to look his man 
 steadily in the eyes. His man looked as 
 steadily in his own. For ten seconds the 
 two men sat silently and looked each other 
 in the face. Then Zietsman asked, lazily : 
 " What do you propose to do, then ? " 
 " That part is private — yet ! " 
 " Oh, dear me," Zietsman protested. " That 
 is surely too bad. You give it out publicly 
 that I am a murderer in a large way, and, 
 having deliberately got me into that 
 mess, you leave me to get out of it as 
 best I can. Come, come, O'Mara, that's not 
 friendly." 
 
 " Oh, bother it, Zietsman, you need not 
 take my hypothesis as literally as if I were 
 stating a fact. As if I would state such a
 
 148 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 fact here — if I had it to state at all — which 
 is absurd ! " 
 
 " Why not here ? " Zietsman persisted. 
 
 " Well, if you will make my illustration 
 the subject of an argument, isn't it absurd 
 to suppose that I would personally accuse 
 any man of murder, even in the retail line, 
 until I was in a position — to arrest him ! " 
 
 Again the two men looked each other in 
 the face. 
 
 " Why, you might murder me here, and 
 no one would be a bit the wiser." 
 
 " Not a bad idea, by any means," Zietsman 
 reflected. But, he said, with a deprecating 
 wave of his hand ; " Oh, no, O'Mara, you 
 surely don't think I would be so stupid as 
 to murder you here, when — in the extra- 
 ordinary hypothesis we have been discussing 
 — you would have blazed your trail, as you 
 used to say, to this house. That would be 
 too childlike and bland. Now, if I were really 
 going to murder you — " He turned fiercely 
 on O'Mara, and, before the real murder in his 
 eyes, the detective flinched — " I should arrange 
 that you would be found dead in your own 
 bed, with your razor in your dead hand, and
 
 GREEK JOINS GREEK 149 
 
 your throat — " he made a gesture which sent 
 a shiver through O'Mara, in spite of his firm 
 nerves. 
 
 " But we have amused ourselves long enough 
 with this nonsense." Zietsman's manner changed 
 back in a flash. " Have you really a clue about 
 these startling — er — crimes ? " 
 
 " I have," O'Mara said, shortly, as he arose 
 and prepared to go. 
 
 " May I hope to be taken into your con- 
 fidence — er — later on ? " 
 
 " You may," said O'Mara. He stopped a 
 moment with an unintentional dramatic pause, 
 and then going close to Zietsman he said, in 
 a low voice : " If my clue is as good as I think 
 it is you will hear about it very soon. You 
 will be the first to hear about it. Good-night, 
 Zietsman." He did not offer his hand. This 
 was the second time he had been guilty of 
 the same trivial offence. It was duly noted. 
 
 "Hold on a moment, O'Mara," Zietsman 
 called after his unconventional guest. ' They 
 are all gone to bed. I'll see you out." 
 
 At the door, Zietsman thrust something, 
 with a beseeching gesture, into O'Mara's hand. 
 The latter put the closed envelope, as it proved
 
 150 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 to be, into his pocket the moment he looked 
 at it. He could not trust himself to open 
 it in the other man's presence. He could 
 not trust himself with his triumph till he 
 was alone. His exultation would be impossible 
 to suppress, but indecent, especially as his 
 man had evidently thrown himself on his 
 mercy. This, that he held lovingly in the 
 hand by which he had stuffed it into his 
 pocket, was, at least, a signal of surrender — 
 perhaps a confession. Now, the authorities 
 would learn whether they or he had been 
 right — whether he was only a nuisance on their 
 staff or the best man they had ever employed. 
 He had admittedly attempted a tour de force 
 in visiting Zietsman without a scrap of legal 
 evidence — or only a scrap. And that scrap 
 had not " come off." Yet here was the 
 certificate of his success signed by the man 
 best qualified to guarantee it. 
 
 As his cab was driven smartly to the rural 
 railway station, to catch a night train to 
 town, O'Mara went on weaving pleasant 
 fancies. He still held his hand on the letter 
 in his pocket, like a school-boy with his first 
 sovereign, afraid he should lose it if he let
 
 GKEEK JOINS GREEK 151 
 
 it go. At the station, where he was the 
 only passenger on the platform, he opened 
 the precious envelope and read the contents 
 by the dim light of a poor lamp. 
 
 It was a complimentary ticket for Zietsman's 
 lecture.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND 
 
 Owing to the press paragraphs, which had 
 heralded Zietsman's lecture before the Britan- 
 nic Association, he found a packed audience 
 in the hall of the Financial Branch, as he 
 stepped on the platform. He sauntered to 
 the reading desk, with that carefully careless 
 grace, which is very effective, when properly 
 carried off, although a painful caricature 
 when inefficiently presented. But he had 
 practised his manner too long to make a 
 mistake, or it came natural to him, which 
 is nearly as good. 
 
 Zietsman ran easily over the introductory 
 portion of his discourse, with a confident, 
 but subtly apologetic tone, a tone which 
 suggested that his remarks were admittedly 
 jejune, and the point of his arguments too 
 obvious to be put with any propriety before 
 
 152
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND 153 
 
 such an audience. To persons possessing 
 such unfathomable profundity of thought, 
 he seemed to imply, it was an indignity to 
 be offered his poor presentation of what 
 they all knew so much better than himself. 
 It is a simple platform trick, and well 
 worth while. The wiser heads no doubt 
 perceive how they are being imposed on 
 at the moment, and decry it — next morning. 
 The others never find it out. Zietsman had 
 his audience in the hollow of his hand, after 
 his first few sentences. 
 
 He ran lightly, and brightly, considering 
 the nature of his subject, over the history 
 of money, from its earliest appearance in the 
 records of mankind. Away in the mists of 
 history, far back in the traditions of the 
 past, deep down on the horizon of civilisation 
 itself, he pointed out the first nimbus of the 
 cloud which had spread until it overshadowed, 
 and bade fair to overwhelm, the activity to 
 which it owed its genesis. The first attempts 
 by man to manufacture a standard of exchange 
 were catalogued in a running fire of sparkling 
 verbiage. Playfully, but incisively, he rippled 
 over the lornr list : the skins of animals taken
 
 154 THE NEW MESSIAH 
 
 in the chase, domestic animals while alive, 
 measures of grain, oil, etc., the cowries of 
 the East Indies, the cacao nuts of Yutacan, 
 beeswax in Sumatra, red feathers in the 
 Pacific Isles, cubes of tea in Tartary, cotton 
 cloth on the Senegal, iron shovels among the 
 Malagasy, eggs in Alpine villages, dried 
 codfish in Newfoundland, and hand-made 
 nails in early Scotland ; while at Antioch 
 and Alexandria in the old days, the people 
 were worse off than our neighbours of a 
 couple of centuries ago, who were reduced 
 to brass money, and wooden shoes. At 
 Antioch and Alexandria, they had wooden 
 money for a time, and no shoes at all. Then 
 he created a general laugh, by imagining a 
 man walking into a City bank to open an 
 account, with the lodgment of an ox ; or 
 who asked one of the ladies in the Post 
 Office for a postage stamp, and found he had 
 nothing smaller with him than a sheep to 
 pay for it. 
 
 In this way, Zietsman first gripped the 
 attention of the people, and then, like an 
 angler, who feels that he has hooked his 
 fish, and drives in the steel, the lecturer
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND 155 
 
 struck his audience hard. His dilettante 
 manner altered so sharply, that the people 
 nearly started in their seats. There was 
 actually a subdued shuffle of feet, and an 
 inarticulate, but audible sound or sigh of 
 pained surprise, as though an unforeseen 
 collection had been suddenly announced. 
 Every ear was strained to catch the words, 
 lower in tone, as each bitter sentence gained 
 in suppressed vehemence. The speakers 
 balanced periods had given place to more 
 vigorous polemics ; his suave manner to 
 a passionate impatience. He went on stren- 
 uously : 
 
 " From the cumbrous but solvent currency 
 in which each coin was intrinsically worth 
 what we may call its face value, to the 
 token which is only worth its equivalent 
 so long as a nation, or Society, chooses to 
 recognise it as such, we have an enormous 
 advance — in many directions. Money, defined 
 shortly, is simply a vast ledger, in which 
 every man's claim to service is automatically 
 entered up — this claim to a service from Society 
 being at first solely founded upon his proof 
 of having rendered an equivalent service to
 
 J56 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 Society. To facilitate this proof he received, 
 on rendering his service, a token which was at 
 first intrinsically worth the service, and after- 
 wards extrinsically good as a claim to a like, or 
 ad valorem service. The intention was always 
 the dispensation of exact justice, and for a 
 time the system worked well enough. That 
 is, if it worked ill, any other scheme devisable 
 by the wit of man, would probably have 
 worked worse. Latterly, the system is 
 working inconceivable havoc in humanity, by 
 the weakness of the factor which was once 
 its strength — the mobility of modern money. 
 
 " Now, commerce in its higher forms could 
 never be brought to its present universal 
 application, and scientific exactitude, without 
 a more mobile currency than bear-skins or 
 hand-made nails, and more durable than fresh 
 eggs. In the marvellous ramification of that 
 stupendous system of exchange, which has 
 stretched its arms round the earth, neither 
 live stock nor dried codfish could for a 
 moment be used as a counter. In these 
 gigantic sums of debtor and creditor, some- 
 thing at first portable in enormous quantity 
 in charge of a single caretaker, as gold ; then.
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS A.T HAND 157 
 
 transmittable safely by ordinary post, such 
 as government bonds, or bankers' bills ; and 
 lastly, when sluggish steamship, wallowing 
 in the waves a poor twenty knots, and snail- 
 like express crawling over the land at the 
 practically stationary rate of a mile a minute, 
 became all too slow, we have almost perfected 
 a medium which can be flashed on the wings 
 of the lightning, and you can buy by telegram 
 in Antipodean markets, on credits established 
 in Lothbury. 
 
 " Follow me closely : this is an enormous 
 advance in the extrinsic influence of the factor 
 employed. Money is no longer a medium : 
 Money is no longer an ethical substitute for, 
 and a just claim to, products. Money is a 
 weapon to conquer and sequestrate products. 
 Money is omniscience ! 
 
 " That is wrong. 
 
 " The original ruison d'etre, as we have 
 seen, of Money was to facilitate a man, who 
 had rendered a service to Society, in banking 
 his claim, so to speak ; securing thereby, when 
 required, on the credential for which he ex- 
 changed it, a similiar or ad valorem service 
 from Society. Money has become an economic
 
 158 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 rack by means of which services can be torn 
 from Society in payment of which ad valorem 
 services have not been rendered, no service 
 has been rendered. 
 
 " That is immoral. 
 
 " Nay more, by Money a claim to service 
 can be manipulated to exact from Society two 
 ad valorem, services, or two thousand services, 
 and yet remain intact, an undiminished power 
 for extortion. 
 
 " That ought to be criminal. 
 
 " The last of these three facets of the same 
 figure, these three presentations of the same 
 truth, is perhaps the most forcible as well as 
 direct impeachment of the iniquity under 
 examination. Let me amplify my point of 
 view upon it. For this immediate purpose I 
 shall not differentiate between claims resting 
 on a just or unjust foundation. I do not care 
 whether the claim was created by a man who 
 built a ship for it ; or by an ancestor who 
 robbed a church for it ; or by an ancestress 
 who was mistress to a king for it. The claim 
 exists. It must be discharged. But being 
 discharged it ought to be extinguished. That 
 is the crux of this question. As we know,
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND 159 
 
 the claim at present can be used like the 
 widow's cruse. So far from being diminished 
 on its satisfaction, by a stupendous paradox, 
 it becomes greater. A man borrows it, puts 
 it in force against Society, returns it to its 
 original owner with an increased potentiality, 
 so that the next man can borrow a larger 
 claim, and so on indefinitely — the lender, 
 perhaps even not a single one of the borrowers, 
 rendering aught in lieu of what they are all 
 receiving. The claim itself meanwhile roams 
 about like a Wandering Jew, unable to die." 
 
 Zietsman paused for a moment and in the 
 stillness you could almost hear the people 
 breathe. Then leaning forward, both hands 
 grasping the rail before him, his face almost 
 repellent in its tragic intensity, he cried out 
 in a stentorian voice : 
 
 " That is the way Millionaires are made!" 
 He went on again in quiet but impressive 
 tones : 
 
 " That, simply as I have put it, is the 
 explanation of the stupendous accumulation 
 of money in the hands of a few, and the 
 atrocious straits of the many. The claims 
 are heaping up, being heaped up by men who,
 
 160 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 never from their cradles to their graves, render 
 an iota of service in lieu of them. And these 
 claims — purely theoretical claims, purely hypo- 
 thetical values, utterly worthless and pre- 
 posterous paper tokens, endless rows of 
 meaningless figures multiplying them- 
 selves by a hideous geometrical progres- 
 sion — are being met again and again by 
 a foolish, a wickedly innocent, a disgrace- 
 fully ignorant, an unthinkably stupid Society, 
 until the burden under which it groans is 
 greater than it can bear. That is the problem 
 of to-morrow. That is the problem of to-day ! 
 The present civilisation will perish on that 
 rock if it be not blasted from its foundations. 
 All the older civilisations foundered on it, 
 and we, with our more facile methods, move 
 as far in a decade as they in a century. 
 When the reins dropped from Egypt's mummied 
 fingers, two per cent, of her population owned 
 ninety-seven per cent, of her wealth. When 
 the waters closed over Babylon, two per cent, 
 owned all the wealth. When Rome fell, 
 eighteen hundred men owned all the Roman 
 world. A hundred thousand persons own 
 the United Kingdom, and three-fifths of the
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND 161 
 
 wealth of the United States is in the hands 
 of thirty-one thousand persons. Savage hordes 
 cannot now overwhelm any civilisation from 
 without. The hordes, which our civilisation 
 is rendering savage, will, if it persist, overturn 
 it from within. 
 
 " But I believe it will not persist. Already 
 humanity is revolting at the spectacle which 
 would be almost laughable if it were not 
 lamentable, of a man begging his brother worm 
 for leave to toil, and offering nine -tenths of 
 the fruit of his labour in return for that 
 preposterous privilege. Already even dull 
 humanity is beginning to laugh at the time- 
 dishonoured spectacle of a brute, who, in 
 tendering a claim — mostly bogus — for service 
 adopts an insulting, imperious, or even 
 superior air, while the wretch who renders 
 it is obsequious enough to cringe, and silly 
 enough to feel grateful. The old order may 
 have served its day, but happily, that day 
 is done or dying, I preach no impossible 
 doctrine. I postulate no far-fetched and 
 unworkable hypothesis. My system is so 
 simple that he who runs may read it. In 
 
 future all accounts between the Individual 
 
 11
 
 162 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 and Society will be kept by Society : between 
 nation and nation in the clearing room of 
 the world. That will dispense with the swash- 
 buckler millionaire accumulating and annexing 
 the whole surplus earnings of thousands 
 beyond what keeps them alive — miserably 
 alive. That also will dispense with the swash- 
 buckler nation riding rough-shod over the 
 world. For as a man who is in debt is a 
 slave, so a nation in debt is a nation of slaves, 
 and the earnings of the serfs who serve the 
 millionaire being lodged to his banking account, 
 instead of to their own, is no more ridiculous 
 and dishonest than the earnings of a starving 
 nation being transferred by due process of 
 commerce to be gambled at Monte Carlo or 
 guzzled at a metropolitan hotel. 
 
 " It may often, may always, be necessary 
 to obtain services from Society before the 
 corresponding service is rendered. That will 
 be done sanely. A city wishes to extend its 
 drains, or exude its slums. The labour of 
 many men is necessary. It now borrows 
 claims to service, intrinsically worthless, from 
 individuals holding them — and the hundred 
 thousand pounds debt becomes a hundred
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND 163 
 
 million, and when that is paid it is not even 
 then discharged ! Before the last day surely 
 the city will acquire the sense to borrow the 
 services and pay for them by orders on the 
 municipality ; every one of which when met 
 is extinguished. 
 
 " But you ask me would men trust the 
 municipality or Society with their services, 
 and I answer : — all men trust Society now, 
 for if Society make not good your monetary 
 token, by giving products for it when presented, 
 your miser's gold is only a store of very 
 malleable metal, and your millionaire's scrip 
 so much waste paper. And do you not suppose 
 that if our friends the millionaires continued 
 indefinitely their multiplication of these their 
 bonds that Society would not, that Society 
 will not, one day say enough : keep your 
 ridiculous parchments and eat them if you 
 choose, for you shall have no other food 
 from us. Remember that the figures in his 
 deeds no more represent services to Society, 
 or products given in lieu of them, than if he 
 had made the numerals with his own pen in 
 a frivolous mood. And remember that Society 
 would be ethically right m repudiating
 
 164 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 them, and that one day it will repudiate 
 them." 
 
 " La propriete cest le vol ! " 
 
 A man in the audience shouted this sar- 
 castically. A raging cheer swept over the 
 whole assembly. It was only in the bitterness 
 of that yell you could have gauged how 
 intensely Zietsman had stirred their hate, 
 hitherto so well suppressed. The people were 
 all of the undemonstrative class, and had 
 done violence to their feelings by this outburst. 
 But having done so they seemed of no mind 
 to recant. In another second they would have 
 got out of hand, and the lecturer had not yet 
 done with them — or with the reporters who 
 were taking down his speech. It was certainly 
 a psychological moment. 
 
 " That aphorism," Zietsman called, in a 
 loud, commanding voice, " has been more 
 misunderstood, more wilfully represented, 
 than any other in the history of ex parte 
 argument. The audience seems to ask do 
 I support Proudhon, and I answer that with 
 all my heart I do support Proudhon, but 
 not the ignorant slanders of his traducers. 
 I myself believe not only in the just rights
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND 165 
 
 of property, but I believe in them so much 
 more strongly than does this audience, that I 
 would visit with death, the man who defrauded 
 another of his property, the produce of the 
 work of his hands or his brains, to which his 
 Right is inalienable. Yet of this right he is 
 daily despoiled in the present regime, on the 
 plea of the Rights of Property ; the right of 
 theoretical property to rob him of his actual 
 property : the right of property which has 
 been created to absorb all property that is 
 being created, or will be created : the con- 
 fiscation of the fruits of a man's sweat and 
 blood, on the shadowy plea that some prior 
 man has sweated and bled, a thousand-year- 
 old certificate of which, in the form of a 
 piece of paper worth a fraction of a farthing, 
 is produced to legalise the spoilage : the 
 right of a generation which is dead, the 
 bones of which are dust, to order the lives, 
 dictate the laws, divide the goods, distribute 
 the products, of a generation which is alive ; 
 the Right of Theft ! That is what Proudhon 
 struck at, and I impeach ; only that I 
 put it shortly, and he put it clumsily. 
 
 "And let me add that what I have said
 
 166 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 of Proudhon, applies with not less force to 
 the revolt of La Fontaine, the vengeance of 
 Bossuet, the anarchism of Diderot, the visions 
 of Rousseau, the venom of Voltaire, the 
 doctrinairism of Paine, the socialism of Marx, 
 the nihilism of Kropotkin ! What have 
 you, any of you — all of you — read of these 
 men, and what have you not read about 
 these men ? " 
 
 The audience was literally stricken dumb. 
 
 " Believe me," Zietsman went on fervently, 
 " man will not consent for ever to live only 
 as an executor of the past ; he will not 
 wander to eternity among the tombstones 
 of dead utilities which we call conventions ; 
 he will not everlastingly blind his brain with 
 void aphorisms, for after all what are even 
 the best of these, but coins of truth long 
 since called in. Slowly, but surely, the old 
 economic conditions are going the way of 
 the stone axe. Man's environment already 
 requires, and in the near future will require 
 with a thousand-fold force, new social, 
 commercial, and industrial relations. The 
 first, most far reaching, and fundamental of 
 these changes, will be the complete re-organi-
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND 167 
 
 sation, not to say revolution, of the Financial 
 System of the World ! " 
 
 The speaker paused to recover his breath 
 for a final outburst, and broke out once 
 more : 
 
 " This system began, as we saw, in a medium 
 for the facilitation of the necessary and useful 
 interchange of products, and has rotted, as 
 I have shewn, into a system for the confisca- 
 tion of products. Every day this Sisyphean 
 stone is rolling downhill, with added momentum, 
 for every day deserters from the ranks of 
 labour join the army of parasites that prey 
 upon it, until mankind groans under the 
 burthen which threatens to press the life out 
 of the civilisation which has invented it. But 
 I do not despair. To change my metaphor, I 
 see in this rottenness but the decaying husk 
 which nourishes the seed that from such 
 corruption will spring into new life, a re-born 
 vitality. All entities pass away in their good 
 time. All activities are replaced. We must 
 not lose heart because at present everything 
 seems so dark. The day is at hand. We 
 must not fear although our old landmarks are 
 vanishing, and the new order as yet shows
 
 158 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 us not how we may replace the sign-posts 
 which hitherto guided our way. It is but a 
 transition period in an eternal progression. 
 Life, death, and then new birth. Everything 
 changes but change. 
 
 " Do not charge me that my criticism is 
 mainly destructive. Napoleon, who tore the 
 last rags of feudalism in shreds and scattered 
 the dross to the four winds builded nothing 
 that will endure. Yet everything has been 
 built on the ground he cleared. You charge 
 us, we who tell you — we who shout in 
 your deaf ears — that the days of Property 
 as they have hitherto obtained are passing 
 away, that we give you no system, no formula 
 of mathematical exactitude to take the place 
 of that which is perishing amid the contempt 
 of wise men and the lamentations of fools. 
 I answer you, it is not ours to build but to 
 destroy. I come not to bring Peace but a 
 Sword. Others will come after and reap where 
 we have sown, and gather where we have 
 strawed. Theirs will be the guerdon but to 
 mankind will be the gain ! 
 
