Part 7

My first step was to ask the landlord of the hotel to recommend me a guide. The man whom he presented to me was a typical _mouchard_, with ‘spy’ written on every line of his countenance. This was just what I expected. I engaged him at a liberal salary, and ordered him to fit out an expedition for a journey of some days into the interior.

‘Where do you want to go?’ the man asked.

‘Where I please,’ I replied sharply. ‘Keep your curiosity to yourself, or take another master. I want a guide, not a partner.’

This rebuke had the desired effect. The police agent, for such of course he was, was obliged to come with me on my own terms. Doubtless he reported me to his bureau as a headstrong man who could not be controlled by any means save open force.

At the same time I lost no opportunity of impressing the authorities with my assumed character. The Prefect of the town called on me, and I explained to him that Siberia was regarded in Paris as one of the richest mineral regions of the earth, and that I was merely the pioneer of a swarm of prospectors who would be invading it before long. I made his mouth water as I talked of shares and syndicates, and conveyed to him that by a judicious use of his opportunities he might become one of the millionaires of the future.

To the westward of the town, in the direction from which the train had brought me, there was visible a range of low hills, a conspicuous landmark in the desolate plain. It was towards these hills that I ordered my guide to conduct me, as soon as the preparations for the march were completed.

The rascal was cunning enough to hide his reluctance, and we set out. But after we had gone a day’s journey I noticed that our march was steadily veering away from the line of the railway, and taking a northerly direction. I said nothing, determined to counteract these tactics at the right moment. At the end of the third day, after a slow progress compared with the speed of the train, we pitched our camp at the foot of the range, about forty miles, as near as I could judge, from the point where it was pierced by the railway.

The next morning the caravan wound its way to the summit of the ridge, and I looked down on a broad valley, watered by a river, and broken up by small spurs jutting out from the main watershed. As the guide was about to plunge down, so as to cross the stream, I checked him abruptly.

‘We are not going that way. I shall turn southward now, and keep along the summit of the ridge till we come to the railway.’

The man’s face turned as black as a thunder-cloud.

‘You cannot go that way,’ he snorted.

‘Why?’

He hesitated.

‘Because it is impassable. The horses will break down.’

‘We will go on till they do,’ I answered sternly. ‘And let this be your last attempt to disobey me. At the next I send you back, and go on without you.’

The man slunk forward, muttering curses, which I affected not to hear. But I had not yet frightened him sufficiently. At the next halt one of the drivers came to me and reported that a horse had gone lame.

‘Bring it here,’ I commanded.

He went away, and returned leading the animal.

‘Go,’ I said sternly. ‘Take the horse back with you, and take rations for three days. Do not let me see you again.’

The driver looked thoroughly crestfallen. He slouched back to his comrades without another word.

I waited till half an hour had passed, then I rose and walked over to the camp-fire, round which my followers were seated, the driver among them.

‘How is it that you are still here?’ I demanded.

‘The horse is all right again,’ was the surly answer.

‘So much the worse for you.’ I took out my revolver in one hand, and my watch in the other. ‘In ten minutes from now I aim this revolver at you, and fire,’ I remarked. ‘It kills at two hundred metres. I should advise you to get out of range.’

I do not think I have ever seen a man get through his preparations in less time than then. Long before the allotted time was up, he was well out of reach, galloping down the slope of the hill.

In every expedition through a wild country there comes a moment which decides who is to be master. That moment past, I had no fear of further trouble. I was now able to unbend with the guide; I informed him that I expected to find gold, and promised him a rich reward if I succeeded with his aid.

But a disappointment was in store for me. Although we marched carefully along the summit of the hills, and I scrutinised every yard of the valley below with a powerful field-glass, I detected no trace of anything calling for investigation; in fact, I discerned no signs of human life. By the time I had worked down to the railway I began to fear that I was on a false scent.

It was in the night, after we had pitched our camp close beside the line, that the true solution occurred to me. I rose and secretly crept out of my tent, eluding the solitary watchman, and made my way along the track of the rails. After groping and stumbling over the roughly laid road for three or four miles, I suddenly made a discovery. The line divided, sending off a branch rail, which curved away to the south.

I knew now what had become of the missing gang of prisoners, or rather--for by this time I saw more clearly--of military recruits.

I also knew why I had missed my way. The guide had led me to the north of the line, and what I had come so far to find lay to the south.

The next day I issued orders to continue the march to the southward, crossing the railway. The face of the guide, when he received this direction, sufficiently showed that I was getting warm, as the children say, at last. He made no open remonstrance, but in the course of the day I noticed that another man and horse had disappeared.

I paid no attention to this proof of treachery. It came too late to affect me. By noon of the first day after quitting the main line for the south, I was already in possession of the carefully guarded secret of the Council of State.

