Cæsar's Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century

smell in the air, which told me we were approachingthe river. The place was very still and solitary. There were nosounds of vehicles or foot-passengers. The carriage slowed up, and westopped.

  "This way," said Max, opening the door of the carriage, and leadingme by the hand. We walked a few steps; we paused; there were lowwhisperings. Then we descended a long flight of steps; the air had aheavy and subterranean smell; we hurried forward through a largechamber. I imagined it to be the cellar of some abandoned warehouse;the light came faintly through the bandage over my face, and Iinferred that a guide was carrying a lantern before us. Again westopped. There was more whispering and the rattle of paper, as if theguards were examining some document. The whispering was renewed; thenwe entered and descended again a flight of steps, and again wentforward for a short distance. The air was very damp and the smellearthy. Again I heard the whispering and the rattling of paper. Therewas delay. Some one within was sent for and came out. Then the doorwas flung open, and we entered a room in which the air appeared to bedrier than in those we had passed through, and it seemed to belighted up. There were little movements and stirrings of theatmosphere which indicated that there were a number of persons in theroom. I stood still.

  Then a stern, loud voice said:

  "Gabriel Weltstein, hold up your right hand."

  I did so. The voice continued:

  "You do solemnly swear, in the presence of Almighty God, that thestatements you are about to make are just and true; that you areincited to make them neither by corruption, nor hate, nor any otherunworthy motive; and that you will tell the truth and all the truth;and to this you call all the terrors of the unknown world to witness;and you willingly accept death if you utter anything that is false."

  I bowed my head.

  "What brother vouches for this stranger?" asked the same stern voice.

  Then I heard Maximilian. He spoke as if he was standing near my side.He said:

  "I do. If I had not been willing to vouch for him with my life, Ishould not have asked to bring him--not a member of ourBrotherhood--into this presence. He saved my life; he is a noble,just and honorable man--one who loves his kind, and would bless andhelp them if he could. He has a story to tell which concerns us all."

  "Enough," said the voice. "Were you present in the council-chamber ofthe Prince of Cabano last night? If so, tell us what you saw andheard?"

  Just then there was a slight noise, as if some one was moving quietlytoward the door behind me, by which I had just entered. Then cameanother voice, which I had not before heard--a thin, shrill,strident, imperious voice--a voice that it seemed to me I shouldrecognize again among a million. It cried out:

  "Back to your seat! Richard, tell the guards to permit no one toleave this chamber until the end of our meeting."

  There was a shuffling of feet, and whispering, and then againprofound silence.

  "Proceed," said the stern voice that had first spoken.

  Concealing all reference to Estella, and omitting to name Rudolph,whom I referred to simply as one of their Brotherhood known toMaximilian, I told, in the midst of a grave-like silence, how I hadbeen hidden in the room next to the council-chamber; and then I wenton to give a concise history of what I had witnessed and heard.

  "Uncover his eyes!" exclaimed the stern voice.

  Maximilian untied the handkerchief. For a moment or two I was blindedby the sudden glare of light. Then, as my eyes recovered theirfunction, I could see that I stood, as I had supposed, in the middleof a large vault or cellar. Around the room, on rude benches, satperhaps one hundred men. At the end, on a sort of dais, or raisedplatform, was a man of gigantic stature, masked and shrouded. Belowhim, upon a smaller elevation, sat another, whose head, I noticedeven then, was crooked to one side. Still below him, on a level withthe floor, at a table, were two men who seemed to be secretaries.Every man present wore a black mask and a long cloak of darkmaterial. Near me stood one similarly shrouded, who, I thought, fromthe size and figure, must be Maximilian.

  It was a solemn, silent, gloomy assemblage, and the sight of itthrilled through my very flesh and bones. I was not frightened, butappalled, as I saw all those eyes, out of those expressionless darkfaces, fixed upon me. I felt as if they were phantoms, or dead men,in whom only the eyes lived.

  The large man stood up. He was indeed a giant. He seemed to uncoilhimself from his throne as he rose.

  "Unmask," he said.

  There was a rustle, and the next moment the masks were gone and thecloaks had fallen down.