 " I see," he continued in a hushed voice, 
 every syllable of which still reached the
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND 169 
 
 farthest ear, "I see a new heaven descending 
 on this new earth. I see a vast panorama 
 of beatitude sweeping from east to west, 
 rolling from pole to pole ; war forgotten, 
 poverty banished, crime extinct. I see a 
 world so transfigured and transformed that 
 honesty and industry will no longer be 
 disabilities, in which charity will be uncalled 
 for, and even what we call humanity will 
 be unnecessary, because justice will be 
 omniscient. For, the social, economic and 
 intellectual night in which man has wandered, 
 like them that walk in darkness is far spent. 
 The light that is glowing in the east, as yet 
 but a single spark of fire, is no bigger than 
 a man's hand, but in the day of its coming 
 the Cimmerian firmament will be rolled back 
 as a scroll, and under that blazing oriflamme 
 will march the battalions of Truth. Already 
 if you have ears to hear you may listen to 
 the muffled drums and hear the earth-shaking 
 tramp of the marching feet in the armies of 
 that grand advance. Blasphemy of blas- 
 phemies," he cried out, " but paean of praise, I 
 acclaim the long-delayed Apologia of the 
 Almighty, the justification of Creation ! Lord !
 
 170 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 Thine ear has been slow to hear and Thy 
 hand to save. But Thy mercy will be as 
 enduring as Thy hate and it shall last till 
 the Trumpet shall sound." 
 
 He paused for a moment overcome, and 
 then by a supreme effort controlling his 
 emotion, which even if only rhetorical was 
 certainly sincere, he cried out in a powerful 
 voice : 
 
 " The Kingdom of God is at hand ! "
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 CRUCIFY HIM! CRUCIFY HIM! 
 
 When his last word was spoken, Zietsman 
 turned from the reading desk and left the 
 platform, without waiting for the usual 
 formalities which follow the lectures before 
 the Britannic Association. The audience 
 remained in their places for a few moments 
 without moving, and in a silence so great 
 that it might easily be felt. They were 
 vaguely conscious that the proceedings had 
 terminated unusually : that the meeting had 
 not been formally declared closed : and they 
 sat in a stupefied inanition waiting for the 
 next development. This came naturally 
 from the platform, on which, after some 
 excited consultation, a man appeared and 
 informed the audience that the customary 
 amenities on occasions like the present had 
 
 171
 
 172 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 been dispensed with, and that the meeting 
 was over. A word of warning was volunteered 
 by the speaker. He trusted, that the extra- 
 ordinary and totally unexpected nature of 
 the address they had just listened to would 
 be forgotten, or forgiven ; that the audience 
 would disperse quietly, without any mani- 
 festations of the natural indignation they 
 must feel under the circumstances ; and that 
 the gentlemen representing the press would 
 see the propriety of destroying their notes, 
 and paying no further attention to an episode 
 which no one could regret more than the 
 Financial Committee of the Britannic As- 
 sociation, under whose auspices the lecture 
 had been delivered. Then the people arose, 
 and began to move slowly out, convers- 
 ing in low whispers, and straggling in groups 
 down the long aisles, a marked contrast 
 to the usual expeditious clearance of the 
 building. 
 
 " Zietsman, Zietsman ! where is Zietsman ?" 
 This cry echoed through corridors and 
 cloak-rooms. Frantic city men shouted them- 
 selves hoarse, and all manner of financial 
 authorities demanded his body, while with
 
 CEUCIFY HIM! CRUCIFY HIM! 173 
 
 apostolic emphasis they foreswore his teaching. 
 Some superior persons insisted that the whole 
 preposterous argument and bizarre beatitudes 
 were but an elaborate hoax conceived, they 
 admitted, in the worst taste, but executed, 
 they maintained, with considerable ability. 
 All soon leant to the opinion which, indeed, 
 they declared might have been admitted 
 from the first, that Zietsman hoped by 
 establishing a financial hysteria, something 
 comparable with the regulation religious 
 epidemic or revival, to flutter the market 
 to his own advantage. It cannot be pretended 
 that many blamed him for this, but they 
 did blame him severely for not giving them 
 the hint. One notorious "operator" took a 
 very severe, and perfectly sincere view of 
 the grossly immoral nature of Zietsman's 
 action, which even from the most favourable 
 view was a form of swindling not on the 
 code. 
 
 This heated and motley crowd of indignant 
 critics found their way at last to the room 
 in which the lecturer had made his final 
 preparations for his appearance on the plat- 
 form, and into which, moreover, a commis-
 
 174 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 sionaire declared he had retired immediately 
 on leaving it. So into this room they burst, 
 shouting, swearing, laughing by turns, as 
 the various phases of the situation presented 
 themselves to their minds. But whether 
 they laughed or swore, there was no alteration 
 in their intention of making Zietsman sorry 
 he spoke. He had escaped them for the 
 moment. The room was empty. Again 
 the corridors and passages rang with : 
 
 " Zietsman, Zietsman ! Where is Zietsman?" 
 But they might have called there all night 
 without result, for when Zietsman himself 
 dashed into his room from the lecture plat- 
 form, he only stayed long enough to thrust 
 his manuscript into his bag, and, seizing hat 
 and coat, dash out again, before the coma 
 in the hall had been displaced by the 
 speaker who announced that the proceedings 
 were unexpectedly at an end. So instantaneous 
 was Zietsman's movement that he was gone 
 down many stairs, through long passages, 
 out by a side door, and into a cab, before 
 the people in the hall arose from their seats. 
 The cab went off at speed, and thus the 
 strictly informal character of the unusual
 
 CRUCIFY HIM! CRUCIFY HIM! 175 
 
 episode was maintained till its close. It 
 was not closed yet, but the informality was 
 faithfully preserved in the further and final 
 feature which brought the whole matter to 
 a fitting climax. In this the audience con- 
 tributed their share. 
 
 In the street outside the main door of 
 the hall, a crowd had gathered, guided it 
 may have been by that subtle instinct 
 which infallibly conducts a mob to where 
 it can do most harm. The electric atmosphere 
 with which the Financial Hall was charged, 
 had filtered out, and although unusually 
 quiet, the mass was ripe for any stupidity. 
 It was the unusual, the uncanny silence 
 of the hall into which a vast audience had 
 been crowded that impressed the outside 
 throng. Something must have happened. 
 There must be something wrong. Anything 
 wrong will do for a mob. Any misfortune 
 is better than none. 
 
 Thus it was, as a handsomely appointed 
 carriage plunged through the people, and 
 broke into the long line of vehicles that 
 waited, each its own turn, at the door. 
 It was a high-handed proceeding, but a word
 
 176 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 was passed round which made it right, or 
 stopped the clamour. Simultaneously was 
 called from the vestibule : 
 
 " Mr. Van Rannsler' s carriage ! " 
 
 A tall, fine-looking man in the vestibule, 
 wearing jewelry perhaps too massive for the 
 best taste, but otherwise not noticeable among 
 the well-dressed crowd through which he moved, 
 spoke angrily. He had plainly lost his 
 temper, and did not take the pains neces- 
 sary to conceal the fact which is usual 
 among well-dressed people. A young fellow 
 who sauntered arm-in-arm with him 
 drawled : 
 
 " I certainly think, Van Rannsler, the 
 fellow should be under restraint." 
 
 " I would put him under a restraint that 
 would be permanent," Van Rannsler said, 
 very loudly — almost shouted. A murmur 
 of approval like the applause at a theatre 
 filled the vestibule. Social etiquette did not 
 hold under the extraordinary conditions. 
 Men who were utter strangers to Van Rannsler 
 cried in a respectful chorus : 
 
 " Quite right ! quite right, sir ! quite 
 right ! "
 
 CKUCIFY HIM! OKUCIFY HIM! 177 
 
 Van Rannsler had not looked for their 
 approval, but he was pleased with it. When 
 he stopped, as if to accentuate what he was 
 about to say, there was a silence as sudden 
 as if a duly elected chairman of the meeting 
 had called for order. Van Rannsler raised 
 his voice so that it carried right over the 
 excited crowd, and said harshly : 
 
 " He ought to be hanged ! " 
 
 Informal as the meeting was, the people 
 
 clapped their hands, and stamped their feet, 
 
 and shouted, " hear, hear ! " with more than 
 
 formal sincerity. When the tumult ceased, 
 
 an old, white-haired man, who stood at 
 
 the extreme limit of the crowd, near the 
 
 entrance from the street, raised his 
 
 hand. The noise stopped instantly. The 
 
 strain was so great, not a man or woman 
 
 moved until they would hear what this 
 
 venerable man had to say to the infamous 
 
 doctrines which had just been preached. He 
 
 raised his weak hands aloft, as though he 
 
 would pronounce a benediction. His shrunk 
 
 form was silhouetted against the glare of 
 
 the street lamps, and it cast a weird shadow 
 
 toward the people. His arm was withered, 
 
 12
 
 178 A- NEW MESSIAH 
 
 and his face was old — but his eyes were like 
 flames, as his hoarse voice resounded through 
 the vestibule : 
 
 " But they cried the more saying, Crucify 
 Him ! Crucify Him ! "
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 IN THE GREAT DEEP 
 
 On the morning after the lecture, Zietsman 
 did not come to breakfast. This was not 
 unusual. When Nell asked about her father, 
 Johnson replied in a tone which implied that, 
 whatever the strain of the lecture had been, 
 it had not in the least injured the lecturer. 
 The girl had often heard her father theorise 
 in a startling way when in the heat of con- 
 versational debate, but the lecture, to which 
 she had gone with Penrose, was as great a 
 revelation to them both as it could have been 
 to the most orthodox financier in the City, and 
 some of these had attended it — to their 
 immediate regret and ultimate disgust. 
 
 "He will be down presently," Johnson 
 volunteered ; " When we have finished 
 packing." i, 
 
 179
 
 180 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 " When you have finished packing ! " Nell 
 exclaimed, in some surprise, although well 
 accustomed to her father's sudden, almost 
 mysterious disappearances from home. The 
 lengthened tour, which she had mentioned to 
 Penrose as in contemplation, could hardly be 
 undertaken at such very short notice, nor 
 had she been warned to hold herself in 
 readiness for an immediate departure. This 
 flight was, therefore, most likely unpremedi- 
 tated or intended to be brief. Nell had 
 breakfasted quite by herself, for Penrose was 
 also an absentee, although he attended 
 all meals with a cumulative punctuality, as 
 his own strength increased and his ap- 
 preciation of Miss Zietsman's society grew 
 with it. 
 
 " Where is Mr. Penrose this morning, 
 Johnson ? We were not so very late last 
 night. He is usually (she might have said, 
 ' always ') down by this time." 
 " Mr. Penrose is packing." 
 " Mr. Penrose ! Is he going also ? " 
 " Yes. They may be away some weeks, 
 or only a few days." Johnson had nothing 
 more to tell, or had told all he intended, so
 
 IN THE GREAT DEEP 181 
 
 Nell did not persist when he protested further 
 ignorance of his master's movements. 
 
 Penrose finished his preparations quickly, 
 having indeed very little to prepare. He had 
 made a few furtive purchases on the day he 
 spent in town with Zietsman, but did not 
 go to his own rooms there, for reasons which 
 have been described. These purchases, with 
 what he had ordered by post from time to 
 time, did not make a formidable stock, but 
 Zietsman added a pair of sea-boots, a heavy 
 overcoat, and other extras, the use of which 
 Penrose did not clearly understand, or indeed 
 trouble about. Zietsman, it was now plain, 
 was more or less mad. He would humour 
 him while he decided how to get clear of 
 him for good. One little rill of comfort began 
 to trickle towards Penrose. When Zietsman 
 had proved a lunatic, might not more than 
 one item in the phantasmagoria of murder 
 and crime, in which he himself seemed to 
 be involved, vanish as mysteriously as it 
 had arrived ? Everything rested on a 
 madman's word — almost everything. He 
 had not forgotten the forbidden room, but 
 he had resolutely refused to remember it
 
 182 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 and to this good resolution he meant to 
 adhere. 
 
 When Zietsman joined his daughter and 
 Penrose in the breakfast room, he was in 
 excellent spirits, although his hair seemed to 
 have gone greyer than on even the preceding 
 day. In getting the lecture off his mind, 
 he had evidently rid it of a serious responsi- 
 bility, or a consummate nuisance, and he was 
 now more cheerful than he had been for a 
 long time. He spoke of the journey, on which 
 he and Penrose were about to start, with 
 enthusiasm ; gave orders for the better care 
 of a portion of the grounds which had been 
 showing signs of neglect ; took an interest in 
 household trivialities that had never hitherto 
 occupied his notice, and behaved generally 
 like a much occupied business man who 
 proposed to himself a long holiday or a 
 complete retirement. The last possibility 
 thrilled Nell with a hope that was unhappily 
 becoming a good stranger to her, and, fearing 
 disappointment while she did so, she could 
 not help asking her father if he did not mean 
 to take a long rest on his return from this 
 tiresome journey. His reply was not alto-
 
 IN THE GREAT DEEP 183 
 
 gether satisfactory. He looked seriously at 
 her for a moment, patted her shoulder affec- 
 tionately, and said : 
 
 " I shall take a long rest — soon." 
 
 " I am very glad," Nell tried to reply, but 
 the words somehow froze upon her lips. 
 
 " No, poor child," Zietsman whispered to 
 himself, as he left the room, " You will be 
 sorry — but only for a little while, I hope." 
 This pensive mood passed quickly, and he 
 again busied himself with the arrangements 
 for his journey. One of these, to which he 
 seemed to attach some importance, was to 
 prevent Penrose having a private interview 
 with his daughter before they left. He seemed 
 as anxious now to keep Nell from having any 
 particular conversation with Penrose as he 
 had recently been to confide her to his care. 
 From the instruction as to the locked drawer 
 and the paper it contained he did not, however, 
 recede. That order, he gave Penrose to 
 understand, was unchanged and unchangeable. 
 In the contingency for which he had provided, 
 Penrose was to assume the guardianship of 
 his daughter. Pending the arrival of that 
 contingency he did jiot wish them to become
 
 184 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 too confidential. That was all the explana- 
 tion of his wishes he would give. 
 
 Before Zietsman and Penrose finally set 
 out, the short winter day was closing in, and 
 evening was coming on, not very pleasantly, 
 with cold winds and passing sleet showers. 
 The weather did not matter while they were 
 in the train, but when their long zigzag 
 journey finally landed them at a small station, 
 in what was little more than a fishing village 
 on the south coast, it again became disagreeably 
 noticeable. Four men met them here. From 
 the conversation that passed, Zietsman ap- 
 parently expected them, and they him. 
 
 " Everything is ready, of course," Zietsman 
 said, as soon as the barest civilities had been 
 exchanged. 
 
 " Everything is ready," they answered, 
 shortly. 
 
 " Then we can start at once. How far 
 off is the boat ? I mean where the boat will 
 pick us up ? " 
 
 " Four miles." 
 
 " Very good, then march." 
 
 Penrose was not introduced to the new 
 men, with whom it appeared he was to be
 
 IN THE GREAT DEEP 185 
 
 associated. He accepted this informality as 
 a matter of course and walked along with 
 the strangers, talking on commonplace subjects. 
 They spoke to him courteously enough, but 
 appeared to be preoccupied. When he 
 addressed them, they answered : when he 
 kept silence, they did the same. Zietsman 
 himself spoke to none. 
 
 It was a cold night with a stormy east 
 wind blowing down channel, and a nasty sea 
 on. With the heavier gusts of wind, a thin 
 sleet drove in a chilling and saturating mist. 
 The coast was absolutely deserted, and there 
 was no appearance of the rudest wharf 
 whereby passengers might embark, nor indeed 
 was there so far any appearance of a boat. 
 But while they stood cowering at last in 
 the lee of a stunted hedge above the beach, 
 they could hear faintly, far out in the darkness 
 the sound of voices calling orders, and then, 
 after a short interval, the thump of sea oars 
 in rough rowlocks could be distinguished. As 
 they strained their eyes seaward a misty 
 blotch, darker than the darkness, came 
 looming in out of the night, swaying and 
 plunging on the heaving sea. The black
 
 186 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 blotch floundered forward, took shape, denned 
 itself more sharply, threw aside disguise, and 
 displayed itself as a fair-sized fishing boat. 
 It waddled further in, grounded heavily on 
 the beach, went back with an ugly yaw, 
 dropped anchor and came to a partial rest. 
 
 Zietsman hailed the boat and was answered. 
 He then jabbered some incoherent and in- 
 consequent words. The countersign was given 
 and Zietsman ordered, sharply : 
 
 " Now then ! All aboard ! " 
 
 " As how ? " Penrose asked. " Do you 
 propose that we should walk on the waves 
 like the apostle ? " 
 
 " On them, or under them, as you find it 
 most convenient," Zietsman answered harshly, 
 and stepped into the surf 
 
 For some distance on the flat beach the 
 water was not very deep, except when a heavy 
 wave came roaring in, but every time one 
 did, the waders — for they were now all in 
 the water — were drenched to their necks in 
 a foaming smother, which nearly swept them 
 off their feet. By holding hard to each other, 
 however, the little line of men managed to 
 support the impact, the stronger helping the
 
 IN THE GKEAT DEEP 187 
 
 weak, so all managed to reach the anchored 
 boat ; half drowned it is true, half dead with 
 cold and wholly sorry, some of them, that 
 they had agreed to the venture. The moment 
 the last man was aboard, the fishing boat 
 weighed anchor and blew out seaward under 
 a rag of sail, which had been flapping slackly 
 furled on the boom. 
 
 For two or three miles the boat steered 
 out to sea, now under as much close-reefed 
 sail as she could carry, and then two little 
 points of light, green and red, with a star-like 
 masthead light, forming the apex of the 
 triangle, showed that they were meeting a 
 steamer, nearly bow on. This steamer was 
 going full speed, too, or those three lights 
 would not have closed up with the fishing 
 boat so soon. A rocket flared up from the 
 boat, another flashed from the steamer. The 
 vessel's engines slowed — stopped — and she was 
 lying in a beam sea, with little way on her 
 when the sailing boat came alongside. 
 
 By going a small turn ahead so as to keep 
 steerage way on the steamer, she could offer 
 a lee side to the boat, and the benumbed 
 passengers of the latter were able to climb
 
 188 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 or allow themselves to be dragged, up the 
 gangway without misadventure. When they 
 were all on deck the fishing boat cast off, 
 and in a moment her brown sail, which 
 showed for a second in a slant of watery 
 moon, disappeared into the darkness. The 
 vessel on which the new passengers found 
 themselves was not large, although from her 
 speed, she seemed to have powerful engines. 
 The decks, even in the dim light showing 
 from the faint moon, were singularly free 
 from any form of ship impedimenta, deck 
 houses, boats, open hatches or any of the 
 numberless encumbrances which limit the 
 open space on an ordinary steamer. But this 
 was not an ordinary steamer, as the new- 
 comers soon discovered. 
 
 One thing Penrose here noticed about his 
 newly made and reticent acquaintances. They 
 appeared to be as ignorant as himself of where 
 they were going and what sort of a ship they 
 were going in. It was they who had arranged 
 with the boatmen who put them on board. 
 But thereafter they appeared completely 
 at sea, figuratively as well as literally. They 
 obeyed Zietsman and asked no questions.
 
 IN THE GREAT DEEP 189 
 
 For the present Penrose thought it best to 
 do the same. 
 
 The main cabin to which Zietsman brought 
 them was small, but comfortable, and when 
 every man had changed, and got on dry- 
 clothing, the supper which was waiting for 
 them was very welcome. While they were 
 eating and drinking, Zietsman and the captain 
 retired to consult in private over some business 
 which it seemed was too important to entrust 
 to all. This arrangement suited those at the 
 banquet admirably, and they ate as heartily 
 as if they were out for a pleasure cruise 
 instead of a voyage so infamous that their own 
 leader thought it better to keep its purport 
 from them until they were committed to it. 
 As they were all tired from the hardships as 
 well as fatigue of their journey, no late sitting 
 was made. Shortly after the supper was 
 finished all were in their berths. 
 
 Penrose did not awaken until late next 
 morning. It was daylight apparently when he 
 first opened his eyes. He dressed leisurely, 
 and without the least discomfort, for the 
 motion of the vessel, which had been extreme 
 on the previous niglit, had now completely
 
 190 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 ceased, and she was moving on an even 
 keel. Nor was there any sound of wind 
 above. He could understand the wind going 
 down, albeit so suddenly, but how the sea 
 became so still, in so short a time, was not 
 easy to explain. As he hurried on his clothes, 
 he could hear exclamations and short remarks 
 from his fellow passengers in the neighbouring 
 berths, all betraying the same surprise which 
 he himself felt, both as to the lateness of 
 his awakening, and the even motion of the 
 vessel. 
 
 Zietsman took the head of the table at 
 breakfast, and presided with a cheerful 
 courtesy. His conversation was of the 
 lightest and pleasantest ante-meridian order 
 imaginable ; no subjects, no politics, no 
 theories ; and, most important, no opinions — 
 plain chaff, and plenty of it, was the only 
 item on the mental menu for that morning. 
 