There at my feet, along the widening valley, lay a double line of rails, gleaming blue in the sunlight, and all across the level space at regular intervals stretched low banks and ditches--the lines of a vast encampment, capable of accommodating half a million men. Still further on I had a glimpse of the white sparkle of tents and piles of fresh-hewn timber, and I even fancied I could catch the faint hum of voices and the thud of hammers as the hidden army toiled away at its barracks and entrenchments.

The meaning of the Peace Rescript was manifest at last, and the meaning was formidable indeed. While appearing to disarm in concert with the rest of Europe, Russia’s intention was secretly to withdraw her enormous forces to this unsuspected retreat, from whence, at the decisive moment, they would issue like a creation of magic, to overwhelm the defenceless continent.

I had made my discovery; it was still a question whether I was to return with it in safety.

Before I had made up my mind whether to push my observations further, I was alarmed to see a sotnia of Cossacks approaching, led by a Russian officer. My little camp was quickly surrounded, and the officer presented himself before me.

It required all my nerve to deal with the emergency. The first words of the officer showed me that he considered me a spy, and was prepared to hang me out of hand. I affected the utmost astonishment and indignation, and produced the papers which showed me to be a Frenchman travelling on behalf of various financial syndicates in Paris. The officer thrust them aside contemptuously.

‘All this is nothing to me,’ he declared. ‘You should not have come within reach of our camp. Even if I do not hang you, you will never be allowed to return to Europe, of that you may be assured.’

‘I will take my chance of that, captain,’ I answered coolly. ‘Living in this out-of-the-way region, you perhaps have not heard that France and Russia are in military alliance, and, besides, that the Tsar has declared his intention to disarm, so that your preparations here have ceased to be of the slightest consequence to anybody.’

The officer was fairly staggered. He had heard, of course, of the French alliance, and no doubt some rumour as to the recent rescript had penetrated to the secret camp, but without its scope being very well understood.

‘I know that it is my duty to arrest you, at the very least,’ he persisted.

‘As to that, you will do as you please. It will sound well in Paris that every prospector who ventures into Siberia with a view of developing the resources of the country exposes himself to the treatment of a spy. M. Witte will find it takes some persuasion to secure another French loan.’

It is needless to give further details of a conversation in which the ignorance of the Russian gave me a very great advantage over him. I am vain enough to plume myself on having made use of the treacherous rescript to out-manœuvre its authors. In saying that, of course, I do not refer to Nicholas II., who perhaps did not even know of the existence of the hidden camp.

In the end the Cossack officer decided to escort me back to the town where I had left the train, and hand me over to the civil authorities, a decision which was assisted by the usual methods of persuasion in the East. My friend the Prefect, already predisposed in my favour, required a somewhat heavier bribe, and finally I made assurance doubly sure by resuming my journey eastward, and leaving Russian territory by way of the Chinese frontier.

It was from the first telegraph station in the Celestial Empire that I sent the cipher despatch to Constantinople which was destined to render abortive the much-talked-of Conference at the Hague:

‘_Russia preparing enormous concealed camp in Siberia, beside railway, to hide forces when nominally disbanded. I have seen it._’

Abdul Hamid was too shrewd to take any open part in opposing the Russian proposals, but when I saw the firm stand made against them by the German representatives, I knew that he had not thrown my telegram into the waste-paper basket.

It only remains to add that the Russian Government, realising that its secret had been betrayed, stealthily set to work to efface every sign of the concealed camp; and that, if my latest information be correct, the mysterious valley is again given over to silence and to solitude.

V

WHO REALLY KILLED KING HUMBERT OF ITALY?

Guy de Maupassant once remarked to me that it was necessary to preserve the Anarchists in order to make modern history interesting.

The rulers of the world seem to be of the same opinion. Over and over again scientists and men of common sense have told them that the Anarchist is simply a diseased mind, requiring to be dealt with like other brain-sick creatures. But statesmen and police alike have persisted in treating the Anarchist as a serious politician, with results which are, unfortunately, too well known.

It is true that, after the death of Elizabeth of Austria, the chivalrous King of Italy, Humbert, summoned a conference of diplomatists and police directors in Venice to consider methods for dealing with the Anarchists. But he would have done better to call in Professor Lombroso. I myself would undertake to guarantee the life of every ruler in Europe and America, for the sum of £20,000 a year, provided I were allowed to incarcerate in an asylum every man whom I could prove to be a sufferer from homicidal mania.

As it was, I foreboded that the only result of King Humbert’s gallant action would be to point him out to these creatures as their next victim. Yet I must now so far confess myself mistaken as to declare that the death of the late King of Italy does not really lie at the door of Anarchism.

