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Four years and two months from the day when this iniquitous verdict fell from the lips of the "bought and paid for" judge, a sturdily built and square jawed man stood on the steps of the Atlanta Penitentiary and, for the first time in all these weary months and years, faced the sun.
Pale with the prison-pallor that never fails to set its seal on the victims of a diseased society, which that society retaliates upon by shutting away from God's own light and air, this man stood there on the steps, a moment, then advanced to meet a woman who was coming toward him in the August glare. As he removed his cheap, convict-made cap, one saw his finely shaped head, close cropped with the infamous prison badge of servitude. Despite the shoddy miserable prison-suit that the prostituted government had given him—a suit that would have made Apollo grotesque and would have marked any man as an ex-convict, thus heavily handicapping him from the start—Gabriel Armstrong's poise and strength still made themselves manifest.
And the smile as they two, the woman and he, came together and their hands clasped, lighted his pale features with a ray brighter than that of the blistering Southern sunshine flooding down upon them both.
"I knew you'd come, Catherine," said he, simply, his voice still the same deep, vibrant, earnest voice which, all that time ago, had thrilled and inspired her at the hour of her great conversion. Still were his eyes clear, level and commanding; and through his splendid body, despite all his jailers had been able to do, coursed an abundant life and strong vitality.
Gabriel had served his time with consummate skill, courage and intelligence. Like all wise men, he had recognized force majeure , and had submitted. He had made practically no infractions of the prison rules, during his whole "bit." He had been quiet, obedient and industrious. His work, in the brush factory, had always been well done; and though he had consistently refused to bear tales, to spy, to inform or be a stool-pigeon—the quickest means of winning favor in any prison—yet he had given no opportunity for savagery and violence to be applied to him. Not even Flint's eager wish to have his jailers force him into rebellion had succeeded. Realizing to the full the sort of tactics that would be used to break, and if possible to kill him, Gabriel had met them all with calm self-reliance and with a generalship that showed his brain and nerves were still unshaken. On their own ground he had met these brutes, and he had beaten them at their own game.
Their attempt to make a "dope" out of him had ignominiously failed. He had detected the morphine they had cleverly mixed with his water; and, after his drowsiness and weird dreams had convinced him of the plot, had turned the trick on it by secretly emptying this water out and by drinking only while in the shop, where he could draw water from the faucet. The cell guards' intelligence had been too limited to make them inquire of the brush shop guards about his habits. Also, Gabriel, had feigned stupefaction while in the cell. Thus he had simulated the effects of the drug, and had really thrown his tormentors off the track. For months and months they were convinced that they were weakening his will and destroying his mentality, while as a matter of fact his reasoning powers and determination never had been more keen.
By bathing as often as possible, by taking regular and carefully planned calisthenics, by reading the best books in the prison library, by attention to every rule of health within his means, and by allowing himself no vices, not even his pipe, Gabriel now was emerging from the Bastile of Capitalism in a condition of mind and body so little impaired that he knew a few weeks would entirely restore him. The good conduct allowance, or "copper," which they had been forced to allow him for exemplary conduct, had cut ten months off his sentence. And now in mid-August of 1925, there he stood, a free man again, with purpose still unshaken and with a woman by his side who shared his high ambition and asked no better lot than to work with him toward the one great aim—Socialism!
Now, as these two walked side by side along the sunbaked street of the sweltering Southern town, Gabriel was saying:
"So I haven't changed as much as you expected? I'm glad of that, Kate. Only superficial changes, at most. Just give me a little time to pull together and get my legs under me again, and—forward march! Charge the forts! Eh, Catherine?"
She nodded, smiling. Smiles were rare with her, now. She had grown sober and serious, in these years of work and battle and stern endeavor. The Catherine Flint of the old times had vanished—the Catherine of country club days, and golf and tennis, and the opera—the Catherine of Newport, of the horse show, of Paris, of "society." In her place now lived another and a nobler woman, a woman known and loved the length and breadth of the land, a woman exalted and strengthened by new, high and splendid race-aspirations; by a vision of supernal beauty—the vision of the world for the workers, each for all and all for each!
She had grown more mature and beautiful, with the passing years. No mark of time had yet laid its hand upon her face or figure. Young, still—she was now but five-and-twenty, and Gabriel only twenty-eight—she walked like a goddess, lithe, strong and filled with overflowing vigor. Her eyes glowed with noble enthusiasms; and every thought, every impulse and endeavor now was upward, onward, filled with stimulus and hope and courage.