 When the meal was over, Zietsman led 
 the way to a chart-room on the same deck 
 as the saloon. As has been explained, the 
 upper deck, even in the poor light in which 
 they had seen it the night before, seemed 
 to be used for nothing except standing on
 
 IN THE GREAT DEEP 191 
 
 when coming on board, or leaving the ship. 
 Everything was apparently down below. In 
 the middle of the room to which Zietsman 
 brought his party, there was a large circular 
 table. It was not, even at first sight, an 
 ordinary table, for it was fitted to swing 
 like a ship's compass, always horizontal, no 
 matter how she pitched or rolled. By the 
 very slight motion which this table showed, 
 there was still a perceptible roll on their 
 vessel. Zietsman left his friends here for 
 a few minutes, in charge of the captain, 
 and that officer had just commenced cour- 
 teously to explain the peculiarities of the 
 ship in general, and the chart-room in par- 
 ticular, when he, too, was called away. The 
 men were thus left to themselves until 
 Zietsman's return, which was not long 
 delayed. He was immediately asked many 
 questions, and answered them without a 
 trace of prevarication or mystery. Whatever 
 reticence he may have shown on the way 
 to the ship, seemed to pass now they were 
 aboard her. 
 
 "What's this?" Penrose inquired, putting 
 his hand on the swinging table. He referred
 
 192 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 to the whole construction, but by taking 
 hold of the edge of the table, he seemed to 
 localise his question. 
 
 " Can't you see that's the horizon ? " 
 Zietsman said, in a tone of gentle impatience 
 at the extreme stupidity, it would seem, 
 of the question. 
 
 " No, I can't see that it's the horizon 
 — nor even the Equator," Penrose answered, 
 sharply. 
 
 Zietsman glanced at the table, the surface 
 of which was a blank, so far as any design 
 upon it. He touched a knob, and said 
 soothingly : 
 
 " Well, you'll see it now." 
 
 A fine picture, like a slide from some 
 hidden lantern, was thrown upon the table. 
 It was a sea picture, with little white-specked 
 waves ; and a great ocean liner in miniature, 
 with funnels streaming smoke, and foam- 
 banks on her bows, steamed full ahead — 
 for the side of the table. The most curious 
 feature in the picture was the perfection 
 with which motion was imitated. We know 
 the crude jerks of an ordinary moveable 
 lantern slide, and the disappointing result
 
 IN THE GREAT DEEP 193 
 
 of even the best kinematograph ; but this 
 view, however produced, was faultless. The 
 motion of the waves in the centre, the 
 faintly marked swaying of the liner, which 
 in a minute or two bade fair to steam, as 
 it were, right over the table, were admirably 
 mimicked. The men were clustered round 
 the table, watching the little show with 
 the most lively interest, when one cried 
 enthusiastically : 
 
 " It is really like an actual scene." 
 
 " It ought to be," said Zietsman, " when 
 it is an actual scene." 
 
 " Oh, come now, Zietsman, don't be fooling 
 us." 
 
 " I am serious. If a short-sighted man 
 looked through his spectacles at the sea, 
 and the ships on it, would you say that it 
 was not an actual scene, merely because he 
 saw it through his glasses ? What nonsense ! 
 That is a real scene. The glasses through 
 which you are looking at it are, no doubt, 
 a little more complex than those the man 
 wore on his nose. But they are only a pair 
 of glorified spectacles after all." 
 
 " And where is the scene taking place ? " 
 
 13
 
 194 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 " Above ! Around ! I understood the 
 captain explained all this while I was out." 
 
 " No, he was called away, just as he was 
 about to commence." 
 
 " Oh ! Then it is no wonder you were 
 puzzled. That scene you are watching — 
 here the stern of the liner disappeared at 
 the edge of the table — that scene is situated 
 in the open sea around the point where we 
 are stationed." 
 
 "Why can't we see it without the aid 
 of these complex spectacles of yours ? ' : 
 
 " Because we are a hundred feet under 
 the surface," Zietsman said, as simply as 
 if he had only stated the depth of the 
 vessel's draught. " This is a submarine boat 
 of a pattern owned by no government as 
 yet ; but which every government would 
 own, though it cost a million or a hundred 
 millions, if they knew how it was made " 
 
 " And ? " 
 
 " And what it can accomplish," Zietsman 
 added absently.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 VAN RANNSLER'S FATE 
 
 Soon after the miniature liner had disappeared 
 from the picture in the chart-room, Zietsman 
 gave an order. Some intricate and delicate 
 mechanism or gearing was handled by the 
 captain, and the submarine boat came to the 
 surface ; to it, not above it. Then she went 
 ahead full speed, her bows pointing nearly 
 due west. The passengers, or crew, had only 
 one look-out, a fairly roomy, dome-shaped 
 structure forward, strongly made, and pierced 
 with ports all around. From this, owing to 
 the absence of all manner of deck-hamper, a 
 clear view - could be had towards every point 
 in the compass, unless when the vessel was 
 steaming on her present gearing, namely, 
 with her decks awash. Owing to this, every 
 wave or swell swilled over the look-out and 
 
 195
 
 196 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 made the view so intermittent that it was 
 neither useful nor necessary. It was, indeed, 
 purposeless, except when the vessel was 
 going on her normal draught, or wholly 
 submerged. 
 
 For two or three days, the submarine 
 cruised about in the Atlantic, perhaps a couple 
 of hundred miles off Land's End. When any 
 vessel was sighted bearing down upon her 
 she sank to the surface, and if the on-coming 
 ship seemed likely to cross her route she 
 sank beneath it. A very sharp look-out was 
 kept. Had the watch been less vigilant, 
 Zietsman's boat might have been spoken by 
 some passing ship. This would not have 
 suited him, so it was effectually avoided. 
 
 On the second day out, the weather was 
 rough and the sea rose pretty fast so that 
 Zietsman's party, some of whom were not 
 good sailors, felt the heavy pitching. When 
 they complained, the commander sent his 
 vessel down to a comfortable depth and thus 
 relieved the sick who had suffered at the 
 surface. As the submarine went down into 
 the deep, those who remained in the look-out 
 dome were surprised to find that they did
 
 VAN RANNSLER'S FATE 197 
 
 not sink into absolute darkness. They had 
 wondered often at the degree of light which 
 remained when the vessel went under the 
 surface, but on previous occasions she had 
 only gone a few feet below the water line, 
 and they ascribed the clear atmosphere which 
 remained inside to persisting solar light. No 
 doubt, Zietsman had told them that they 
 were a hundred feet down when they first 
 visited the chart-room, yet the inside of the 
 ship, then as now, was as light as day. Now 
 both inside and outside the ship there 
 remained almost the light of noon. The 
 effect was extraordinary. 
 
 From the dome-shaped chamber, in which 
 two or three men could stand together, they 
 could see around them on every side, and up 
 towards the surface. The strange light indeed 
 did not illumine the water as brightly as 
 ordinary light does the air, nor was it of 
 equal range. The horizon was not more 
 than half a mile in diameter, and what may 
 be called the atmosphere was a transparent 
 green tinge, as though one looked at it through 
 coloured glass. In this emerald element, very 
 soon huge fishes began to gather round them,
 
 198 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 and vast shoals of smaller fry flocked up, 
 attracted by the light which radiated from 
 the vessel. They could see these curious and 
 puzzled creatures gape in lazy wonder as 
 the boat passed slowly by, stare in at them 
 with yawning gullets, follow them inquisitively, 
 plunge down beneath in sudden fright, or 
 pursue their own affairs, indifferent. One 
 ugly monster, which seemed all mouth, drifted 
 some distance with them, a lugubrious ocean 
 tramp with fierce eyes and fearful teeth. He 
 watched the ship attentively as he swam 
 leisurely alongside, considering as he swam. 
 Then finding no solution for the puzzle in 
 his stolid brain, he gave it up, swallowed a 
 few small fish absently at a gulp, passed on 
 his way and mingled with his weird fellow 
 denizens of the deep. 
 
 This cruising might have grown tiresome 
 after the first novelty of sailing under the 
 surface of the water had worn off, if it had 
 been very much prolonged, but they were 
 saved from possible weariness by an event 
 which happened at noon on the third day* 
 The man on the masthead look-out — they 
 were steaming slowly, like an ordinary vessel
 
 VAN RANNSLER'S FATE 199 
 
 at the time — reported something to the 
 captain who went instantly for Zietsman ; 
 who in turn recalled the man from the not 
 very elevated crow's-nest he occupied. When 
 he was under hatches the boat sank as 
 suddenly as if she had been torpedoed, and 
 as silently as an otter dives. 
 
 "This way ! " Zietsman called. He went 
 straight to the chart-room and the others 
 followed like lads who have been called to 
 a class. That something stirring was toward 
 might be gathered from the eager whispering 
 that passed between Zietsman and his officer. 
 The registers, telegraphs, or whatever the 
 complicated mechanism may be called, which 
 decided the ship's course, and distance from 
 the surface, were carefully examined ; the 
 table, on which the little tableau vivant 
 had appeared when they were last in the 
 room, was inspected and adjusted. After 
 their own fashion, they were clearing for 
 action. 
 
 " You promised to tell us how this thing 
 worked," Penrose said, partly for information 
 and partly to relieve the tension which was 
 oppressing all in the room. " How does it
 
 200 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 differ from the periscope, I think you said it 
 was, which the French government em- 
 ployed ? " 
 
 " The periscope," Zietsman answered readily, 
 as though he, too, was glad of a common 
 subject — " the periscope was a mere tube 
 running to the surface and fitted with lenses 
 by which those below could see what is on 
 the surface — a few yards away. But their 
 boat was absolutely blind as to what was below 
 the surface, once it was down at any con- 
 siderable depth. This boat can observe the 
 surface for as many miles as the weather — 
 hazy or otherwise — will permit, and below it 
 we can see our way four hundred yards ahead 
 with sufficient accuracy to avoid a sunken 
 rock or other obstacle at that distance. The 
 light by which we steer is manufactured on 
 board." 
 
 " That is certainly a difference ! " two or 
 three men said together. 
 
 "It is the difference between a blind man 
 led by a dog on a string, and a man with good 
 eyes at the end of a telescope," Zietsman 
 declared emphatically. Then he added with 
 perhaps a touch of vain glory :
 
 VAN RANNSLER'S FATE 201 
 
 " This boat can see ! " 
 
 Observing the astonished faces by which he 
 was surrounded, Zietsman went on less 
 positively : 
 
 " You may remember a fanciful invention 
 of one of our story-tellers by means of which 
 a boat, fitted with electric feelers, groped its 
 way to its object. It was not a bad guess. 
 But between those feelers and my invention 
 there is the same difference as that between 
 the antennas of the ant and the optic nerves 
 of a creature that can see. Observe ! ' : He 
 drew a rough diagram on a piece of paper, 
 and pointed out the various objects as he spoke. 
 
 " This is the vessel ; that the surface of the 
 water. To a depth of forty or fifty feet we 
 send up a mast — thus — to the surface. At 
 the depth we now are, we send up a float, 
 heavily weighted so that it shall not turn 
 over by the movement of the water, and 
 attached to the ship by a strong cable. From 
 this partly submerged masthead, or this 
 partially submerged float, a fine but many 
 stranded wire is driven upwards into the air, 
 by pneumatic pressure, five feet or fifty 
 according to the condition of the sea. At
 
 202 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 the extreme elevation this wire has a receiver 
 or lens where a form of energy which we 
 call light waves is converted into another 
 form of energy which we call electric impulses. 
 These in turn are re-converted into light 
 waves and thrown upon that disc, which 
 thereby receives the original picture and 
 reproduces it. The lens above the water is 
 the eye, the stranded wire is the optic nerve, 
 that disc is the brain. All these are no 
 doubt on a large scale but there is, as yet, 
 no known finality to sight, and it matters 
 very little whether an optic nerve is the 
 fraction of an inch or a quarter of a mile, or a 
 hundred miles." 
 
 They asked him, somewhat awed by his 
 positive, not to say peremptory, manner, what 
 the effect would be if this wonderful eye 
 were injured, or this extraordinary wire cut, 
 by misadventure or by an enemy's fire if the 
 invention were used in warfare. His answer 
 was immediate and to the point : 
 
 " If the boat's eye — one of her eyes, — were 
 struck, say by a chance splinter of a bursting 
 shell, or the connecting wire cut, another 
 would instantly and automatically take its
 
 VAN EANNSLER'S FATE 203 
 
 place. The boat would not be blinded. Her 
 eyes would only wink. But — stand clear there ! 
 Get to the other side. Do not come between 
 me and the disc for your lives. It is very 
 important." 
 
 The men crowded to the opposite side of the 
 room, and waited with quickened pulses. 
 They all watched the disc intently, and on 
 it too Zietsman's eyes were fixed. As they 
 stood silently waiting and watching, the 
 snow-white stem of a yacht began to show 
 on the edge of the disc which represented 
 the eastern horizon. It was very faint and 
 shadowy at first, like a tiny speck of cloud. 
 This gradually became definite until the 
 beautiful lines of the boat could be seen 
 without the aid of a microscope or magnifying 
 glass, the use and effect of which were 
 indentical with that of a telescope applied to 
 the scene itself, of which this was so exact 
 an imitation. At sight of this white boat, 
 Zietsman's face contracted, almost contorted, 
 as with a heart spasm or some equally 
 violent physical pain. He staggered awk- 
 wardly to the side of the cabin, and it 
 was a minute or more before the attack
 
 204 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 passed partially and left him weak but 
 resolute as always. He rang an electric 
 bell and the captain, who had left the cabin, 
 appeared at the door. Zietsman did not speak. 
 He was not yet able to trust his voice. He 
 signed to the captain to come in, and pointed 
 to the swaying table with its pretty seascape. 
 
 The captain went forward, and glanced 
 at the picture on the table. His face, usually 
 impassive, like those of all the men with 
 whom Zietsman most intimately surrounded 
 himself, showed a slight tremor as he looked 
 at the picture, into which the yacht had 
 now crept clearly. With just a moment's 
 hesitation, he turned and said to Zietsman : 
 
 " It is the Ocean Queen" 
 
 " She will lose her sceptre soon," said 
 Zietsman. 
 
 " You see I was right about the time she 
 would appear." 
 
 " You were quite right," Zietsman answered, 
 his voice now steady. 
 
 "Everything is prepared. There will be 
 no mistake," the captain said again. 
 
 " There must be no mistake." Zietsman 
 interrupted curtly. His determined manner
 
 VAN RANNSLER'S FATE 205 
 
 was fully recovered. An oppressive feeling 
 of tragedy began to weigh npon his friends. 
 The scent of crime was in the air, and 
 whatever crime was intended, they did not 
 care to witness the preparations for it. Their 
 fears were unfounded, although indeed on a 
 minor issue. A great crime and its com- 
 mission were truly at hand, but there were 
 no preparations necessary. These had all 
 been made. Only some slight directions were 
 still necessary, and these were given to the 
 captain by Zietsman in so low a voice, the 
 others did not hear the words. The captain 
 was again absent a few minutes, and when 
 he returned, he saluted from old habit, and 
 said sharply, for the tension was telling even 
 on his immovable nature : 
 
 " All's ready, sir ! " 
 
 " All the hands ? " 
 
 " Every man at his post, sir ! " 
 
 By this time, the pretty little toy yacht 
 of the picture had made quite eighteen inches 
 across the table, and the details of her build 
 were becoming clearer. She was coming 
 directly bow on, but as they watched with that 
 desperate intentness, for which they so far
 
 206 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 knew no reason, the yacht's course in the 
 picture was changed a point or two, and her 
 head fell away. Zietsman rang on a ship's 
 telegraph, and moved an indicator slightly. 
 This had an immediate effect. The whole 
 picture slipped a couple of degrees round on 
 the table, thus bringing the reflection of the 
 yacht bow on again. Zietsman now laid his 
 hands on the two telegraphs by which the 
 submarine was controlled ; one for motor 
 force, and the other for direction. He again 
 asked the men to be very careful that they 
 did not get between him and the table on 
 which the sea picture was thrown. But they 
 were at liberty to watch the scene from where 
 they stood on the opposite side. Indeed, 
 Zietsman desired them to watch it intently, 
 and on no account to remove their eyes 
 from it when he gave a warning, which he 
 promised. 
 
 The little yacht crept on across the 
 picture, and as it approached the centre 
 of the table, the watchers noticed that fine 
 lines, hardly visible when the picture was 
 on it, crossed the surface, and graded it off 
 into segments. All these lines crossed, or
 
 VAN RANNSLER'S FATE 207 
 
 met in the exact centre, on which a small 
 central disc, about the size of an ordinary- 
 watch was raised. The Ocean Queen was 
 now steaming, or her image was moving — 
 it is easy to confound the object and its 
 shadow — on a line which ran due west by 
 the compass which was near. She veered 
 slightly upon this line, but every time she 
 slacked off it, Zietsman moved the register 
 in his right hand very slightly, very gently, 
 and then the white model came true again, 
 and moved as if on a rail — dead for the 
 centre of the table. 
 
 When the yacht picture was six inches 
 from the raised central disc, Zietsman let 
 go his telegraphs for a moment, and drawing 
 his handkerchief, wiped his hands very 
 carefully. They were moist, although the 
 temperature was not disagreeably warm. 
 He put his handkerchief back, and took 
 the registers delicately again in his 
 fingers. The men across the table held their 
 breath. 
 
 The yacht was just two inches distant 
 from the central disc now, and Zietsman
 
 208 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 spoke. His voice was calm, but there was 
 a suppressed fierceness in it : 
 
 " Watch the yacht. Don't take your eyes 
 off it now for one moment " 
 
 The yacht was an inch nearer. 
 
 " I will say ' Now ! ' at the actual 
 instant." 
 
 Half an inch now from the disc ! 
 
 " And then you shall see " 
 
 The bow touched the disc. 
 
 " What you shall see ! " 
 
 The yacht was half across the disc. 
 
 " Look out " 
 
 The yacht just covered the disc. 
 
 " Now ! " 
 
 A little puff as of cloud blurred the disc, 
 and when it cleared off there was no image 
 of a yacht on the picture. But the waves, 
 which were clearly marked, appeared to boil 
 furiously at the spot where it had been, and 
 there rushed a racing whirlpool round it 
 that would have engulfed a line of battleship. 
 
 Zietsman left the registers, and wiped his 
 brow, on which great beads of sweat had 
 risen. His voice, too, shook for a moment 
 as he said :
 
 VAN KANNSLER'S FATE 209 
 
 " That came off all right." 
 
 " What has happened ? " the men asked, 
 in a hushed whisper. 
 
 " The boilers of the steam yacht Ocean 
 Queen blew up at exactly " — he examined a 
 chart which hung upon the cabin wall, and 
 called out some degrees of latitude and 
 longitude to which no one listened in the 
 excitement to learn the nature and extent of 
 the tragedy itself. He went on as if he 
 were reading a scare paragraph from a special 
 edition of an evening paper. " The explosion 
 was witnessed at a great distance by a 
 barquantine — he looked at the picture on the 
 table — which immediately bore down on the 
 scene of the disaster. But although a mass 
 of wreckage was found drifting about the 
 spot where the yacht had sunk, no trace of 
 her could be seen. It is certain, therefore, 
 that she went down instantaneously, with 
 every soul on board." 
 
 He stopped his partly flippant speech, and 
 touching a spring threw the cover off one 
 of the ports — " Look out now. You may see 
 some of the wreckage drifting past — on its 
 way to the bottom." 
 
 14
 
 210 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 They did. In a few minutes Zietsman's 
 promise was fulfilled. Wreckage began to 
 sink past the port. The submarine had not 
 been directly under the point at which the 
 explosion on the surface took place, so that 
 heavy casts of machinery, or the shattered 
 hull of the yacht herself, should not rest 
 upon her destroyer. But everything could 
 be clearly seen for a hundred yards from 
 the port. Heavy fittings which had blown 
 out came first, then lighter masses, and then 
 the yacht herself came down. They were 
 watching her so intently, it was not until 
 their line of sight was interrupted, that they 
 noticed something drifting down close to the 
 port. Nor did they discover what it was 
 until it had nearly passed. Then they looked 
 out straight into a dead man's face. His 
 arms waved over his head with the slight 
 motion of the water, even at that great 
 depth, and his legs dangled with an almost 
 lifelike motion. There he was, walking alone 
 in the depths of the sea. And very strangely 
 he seemed to pause when his head came 
 level with the port — to pause and look in. 
 Then he waved his arms slowly upward in
 
 VAN RANNSLER'S FATE 211 
 
 a last salute and went on — on his way — 
 down. 
 
 "My God! who was that?" Penrose 
 shuddered. 
 
 'It is rather a coincidence," Zietsman said, 
 coolly : " That was Van Rannsler."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE MAN WHO WAS TAKEN ALIVE 
 
 The submarine remained below — using the 
 
 word in a new sense — for some time after 
 
 Zietsman and his officer considered that all 
 
 trace of the heavy, if local, sea caused by 
 
 the explosion had subsided. Then, on the 
 
 pressing of a knob, she came quickly to the 
 
 surface. The barquantine which had borne 
 
 down on the scene, was now hull down on 
 
 the horizon. For reasons which he did not 
 
 communicate, Zietsman decided to enter the 
 
 English Channel before her, and come ashore 
 
 where he had embarked, while the news of 
 
 Van Rannsler's fate was still in her keeping. 
 
 This was not difficult to accomplish with a 
 
 boat which, on the surface, had the heels of 
 
 anything that sailed the seas, and below it 
 
 could do twenty knots an hour without hurting 
 
 her motors. 
 