It was another European sovereign, more alive to the realities of the situation than Humbert, who secretly commissioned me to make an investigation into the organisation of the Anarchist sect and the trend of its operations. I must not disclose the name of this monarch; to do so would be to point him out to the vengeance of the assassins.

As soon as I had received his commission I laid aside all my other work and prepared to disappear for an indefinite period.

My first step was to transform myself into a workman, or rather a loafer, for an industrious workman is seldom found among the ‘active’ Anarchists. I secured a few jobs in Paris as a house-painter’s labourer--that is to say, I did the scraping and cleaning before the skilled workman applied the fresh coats of paint. I took care to show no zeal in my employment, and in the intervals of work I hung about the brasseries and grumbled at the smallness of my earnings.

By these tactics I quickly earned the reputation of a good comrade, and a true-hearted Republican. The Socialists of the quarter I had chosen to work in quickly recognised me as a likely convert, and I allowed them to enrol me in one of the most advanced societies.

All these measures were mere preliminaries to the final one of blossoming forth as a declared Anarchist. It is from the ranks of Socialism that Anarchism draws its recruits. Though the two theories are utterly opposed, they express the same discontent with civilisation. An Anarchist is little more than a Socialist who has gone out of his mind.

By going over to the Anarchist group from the arms of their rivals, I ensured myself a welcome which would never have been given to me had I attempted to force myself upon them at the outset.

Among the Anarchists it was necessary to adopt rather different tactics. I had now to play the part of a dangerous lunatic, only awaiting direction from some superior mind to commit an act of violence.

Paris itself is not an important Anarchist centre. The French police are too quick witted for their capital to be a comfortable residence for these desperadoes. The three great centres, as most people know, are Zürich, London, and Jersey City, U.S.A.

Zürich is the Russian headquarters, and is rather a place for Nihilists than international Anarchists. I therefore decided to cross over to London, in the hope of coming into touch with the leading minds of the sect.

In London I found myself received without the least suspicion. My carefully prepared record stood me in good stead. I was introduced by my Parisian comrades as a promising convert from Socialism, and no one inquired further.

I found the London Anarchists torn by internal dissensions which left them no time to think of attacking kings and queens. The first man I was asked to murder was Prince ----, the leader of the idealist group, whose sole offence was his refusal to concur in the homicidal programme of the active Anarchists.

I refused to execute this mandate, on the plea that I had vowed to put to death a crowned head, and could not afford to risk my life in the pursuit of humbler prey.

I may state here that the elaborate machinery of secret meetings, oaths, ballots, and so on has no existence except in the imagination of popular novelists. Their fantastic descriptions can only provoke a smile on the part of any one who has been behind the scenes of Anarchism.

The Anarchists are a fluctuating community, here to-day and gone to-morrow, among whom a few leading spirits who have learned to know and trust each other by actual experience exercise an influence much like that exercised by the Front Bench over a Parliamentary party in England, an influence which varies with their own concord and strength of character.

When these leaders find a man whom they see to be a suitable instrument, they bring their influence to bear on him to carry out whatever object they may agree upon. In some cases perhaps a pantomimic scene is arranged, such as we read of in romances, to impress a weak mind. I can only say that I never saw anything of the sort.

A well-known Anarchist, whose name would be recognised immediately were I to mention it, took me aside one night, and suggested to me the removal of the Prince. I gave the answer I have mentioned, and the proposal was instantly dropped.

My refusal was followed, naturally enough, by an attempt on my own life. Two days afterwards the editor of an Anarchist paper, who had taken rather a fancy to me, came round to my lodgings before daybreak and advised me to leave for America. He gave me no reason for this advice, but he was very urgent with me, and insisted on writing me a letter of introduction to a man living in Jersey City. I promised to consider the matter, and he bade me farewell.

On leaving my lodging an hour later to go and look for a job--the customary pretence--I discovered immediately that I was being followed. I need scarcely say that for me to baffle the clumsy espionage of such blunderers would have been the easiest thing in the world. But I wished to see how far they would go, and I allowed my tracker to follow me all day. At night I went down to the Thames Embankment. I placed myself on the edge of the river steps by Cleopatra’s Needle, and waited.

I am a good swimmer, and I did not think it likely that my enemy would use a weapon if he thought he could get rid of me by the simple method of pushing me into the water. A pistol would be too dangerous for himself on account of the report. I had seen that he did not carry a stick. He was probably armed with a knife, and he might try and give me a thrust with it as he pushed me over; but a knife-thrust in the back is not a very serious thing to a man who has been in the habit of wearing a mail shirt for twenty years.

I am ready to confess that my heart beat faster as I heard the stealthy tread coming up behind me. To my surprise the would-be assassin paused before he had got within striking distance, and shuffled with his feet on the flags. Puzzled by these tactics I glanced round and saw a young man, not more than twenty years of age, whose face was white, and who was trembling in every limb. At once I grasped the situation. The poor wretch’s heart had failed him, and he was trying to put me on my guard against himself, in order that he might have an excuse for not carrying out his task.