  It was an extraordinary assemblage that greeted my eyes; a long arrayof stern faces, dark and toil-hardened, with great, broad brows andsolemn or sinister eyes.

  Last night I had beheld the council of the Plutocracy. Here was thecouncil of the Proletariat. The large heads at one end of the linewere matched by the large heads at the other. A great injustice, orseries of wrongs, working through many generations, had wrought outresults that in some sense duplicated each other. Brutality above hadproduced brutality below; cunning there was answered by cunning here;cruelty in the aristocrat was mirrored by cruelty in the workman.High and low were alike victims--unconscious victims--of a system.The crime was not theirs; it lay at the door of the shallow,indifferent, silly generations of the past.

  My eyes sought the officers. I noticed that Maximilian wasdisguised--out of an excess of caution, as I supposed--witheye-glasses and a large dark mustache. His face, I knew, was reallybeardless.

  I turned to the president. Such a man I had never seen before. Hewas, I should think, not less than six feet six inches high, andbroad in proportion. His great arms hung down until the monstroushands almost touched the knees. His skin was quite dark, almostnegroid; and a thick, close mat of curly black hair covered his hugehead like a thatch. His face was muscular, ligamentous; with greatbars, ridges and whelks of flesh, especially about the jaws and onthe forehead. But the eyes fascinated me. They were the eyes of awild beast, deep-set, sullen and glaring; they seemed to shine likethose of the cat-tribe, with a luminosity of their own. This, then--Isaid to myself--must be Caesar, the commander of the dreadedBrotherhood.

  A movement attracted me to the man who sat below him; he had spokento the president.

  He was in singular contrast with his superior. He was old andwithered. One hand seemed to be shrunken, and his head waspermanently crooked to one side. The face was mean and sinister; twofangs alone remained in his mouth; his nose was hooked; the eyes weresmall, sharp, penetrating and restless; but the expanse of brow abovethem was grand and noble. It was one of those heads that look as ifthey had been packed full, and not an inch of space wasted. Hisperson was unclean, however, and the hands and the long finger-nailswere black with dirt. I should have picked him out anywhere as a veryable and a very dangerous man. He was evidently the vice-president ofwhom the spy had spoken--the nameless Russian Jew who was accounted"the brains of the Brotherhood."

  "Gabriel Weltstein," said the giant, in the same stern, loud voice,"each person in this room will now pass before you,--the officerslast; and,--under the solemn oath you have taken,--I call upon you tosay whether the spy you saw last night in the council-chamber of thePrince of Cabano is among them. But first, let me ask, did you seehim clearly, and do you think you will be able to identify him?"

  "Yes," I replied; "he faced me for nearly thirty minutes, and Ishould certainly know him if I saw him again."

  "Brothers," said the president, "you will now------"

  But here there was a rush behind me. I turned toward the door. Twomen were scuffling with a third, who seemed to be trying to breakout. There were the sounds of a struggle; then muttered curses; thenthe quick, sharp report of a pistol. There was an exclamation of painand more oaths; knives flashed in the air; others rushed pell-mellinto the melee; and then the force of numbers seemed to triumph, andthe crowd came, dragging a man forward to where I stood. His face waspale as death; the blood, streamed from a flesh wound on hisforehead; an expression of dreadful terror glared out of his eyes; hegasped an
d looked from right to left. The giant had descended fromhis dais. He strode forward. The wretch was laid at my feet.

  "Speak," said Caesar, "is that the man?"

  "It is," I replied.

  The giant took another step, and he towered over the prostrate wretch.

  "Brothers," he asked, "what is your judgment upon the spy?"

  "Death!" rang the cry from a hundred throats.

  The giant put his hand in his bosom; there was a light in histerrible face as if he had long waited for such an hour.

  "Lift him up," he said.

  Two strong men held the spy by his arms; they lifted him to his feet;he writhed and struggled and shrieked, but the hands that held himwere of iron.

  "Stop!" said the thin, strident voice I had heard before, and thecripple advanced into the circle. He addressed the prisoner:

  "Were you followed