 212
 
 THE MAN WHO WAS TAKEN ALIVE 213 
 
 So when night came, Zietsman went full 
 speed on a bee-line for Land's End, and in 
 the morning he was in the English Channel. 
 As soon as daylight came he sunk his boat 
 to her usual sub-level for sailing, and came 
 up the channel without a ripple to mark his 
 passage. Towards evening, he lay off the 
 point whence so recently he had embarked. 
 In that short interval, another name had 
 been contributed to the list of ships that go 
 down at sea and leave no man of their own 
 alive to tell their story. 
 
 The fishing boat was waiting at this 
 anchorage, and into her Zietsman 's party 
 crowded silently as to speech, but with the 
 desperate haste of men who had sailed in a 
 murder ship that outdid in villainy the 
 worst craft that ever flew the scull and 
 crossbones. 
 
 Zietsman himself was the last to leave the 
 vessel. Before he stepped into the boat he 
 gave his captain some final instructions, and, 
 as soon as they were clear, the submarine 
 steamed out to sea. Many inexplicable losses 
 of vessels took place in the year which 
 followed. Most of these which were ascribed
 
 214 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 to the wrath of the elements at the time 
 when the losses were first discovered, will 
 now — when Zietsman's own history has come 
 to light — be charged to the depredations of 
 his infernal craft. Many may have been 
 thus accounted for, but how many — or how, 
 eventually, the submarine went down herself 
 and, like the Revenge, was lost evermore in 
 the main — no man knows. This narrative 
 was not written to record her fate, and she 
 shall only make one further voyage in it. 
 
 The loss of the Ocean Queen caused a 
 painful shock in London, where Van Rannsler 
 was well known, where indeed he had -not long 
 before been a conspicuous figure. So many 
 of these mysterious disasters had occurred, 
 the public mind was gravely agitated. 
 Zietsman was told the news while standing 
 on the steps of his club. It was a favourite 
 lounge of his while in town. 
 
 " Upon my word, Zietsman, I think you 
 have a lot to answer for in making that 
 speech before the Britannic Association," an 
 acquaintance said, in a tone that was partly 
 bantering and partly serious. Several men 
 who were standing about — all of whom save
 
 THE MAN WHO WAS TAKEN ALIVE 215 
 
 one, Zietsman knew very well — turned to 
 the speaker with interest. The stranger, 
 with whom Zietsman was not acquainted, 
 paid no attention. 
 
 "You shouldn't talk like that," Zietsman 
 remonstrated. "It's only chaff, I know. 
 But allow me to say it is not in good 
 taste." 
 
 "I don't know about the taste, and I am 
 not sure about the chaff. I am only saying 
 what a lot of other people are saying." 
 
 " That's so ! " several men agreed, and one 
 added, "You went too far in that blithering 
 speech, Zietsman. It would really seem as 
 if it had stirred up these infernal Anarchists, 
 or Vehmgerichtists, or whatever they call 
 themselves. There has been a perfect out- 
 burst of savagery ever since that outrageous 
 deliverance of yours. You need not be sur- 
 prised if you hear that you have done harm 
 unintentionally. 
 
 "I fervently hope — not," Zietsman replied. 
 If he felt fervently his face showed no 
 particular emotion. 
 
 "Unfortunately, the harm does not always 
 depend on your intentions," another speaker
 
 216 ^ NEW MESSIAH 
 
 retorted, angrily. " It seems to me that you 
 overlook that aspect of the case." 
 
 " It seems to me that you overlook the 
 question of what he considers harm." It was 
 the stranger who spoke. The remark gave 
 the conversation a twist although, in the 
 excitement, no one noticed by whom it was 
 made. 
 
 " Which reminds me," the man who had 
 first spoken said, very seriously. " I heard 
 it stated for a fact that there were very 
 queer rumours in the air, Zietsman. You 
 would hardly credit it, but I heard a lot 
 of men talking in a railway carriage this 
 very day about this business, and they 
 openly declared that you positively sym- 
 pathised with these scoundrels. So after 
 that you need not be surprised at anything." 
 
 " I am not easily surprised," Zietsman 
 remarked, carelessly. " When did you say 
 this ship blew up, or was blown up ? I 
 have forgotten." 
 
 The stranger moved a little closer into 
 the circle. Again no one noticed him. 
 
 " Twenty- third ! Let me see ; that was the 
 very day I met you in Threadneedle Street ;
 
 THE MAN WHO WAS TAKEN ALIVE 217 
 
 when you gave me that good thing about 
 " Electric Motors." You remember ? ' 
 
 The stranger edged closer still. 
 
 " I remember it very well," Zietsman said, 
 absently. He turned suddenly and stared 
 the stranger in the face, but went on speaking 
 to the " Electric Motor " man. 
 
 " Did you buy as I advised ? " 
 
 " I did, and made nearly a thousand on it. 
 Very much obliged to you, I am sure." 
 
 The stranger dropped back in the little 
 knot of men, and disappeared. 
 
 " I thought by your manner that day," 
 the " Electric Motor " man continued, " that 
 there was something serious up. You looked 
 strange." 
 
 " I dare say," Zietsman agreed, as he 
 turned to go up the steps. " I had a good 
 deal on my mind at the moment — although 
 I am not so largely interested in the money 
 market as I used to be. But one can't 
 well give it up in a day, can one ? ' 
 
 No one gainsaid this, as no one there had 
 any intention of giving it up in a day — 
 or at all. Some strong language was used, 
 however, about Zietsman's audacity in de-
 
 218 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 livering his lecture before the Britannic 
 Association — such a lecture from a man who 
 had until very recently been one of the most 
 reckless plungers on " Change." Some 
 declared it to be balderdash, and some 
 blasphemy ; while the majority voted that 
 it was both, considering the absolutely un- 
 scrupulous character of the man by whom it 
 had been given. And with that we may 
 leave it to them. 
 
 Breakfast at Beechmount was the only 
 meal at which one had any reasonable chance 
 of meeting one's host, and not always then, 
 as we have seen. Nell took Penrose out to 
 the grounds surrounding the great con- 
 servatory, on the day that Zietsman ran up 
 to town to hear the news at the clubs. Her 
 father had just come back from the City, 
 but he had gone to the library immediately, 
 pleading urgent business — an excuse which 
 in this instance had more sincerity than 
 it sometimes possesses. Penrose hastened to 
 use the opportunity for talking to the girl 
 alone. It was a welcome, if momentary, 
 relief from the strain under which life was 
 lived by Zietsman's friends — or tools.
 
 THE MAN WHO WAS TAKEN ALIVE 219 
 
 " Have you noticed my father particularly 
 to-day, Mr. Penrose ? " Nell asked with a 
 careworn expression, which was not pleasant 
 on a girl of her years. It was bitter to 
 him to see the new look of weariness in 
 the fresh young face, which so short a 
 time ago had done him good by its brightness, 
 by its infectious gaiety. 
 
 "Not particularly — to-day." Penrose an- 
 swered, without unfair prevarication, trying 
 to save her as far as he could. 
 
 " This business is killing him by inches." 
 "Yes, it seems to be wearing him 
 down— cursed slowly," he added to himself. 
 
 " He is already like a man with one 
 foot in the grave," Nell said, sadly. 
 
 " I wish to the Lord he had both," 
 Penrose reflected, but did not speak. He 
 really could not lie too openly to the girl. 
 She would certainly notice it ; his face would 
 betray him. 
 
 "If it were not for the great good he is 
 
 doing " 
 
 "That's just it," Penrose agreed, "the 
 great good." 
 
 " And what he means to do "
 
 220 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 " From which the Lord deliver us," Penrose 
 breathed to himself. 
 
 " I could almost wish he would give it all 
 
 n 
 
 up. 
 
 "So do I, with all my heart," Penrose 
 said, vehemently. 
 
 Nell paused, astonished at the violence 
 with which he had spoken. His exclamation 
 was almost a cry. They walked on 
 under the old trees on the enclosed lawn. 
 
 " Do you know," said the girl, looking 
 wise, and suddenly sympathetic : "I think 
 it is telling on yourself." 
 
 " Oh, don't say that, Miss Zietsman. 
 I — I — just live on it. How I manage to 
 do it, I'm sure I don't know," he added, 
 in one of the mental asides which had 
 become an almost inevitable feature in his 
 conversations with this girl, who was able 
 to remain fascinating, in spite of the fact 
 that she was her father's daughter. That 
 fact may now be made clear. Nell's 
 parentage could not well be more atrocious, 
 but that did not seem to make the difference 
 it ought. Penrose had debated the matter 
 with himself a hundred times, and could
 
 THE MAN WHO WAS TAKEN ALIVE 221 
 
 make nothing of it. He tolerated her 
 father out of fear for his own life. The 
 girl was innocent, and he would not give 
 her up to save that life — or a thousand 
 lives. It was madness, perhaps, but where 
 was the sanity in everything or anything 
 amid which his life was cast, that he should 
 trouble about a little extra lunacy ? Besides, 
 he clung to the idea that his fancy for the 
 girl, which had indeed become an infatuation, 
 was the sanest, the only sane, influence 
 that was left to him ; but it must also be 
 admitted that he would not voluntarily 
 have given her up, even if he had been 
 persuaded that it was the maddest of them 
 all. 
 
 " Then I want you to promise me some- 
 thing," Nell said, as they passed under 
 the bare arms of a great oak that over- 
 spread the lawn in a perfect circle, many 
 yards across. " I want you to use all your 
 influence " 
 
 " Which isn't much." 
 
 ' Which is very considerable — much more 
 than that of anyone — even mine." She 
 stopped for a moment, with a mist in her eyes.
 
 222 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 " I want you to use all your influence 
 with my father, to get him to give up 
 this horrible business which is killing him 
 — to retire from it altogether." 
 
 " That is what no man on earth could 
 do, Miss Zietsman." Penrose said, seriously, 
 indeed solemnly. " You do not understand 
 — I hope you will never understand — what 
 am I saying ! ' he cried aghast. " Please 
 Miss Zietsman, don't let us speak of this 
 further. It is a distressing subject to me." 
 
 Baron Hofmiller here met them. He 
 was walking with downcast eyes, and would 
 have passed with a curt salute, but Penrose 
 would not let him go. They had met 
 several times in these grounds, and he pitied 
 the forlorn stranger, who always seemed so 
 depressed. Neither he nor Nell knew 
 anything of Hofmiller, save that he was 
 a guest of the house. As many of these 
 had been " queer " almost to the point of 
 imbecility, Nell assumed that he presented 
 one more instance of her father's eccentric 
 philanthrophy, and Penrose believed that he 
 was, in some way, a victim of her father's 
 villainy. Therefore both tried to make friends
 
 THE MAN WHO WAS TAKEN ALIVE 223 
 
 with this weird example of a man, who had 
 died before his body ceased to walk about. 
 
 The German stopped in his walk, although 
 it appeared that he would have preferred to 
 go on. He yielded the point however, with 
 the resigned air of one to whom all things 
 were identical in their want of interest. He 
 seemed to show a subtle, unobtrusive dislike 
 to Penrose, as an animal might to one by 
 whom it had been injured, long after it had 
 forgotten what that injury was. To Miss 
 Zietsman he was deferentially polite, but 
 this, too, was evidently intuitive. It was 
 the result simply of habit. He had been a 
 courteous man to all — and especially with 
 ladies. His mind, or what remained of it, 
 therefore drifted more easily in the ready- 
 made grooves. It had little initiative left 
 of its own. 
 
 " Hofmiller," said Penrose, with a heartiness 
 which was well assumed. "You were, I under- 
 stand, a great authority on woodland lore." 
 
 " I may have been," the German answered 
 irritably. " What of that ? I was what I 
 was. I am — what I am." 
 
 Nell turned away her face, with a shudder.
 
 224 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 But she was not sorry that Penrose should 
 see for himself how sad a wreck this man 
 was, in order that he should learn to the 
 full how generous a man her father must 
 be, to keep Hofmiller in his own house in 
 such a condition — one who surely was more 
 fitted for a private asylum than a private 
 residence. 
 
 Penrose tried again, hoping that Hofmiller, 
 by being reminded of his old hobby, might 
 happily pick up some loose ends of his 
 memory. Toward this end, he snatched the 
 first unusual plant-growth he could see, and, 
 holding it to the German, said as cheerily 
 as he could : 
 
 " I have been puzzled very much by this. 
 You remember it, I am sure ? " 
 
 Hofmiller took the little plant and looked 
 at it a moment, with latent interest. The 
 other waited eagerly to hear him pronounce 
 upon it. That might be the first step — the 
 only one they say which costs. 
 
 " I remember it very well," Hofmiller 
 said, quietly. He examined it a little 
 further, and then threw it away as of no 
 further interest.
 
 THE MAN WHO WAS TAKEN ALIVE 225 
 
 " What did you say it was ? " Penrose 
 asked. 
 
 " I did not say what it was," Hofmiller 
 replied in a tone of patient reproof. 
 
 " But, you said you remembered what 
 it was. 
 
 " So I do." 
 
 " Then you will tell us ? " 
 
 " I will not. How could I ? " — again the 
 tone of reproof as though the question was 
 very maladroit — " 1 have not been told to 
 tell you." He raised his hat gravely and 
 passed on. 
 
 " Van Rannsler was fortunate ! " Penrose 
 said in a low voice. 
 
 15
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 PEACE— AND WAR 
 
 The deeds of the Vehmgerichte had long 
 shocked European opinion. They now began 
 to terrorise it. An unnatural mystery con- 
 tinued to shroud every crime. Arrests were 
 few, convictions practically none, and con- 
 fessions never. Whatever zeal, or faith, or 
 fear had been inspired in the minds of the 
 few members of the Society which were, at 
 long intervals, brought to book, the law 
 gained nothing but the individual conviction. 
 O'Mara's view, that civilized society was face 
 to face with a vast organisation controlled 
 by one man — a Napoleon of crime — began 
 to gain ground. Man has always faced 
 with a fine fortitude any danger which met 
 him in the open. But the fear of this 
 
 226
 
 PEACE— AND WAR 227 
 
 mysterious vengeance began to bite into the 
 reserve of the most courageous. 
 
 For some months Leslie Zietsman lived 
 quietly at his country house, conforming 
 apparently to the standards of the most 
 exemplary citizen. O'Mara tried to set the 
 authorities on his late employer, but though 
 his vague hints were not laughed at, as 
 they would have been a year before, they 
 really afforded no holding ground on which 
 to anchor any tangible suspicion, much less 
 proof. Nor was the assault of the Vehm- 
 gerichte a popular duty for any man to 
 attempt. Many men will sacrifice themselves 
 for a duty however shadowy, and most good 
 men will for one which is clear. But it is 
 not reasonable to expect any to do so, when 
 the object can hardly be furthered by their 
 devotion, and their own destruction is in- 
 evitable. When all is said, man's chief end 
 is to fend for himself. 
 
 Penrose grew more and more accustomed 
 to the extraordinary life he had been leading 
 since- he joined Zietsman, greatly against 
 his own will. He was completely under his 
 •chief's domination, although he felt that
 
 228 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 Zietsman in turn trusted him more than any 
 member of the Vehmgerichte itself. Only 
 once had he caught a glimpse of what he 
 believed to be Zietsman's inmost mind, the 
 night he was entrusted with the key of 
 the private drawer, where his instructions 
 still lay securely — instructions for his guidance 
 when the ultimate, and as he believed, in- 
 evitable, calamity arrived. This, he now 
 knew, beyond doubt, was the real business 
 for which Zietsman intended him ; warping 
 him so firmly in the appearance of committed 
 crime that he could never, of his own efforts, 
 get rid of the meshes ; yet safeguarding him 
 — as must have been done, else the law had 
 long since haled him before its bar, — from 
 suspicion so long as his obedience was 
 implicit. 
 
 Ordinary existence had thus withdrawn 
 from Penrose, and save for an occasional 
 meeting with the daughter of the extraordinary 
 brigand he had joined, life would hardly 
 have been worth living at the rate he was 
 contributing. It brought him out of himself 
 however, when he met the brave young girl, 
 who like a lion queen moved alone and
 
 PEACE— AND WAR 229 
 
 unscathed among men who were really more 
 dangerous than man-eating beasts. Dick 
 Beresford had returned from his travels and 
 resumed his visits to Beechmount. These 
 were either agreeable to Zietsman, or cordially 
 received by him for some ulterior purpose. 
 Beresford was an excellent fellow in every 
 way, who might easily captivate any young 
 girl's fancy. But short as had been his 
 absence, one important matter had occurred 
 in it. Nell had grown a few months older 
 literally, and figuratively many weary years. 
 Life for every human being in touch with 
 Zietsman was strenuous. Those who knew 
 him lived hard, however innocent. He was 
 a consuming fire that burned up, and 
 burned out, many vitalities as well as his 
 own. 
 
 One morning, when the earth was rousing 
 itself from its winter sleep, and the breath 
 of Spring was in the warm winds whispering 
 to the nesting birds, Penrose sauntered 
 through that portion of the grounds outside 
 the great conservatory which, from its privacy, 
 had always been his favourite retreat. It 
 had been his sanctuary, if his prison, in that
 
 230 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 terrible time when his mind, well nigh 
 overturned by the suddenness as well as 
 magnitude of his misfortunes, trembled in a 
 balance in which he had since seen others 
 weighed and found wanting — or rendered so. 
 He walked leisurely and with the pre-occupied 
 air of a man who was unobservant of his 
 surroundings. He was not consciously 
 observing them. But, although he did not 
 voluntarily take note of anything as he 
 passed along the pathways, every feature in 
 the little woodland was photographed on his 
 brain, to be developed later in the process- 
 room of memory. The great chestnut trees 
 putting on their new suits of foliage, of 
 which they as yet only showed a vast 
 array of brass buttons tipping every twig ; 
 the slender nibs of the beech, dipped, but 
 daintily, in green ink, save where some 
 forward frond dashed an emerald spray 
 against the blue of the sky ; the gaunt oaks 
 and ashes, stern and unyielding to the crying 
 of the sap that was surging in their gnarled 
 limbs, morose but experienced old men of 
 the woods these, who knew very well that 
 one bright day never yet made a summer —
 
 PEACE— AND WAR 231 
 
 that an aftermath of frost would soon shed 
 all the greenery which had come forth before 
 its time — all these were parts of a permanent 
 picture. 
 
 The twittering of the birds, busy with the 
 building of new houses or refurnishing the 
 old ; the coming of the flowers ; the slow 
 drifting clouds, folding and unfolding their 
 misty veils through which big blue eyes 
 peered wherever the curtains flapped, the 
 half forgotten hum of insects, the droning 
 of the bees ; the muffled music of the brook 
 which up-springing grasses had softened into 
 a minor key, from the metallic tinkle of 
 yesterday over a bare rubble bed ; and always 
 that curious purr of the wind through the 
 half-clad branches, which was neither the 
 dreary rasp of winter nor the hushed bass 
 of foliage-clogged chords — nothing of all this 
 was really missed by the man who roamed the 
 woods, and therein wandered on another 
 milestone in the march of his fate. 
 
 Coming toward him through the vistas, 
 he could see a girl in a light dress flit from 
 glade to glade, crooning little trills of half- 
 hearted song, as she stooped to examine a
 
 232 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 wild blossom, or peer up through the branches 
 at the busy birds. Her rippling song had 
 a story in its low cadence, the story of a 
 girl in the dawn of her youth, yet oppressed 
 like himself with a tragic atmosphere which, 
 with its clammy presence, was stifling her 
 very life. For her too, as for him, the 
 heart of Spring was rebelling against all 
 manner of funereal influences, and making 
 a hard fight against their benumbing gloom. 
 As he watched her, the man said softly 
 to himself, but with firm determination, " I'll 
 have this decided now." So he went to 
 meet her ; and she who had grown to 
 welcome his coming, and turn to him in 
 small sorrows, was now suddenly diffident, 
 and flushed shyly when she spoke. Nor 
 indeed, did the formality of his first 
 speech do much to relieve her too evident 
 embarrassment. 
 
 " Miss Zietsman, I have wished to speak 
 to you — on an important matter — for some 
 time." 
 
 " But just now I am in a hurry, Mr. 
 Penrose. To-morrow, some other time — this 
 evening ! "
 
 PEACE— AND WAR 233 
 
 " No, it must be now," he said decisively, 
 " I should not speak so positively, Miss 
 Zietsman, only that what I have to say 
 will not keep. Your father — we seem to 
 
 be always harping on your father " he 
 
 broke off with an impatient exclamation at 
 his own ineptitude. 
 
 " You know how anxious I am about 
 him " the girl exclaimed, with a perceptible 
 air of relief which Penrose noticed more 
 plainly than pleasantly. 
 
 " I have something else to say too, but 
 we'll begin with your father. He is a 
 favourite subject with us, is he not ? " 
 
 " You have been always very good in 
 listening to my praises of him, and then 
 my fears for his health and everything ; 
 and I am very grateful," Nell said, with 
 tears in her eyes. " But you will be patient 
 with me a little longer, I hope, now when 
 I am in greater trouble than ever. What 
 good would it do him," she cried out, " if he 
 gained the whole world " 
 
 "And lost his own soul," Penrose could 
 not help saying to himself. 
 
 " When he won't be alive to enjoy it. '
 
 234 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 Here they were drifting again into one 
 of the cross -purpose conversations which 
 served no end, which did nothing certainly 
 for their mutual amusement, and nothing 
 to clarify the total misunderstanding which 
 had always been between them when 
 Zietsman's name was mentioned. Penrose 
 had always kept it before him as a sacred 
 duty that he owed this girl — all the more 
 since her trust in him had been so marked 
 that he would have been blind indeed to 
 have missed it — one day to enlighten her 
 as to her father's real character. This, he 
 knew well, was a duty fraught with terrible 
 danger to himself — a danger so deadly, that 
 hitherto he had shrunk from facing it even 
 to set himself free. He knew the risk 
 he was taking, and decided to take it for 
 her sake. Then surely he would have the 
 right to say — what he wished to say. 
 Therefore as this duty must be done, it 
 were well to do it quickly. He did it with 
 a rush. 
 