I walked past him without a word, shook him off in the course of the next hour, and took the last train to Liverpool.

On my arrival in the States, I lost no time in seeking out the man to whom my editor friend had furnished me with an introduction. To the European reader it may be worth while to explain that Jersey City practically joins on to New York, so that it is really a suburb of the American metropolis.

I was received with open arms by this man--an Italian named Ferretti--and I became a member of the most influential Anarchist club. Among those I sometimes played dominoes with there was a long-haired dreamer named Bresci, a visitor from Paterson. All this time I passed under the name of Lebrun. My American citizenship I carefully concealed.

I soon saw that some one had informed the American group of my being bound by oath to kill a crowned head. On all hands I was treated with the deference due to a prospective martyr. It was not long before Ferretti himself began to sound me as to my willingness to make Humbert of Italy my victim.

I was careful not to discourage this suggestion as I had the one made to me in London. I listened to all Ferretti had to say with apparent acquiescence.

‘Humbert has placed himself at the head of our enemies,’ he urged. ‘This Venice conference is a declaration of war. If we wish to maintain our moral ascendency we must strike a blow which will intimidate other rulers from proceeding against us.’

As soon as I could get away I went into New York and sent a code telegram to my secretary in Paris for him to decipher and send on to the King of Italy. It was in these terms: ‘_Anarchists in Jersey City, U.S.A., are looking for man to send against you. Have ports watched._’

Unfortunately the King paid no attention to this warning. He was a fatalist, it seems.

Ferretti returned to the charge before long. I kept him in play, neither consenting nor refusing, my object being, of course, to retain his confidence. I did not want another man to be despatched instead of me without my knowledge.

It was not long before others beside Ferretti began to try and influence me in the same direction. It is difficult to trace the first birth of suspicion in the mind, but a suspicion was born in mine that these men had some motive which they had not yet disclosed to me for urging me to this attempt.

I tested them at last by making a counter-proposal. It was in the club, late one night, and there were present, beside Ferretti, another Italian who called himself ‘The Bear,’ a bearded German named Peters, and a Swiss watchmaker, who was lame and used crutches. These four seemed to have a common understanding.

Peters had been acting as spokesman, and strongly denouncing the proceedings at Venice, which he described as an abandonment of the methods of civilisation--a curious complaint for an Anarchist to make.

Ferretti applied the moral.

‘Some one must be found to avenge us,’ he declared. ‘If Humbert is suffered to live, our principles are doomed.’

‘I am not sure of that,’ I answered. ‘Humbert is not a politician. He has been stirred up because Luccheni killed a woman, which, in my opinion, was an unwise action. We ought to choose our victims more carefully. It is absurd to pick off a man like Humbert, when there are such enemies as ---- and ---- alive.’

My remarks were received in ominous silence. The other four exchanged looks of disappointment. The Bear was the first to protest.

‘It is the curse of Anarchism that every one wants to have his own opinion. It seems to me that when men like ourselves, who have guided the movement for years, are agreed on the right course of action, a new comrade ought to accept our decision.’

I did not retort that the word Anarchist, if it meant anything, meant one who had his own opinion and refused to be guided by the agreement of others. There is nothing a fanatic resents so much as reason, except ridicule. Instead, I affected to be surprised.

‘Do you mean that you disapprove of the execution of ----?’ I demanded, naming a man whose reputation for cruelty and bigotry was world wide.

‘The removal of Humbert ought to come first,’ was the answer.

‘Do you say that deliberately? Have all our comrades made up their minds, or is it merely your own opinion?’

‘It is the judgment of us four,’ said The Bear. ‘That ought to be enough.’

‘We are willing to provide funds for any comrade who will undertake the mission,’ added Peters.

‘But not for any other mission, such as one against ----?’ I ventured to object.

‘We have not said that. We are ready to consider an application.’

The last answer came from the lame watchmaker, who had kept his eyes fixed on me with a close scrutiny during the whole conversation. It was evident that this man was more cautious than the other three, and that he had begun to distrust me. Perhaps he thought I was a boaster; perhaps his suspicions went deeper.

‘Well, I am not under anybody’s orders,’ I said, rising to my feet. ‘Show me that I can serve the cause better by Humbert’s removal than any one else’s, and I will take the mission.’

The four let me come away in silence. I had now no doubt whatever that there was some very strong motive in the background behind all this talk about the Venice conference, and I sent a fresh wire to the threatened King--‘_American group absolutely determined on your death, and offering bribes._’

This telegram was treated with the same indifference as its predecessor.