Thus, a braver, broader and more splendid woman than Gabriel had known in the other days of his first love for her—the days when he had wished her penniless, the days when her prospective millions stood between them—she walked beside him now. And they two, comrades, understood each other; spoke the same language, shared the same aspirations, dreamed the same wondrous dreams. Their smile, as their eyes met, was in itself a benediction and a warm caress.
"Charge the forts!" Gabriel repeated. "Yes, Kate, the battle still goes on, no matter what happens. Here and there, soldiers fall and die. Even battalions perish; but the war continues. When I think of all the fights you've been in, since I was put away, I'm unspeakably envious. You've been through the Tawana Valley strike, the big Consolidated Western lockout and the Imperial Mills massacre. You were a delegate to the 1923 Revolution Congress, in Berlin, and saw the slaughter in Unter den Linden—helped nurse the wounded comrades, inside the Treptow Park barricades. Then, out in California—"
She checked him, with a hand on his arm.
"Please don't, Gabriel," she entreated. "What I have done has been so little, so terribly, pitiably little, compared to what needs to be done! And then remember, too, that in and through all, this thought has run, like the red thread through every cable of the British navy—the thought that in my every activity, I am working against my own father, combatting him, being as it were a traitor and—"
"Traitor?" exclaimed the man. "Never! The bond between you two is forever broken. You recognize in him, now, an enemy of all mankind. Waldron is another. So is every one of the Air Trust group—that is to say, the small handful of men who today own the whole world and everything in it.
"Your father, as President of that world-corporation which potentially controls two thousand millions of human beings—and which will, tomorrow, absolutely control them, is no longer any father of yours.
"He is a world-emperor, and his few associates are princes of the royal house. Your life and thought have forever broken with him. No more can bonds and ties of blood hold you. Your larger duty calls to battle against this man. Treachery? A thousand times, no! Treason to tyrants is obedience to God! Or, if not God, then to mankind!"
He paused and looked at her. They had now reached a little park, some half mile from the grim and dour old walls of the Federal Pen. Trees and grass and playing children seemed to invite them to stop and rest. Though strong, moreover, Gabriel had for so long been unused to walking, that even this short distance had tired him a little. And the oppressive heat had them both by the throat.
"Shall we sit down here and wait a little?" asked he. "Plan a little, see where we are and what's to be done next?"
She nodded assent.
"Of course," she said, "even if I could have got word in to you, I wouldn't have given you our real plans."
"Hardly!" he exclaimed. Then, coming to a fountain, they sat down on a bench close by. Nobody, they made sure, was within ear-shot.
"Thank God," he breathed, "that you, Kate, and only you, met me as I came out! It was a grand good idea, wasn't it, to keep my time of liberation a secret from the comrades? Otherwise there might have been a crowd on hand, and various kinds of foolishness; and time and energy would have been used that might have been better spent in working for the Revolution!"
She looked at him a trifle curiously.
"You forget," said she, "that all public meetings have been prohibited, ever since last April. Federal statute—the new Penfield Bill—'The Muzzler' as we call it."
"That's so!" he murmured. "I forgot. Fact is, Kate, I am out of touch with things. While you've been fighting, I've been buried alive. Now, I must learn much, before I can jump back into the war again. And above all, I must lose my identity. That's the first and most essential thing of all!"
"Of course," she assented. "They—the Air Trust World-corporation—will trail you, everywhere you go. All this, as you know, has been provided for. You must vanish a while."
"Indeed I must. If they 'jobbed' me like that, in 1921, what won't they do now in 1925?"
"They won't ever get you, again, Gabriel," she answered, "if your wits and ours combined, can beat them. True, the Movement has been badly shot to pieces. That is, its visible organization has suffered, and it's outlawed. But under the surface, Gabriel, you haven't an idea of its spread and power. It's tremendous—it's a volcano waiting to burst! Let the moment come, the leader rise, the fire burst forth, and God knows what may not happen!"
"Splendid!" exclaimed Gabriel. "The battle calls me, like a clarion-call! But we must act with circumspection. The Plutes, powerful as they now are, won't need even the shadow of an excuse to plant me for life, or slug or shoot me. Things were rotten enough, then; but today they're worse. The hand of this Air Trust monopoly, grasping every line of work and product in the world, has got the lid nailed fast. We're all slaves, every man and woman of us. Even our Socialists in Congress can do nothing, with all these muzzling and sedition and treason bills, and with this conscription law just through. Now that the government—the Air Trust, that is to say—is running the railways and telegraphs and telephones, a strike is treason—and treason is death! Kate, this year of grace, 1925, is worse than ever I dreamed it would be. Oh, infinitely worse! No wonder our movement has been driven largely underground. No wonder that the war of mass and class is drawing near—the actual, physical war between the Air Trust few and the vast, toiling, suffering, stifling world!"