 "Miss Zietsman — Nell — after a long and 
 serious consideration of — er — everything, I 
 have decided that the shameful ignorance
 
 PEACE— AND WAR. 235 
 
 in which you have been kept of your father's 
 real character and career " 
 
 " Mr. Penrose ! " 
 
 " No ! Do not interrupt me. No mere 
 consideration of convention will prevent me 
 from telling you." 
 
 " Then if the convention won't, I will," 
 the girl said with a dash of her father's 
 imperious manner, that gave him a positive 
 shock by its too lifelike likeness. " You, 
 I suppose, feel at liberty to say what you 
 choose to me. It is for me, I suppose, to 
 say whether I will listen. And I say, I 
 will not." She made to pass him, but 
 he stepped before her. Then he said very 
 gently : 
 
 " Nellie, dearest, this is too serious for 
 the ordinary amenities. You surely do not 
 think " 
 
 " I think you are counting on the 
 kindness you have shown me — making capital 
 of it." 
 
 It was hard to bear that, but this con- 
 versation was not sought by him as an 
 agreeable episode, so he passed it. 
 
 " Nell, you must listen to this — it is
 
 236 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 hard enough to say it, without your making 
 it harder — Your father is a member, I 
 believe the head, of the New Vehmgerichte." 
 
 " How dare you say that, you — you " 
 
 For a moment she stood with flashing eyes, 
 and flaming cheeks, a living image of her 
 father's defiant pose, then swaying on her 
 feet, as though she was near falling, she 
 burst out into a fit of pitiful weeping, her 
 slight figure torn with racking sobs. He 
 would have snatched her to his breast, but 
 — there crept coldly, relentlessly into his 
 heart the fell sensation that she knew, that 
 she was guilty ! Her innocence was only 
 a poor pretence, her pretty filial affection 
 a figment. He had suffered much since he 
 first saw her, but he realized that what 
 had gone before was supportable compared 
 to this. When he spoke again, there was 
 no anger in his voice, but a great com- 
 passion that a short year ago his careless 
 nature could no more have compassed than 
 his arm have reached the stars. Guilty— 
 this must have wrung her soul ; but being 
 innocent it stung her to fury. She dashed 
 her hand across her eyes, and throwing
 
 PEACE— AND WAR 237 
 
 her head back, commanded with a fine 
 disdain : 
 
 " Stand aside, sir, and let me pass ! " 
 " I will not," Penrose said, perhaps a 
 little coldly ; her impenitence was not 
 pleasant. " I will neither stand aside, nor 
 allow you to pass, until I have said what 
 I meant to say — all of it. I must tell you 
 what I know ; what you ought to know ; 
 what I pray God you do not yet know, 
 that the house in which you live, is a 
 den of crime worthy of — of a Borgia ! " 
 
 Again she would have passed him, but with 
 a gesture as imperious as her own, he stopped 
 her and swept on : 
 
 "It is very cruel, but I cannot spare you. 
 It is for your own sake. I am doing violence 
 to every feeling," — his voice came thickly 
 now and vehemently. His emotion com- 
 pelled her consent. His suffering was too 
 obvious to be doubted, and too intense to be 
 despised. 
 
 "Go on, I will listen to you now," she 
 said softly. Her fingers touched his hand 
 for a moment in what might have been a 
 caress.
 
 238 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 " Nellie, Nellie, you cannot — you do not — 
 I won't believe you know what a hell you 
 are living in. If you did, no fine speeches or 
 grand ideals would keep you another hour 
 under that accursed roof. Do you know child " 
 — he went on wildly — " that murder has been 
 done there in the name of mercy, and torture 
 has been practised to wring money from stub- 
 born victims." He laughed harshly and 
 continued almost hysterically : 
 
 " Yes, torture to rob a man of gains, because 
 they were ill-gotten. Splendid paradox ! Oh, 
 I am sick to death of all this criminal 
 farce, this murder made easy, these inhuman 
 humanities. Nell, Nell, you do not know," — 
 he caught her in his arms and kissed her, 
 unresisting — " tell me, sweetheart," he cried, 
 passionately, " that you do not know of the 
 dreadful villainies that have taken place since 
 I came here — have taken place here and 
 elsewhere." 
 
 The girl, white to the lips, disengaged her- 
 self from his arms. Her breath came in painful 
 gasps. Her bosom rose and fell like the breast 
 of a frightened bird. She clasped her hands
 
 PEACE— AND WAR 239 
 
 over her beating heart and said, in a broken 
 voice : 
 
 " Then you believe my father is " 
 
 " Mad." 
 
 " It is a lie ! " 
 
 It was Zietsman himself. His face was 
 livid. His eyes were wild enough to give 
 the lie in turn to his own disclaimer. He 
 watched with malign amusement Penrose's 
 confusion. Then he laughed, that mirthless 
 murderous laugh of his, and said with a 
 bitter taunt : 
 
 " I have called you a liar. Why don't you 
 call me an eavesdropper? You miserable 
 coward ! " 
 
 This had a very different effect to what 
 had been intended by it. It was meant to 
 complete the overthrow of Penrose. It made 
 a man of him. He said coldly, but in a 
 hard unflinching voice : 
 
 " You are an eavesdropper, but why should 
 I trouble to repeat what you yourself have 
 said, what is so obvious ? An eavesdropper 
 is" perhaps as mean and pitiful a thing as 
 crawls the earth, but why should I call you 
 by a name that is only pitiful and mean?"
 
 240 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 " Because you do not dare." 
 " No — because it is such a triviality." 
 Zietsman said a few words in a low voice 
 to his daughter. She looked up to him 
 in silent appeal, but his eyes were harsh 
 — for the first time to her. Then she 
 looked helplessly to Penrose, but he 
 turned away his face. Passing the latter 
 who stood on the line of her path, she 
 whispered : 
 
 " For my sake," and went on her way. 
 When she was gone Zietsman turned 
 savagely on the younger man and cried : 
 
 " What ruffianism have you been telling 
 her about me ? " 
 
 " Ruffianism is not the proper word," 
 Penrose answered coolly. " choose a better — 
 a stronger, if you can find one." 
 
 Zietsman stamped his foot on the sward 
 and snarled : 
 
 " Do you dare to bandy words with me ? " 
 " Yes ? " said Penrose, his own eyes flash- 
 ing ; "I do. I do dare to bandy words 
 with you." 
 
 " Do you know what you are saying ? " 
 " Yes," Penrose answered, repeating his
 
 PEACE— AND WAR 241 
 
 reply as before, "I do know what I am 
 
 saying." 
 
 " Do you know then that what you 
 have said raises this immediate issue : It 
 must be straightway peace or war between 
 us?" 
 
 " I do— and I don't care ! " 
 
 " It cannot be peace unless you unsay, 
 unless you forswear what you have just now 
 told my daughter." 
 
 Penrose stood still a moment, for here was 
 no ordinary peril. Then his tense nerves har- 
 dened and he strode up to Zietsman with red 
 murder in his own eyes. Many a man would 
 have given way before the menace but Zietsman 
 stood his ground. Penrose caught him by 
 the throat and there might have been 
 murder done — but there was something in 
 Zietsman's face that stayed the avenger's 
 hand. Better men than Penrose had flinched 
 before it. He faltered. The throttling grasp 
 relaxed. 
 
 " It shall never now be peace," Zietsman 
 hissed, half strangled, through blue lips. 
 
 Penrose tore the elder man forward from 
 his foothold and flung him violently back, 
 
 16
 
 242 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 dashing him to the ground in a heavy fall. 
 As he lay, partially stunned, Penrose stared 
 down at him and shouted, hoarse with 
 passion : 
 
 " Then — you dog — let it be war ! "
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 FLIGHT 
 
 Having declared war, Penrose determined 
 to lose no time in commencing hostilities. 
 The first necessity in this line of action 
 was manifestly to rid himself of the odious 
 service which Zietsman had fastened on him. 
 To do so might cost him his life, but he 
 had put his hand to the plough, and would 
 not look back — if the mixing of the metaphor 
 will pass. He had another to think of, as 
 well as himself. That certainly made escape 
 more difficult, but all the more important. 
 The urgent question was, would she fly with 
 him. When he came to analyse his last 
 conversation with her, he could not positively 
 recollect whether, notwithstanding her cer- 
 tainly sincere agitation, she had categorically 
 denied all knowledge of her father's infamy. 
 
 243
 
 244 A- NEW MESSIAH 
 
 It sent a cold chill to his heart to think 
 that she might still be guilty — in all human 
 likelihood was guilty. How possibly could 
 she be ignorant of all he knew ? It would 
 be untrue to say that this thought did not 
 give him pause, but it was promptly and 
 permanently dismissed by the further re- 
 flection — all the more reason he must save 
 her : who would not if she were innocent ! 
 
 The evening of that eventful day was 
 fine, but the daylight of the early Spring 
 was soon done. Darkness, however, suited 
 his purpose very well. He had absolutely 
 no one to turn to for advice. From Zietsman 
 he feared (rightly), that his life was in danger. 
 From Johnson, the repellent, he could expect 
 no sympathy, much less help. The " fish 
 man," as he had nicknamed Johnson, had 
 not apparently sufficient emotion to hate 
 any one — but he was plainly antagonistic. 
 Hofmiller — what was left of him — did not 
 count. None of the servants could be relied 
 upon. All was chaos, but out of the whole 
 miasma one will-o-the-wisp waved his lantern, 
 and signalled to him to be of good cheer. 
 He paused in the Zietsman-like sentry-go
 
 FLIGHT 245 
 
 which he was pacing in his room, and said 
 aloud : 
 
 " I will go to-night, and she will come 
 with me." 
 
 " What time do you leave, sir ? ' ; Johnson 
 asked stolidly. He stood at the door with 
 an expectant look, like a well-trained 
 servant who would make sure his master 
 did not miss his train. The livid face of the 
 man was more repellent, if not repulsive, 
 than ever. His manner was still courteous 
 without being obsequious — that is, correct 
 to a degree. But the intuitive fear of him, 
 which Penrose could not always repress, was 
 never more marked. It had one good effect. 
 Coming, as it did, after so much prior 
 excitement, it drove Penrose into the perhaps 
 unnatural calm which follows excessive 
 emotion. This served his turn. It tided 
 him over. 
 
 " Leave ! What do you mean ? " he asked 
 harshly. 
 
 " I thought you said you were leaving 
 to-night, sir." Johnson answered indifferently. 
 
 " Then you thought incorrectly. I did 
 say I would go to-night — to visit Hofmiller.
 
 246 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 A professional eavesdropper, should have 
 sharper ears. Do you hear me better 
 now ? " Penrose raised his voice with a 
 meaning ring in it, and stepped closer to the 
 man. The man gave ground. 
 
 " I hear you distinctly, sir ! " 
 
 " Then go and tell your master what 
 you heard. I don't want you. Leave the 
 room." 
 
 Johnson did as he was told. When he 
 was gone, Penrose felt another thrill of that 
 exhilaration which had rushed through him 
 when he stood up to Zietsman, and defied 
 him to his face. He had been an automaton 
 long enough. He would play the man now 
 — if he hanged for it. 
 
 " Back again ? ' this to Johnson, who had 
 crept back into the room. In all the time 
 Penrose had known Johnson, he had never 
 before detected a sign of human emotion in 
 his frigid face. Its atrophied expression never 
 changed. But at last a change had come, 
 and a surprising one. At last there was 
 sensation in the Sphinx. The man was either 
 troubled or afraid. Now whatever the master 
 was, this man, so far as Penrose knew, was
 
 FLIGHT 247 
 
 blameless, or only blameworthy as a tool — 
 as he himself had been. He disliked Johnson 
 on purely personal grounds, but he need not 
 therefore dehumanise himself. 
 
 "What's the matter, Johnson?" he asked 
 less harshly. "Don't — don't mind what I said 
 just now. I should not have spoken so. I 
 suppose you must do as you are ordered — as 
 I did myself." 
 
 Johnson controlled by an evident effort 
 his feelings, and said in a tremulous whisper: 
 
 " I am sorry I am — upset. Excuse me, 
 sir. And — and — I came this time, of my 
 own wish to warn you that there is danger — 
 in — this — house." Every word came slowly, 
 impressively. The man was in deadly 
 earnest. 
 
 " I am well aware of that," Penrose assented 
 grimly. 
 
 " Danger — for us all. He — Mr. Zietsman 
 is very strange." 
 
 " He's mostly that." 
 
 " But now he is ill — he is worse than 
 ill. He — seems to have — lost nerve." 
 
 " It was time," Penrose said in the same 
 cold voice. He could not pretend to be
 
 248 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 very sympathetic where Zietsman was 
 concerned. 
 
 "If we could get him away from here — " 
 "Get him away? What does he want 
 to get away for ? " 
 " He is watched " 
 Then why doesn't he go ? " 
 " The house is watched outside ! " 
 " Then I suppose he had better stay 
 inside." 
 
 " The house is also watched — inside." As 
 Johson whispered the last word he glanced 
 furtively over his shoulder. Penrose noticed 
 the action. He himself was no stranger to 
 the sensation that prompted it. But Johnson ! 
 If Johnson had began to watch shadows over 
 his shoulder it was no wonder even Zietsman 
 was losing nerve. Penrose thought a moment 
 and thought hard. There was much to 
 think about. Johnson might be only 
 shamming. No, a glance at the man's 
 haunted eyes forbade that assumption. Then 
 he might be — not for the first time perhaps 
 — acting as Zietsman's unwilling agent. If 
 so, his allegiance was not in robust health. 
 He seemed more anxious for help than
 
 FLIGHT 249 
 
 willing to betray. After all Penrose had 
 decided to trouble no longer with half 
 measures. He meant to leave that house 
 that night, and if he had braced his nerves 
 to face the scaffold, as the penalty of his 
 escape, he would not stay inside for any 
 danger that might lie in his path — nothing 
 conceivable or inconceivable would, in this 
 matter, gainsay him; nothing earthly or — 
 that was it! There it was staring at him 
 out of Johnson's maniac eyes ! He lowered 
 his voice and said, resolutely, but more 
 gently : 
 
 " Are you acting straight, Johnson ? ,: 
 " I am," the man replied, quietly. He 
 did not qualify his answer. What weight 
 would an idle word lend it ? 
 
 " I take it," Penrose went on, slowly, "You 
 are like myself and — others — You are broken 
 down by the — the terrors of this ghastly 
 house ? " 
 
 "I am," Johnson answered, again quietly. 
 " But I did not break down until I saw 
 that — he — was giving way. He knows 
 
 that it will not be easy to leave this house 
 to-night, and that to-morrow it will be too
 
 250 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 late. And he — he— is not safe here another 
 hour. I cannot explain. It is beyond me 
 to do so. You would not understand — Oh 
 God ! it is all too awful." Johnson gasped 
 this out in what would have been a shriek — 
 if he had dared to scream. Penrose was 
 living in an eddy of whirling thoughts. At 
 last he pitied Johnson. Surely then his own 
 reason was trembling. But there was no 
 time to analyse the comparative sanity of 
 himself or others. He must act. 
 
 " You say the house is watched. What 
 do you mean ? " 
 
 "It is this way," Johnson said, hurriedly 
 but clearly. " O'Mara will not rest in his 
 grave if Leslie Zietsman escapes the law. 
 He must find something incriminatory before 
 he can put the law in motion. That evidence 
 is inside this house. And O'Mara either 
 knows this or suspects it. He is right. 
 We have had endless work with his men. 
 They have come here as guests, as servants. 
 One even joined the — -joined them. Poor 
 fellow ! He was only doing his duty, I 
 suppose. Anyhow, they intend to break in 
 to-night "
 
 FLIGHT 251 
 
 " Break in — surely not as police ? " 
 
 " No, as burglars," Johnson said, shortly, 
 as though such a triviality was not worth 
 discussing. " What difference does it make 
 if they get what they want? If they can 
 prove him — to be — what he is— their illegality 
 won't be used against them." 
 
 Johnson stood silent, nerveless and cowed, 
 and partly incomprehensible as ever. For, 
 while he spoke of his master openly as a 
 villain inconceivable, he still seemed interested 
 in his fate. Indeed, he was so much interested 
 that Penrose felt he himself had only been 
 applied to as a last resort, that Johnson 
 would, if it seemed in the least necessary, 
 give him as short a shrift as Zietsman did to 
 all who had become inimical or even useless 
 to him. 
 
 "This watch upon the house — are they 
 aware of that passage from the library ? ' 
 
 " I do not know." 
 
 " Very well. We'll leave to-night by that 
 passage and escape them if they do not 
 know about it, and fight our way through 
 them if they do." 
 
 Johnson drew a deep breath, and a muttered
 
 252 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 word of thankfulness escaped him. Penrose 
 knew that sensation of relief, so exquisite, 
 so intense, that even this most phlegmatic 
 man quivered with it like a sensitive girl. 
 At last the tomb of his mind would be 
 opened. That night they would roll away 
 the stone. 
 
 With a word of encouragement to the 
 man, Penrose dismissed him for the time, 
 hurried his preparations, and completed them 
 quickly. Then he strode down the broad 
 stairs, with an unconscious deliberation and 
 even dignity which was in sharp contrast to 
 the nervous, surreptitious way he used to 
 steal about that house. Had he met 
 the master of it on those stairs he would 
 have required him to give place, and stand 
 aside so that he should pass. 
 
 Nell was alone in the dining-room. Her 
 manner was hard to understand. She was 
 calm, but distant. His hurried enquiries she 
 answered without reserve, but without sym- 
 pathy. She seemed to have lost interest 
 both in him and his movements. She did 
 not ask the meaning of the great-coat he 
 wore at such an unusual hour, or of the
 
 FLIGHT 253 
 
 other evidences of departure with which 
 Johnson presently followed. He was going 
 away. It was his own affair. Penrose how- 
 ever, had no time to waste in coining polite 
 phrases, or sweet sounding words to spare 
 her feelings. He had tried not long before 
 to explain the situation, and was not very 
 sure how far he had succeeded. So he told 
 her in plain terms that her father stood in 
 immediate danger, and that she was in 
 danger of dreadful disgrace. This, after 
 what he had said in the grounds that 
 afternoon, was surely sufficient. She 
 
 must go at once to her father and tell him 
 that the house would be forcibly entered 
 that very night, and that it behoved all 
 who had anything to fear to be far away 
 when the assault was delivered. 
 
 " This, then," said the girl, with a shudder, 
 " is the end at last." 
 
 The words gave him a pang, and he 
 winced at the evidence of her foreknowledge 
 of what he had told her, or of her knowledge 
 that what he said was true. She noticed 
 his shudder, and continued hastily : 
 
 " I know, of course, that what you told
 
 254 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 me about the Vehmgerichte was only to 
 alarm me sufficiently to prepare for flight. 
 I am sure you meant it in kindness, but 
 it was rather cruel. You went too far. 
 Perhaps you did it for the best. It is, of 
 course, that dreadful financial business that 
 has gone wrong, and we are ruined after 
 the manner of all who sink in the Financial 
 Sea." 
 
 " Not quite," Penrose said, gently, although 
 the girl's voice was cold, and her manner 
 aloof, suggesting that her words were 
 insincere. " There is a difference in our 
 case. But we need not go into that now. 
 What we have to do is to get your father 
 out of this house at once — and get ourselves 
 out with him." 
 
 "What have you to do with our 
 fortunes? Why should you trouble about 
 them?" 
 
 "Isn't that rather unfair as well as 
 ungenerous?" 
 
 "But why should you share any risk 
 for my father, if what you said — is true?" 
 She turned and faced him defiantly as she 
 spoke. Her face was wild in its white
 
 FLIGHT 255 
 
 pain. There was a gleam of the baleful 
 light of Zietsman's eyes in hers. Her 
 fingers clutched a chair -back, as though 
 she had to steady herself by it. Her 
 breathing was painful. But she bore herself 
 gallantly. He only knew that she was 
 in misery — and that he was near. And so 
 he answered stoutly : 
 
 "I cannot take back what I said about 
 your father, for what I said was true. 
 But I mean to save him for your sake. 
 Now go to him " 
 
 "Better let me go, sir," Johnson interposed. 
 He had left the room as soon as he put 
 down Penrose's bag, and now, short as was 
 his absence, returned so completely changed 
 in appearance, they hardly recognised him. 
 He was dressed like a private gentleman, 
 and looked the part uncommonly well. His 
 carefully trained "gentleman's gentleman" 
 air had been laid aside with his clothes. 
 
 "I can get in when even Miss Zietsman 
 would be denied," Johnson went on. "What 
 is more, I think I can, in this case, use 
 stronger arguments." He went quickly out 
 of the room, and was only gone a few
 
 256 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 minutes, when he returned with Zietsman, 
 And then Penrose sprang to his feet with an 
 exclamation : 
 
 "I see it now, by heaven!" 
 
 Even Zietsman' s daughter was staring at 
 the two men blankly. She could scarcely 
 tell which was her father, so much alike 
 were they. The likeness was actually weird 
 in its exactness. One's mind, in face of so 
 unusual a duplicate, began to take stock 
 of itself, to consider whether the confusion 
 was in the object or in the observer — in oneself. 
 It was a disagreeable sensation, and it was 
 not lessened for Penrose, when Zietsman said 
 in a voice that Johnson himself might mistake 
 for his own: 
 
 "I see you are surprised to find there are 
 a pair of us. One such was enough you 
 
 would say." 
 
 " One such would be too much for one 
 planet," Penrose interrupted, in a low voice 
 that was not meant for the girl, and did 
 not reach her. "Can't you see your daughter 
 is nearly hysterical as it is? Is this the time 
 for playing the fool?" 
 
 Zietsman looked strangely at Penrose for
 
 FLIGHT 257 
 
 a moment, and said in a more natural 
 tone: 
 
 "You are right, and I am wrong; but I 
 am not myself this evening — for which you 
 are partly to blame — and what Johnson tells 
 me has not helped to clear my brain. We 
 must go — escape — fly. Faugh! Is it come 
 to this?" He would have burst into one 
 of the rhapsodies to which he had always 
 been prone, which were growing in their 
 power over him, but Penrose peremptorily 
 bade him to desist, and think only of the best 
 method of flight. For some time, Zietsman 
 was nearly uncontrollable, but presently he 
 shook off his rambling manner, and listened 
 attentively to what they said to him. When 
 he had concentrated his mind, his normal 
 manner returned, and remained. He was 
 a leader again, and his authority asserted 
 itself imperiously. Under his orders telephone 
 messages were sent for cabs and relays to 
 take them to the coast, and all preparations 
 were completed. Some of these were curious, 
 and some even mysterious, but all went to 
 prove that Zietsman must have lived long 
 under the fear of discovery, and had prepared 
 
 17
 
 258 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 for it with extraordinary ingenuity. To 
 Penrose he said carelessly, as though the 
 matter had been temporarily overlooked in 
 the stress of more important issues : 
 
 " That declaration of war you made must 
 stand over. Hostilities may be postponed 
 in face of a common enemy. Let us agree 
 to a neutrality for the present — an armed 
 neutrality if you wish it." 
 
 " I agree to a neutrality," Penrose said, 
 answering Zietsman in similar phrasing, and 
 sinking apparently his own intentions to 
 humour him. " We can discuss the conditions 
 later." 
 
 " There will be little else to discuss — 
 later," Zietsman commented, and dismissed 
 the subject. 
 
 " The submarine is lying there," Zietsman 
 then said, putting the point of a pencil 
 down on a chart of the English Channel 
 which he had spread on the table. " That 
 is exactly where we boarded her before, but 
 we shall have no trains to-night, and horse 
 transport is tedious. Fortunately, there is 
 no moon, so as soon as we are on the road 
 we are safe — for the time."
 
 FLIGHT 259 
 
 The servants were sent early to bed, and, 
 accustomed as they were to Zietsman's 
 sudden change of plans, they were easily 
 persuaded that a very early start on the 
 following morning was the reason of their 
 master's great consideration in ordering them 
 oif so early. Penrose agreed to everything 
 as though he had no voice in the matter ; 
 but he did so because he could not disguise 
 from himself that Zietsman, whether sane 
 or insane, was making excellent dispositions. 
 The moment these struck him as unwise or 
 inadequate he would set them aside or, if 
 that were impossible, save the girl and 
 himself and leave the culprit to his magnifi- 
 cently earned fate. 
 
 When the house was quiet, and the four 
 persons, whose flight from it was now near 
 to its beginning, had assembled silently in 
 the darkened dining-room which looked out on 
 the front grounds and towards the main 
 entrance, Penrose, at Zietsman's request, 
 drew back a corner of one of the blinds and 
 peered out. The night was dark and 
 moonless. Owing to thick clouds, only a 
 few faint stars were visible, and most of
 
 260 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 these had no sooner blinked than they were 
 snuffed out as you would tread on a spark. 
 So far it was well with them. 
 
 "No, there is no one there," Penrose said; 
 but just as he spoke a shadow seemed to 
 flit from a tree to a bed of shrubs and remain 
 there. 
 
 " Let go the blind," Zietsman whispered, 
 and Penrose allowed the flap he held to 
 fall back to its place. " This will serve our 
 purpose better." The leader made a couple 
 of slight slits in the blind with a pocket 
 knife and took his stand at one, Penrose at 
 the other. Nell crept close to him. The 
 shifting shadow was visible again. It could 
 be seen behind the bank of shrubbery, 
 something taller than it. It moved. Other 
 shadows flitted in and out between the 
 trees. They joined the first at the bank of 
 underwood. 
 
 "Watch closely," Zietsman again whispered. 
 The eye-slits he had made in the blind 
 allowed him to see dimly from the black 
 darkness of the room into the grey darkness 
 without. 
 
 The shadows moved again.
 
 FLIGHT 261 
 
 " Be silent. Do not stir," Zietsman cau- 
 tioned, and all that could be heard in the 
 room was the nervous breathing of its 
 inmates. 
 
 The shadows were on the path now. 
 
 "Not a sound ! ' : Zietsman breathed. 
 
 Then very stealthily one of the shadows 
 crept up close to the window where the 
 watchers were waiting — close up, and flashed 
 for a second a tiny flame of light from a 
 shuttered lamp. 
 
 " I thought so," Zietsman whispered. " It 
 is O'Mara." 
 
 They stole cautiously out of the dark 
 room and so up the stairs to the library. 
 Zietsman went first into the passage. Penrose 
 and Nell followed, and Johnson came last. 
 The great bookcase was soon ajar. It 
 flapped back behind them and they were 
 safe for the moment. In the long corridor 
 nothing was changed from the first time 
 Penrose passed by that way, and in the 
 garden-house there was no sign of its 
 secret having been discovered. Here Zietsman 
 paused, and handing Johnson the dark lantern 
 he carried, said shortly :
 
 262 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 " It seems that we are to go free after 
 all. At least, we must take our chance. 
 We shall not, in any case, want you 
 further. You can go." 
 
 " Go where ? " Johnson asked, with a 
 break in his voice. 
 
 " Go back," Zietsman answered, irritably. 
 
 "Back — back — I cannot go back." 
 
 "It is necessary. Are you afraid of 
 O'Mara?" 
 
 " I am afraid," Johnson said, slowly, "but 
 not of O'Mara, I cannot go back again to — 
 that — the others." 
 
 " Then we all go back," Zietsman said, 
 sternly. "For if you go not back, we need 
 not go forward. Have you forgotten so soon ? 
 I tell you — beware!" 
 
 On that Johnson swayed on his feet 
 unsteadily — for the cup of liberty was dashed 
 from his very lips — groped aimlessly for the 
 lever of the door which stood already open, 
 struck his open palm to his forehead des- 
 pairingly, and, like a drunken man, staggered 
 back into the corridor, and swung the door 
 after him. 
 
 Zietsman led the way to the postern gate
 
 FLIGHT 263 
 
 in the boundary wall. Penrose and Nell 
 followed him, walking together and very 
 carefully, for the path was choked with 
 underwood, and overhung with trees. But 
 Zietsman knew it by instinct, and they 
 walked safely in single file, each keeping 
 touch with the next. An outstretched 
 branch would often whip their faces, and 
 undergrowth cling to their feet, making 
 the short journey full of trouble ; but they 
 made good their way, and soon stood beside 
 the postern gate. Zietsman slipped his key 
 into the lock, and turned it. The gate 
 did not move. A heavy bar had been freshly 
 fitted across it. This was clamped in its 
 place by a chain with ponderous links. The 
 chain was also firmly fastened by a gigantic 
 padlock. Zietsman wrenched at it with a 
 growl like an animal at bay. 
 It was locked.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 CAPTURED 
 
 O'Mara's men easily broke into the house- 
 
 not a very difficult operation for a party 
 including some of the most expert cracksmen 
 in London. They crept as noiselessly as a 
 cat might walk through the rooms, and as 
 directly as if they had come in by daylight, 
 and by the front door. Guided by O'Mara, 
 they visited the conservatory and found 
 nothing worth noting. In the thoroughness 
 of their search, however, they were bound 
 to come on the mysterious wing in which 
 the forbidden room was situated. They 
 found there more than even the hardened 
 nerves of a party of experienced policemen, 
 stiffened by a leaven of celebrated ex-convicts, 
 were able to stand with any fortitude. 
 
 A full account of their discoveries would 
 
 264
 
 CAPTURED 265 
 
 have been duly sworn to if this terrible 
 case had ever come to trial. But as that 
 contingency never arose, its possibilities need 
 not occupy us now. Lastly, in the pursuance 
 of their object they found themselves in the 
 library which has figured frequently in this 
 story. 
 
 Seated in an armchair before the smoulder- 
 ing remnants of a fire which had nearly 
 burnt out, a shrunken old man was sleeping. 
 His hair and eyebrows were snow-white, his 
 features pinched, and his fingers on the 
 chair-arms were crooked like claws. Even 
 in his sleep there was a feebleness in his 
 attitude that told its own tale. He was 
 old, and age was heavy on him. O'Mara 
 whispered to his officers, and on their 
 expressions of unfeigned surprise, said in a 
 low voice, but sharply : 
 
 "I tell you it's the man who spoke to 
 the people in the vestibule of the Britannic 
 Association's Hall. I was within five feet 
 of him, and I can swear to him. This is 
 the same man. This is the man himself. It 
 looks a miracle, but he is a miracle-worker. 
 Anyhow, I'll chance it."
 
 266 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 He went forward, signing to his men to 
 stand by, and said roughly, as he grasped 
 the sleeper's shoulder : 
 
 " Leslie Zietsman, I arrest you." 
 
 " For what ? on whose warrant ? " the old 
 man said, feebly, brushing the sleep from 
 his drowsy eyes. " My name isn't Zietsman," 
 he added, querulously. 
 
 " I don't know what your real name is," 
 O'Mara said, sternly, " and I have no 
 warrant. My action is quite illegal, let us 
 say, to save your time and mine in arguing 
 the point. It is no good, Zietsman, better 
 come quietly." 
 
 " Sir," said the old man, straightening 
 himself up ; " You break into this house in 
 the middle of the night. I discover you — 
 or rather, you blunder into the room in 
 which I have fallen asleep. You think to 
 cover your retreat by affecting to be a 
 party of police — you have the audacity, the 
 effrontery to offer this paltry subterfuge to 
 me ! Had you not better try it on the 
 housemaids ? They are, I believe, all from 
 remote districts and strangers to the locality. 
 They will accept your story. You will
 
 CAPTURED 267 
 
 probably frighten them. You do not alarm 
 me. Probably you would not even— the old 
 man's eyes began to shine — certainly you 
 would not have the courage to molest even 
 them, only you have been apprised that the 
 
 men of the household are away " 
 
 " Seize him ! ' O'Mara ordered. Two men 
 stepped forward. 
 
 " Stand back ! ' the old man shouted, 
 covering the foremost with a revolver which 
 he whipped from his pocket with sudden 
 energy. 
 
 O'Mara dashed on him. The revolver 
 banged once or twice, but the bullets found 
 their billets in the ceiling. Then began a 
 struggle grim and great, for if the old man's 
 energy was sudden, the strength and ferocity 
 with which he fought, created little less 
 than a panic among the men who tried to 
 take him. He tore his right hand free 
 from O'Mara's grasp, and without trying to 
 fire the revolver again used it as a club 
 with terrible effect. One, two, three went 
 down, felled with crashing blows and the 
 rest, who were crowding up, gave ground. 
 " Close on him, d — n you ! " O'Mara roared,
 
 268 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 clutching at the throat of the man he held, 
 to strangle him if nothing else would do. 
 But the old man met the next comer with 
 a kick that snapped his shin-bone like a 
 pipe-shank and then, wrenching partly free, 
 he struck O'Mara in the face with his left 
 fist, a stunning crunch. Before O'Mara could 
 recover, Zietsman, if it were he, hurled the 
 table against a rush of new men and made a 
 dash for the door. He gained it, but O'Mara 
 was on him again with a yell : 
 
 " Guard the stairs ! " 
 
 The warning was too late, and the two, 
 with a man who had planted himself on the 
 topmost step, went somersaulting down the 
 stairs to a landing where only a bannister 
 barred the way to the hall below. This they 
 crashed through like paper and fell heavily 
 down to the ground floor. The third man 
 was out of action the moment he fell, but 
 O'Mara and his prisoner, having fallen on 
 him, were still able to continue the fight, 
 though not so violently as above. The 
 detective, though he stuck desperately to 
 his man, had got the worst of it, and in 
 another moment the clubbed revolver would
 
 CAPTUKED 269 
 
 have dashed out his brains. But in that 
 moment the others were down, and all was 
 over. Dishevelled, gasping, bleeding and 
 frothing at the mouth, his white wig torn 
 off, the paint on his face running in ugly- 
 streaks, splashed by his blood, Leslie Zietsman 
 surrendered to the law. 
 
 " You shall answer for this, O'Mara, as 
 sure as my name's Zietsman," was all the 
 prisoner said, as he was being strapped to 
 a bulky cracksman who openly, and in 
 perfect sincerity, complimented him on the 
 fight he had put up, single-handed against 
 the crowd. There was no one indeed to 
 help him save the terrified maids, who, in 
 a distant portion of the house, heard the 
 riot and pulled the bedclothes over their 
 heads. It was not the first supernatural 
 noise — as they deemed it — they had heard 
 in that house. But the wages were good, 
 the duties light, and the ghosts none of 
 their business. 
 
 O'Mara did not answer his prisoner's threat, 
 and after making it Zietsman did not speak 
 again, nor indeed was he troubled with 
 unnecessary conversation. What he was
 
 270 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 ordered to do he did. These orders were 
 not obscure or wanting in a suitable emphasis 
 of expression. O'Mara and his men had 
 received too rough a handling to be over 
 nice in the way they spoke, and save from 
 the man to whom he was tied, the prisoner 
 did not get much sympathy. He himself 
 would have been the last to claim that he 
 deserved any. When all was ready, he was 
 told to march. The man with the broken 
 leg was necessarily left behind. The others 
 were not permanently damaged. Thus the 
 journey to town was commenced. It was 
 continued by road, for the only night-train 
 at the rural railway station was gone, and 
 the main line was far away. 
 
 It need not be supposed that O'Mara was 
 so dehumanised by his profession, or by his 
 fight, that he could capture on a capital 
 charge, without a qualm, a man whose 
 hospitality he had often enjoyed, and whose 
 friendship he had not very long ago been 
 glad to acknowledge. He could not under 
 ordinary circumstances have taken any old 
 friend without regret, although he would 
 certainly have taken his best friend if his
 
 CAPTURED 
 
 duty demanded it. But this was not an 
 ordinary man. This man had put himself 
 not only outside the law, but outside the 
 sympathy of the most long-suffering humanity. 
 O'Mara had run him down, and he would 
 have him hanged with as little compunction 
 as he would destroy a dangerous dog. 
 
 So O'Mara brought his man to town, 
 and found to his astonishment his news 
 was there before him. This did not exactly 
 suit his arrangements, and these had to be 
 modified to suit it. He had carried the 
 whole matter with a high hand, and a strict 
 disregard of what many consider fundamental 
 axioms in British jurisprudence. But he 
 knew very well that when he handed over 
 Leslie Zietsman to the proper authorities, no 
 awkward questions would be asked, and 
 directly or indirectly, he would be well 
 paid for his pains. It had not been possible, 
 however, to keep the secret as securely as 
 the man. A member of the escort deserted 
 early on the march, and managed by hard 
 riding, and a liberal fee for rousing the 
 telegraphist, to get a message through to 
 a Press Agency. It paid him well for his
 
 272 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 trouble. In consequence of this, early on 
 the morning following the abduction, before 
 the arrival of the prisoner indeed, all London, 
 the whole world, was ringing with the news 
 that at last the dread Vehmgerichte had 
 been struck in a fatal spot, that the head 
 and front of all the villainy had been taken, 
 and that his name was Leslie Zietsman. 
 The papers published many editions. The 
 telegraph wires sang the song from 
 John O'Groats to Land's End, and the ocean 
 cables flashed the news, and the applause 
 which greeted it, round the earth. 
 
 In the clubs, no other topic was permitted 
 for a moment. On 'Change, it was a solecism 
 for the time to mention the markets. In 
 the House, a member talking ordinary nonsense 
 was promptly closured ! It was the dual 
 role of the man that strung the dramatic 
 interest to the intensest pitch. On the one 
 hand, a common swindler (a mass of dis- 
 closures, most of them false, were instantly 
 dumped on the press), a most uncommon 
 murderer ; on the other, a philanthropist in 
 the wholesale way, a humanitarian in hysterics, 
 an idealist gone mad ! The celebrated lecture
 
 CAPTURED 273 
 
 was torn thread from thread dialectically ; 
 spat upon metaphorically ; and laughed at 
 literally. Every conceivable fair and 
 unfair weapon was used against it — save 
 disproof. Which seems to suggest that we 
 have all, more or less, the latent elements 
 of average criticism in us. In short, 
 Zietsman was voted as learned a fool as 
 Carlyle, as pious a fraud as John Bright, 
 and as squalid a scoundrel as Napoleon. He 
 was at once serious enough for Punch, silly 
 enough for The Times, and sordid enough 
 for current fiction ; and thereon their 
 emphasis began to cool from exhaustion. 
 
 Only one man of note raised his voice on 
 the side of sane examination of this curious 
 human problem. But Society was in hysterics, 
 crying and laughing by turns in its exulta- 
 tion, and the specialist in cerebral disorders 
 was but a voice crying in a wilderness 
 peopled only by jabbering idiots. In the 
 diagnosis of the specialist, Zietsman was 
 originally a man of unusual, perhaps abnormal, 
 brain power, but like all abnormally developed 
 brains, his was unevenly developed, and he 
 was consequently certain to drive any 
 
 18
 
 274 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 pursuit, profession, or hobby he might take 
 up beyond normal lengths. Had he followed 
 the role of hero, he might have excelled the 
 world's greatest rascals ; invention, he might 
 have registered as many patents as Edison ; 
 dogmatic religion, he would have burned 
 men's bodies for the good of their souls. 
 As he had evidently studied sociological and 
 economic science, it was inevitable that he 
 should present humanitarianism in a new light 
 — at once its apotheosis and caricature. All 
 this, being demonstrably true, was at once 
 disbelieved and dismissed. 
 
 There was a somewhat unusual ceremony 
 at the committal of Zietsman. O'Mara, find- 
 ing the city seething with the knowledge of 
 his capture, had instantly haled his prisoner 
 before a magistrate, and secured a remand 
 on the merest fringe of the conclusive but 
 chaotic evidence in his possession. A few 
 days was sufficient to arrange all of this 
 that was necessary for the formal commit- 
 ment, and thereupon, accompanied by the 
 magistrate, the now famous detective pro- 
 ceeded to discharge his duty. Representatives 
 of the great Press Associations, Members of
 
 CAPTURED 275 
 
 Parliament (it was said, a Cabinet Minister), 
 and as many prominent persons as could 
 obtain permission, went to witness the 
 execution of a legal process, which by its 
 importance, rendered the impeachment of 
 Warren Hastings the poorest melodrama in 
 comparison. There was a pomp and circum- 
 stance in the proceedings which was unique 
 in criminal history. But the august cere- 
 monial itself was brief — and disappointing. It 
 took place, by special arrangement, in a 
 private room of the governor of the gaol 
 in which Zietsman was confined for safe 
 custody. 
 
 The requisite depositions were sworn, 
 read over, and signed by the witnesses. 
 All was done in the strictest legal order, 
 and when Zietsman was asked if he had 
 anything to say in answer to the charges, 
 the magistrate's caution was very impres- 
 sively delivered : " Anything you say will be 
 taken down in writing, and may be used 
 against you at your trial." 
 
 " It is very good of you to say that, 
 but might I ask what has all this to do 
 with me ? ' the prisoner said calmly. His
 
 276 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 appearance was now greatly improved since 
 the last occasion on which he had been 
 charged. He had recovered from the effects 
 both of his rough handling, and his disguise. 
 
 " It means," the magistrate answered, 
 sharply, " that you are charged with a 
 long series of murders (here something was 
 again read out of a large document) and 
 that " 
 
 "You will certainly be hanged," O'Mara 
 put in. He really could not help it. 
 
 The last remark was not in the usual 
 ritual, but no one minded that. 
 
 "I am certainly charged," the prisoner 
 admitted. " But I certainly shall not be 
 hanged," he added, suavely. He seemed to 
 patronise the little crowd of excited men. 
 His manner was soothing. It tacitly bade 
 them to control their emotion. 
 
 "As sure as your name is ' Leslie Zietsman,' ' 
 O'Mara said, peremptorily. His indiscretions 
 were very unprofessional. But the circum- 
 stances were very extraordinary. 
 
 " That's just what I want to come at," the 
 prisoner observed, benignly. " My name 
 isn't Leslie Zietsman."
 
 CAPTURED 277 
 
 There was a faint laugh — instantly sup- 
 pressed, as the reporters say. It was 
 partly in disgust the crowd stopped laughing. 
 Such a subterfuge was beneath the great 
 criminal who had used it. It was a paltry 
 device. While they were chattering in low 
 whispers, the prisoner turned his face from 
 them momentarily, and they might not have 
 paid immediate attention to him if one of 
 the men who was in personal charge of him 
 had not exclaimed : 
 
 " Blessed if he isn't doin' somethin' to his 
 face ! " 
 
 " Then may we ask, what is your name ? ,: 
 O'Mara said, pompously. He would have 
 been more than human — or at least, more 
 than a detective — if he could have altogether 
 disguised his triumph. 
 