She nodded.
"Yes," said she, "it's coming, and soon. Things are as you say, and even worse than you say, Gabriel. I know more of them, now, than you can know. Remember London's 'Iron Heel?' When I first read it I thought it fanciful and wild. God knows I was mistaken! London didn't put it half strongly enough. The beginning was made when the National Mounted Police came in. All the rest has swiftly followed. If you and I live five years longer, Gabriel, we'll see a harsher, sterner and more murderous trampling of that Heel than ever Comrade Jack imagined!"
"Right!" said he. "And for that very reason, Kate, I've got to go into hiding till my beard and hair grow and I can reappear as a different man. Don't look, just now, but in a minute take a peek. Over on that third bench, on the other side of the park, see that man? Well, he's a 'shadow.' There were three waiting for me, at the prison gates. You couldn't spot them, but I could. One was that Italian banana-seller that stood at the curb, on the first corner. Another was a taxi driver. And this one, over there, is the third. From now till they 'get' me again, they'll follow me like bloodhounds. I can't go free, to do my work and take part in the impending war, till I shake them. Look, now, do you see the one I mean?"
Cautiously the girl looked round, with casual glance as though to see a little boy playing by the fountain.
"Yes," she murmured. "Who is he? Do you know his name?"
"No," answered Gabriel. "His name, no. But I remember him, well enough. He's the larger of the two detectives I knocked out, in that room in Rochester. Beside his pay, he's got a personal motive in landing me back in 'stir,' or sending me 'up the escape,' as prison slang names a penitentiary and a death. So then," he added, "what's the first thing? Where shall I go, and how, to hide and metamorphose? I'm in your hands, now, Kate. More than four years out of the world, remember, makes a fellow want a little lift when he comes back!"
She smiled and nodded comprehension.
"Don't explain, Gabriel," said she. "I understand. And I've got just the place in mind for you. Also, the way to get there. You see, comrade, we've been planning on this release. When can you go?"
"When? Right now!" exclaimed Gabriel, standing up. "The quicker, the better. Every minute I lose in getting myself ready to jump back into the fight, is a precious treasure that can never be regained!"
"Go, then," said she, with pride in her eyes. "I will wait here. Don't think of me; leave me here; I am self-reliant in every way. Go to the Cuthbert House, on Desplaines Street. Everything has been arranged for your escape. Every link in the chain is complete. Remember, we are working more underground, now, than when you were sentenced. And our machinery is almost perfect. Register at the hotel and take a room for a week. Then—"
"Register, under my own name?" asked he.
"Under your own name. Stay there two days. You won't be molested so soon, and things won't be ready for you till the third day. On that day—"
"Well, what then?"
"A message will come for you, that's all. Obey it. You have nothing more to do."
He nodded.
"I understand," said he. "But, Kate—who's paying for all this? Not you? I—I can't have you paying, now that every dollar you have must be earned by your own labor!"
She smiled a smile of wonderful beauty.
"Foolish, rebellious boy!" said she. "Have no fear! All expense will be borne by the Party, just as the Party paid your fine. It needs you and must have you; and were the cost ten times as great, would bear it to get you back! Remember, Gabriel, the Party is far larger than when you were buried alive in a cell. Even though in some ways outlawed and suppressed, its potential power is tremendous. All it needs is the electric spark to cause the world-shaking explosion. All that keeps us from power now is the Iron Heel—that, and the clutch of the Air Trust already crushing and mangling us!
"Go, now," she concluded. "Go, and rest a while, and wait. All shall be well. But first, you must get back your strength completely, and find yourself, and take your place again in the ranks of the great, subterranean army!"
"And shall I see you soon, again?" he asked, his voice trembling just a little as their hands clasped once more, and once more parted.
"You will see me soon," she answered.
"Where?"
"In a safe place, where we can plan, and work, and organize for the final blow! Now, you shall know no more. Good-bye!"
One last look each gave the other. Their eyes met, more caressingly than many a kiss; and, turning, Gabriel took his way, alone, toward Desplaines Street.
At the exit of the park, he looked around.
There Catherine sat, on the bench. But, seemingly quite oblivious to everything, she was now reading a little book. Though he lingered a moment, hoping to get some signal from her, she never stirred or looked up from the page.
Sighing, with a strange feeling of sudden loneliness and a vast, empty yearning in his heart, Gabriel continued on his way, toward what? He knew not.
The detective on the other side of the park, no longer sat there. Somehow, somewhere, he had disappeared.