 " Certainly," said the prisoner, turning 
 round again and facing them full. " My 
 name is Johnson. I know you, Mr. O'Mara, 
 and you know me. Now that you have 
 had your joke, and I have had mine, will you 
 please identify me and stop this nonsense. 
 I will take an action against you later on, 
 for arrest and false imprisonment, if my
 
 278 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 lawyer so advises me. Whatever damages 
 I get will be needed, for I have lost a good 
 place and a good master. Mr. Zietsman, 
 you know, of course, is now across the 
 
 seas. 
 
 O'Mara strode up to the prisoner, and 
 looked him squarely in the eyes. If ever a 
 pin might be heard to drop, surely in that 
 room it must have fallen with a crash like 
 a crowbar. 
 
 " It's Johnson, right enough," O'Mara said, 
 quietly, and walked out of the room.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 IN A STRANGE LAND 
 
 As Zietsman stood fumbling at the heavy 
 padlock which effectually secured the gate 
 and barred their exit, footsteps sounded softly 
 in the wood close by. The steps were 
 approaching them, so the three fugitives 
 shrank back behind a gigantic trunk. A 
 man's figure could soon be made out in 
 the darkness. He was creeping cautiously 
 toward the gate, and coming directly down on 
 the refugees. Zietsman whispered to Penrose : 
 
 "Blindfold her. Tie your handkerchief 
 over her eyes. It won't take an instant." 
 
 Penrose blinded the girl as he was 
 directed. She submitted without a word; 
 her naturally resolute nature had been 
 greatly tried, and she was becoming apathetic. 
 
 279
 
 280 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 When she was bandaged, Zietsman stepped 
 out quickly in front of the shadowy figure 
 which was now opposite them and before 
 the man could speak, or cry out, a fierce 
 thrust drove something under his arm. He 
 sat down gurgling like an idiot whose tongue 
 is too large for his mouth, and presently lay 
 still in the heap in which he had sunk. 
 Zietsman turned him over with his foot. 
 The living man then stooped over the dead 
 body and easily found what he sought — 
 the key of the padlock. Nell was led, 
 her eyes still bandaged, outside the gate, 
 and when they were in the rough woodland 
 beyond the wall, Penrose undid his knotted 
 handkerchief. They had saved her something, 
 and another unit in the sum of Zietsman's 
 slain made only an imperceptible increase 
 to the total. Just before they recommenced 
 their journey Nell said in a dazed, frozen, 
 voice to Penrose : 
 
 "As he said to Johnson, I now say to 
 you. Go back — before it is too late." 
 
 " Where you go, I go," Penrose answered, 
 simply, but resolutely. 
 
 " No, no ! Leave us to our fate."
 
 IN A STRANGE LAND 281 
 
 " I will not leave you to your fate." 
 
 " But that is madness " 
 
 " That is my decision." 
 
 His firmness overbore her protest. She 
 sorely needed his sympathy and support. 
 To refuse it flatly was more than she could 
 achieve. Passing directly through the wood 
 they soon came on the road, and here when 
 they had walked a mile, a cab was waiting. 
 Zietsman spoke a word to the driver of the 
 cab. It was answered satisfactorily and in 
 another minute they were dashing at a 
 hard gallop — for a cab horse — to a cross-roads. 
 Here they turned sharp to the left and drove 
 due south — and hard. Before the sun was 
 up next morning, they were on board the 
 submarine and steaming west at full speed ; 
 and before the day was many hours old, 
 there was no land in sight. 
 
 A sharp look-out was kept, and so long 
 as no ship was in sight the submarine went 
 furiously ahead over a light sea. If a vessel 
 crossed her horizon, she sank to her normal 
 submarine depth and continued at reduced 
 speed on her course. The petty officers and 
 crew went about their few duties without
 
 282 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 betraying the least surprise at the presence 
 of their passengers. Their eventful lives 
 were too full of tragic interest to trouble 
 much over so unimportant an addition to 
 their ship's company, or any alteration in 
 their own routine. They were a curiously 
 dogged lot, and even the presence of a lady 
 on their decks seemed to pass their observa- 
 tion, nautical traditions and novels notwith- 
 standing. As the day wore on, Zietsman 
 brought Penrose to the dome-shaped look-out, 
 and having closed the entrance and locked 
 it, he said, with emphasis, and evidently in 
 continuation of a subject already worn with 
 discussion : 
 
 " What you propose is, as I have told 
 you, absurd in a hundred ways. At one 
 time I thought, I confess, of a happy future 
 for poor Nellie. That young Beresford was 
 the type of man who would have been happy 
 with her, and have made her happy. He 
 should have married her with my fullest 
 consent if my cause had triumphed, or had 
 I perished — as I always intended if my mission 
 failed — in a way which would have left her 
 a fair name. That paper I once charged
 
 IN A STRANGE LAND 283 
 
 you with — I destroyed it before we left — 
 provided a future for her and would have 
 compensated you. The fates have robbed 
 her of her future and you of your reward. 
 You are ruined. Her name is blasted. By 
 this time Beresford would not mate with 
 her to save his soul. When she learns what 
 I have been, she herself would not bring 
 her heritage of disgrace into any man's 
 home. Beresford and she might have 
 lived and died in innocence, or ignorance, 
 of what I have been and done. You 
 were always barred, for you have always 
 known — since you knew her first, at all 
 events. 
 
 " You say, Beresford will know by this 
 time. How do you think he will know if 
 our flight has not yet been discovered ? ' 
 
 " Our flight has been discovered long since. 
 It was discovered very soon after we had 
 flown. Johnson had full instructions, and 
 I am sure he has obeyed them." 
 
 " What has Johnson to do with it ? ' 
 
 " A great deal — everything. But for 
 Johnson, my friend, you and I might not 
 now be sailing the seas. I have no object
 
 284 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 in keeping any details from you. It was 
 thus ; when Johnson went back he did so 
 to personate me. He has often done that. 
 He took my place to good purpose in the 
 city not long ago when we were after Van 
 Hannsler. You saw how extraordinarily, 
 under certain conditions, our faces are 
 alike. That is because we have not practised 
 uselessly to make our disguises alike, but 
 because we have practised to make our 
 faces alike. It is simpler than it seems. 
 When Johnson and I, standing together, 
 puzzled you as to which was which, don't 
 you think that apart we would be pretty 
 hard to differentiate. To make doubly certain, 
 Johnson was to adopt a disguise in which 
 I have been seen by O'Mara ; he was to 
 resist arrest ; and whatever possibility O'Mara 
 might have of detecting the counterfeit, he 
 would hardly do so when Johnson had 
 biassed his mind unconsciously to himself, 
 first by my disguise, then by trying to 
 evade arrest as though in personal peril, and 
 finally by the remains of the make-up paint 
 which he was to slobber over his face in the 
 struggle. That is all very elaborate, you
 
 IN A STRANGE LAND 285 
 
 will say, merely to put poor Johnson in 
 durance. It had no such purpose. It gets 
 us clear away unmolested while they are 
 taking Johnson to prison where he will be 
 ultimately discovered and released. And, 
 believe me, if possession is nine points of 
 the law for those living within it, a good 
 start is a great matter for those trying to 
 escape from it." 
 
 " You're not as mad as I thought," Penrose 
 commented, not very politely. 
 
 " I am not mad at all," Zietsman answered, 
 without taking offence. " I am out of touch 
 with the times. Perhaps that's the same 
 thing in different words," he added, with a 
 contemptuous shrug. " To return to what 
 we commenced on : you know as much 
 of me as is necessary to guide your decision." 
 
 " I do," said Penrose, " and knowing it I 
 stand by what I said." 
 
 " It will never be," Zietsman said, moodily. 
 " I have taken enough out ot your life. 
 You have earned your release. I refuse 
 my consent now — and for ever." 
 
 " I refuse to accept either your consent 
 or your decision — now and for ever,"
 
 286 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 Penrose replied in as quiet a voice as 
 the other man had used, but as resolutely. 
 "We shall see," said Zietsman. 
 "We shall see," said Penrose, again 
 repeating the other man's phrase. 
 
 With that the subject was dropped 
 between them for the time — and very 
 soon it was set at rest for eternity. 
 
 The submarine steamed many days 
 on a course set by Zietsman. He kept 
 all the ship's instruments in his own charge, 
 and neither his officers nor his two pas- 
 sengers had the least idea of how he 
 was steering, save such rough guesses as 
 the seamen could make from the sun by 
 day, and the stars by night. This course 
 was often changed, until the most experienced 
 mariner gave up guessing, and took no 
 further thought for the morrow, nor cared 
 what the next day might bring forth. 
 This was apparently what the man 
 or the maniac in command wanted, for 
 as soon as he gathered from the listless 
 and general air of resignation, that they had 
 all given up the puzzle, he set a steady 
 course. In two day's more, land was
 
 IN A STRANGE LAND 287 
 
 sighted, low down on the horizon, it is 
 true, but distinct and right ahead. 
 
 Thereupon Zietsman stopped his engines, 
 
 and lay to till nightfall, when he steamed 
 
 directly towards the shore. There were no 
 
 lights to be seen, but the commander of the 
 
 submarine appeared to have no difficulty 
 
 in finding his way along the bottom, as it 
 
 were, by a constant heaving of the lead. As 
 
 soon as he calculated that he was close 
 
 inshore he stopped again, when the water 
 
 shoaled to a mark he waited for, and then 
 
 at his order a rocket was sent up. This 
 
 was answered by a faint signal from the 
 
 shore. Zietsman immediately told Penrose 
 
 and Nell to prepare to leave the ship. Before 
 
 long, the sound of oars could be heard in 
 
 the darkness, and soon afterwards a boat 
 
 came alongside. Those who were going 
 
 ashore, were ready by this time, and in a 
 
 few minutes they were in the boat. The 
 
 submarine, which had swung round on a 
 
 tide that was running, straightway steamed 
 
 out to sea, and the boat was alone in smooth 
 
 water, which only moved in a long, slow 
 
 heave. The oarsmen had not hitherto spoken
 
 288 A NE W MESSIAH 
 
 a word, nor did they now say anything, save 
 in whispers to Zietsman himself. Thus the 
 silence was only broken by the wash of the 
 oars, and the dreary cries of sea-birds, which 
 they startled as they passed. These circled 
 for a little overhead, and called to each 
 other in melancholy wails, then settled down 
 again, and ceased. 
 
 " The submarine is gone for good, I 
 suppose ? " Penrose said at length, with a 
 sense of desertion of which he could not 
 well complain, when it was by his own wish 
 he had left her. He might have gone back 
 in her if he had chosen. He had been offered 
 the choice. 
 
 " Yes, she is gone for good," Zietsman 
 answered. " The captain has orders to steam 
 twenty-four hours on a course I set, before 
 he takes an observation. He will only then 
 know where he is, and probably could not 
 find us again if he tried, and he will not 
 try. I hope that we are thus lost to 
 the world. The world is certainly lost 
 to us." 
 
 " Unconsciously Penrose shivered, although 
 the night air was not cold. Nell slipped
 
 IN A STRANGE LAND 289 
 
 her hand in his, and held it there. So 
 he answered bravely, if not with the best 
 heart : 
 
 " We can do without it. It isn't much 
 loss — to us." 
 
 " Nor we to it," Zietsman said. It was 
 not a singular speech for such a man. But 
 there was something eerie in his voice. 
 Penrose had heard Zietsman in many moods, 
 and none of them was quite like the one 
 which now seemed to possess him. He might 
 have shivered again, but he thought better 
 of it, and pressed the hand that was in his 
 own instead. The sign of sympathy 
 was gratefully returned. The girl had need 
 of it. 
 
 They landed on a shingly beach, and the 
 boatmen, in lieu of any sort of pier or 
 landing stage, slipped into the water to 
 their knees, and carried the strangers ashore 
 in single tile. Wading with their boots on 
 was no novelty to these amphibians. There 
 was neither house nor shelter of any des- 
 cription near, but a pair of small ponies 
 and a rough carriage was waiting for the 
 trio and their scanty luggage. When they 
 
 19
 
 290 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 were seated, the driver of the ponies drove 
 away from the point at which the landing 
 was made, and soon turning sharply from 
 the shore, went inland as fast as the horses 
 could go. Their pace was better than their 
 appearance, and the ground was covered 
 briskly. 
 
 Penrose sat on the side of the carriage 
 
 with Nell — the seats faced inward — and 
 
 Zietsman sat opposite to them. He did not 
 
 talk himself and grew irritable if they spoke 
 
 to each other or to him. The effect of this 
 
 was far from cheerful. Nor was the route 
 
 in itself exhilarating. The road skirted great 
 
 mountains all the time, and often cut through 
 
 gloomy gorges. Sometimes a faint moon 
 
 blinked out and threw the great peaks into 
 
 strong relief, one by one, as these went 
 
 steadily back, a long march past of 
 
 huge and indeterminate shapes. Gaunt 
 
 trees, at long intervals, leaned over the road, 
 
 and their gnarled and seemingly blasted 
 
 limbs, pointed fantastic figures at the sullen 
 
 sky. Grim sentinels were these, standing their 
 
 ghostly guard along the solitary track seldom 
 
 trod by man or beast, and in a silence that
 
 IN A STRANGE LAND 291 
 
 was unstirred even by the flight of a bird, 
 save once when a heron flapped lazily over- 
 head, and with a hoarse and most lonesome 
 cry drifted away into darkness. In what 
 land they were, they did not know ; where 
 they were going they could not imagine. 
 But always the mountains were moving 
 back, building barriers between them and 
 the world they had fled from ; heaping 
 ramparts against the civilization which this 
 mysterious man, in whose fate their own was 
 swallowed, had so scornfully despised and 
 audaciously tried to destroy. Many a time 
 in that lone journey, the younger man found 
 his heart like to fail. But every time he 
 felt his blood turning thin he thought of 
 the girl, whose only hope he knew to be 
 himself. That hardened him afresh and he 
 bade his fears begone. 
 
 Before dawn, the carriage stopped at a 
 gate across the road. The driver got down, 
 unlocked this and swung it back, passed the 
 carriage through and relocked it before he 
 scrambled again to his place. It was now 
 darker than it had been at any time during 
 the night, and they could not see more than
 
 292 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 the mere track on which the carriage moved. 
 But the air was keener, and there was a 
 sound as of the splashing of light waves on 
 both sides. They were travelling on an 
 embankment or causeway both sides of which 
 were washed by the sea. This causeway was 
 not long, and in a few minutes the carriage 
 stopped at a bank of trees which rose steeply 
 on a wooded hill before them. 
 
 They got out of the carriage, stiff from 
 the long drive, and not very hopeful of 
 what was to follow it. Zietsman led the 
 way along a dark path as confidently as if 
 he walked it daily. Penrose and Nell who 
 had given up wondering at anything he did, 
 found themselves surprised if he hesitated 
 for a moment. He certainly did not hesitate 
 often, and soon led them to a house with a 
 small lawn, or at least a clearance in the 
 trees before the door. Zietsman opened 
 this door with a latch-key, and they went 
 in as naturally as though they had reached 
 a suburban villa by the last train from town. 
 So far, Zietsman had been confident in his 
 bearing though moody in his manner. Any 
 doubts as to his mental strength, and they
 
 IN A STRANGE LAND 293 
 
 were many, had hitherto been brought up 
 always by the unsurmountable fact of his 
 methodical and, for the purpose in view, 
 successful action. His arrangements had 
 been made with more than ordinary exacti- 
 tude. They were perfect ; but he had 
 hardly turned up the lamps, which were 
 already lighted in apparent expectation of 
 their coming, when his daughter noticed a 
 change upon all that had been before. 
 
 She cowered back from her father as if 
 she feared actual violence, and when Penrose, 
 with the best affectation of indifference he 
 could command, stepped between them, he 
 in turn was impressed by the indefinite, but 
 palpable, alteration in the many-sided man 
 whom he had recently — somewhat light- 
 heartedly, he now felt — been bold enough to 
 defy. 
 
 His sense of coming danger was vividly 
 enhanced by a low exclamation from Nell, 
 who stood behind him like a child that 
 clings to its nurse in front of a dangerous 
 animal's cage. The girl did not mean to 
 speak aloud, and certainly would not have 
 willingly said what she did in her father's
 
 294 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 hearing. What she did say was not so 
 significant in the words as the suggestion 
 which her manifest terror lent them. 
 
 " Mr. Penrose ! — Oh, Willie — isn't he — 
 strange ! "
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 A DUEL TO THE DEATH 
 
 Zietsman's strange manner changed quickly 
 for the worse. In a few days it became 
 terrifying. The effect of this on those who 
 had to live with him was not lessened by 
 the style of their residence. It was a 
 dreadful house. A milder term would not 
 suggest it, and that one understates it. 
 Built on an island, or a peninsula, if you 
 count the causeway which connected it with 
 the mainland, it appeared to be completely 
 cut off from all communication with any 
 world save its own, and this was a very 
 limited one indeed — a couple of women 
 servants, and the man who had driven 
 their carriage on the night they landed. 
 These three natives spoke a language of 
 
 295
 
 296 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 which neither Penrose nor Nell knew a word. 
 Zietsman appeared to use it fluently, but 
 he did not say what it was. And his 
 reticence became more morose as the days 
 passed. 
 
 Penrose thought he had undergone such 
 terrible shocks, and so many of them, that 
 he might reasonably hope to be immune 
 to ordinary fears. This immunity he had 
 purchased dearly, and certainly possessed 
 it. No mere repetition of any of his former 
 adventures would have cost him a moment's 
 thought, or stirred his blood by an extra 
 pulse beat. But the extraordinary remote- 
 ness, the unspeakable loneliness of this house, 
 enhanced as it was by the dreary, almost 
 ghastly journey by which they had arrived 
 at it — this was new to his nerves, and they 
 quivered anew to it. He was not now a 
 practical prisoner as he had been at Beech- 
 mount. He was free to come and go as 
 he chose. He made long excursions on the 
 mainland. No one forbade him. He returned 
 after absences the length of which he 
 purposely varied so as to test the limit of 
 his liberty. No one reproved him, and no
 
 A DUEL TO THE DEATH 297 
 
 one but Nell seemed to have missed him. 
 The girl was always attentive, almost affec- 
 tionate, but between him and her, there 
 hung the shadow of her father's guilt. For 
 now she knew. And that knowledge, she 
 believed, barred her for ever from human 
 sympathy. He tried to win her to him, 
 but the distance between them he could never 
 overpass. 
 
 So far from resenting the short desertions 
 by which Penrose had experimented, Zietsman 
 seemed glad of them. His mind was evidently 
 quite unhinged, and he had conceived a 
 dislike, as intense as it was unforseen, to the 
 man whose comradeship he had always 
 appeared desirous of winning while he 
 commanded his services. This would not have 
 troubled Penrose, only that it bade fair to 
 render his self-assumed guardianship of the 
 girl more difficult, and might finally render 
 it impossible. That guardianship had at one 
 time been desired by Zietsman himself, as 
 we know, for it was to Penrose he confided 
 the care of his daughter when he felt the 
 meshes of the law gathering closer round 
 him, and he knew not when his doom
 
 298 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 might befall. But he had forgotten it now, 
 or the occasion not having arisen as he 
 expected, he did not wish to be reminded 
 of it. More than once, indeed, when the 
 two men were alone, Penrose tried to draw 
 the conversation back to the episode of the 
 paper which would have been his commission 
 had it not been destroyed, until Zietsman 
 turned on him savagely, and bade him 
 desist. 
 
 " That belongs to the past," Ziets- 
 man cried in a new, nearly hysterical 
 manner. "It is buried. Do not worry me 
 by these resurrections. You are always 
 body-snatching in the graveyard of dead 
 memories." 
 
 For a moment Penrose found his breath 
 rather taken away by this outburst, but 
 he did not mean to be brow-beaten by 
 the maniac who had so often overborne him. 
 Further, by some intuition, he felt that as 
 Zietsman's brain was weakening, the mental 
 position they had occupied prior to his open 
 defiance — declaration of war — was day by 
 day reversing itself. In spite of his own 
 resolute will, he could not deny that he
 
 A DUEL TO THE DEATH 299 
 
 had often been afraid of Zietsman. He was 
 so no longer. Could it be, he wondered, 
 that this process of change would go on, 
 until in turn, Zietsman became afraid of 
 him. It was an inspiration ! 
 
 Zietsman was afraid of him. 
 
 In a moment, much that had been obscure 
 was clarified. This then was the reason 
 why Zietsman no longer seemed to care 
 whether he went or stayed ; nay, seemed 
 at times anxious he would go. And in truth 
 he would have rejoiced to be gone, in spite 
 of the terrible unknown which that lifeless 
 mainland presented, but for the girl. He 
 must still think of her. Zietsman would 
 not let her go, and he would not go without 
 her. That was the end of all the serious 
 meditation to which Zietsman's new dislike 
 and fear gave rise. Thus, one day when 
 Zietsman's manner was more disquieting 
 than usual, which is saying much, Penrose 
 sat in his room and tried to decide the 
 question finally, and have done with it, He 
 happened to notice the reflection of his weary 
 face in the mirror, as he pondered over this 
 interminable question — to go or stay — and
 
 300 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 he shook his fist at the face, and said aloud, 
 and in a determined voice : 
 
 "You have got to stay all the same as 
 if you liked it." 
 
 " Yes, we'll stay right enough," the face 
 seemed to answer. " We should rather go. 
 But, so long as the girl is here, we stay." 
 
 " We do ! ' Penrose cried out, answering 
 the challenge of his own face. His courage 
 was soon put to the proof. 
 
 That evening after a long excursion on 
 the mainland, Penrose returned just in 
 time to get over the causeway without 
 being drenched. The wind was rising, and 
 the sea was getting up, and when this 
 happened at full tide, the causeway was 
 deluged with flying spindrift. Frequently 
 green seas came over it, and when that 
 happened, the passage was dangerous as 
 well as disagreeable. The islet on which 
 the house was built was only a few hundred 
 yards in circumference, and when the wind 
 blew hard from the west, and the big breakers 
 began to race each other ashore, it excelled 
 itself in dreariness. From this point the 
 mountains round the bend in the coast, which
 
 A DUEL TO THE DEATH 301 
 
 dipped inward in a wide-mouthed bay, 
 looked so weird that the hardest nerve 
 slackened perceptibly to its owner when the 
 mists began to roam over their grim crests, 
 or pour in hoary cataracts down the great 
 valleys which broke the sky line. 
 
 The house was even quieter than its 
 usual funereal silence when Penrose came in 
 from his solitary journey. Is was, if possible, 
 more " creepy ' than usual, and that was 
 considerable. He had never felt its loneliness 
 so keenly as that evening. He hurried his 
 dressing, and came down quickly, seeking 
 the only company for which he cared. She 
 was not in the house. Then she could not 
 be hard to find, for the limits of the small 
 domain were easily explored. As he was 
 leaving the house on this quest, he met 
 Zietsman in the hall. The man was hardly 
 so repellent in appearance as he had been 
 for some days — neither so wild in the eyes 
 nor so hysterical in his movements. Indeed, 
 he was almost calm by comparison, and 
 Penrose would have welcomed the change 
 but for some subtle feeling that all was not 
 well — a feeling which if not clearly definable,
 
 302 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 was more distressing than any open and 
 accountable alarm. Zietsman was quiet — 
 cunning. It was not reassuring. 
 
 " I am sorry," Zietsman said with a 
 politenness that was overdone, " you will 
 have only cold food after your long walk, but 
 it can't be helped. We are to dine tete-a- 
 tete, it seems ; so let us hope that the 
 brightness of our society will atone for the 
 poverty of the feast." 
 
 " Ay, we're a bright pair," Penrose 
 remarked coldly. Zietsman's camaraderie 
 was not convincing. 
 
 They had dined by themselves more than 
 once in the same house, when Nell kept her 
 room from ostensible indisposition but really 
 because the change in her father's manner 
 was more than she could always bear. There 
 was therefore nothing, so far, for Penrose 
 to be surprised at. But there was a 
 difference, however it arose. Both men were 
 ill at ease, though they managed to dissemble 
 with some show of actuality. 
 
 " What has happened to the girl who 
 waits on us ? " Penrose asked, when Zietsman 
 himself began to act in her place.
 
 A DUEL TO THE DEATH 303 
 
 " She's gone for the night. In fact, they 
 are all gone for the night, so you see we 
 must do our best to entertain each other." 
 
 " Miss Zietsman " 
 
 " Is gone with the rest. They were going 
 to a distant point on the mainland where — 
 where my daughter has business — and she 
 took the two girls with her for company. 
 She will spend the night at their father's 
 cottage — or cabin. It will be a change for 
 her. The monotony of this place is not 
 good for any one. It will kill her if not 
 modified. That has been troubling me for 
 some time." 
 
 " It can't be altered easily." 
 
 "It cannot — easily. But it shall be 
 
 altered." 
 
 As Zietsman said this, Penrose caught a 
 gleam in his eyes that made him shudder. He 
 felt a strong inclination to leave the table 
 on some excuse, and go back to his own 
 room, and barricade himself in. Zietsman's 
 pale and lately wasted face grew more livid 
 as the pretence at dining became more 
 painful. It was ghastly in its expression as 
 well as its pallor. Penrose tried to avoid
 
 304 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 it. He wished Zietsman would look some 
 other way. But the great luminous eyes 
 were always on him. 
 
 Conversation dragged slowly down. Then, 
 as it were, it guttered and went out. Pipes 
 were refilled and smoked in silence. The 
 bottle passed. Outside, the wind was still 
 rising, and the sullen roar of the waves could 
 be plainly heard breaking upon the beach 
 where the sea-worn pebbles growled harshly 
 with every back-wash. It was coming on a 
 wild night. 
 
 " Bed ? " Zietsman asked. 
 
 " Right ! " said Penrose. 
 
 They went to their rooms together. These 
 were all on the ground floor. 
 
 " I told them to put you into this room 
 when we came, as it is the best. There is a 
 splendid view in the morning, isn't there ? — 
 right out to sea ! Would not have put you 
 here though if you had been one of the 
 superstitious lot." 
 
 " Thank you," Penrose snapped, " Good- 
 night ! " 
 
 " What is he up to now ? " Penrose 
 reflected, when Zietsman had gone. " Harping
 
 A DUEL TO THE DEATH 305 
 
 on superstition and this particular room. 
 
 What a d d small candle he has left me, 
 
 too ! It isn't as if one had that electric 
 light at every corner like in Beechmount. 
 Mr. Leslie Zietsman, you are evidently 
 working up some pretty little game. I 
 shouldn't be surprised if my declaration of 
 war was to take place as from to-night. He 
 partly promised to pay me off for it some 
 time, and it seems to me this is to be the 
 time. Very well, better now than when the 
 girl is here — Oh, ho ! Mr. Zietsman ! That's 
 the reason you sent the women away. 
 Cleared the house for action, so to speak. 
 Then it's to be a fight to the finish, is it ? 
 Good ! We'll finish it to-night, one way or 
 other ! " 
 
 Penrose found again the strange exhilara- 
 tion he remembered, in the thought that he 
 had now at last come to the very end of 
 his dealings with the man who had so 
 strangely influenced his life — ruined it. He 
 did not undervalue his antagonist, far 
 from it. But this would be the last night 
 of that supernatural spell which too long had 
 
 bound him. It would soon be over now. 
 
 20
 
 306 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 Before going to bed, Penrose searched the 
 room carefully although he knew it well, 
 and bolted the door so that no one should 
 come in until he gave his permission. Then 
 he turned in and blew out his inch of candle. 
 He had not a pleasant sleep. Unfortunately, 
 it did not last long, for the awakening was 
 worse than the dreaming. 
 
 The moment Penrose dropped asleep he 
 commenced to dream one of Zietsman's curious 
 stories over again. This had been outlined 
 as they sat by the fire in the dining-room, 
 and smoked and drank. It was not a 
 pleasant story, but it had been told in a 
 peculiar way as though the narrator was 
 giving away a good thing in anecdote — and 
 here it was again, very well reproduced in 
 Penrose's dream : — 
 
 Two men fighting on the floor of this 
 particular room — the overpowering of one by 
 the other — the knife — the cutting of the 
 beaten man's throat — the horrid sound, ugh ! 
 as the blunt and ragged knife tore through 
 the spinal bones — 
 
 " Ah ! " 
 
 Penrose awoke with a gasp, and hastily
 
 A DUEL TO THE DEATH 307 
 
 struck a match. His heart was pumping 
 painfully, and his hand shook as he held up 
 the feeble light. The room was all right. 
 No men were struggling on the floor. Knives 
 and throat- cutting and so forth seemed absurd. 
 The match burned down. He let it drop 
 and was about to snuggle back, for the night 
 was cold, when — 
 
 Yes, the bedclothes did seem a trifle 
 solid at his back. Bah ! He jerked his arm 
 to fling the bundle off. Then the per- 
 spiration broke on his forehead. There 
 was something in the bed. With desperate 
 haste he struck another match, and then 
 turned with the light to see if there was 
 anything really in the bed. There was. 
 There was a man in it. Zietsman — no ! It 
 was a stranger ! 
 
 " You get out, smart ! " Penrose shouted, 
 as his second match burned low. 
 
 The man did not answer. 
 
 " Out you go, or I'll throw you out," 
 Penrose cried hoarsely. 
 
 The man answered nothing, and the match 
 went out. 
 
 Penrose then caught the man round the
 
 308 A. NEW MESSIAH 
 
 waist, and raised him up bodily. The head 
 and legs hung limply down. The body was 
 passive, inert. It was dead. The living man 
 sprang from the bed with an oath, and stood 
 palpitating for a moment in the middle of 
 the room. He was quivering from head to 
 foot. Could this be another dream ? No ! 
 for when he got his stump of candle lighted, 
 he found the ends of the half- burnt matches 
 he had just struck, proving that he must 
 have been awake — must now be awake. Yet, 
 there was nothing, — no one — now in the 
 bed, alive or dead. He felt a momentary 
 relief in this. But that was quickly 
 succeeded by a sickening sensation of terror 
 for which he could not account rationally. 
 His room was at the end of a long 
 corridor. 
 
 There was something in the corridor. 
 
 He neither knew nor cared, whether this 
 knowledge was fancy or fact. One or the 
 other was bad enough for him. He knew 
 it was there, and that it was coming to his 
 room. He stood still and waited. He had 
 not long to wait. 
 
 There was a sound in the corridor — a
 
 A DUEL TO THE DEATH 309 
 
 shuffling sound as though some flabby, limbless 
 body, was flip-flopping its uncouth way down 
 the passage. The shuffling stopped at 
 Penrose's door. The door immediately began 
 to yield from the lock downward. The lower 
 portion of it bulged into the room. Some- 
 thing was prising open the door. Would 
 the lock hold? No! It gave way with 
 a crash of tearing woodwork, and the door 
 was flung back violently against the wall. 
 
 And then — very slowly — something came 
 into the room.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE DEAD SLEEP DEEP 
 
 " It's — its — the thing that was in the For- 
 bidden Room ! " Penrose gasped, as he stood 
 staring towards the open door. He stood 
 thus a moment, too dazed to move. Then 
 he seized a water-bottle, and with a scream 
 of horror, flung it with all his strength at 
 the loathsome shape he saw. 
 
 The bottle shivered against the wall, with 
 a crash that seemed to wake every echo in 
 that silent house. The echoes died away, 
 and with them, the thing which had come 
 into the room was gone. The door was 
 closed again, and the lock in its place. He 
 could find no trace of the broken bottle, but 
 a pane was broken in the window, and the 
 shattered glass was scattered over the floor. 
 The night air was streaming into the room, 
 
 310
 
 THE DEAD SLEEP DEEP 311 
 
 and the cold draught chilled, but steadied 
 him. Penrose shook himself like a half 
 drowned dog, and muttered, " By God, I 
 have it now. He has been hypnotising 
 me. 
 
 After a long pause, he said again, " I 
 think I've won this deal, although I don't 
 know how." He dressed hastily, for the 
 candle was now in its last gasp, and went 
 towards the room where Zietsman slept. The 
 old boards creaked loudly under his steps. 
 They almost groaned, so he thought. There 
 was a sound in the main hall, as of someone 
 knocking with bare knuckles at the front 
 door. This door was unprovided with either 
 bell or knocker, and those who came in that 
 way usually hammered on it with a stick 
 until they were attended to. Here surely 
 was a late visitor. While Penrose paused, a cry 
 wailed without, in the dire distress of which 
 his own immediate purpose was forgotten or 
 postponed. He turned, groping his way in 
 the darkness, for his candle was burnt out, 
 got into the hall, and opened the door 
 without parley. Something, some one fell 
 forward into his arms as the door moved
 
 312 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 back. It was a surprise, but he was used 
 to shocks, and nothing coming from outside 
 that house could reasonably be worse than 
 anything that was in it. The limp bundle 
 that hung fainting in his arms, was drenched 
 through, and deathly cold. It was also 
 temporarily inanimate, if not actually dead. 
 It was Nell. 
 
 Penrose was too stunned for a moment to 
 think how best to reanimate the girl from the 
 swoon into which she had fallen, but in that 
 moment she partly recovered. She was faint 
 with fatigue, perished with cold, and saturated 
 with rain and sea- water. The causeway, 
 when she crossed it, was being splashed by 
 every wave. Her strength was spent, and 
 her speech came but slowly back. She clung 
 to him, shivering with cold, and shuddering 
 with terror, thoughtless of her deluged 
 clothing, her wet hair brushing his cheek as 
 she cowered her head on his shoulder, and 
 sheltered in his arms from the fears that 
 overcame her. At last she whispered in 
 broken breaths : " Willie — I think — I was — 
 in time — to save you." 
 
 "Yes, yes," he soothed, ignorant of her
 
 THE DEAD SLEEP DEEP 313 
 
 meaning, and conscious only of her need of 
 care. But she went on, as though she 
 must get rid of the burthen of her story : 
 
 " I came back because I knew — I don't 
 know how I knew, but I did know — that 
 you were in danger. I saw the light in your 
 room, and I went up to it, and saw that you 
 were terrorised or — or — mad. Oh ! ' : She 
 buried her head on his breast. He whispered 
 to her to be brave, and all would be well, 
 and caressed her tenderly like a frightened 
 child. She stopped her trembling to whisper : 
 
 " I broke the glass in your window — what 
 prompted me, I do not know." 
 
 " Then you were right when you said you 
 saved my life," he answered, a new light 
 breaking on him. " But now I must go to 
 your father. I — I — I don't know what may 
 have happened to him this night, but — as 
 you said — I seem to know that all is not 
 well with him. Can you find your way to 
 your room, and get this drenched clothing 
 changed ? Meanwhile I will see him." 
 
 " No," she said firmly, " You will wait 
 for me, Willie." She drew his face down, 
 and kissed him on the lips " There is danger
 
 314 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 to you where my father is. I will go with 
 you. Where you go, I will go. Those were 
 your words. I give them back to you 
 — now." 
 
 They found Zietsman seated on a bed- 
 room chair. His head had fallen down on 
 his arms, which were hanging over a small 
 table before him. The ghastly face was 
 partly hidden. A night lamp burned close 
 to his right hand. He was asleep. 
 
 " Twelve men sat on him. Ha, ha, ha ! ' 
 The discordant laughter from the sleeper was 
 as eerie as his muttered words. They stood 
 silently hand-in-hand, waiting for the mystery 
 which had shadowed their lives to break. 
 That intuition, which in supreme crises is 
 as sure a guide as knowledge, bade them be 
 still — that the end was near. 
 
 From the sleeping figure — " Death from 
 natural causes. Ho, ho, ho ! Pah ! Death 
 from fright! That's what killed Willie 
 Penrose. " Jury — coroner — rubbish — There's 
 no coroner here ! " 
 
 Zietsman arose from the table, and if a 
 dead man had risen from his coffin the effect 
 could hardly have been more weird. He
 
 THE DEAD SLEEP DEEP 315 
 
 strode a few steps to and fro in the room 
 and went on muttering. It was the old 
 habit that was strong upon him. He was 
 walking and talking in his sleep. Penrose 
 could think of no line of action likely to be 
 desirable and so he waited — half mesmerised 
 — and watched. Nell held both his hands in 
 hers. Otherwise, she gave no sign of being 
 afraid. e 
 
 The disjointed sentences, which had been 
 coming in staccato jerks from Zietsman's 
 lips, began to lengthen out and modify in 
 harshness. His voice recovered something 
 of the old sonorous ring, into which it fell 
 naturally, when his great dithyrambs welled 
 out from a heart that was too full for 
 common speech. He summed up the lesson 
 of his life and its failure as consecutively, 
 and with as unhesitating a sequence, as 
 though his old brain force was his again ; 
 and what was still more extraordinary, as 
 if he were awake. It was clearly unconscious, 
 or sub-conscious cerebration, but it was 
 marvellously like the best ordered thought 
 of a conscious brain. And very strangely 
 as Penrose and Nell stood at first, as it
 
 316 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 were, at bay ; then more at ease, and lastly 
 almost forgetful of their surroundings, there 
 came to them a sense of peace, a feeling of 
 forgiveness to the man before them : the 
 man who, either in normal sleep or self- 
 hypnotised, was rambling over the story of 
 his own life as disinterestedly, as completely 
 detached from it, as though he but spoke 
 the lines of a stage soliloquy, or rehearsed 
 the paragraphs he had written on a historical 
 personage. Another curious feeling possessed 
 them : Leslie Zietsman was pronouncing his 
 own funeral oration. That was certain. 
 The mind, which for many days had been 
 clouded was now clear — for the last time. 
 It was a swan song, this melodious rhetoric. 
 
 " My ideals," Zietsman said, in a low 
 voice, gazing afai- off with sightless eyes, 
 " were ethically right, but they had not 
 sufficient apparent practicality to be of full 
 extrinsic or objective force. The enthusiasm 
 of the revolutionary must have some corner 
 in the scheme of creation or it would not 
 be there. Yet conditioned order does not 
 arise from unconditioned chaos in a single 
 night. It cannot be called forth by the
 
 THE DEAD SLEEP DEEP 317 
 
 wave of a wand, however sublime the motive 
 of the magician. Neither, mercifully, can 
 it be delayed beyond its time. Great 
 events take place when the time for them 
 is ripe. It is their creature who often lives 
 in foolish tradition as their creator. The 
 evolution of society like the evolution of 
 the universe moves slowly, cycle within cycle, 
 swaying to and fro, oscillating hither and 
 thither, clashing and rebounding. It is the 
 resultant motion, the sum of these forces 
 which is always onward, whether toward 
 fruition or decay. And I, like a child 
 playing in the sands who thinks he can 
 help the waves or hinder them, I thought 
 I was to prove the creator of an epoch of 
 which I am only an evidence. 
 
 " Yet, as I still conceive, was I not alto- 
 gether blameworthy, for if there must be 
 many to bear the burthens there must be 
 some to guide the way. A race gropes 
 blindly when its guiding star is clouded. It 
 takes heart again when the mists roll back 
 and the light is seen. But when the light 
 is drowned utterly in darkness then that 
 race has earned its place among the memorials
 
 318 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 of mankind ; and on the portals of its 
 sepulture, Ichabod is written. And what 
 obtains of a race of men obtains of man. 
 
 " Nevertheless, T may say, like Martineau, 
 that I am now aware of the tediousness of 
 these metaphysical tribunals, especially when 
 the whole process wins at last through all 
 its dizzying circuits only the very position 
 which common sense had assumed at first. 
 I am an object lesson in the falsehood of 
 extremes, and only plead that I was honest 
 in my Faith ; and that what I did to further 
 it I did in the belief that I was right ; and 
 that if I had left it undone I was responsible. 
 Murder has been done before in the cause 
 of Faith. More murder has been done in 
 that sacred name than in all the sacrilegious 
 shibboleths which man has manufactured to 
 justify his crimes. Most surely have I done 
 murder in the cause which yet will revolu- 
 tionise the world, and thereby, instead of 
 contributing to its onrush, I have only 
 intensified the rebound. Yet as God judgeth 
 me I had no pleasure, in the death of these 
 unrighteous. Nay, I could not even kill 
 that poor lad and lass for mercy's sake — lest
 
 THE DEAD SLEEP DEEP 319 
 
 they might inherit from me the hatred of 
 the world — without a strain that nearly- 
 cost me my reason and has assuredly cost 
 me my life. But I could not leave them to 
 bear the burthen of my sorrows — and God 
 knoweth I have been a man of sorrow and 
 acquainted with grief. Father forgive me 
 if I have done ill. And now — " 
 
 Zietsman moved back and seated himself 
 again in the chair by the table. For a 
 moment he sat erect, his still sightless eyes 
 filled with wonder and mystery, and fixed as 
 before on something far away in the unseen. 
 Then he said in a loud, firm voice : — 
 
 " I do not repent of doing what I thought 
 right. 
 
 " My life has failed of its purpose. 
 
 " I resign its obligations with relief." 
 
 His head sank down on his arms and he 
 was still. 
 
 Penrose laid the body on the bed and Nell 
 covered the face. Together they watched 
 by him through the night. When the day 
 was coming, and the dawn streamed through 
 the window, they could see that the white 
 horses of the sea were still racing shore wards.
 
 320 A NEW MESSIAH 
 
 Afar off, the clean-cut line of corrugated blue 
 marked the range of the everlasting hills. 
 The song of the sea moaned on in stately- 
 cadence. No other sound was in the silence. 
 For the watchers moved not and the dead 
 sleep deep. 
 
 Then — in a firmament of flame — uprose 
 the sun. 
 
 THE END 
 
 Hunt, Babnakd & Co., Printers, London and Aylesbury.
 
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 8 ^ Digby, Long & Co.'s Publications 
 
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 Digby, Long & Co.'s Publicatio ns §&. g 
 
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 12 +§ Digby, Long & Co.'s Publications 
 
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 AT THE CLOSED DOOR : Being the true and 
 
 faithful account of an experiment in propria persona of the 
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 SIXPENNY LIBRARY OF COPYRIGHT NOVELS 
 The Crime of the Crystal. By Fergus Hume. 
 Dr Janet of Harley Street. By Arabella Kenealy. 
 Lady Joan's Companion. By Florence Warden. 
 A Bid for Empire. By Major Arthur Griffiths. 
 A Beautiful Soul. By Florence Marryatt. [Shortly. 
 
 A Life for a Love. By L. T. Meade. [Shortly. 
 
 ALPHONSE DAUDET'S New Book 
 MY FIRST YOYAGE : MY FIRST LIE 
 
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 14 *°§ Digby, Long & Co.'s Publications 
 
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 1 6 ^ Digby, Long & Co.'s Publications 
 
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 DAHLIA. By Helen Mathers 
 
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 THE NEW LADY TEAZLE. By Helen Mathers 
 
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 EDWIN PALLANDER'S NEW ROMANCE 
 THE ADVENTURES OF A MICRO-MAN 
 
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 MEMOIRS OF GERALD O'CONNOR 
 
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 DATE DUE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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