The Prophet's Mantle. Hubert Bland
argumentative and defensive attitude for one of stern and glowing denunciation. His voice rang through the room now like a trumpet-call. A very little of this sort of thing was sufficient to rouse the men before him to stormy approbation, and Richard whispered to his brother that if any Russian dignitary were to come in just then, while the speaker was in the full tide of his invective, he would have very much the sort of reception that was given to the Austrian woman-flogging general some years ago by the stalwart draymen of Messrs Barclay & Perkins.
Apparently satisfied with the applause of his audience, in which he seemed to delight and revel, Litvinoff turned from the present and the past, and invited his hearers to look with him into the future, 'not only of Russia, but of mankind,' he said; 'what the world might be—what it would be.' Then were done into rhetorical English the concluding pages of that famous Russian pamphlet, 'A Prophetic Vision'—the pamphlet for whose sake Russian peasants had braved the spydom of the police, and to hear which read aloud by some of their fellows who could read, they had crowded together at nights in outhouses and sheds, by the dim light of tallow candles—the pamphlet for whose possession St. Petersburg and Moscow students had quarrelled and almost fought, knowing all the time that the mere fact of its being found upon their persons or among their belongings meant certain imprisonment, and possible death—the pamphlet, in short, the discovery of whose authorship three years back had sent Count Litvinoff and his luckless secretary flying for the Austrian frontier.
It was certainly a pleasant vision this of the Russian noble, whether it was prophetic or no, a dream of a time when men would no longer sow for other men to reap, when the fruits of the earth would be the inheritance of all the earth's children, and not only of her priests and her rulers; when, in fact, rulers would be no more, for all would rule and each would obey; when every man would do as he liked, and every man would like to do well.
All this seemed very high-flown and remote to the young university critics on the front seats, though even they were moved for a moment or two, by the vibrating tones of the speaker, out of the attitude of English stolidity which they had carefully kept up during the evening. But those behind them were less reserved, and perhaps more credulous—more given to believing in visions; and when Litvinoff sat down, the walls of the Agora rang again and again with the cheers of a sympathetic and delighted audience.
When the chairman had announced that 'Mr' Litvinoff would be happy to answer any questions that might be suggested by the lecture, there was a moment or two of that awkward silence which always occurs on these occasions, when everyone feels that there are at least half-a-dozen questions he would like to ask, but experiences the greatest possible difficulty in putting even one into an intelligible shape.
At length a man in one of the far corners of the room rose to put a question. His accent showed him to be a foreigner, but that was not a very remarkable thing in Soho. He had a scrubby chin and dirty linen, two other characteristics not uncommon in that region. After a preliminary cough he explained that his question was rather personal than general, and he quite allowed that the lecturer was not bound to answer it; but he said that, having been in Russia, he could bear testimony to the truth of all that had been said that evening, and that while in the south of Russia he had come across a small pamphlet, called 'A Prophetic Vision,' which he had been told had been written by a Count Michael Litvinoff. Some parts of the address to-night had reminded him of that excellent pamphlet, and he thought it would be interesting to the audience to know whether the author of that pamphlet was the speaker of the evening.
Litvinoff rose at once.
'I had no idea,' he said, 'that the little brochure would ever be heard of outside the country for whose children it was written; but since the question is asked me so frankly to-night, I will answer as frankly—Yes, I wrote it.'
An approving murmur ran through the room, and the foreigner rose again. He was sorry again to trouble Citizen Litvinoff, but was he right in supposing (it had been so reported) that the discovery of this pamphlet by the Russian Government had occasioned Count Litvinoff's exile?
Litvinoff was very pale as he answered—
'Yes; it was that unhappy pamphlet which deprived me of the chance of serving my country on the scene of action, and which lost me a life I valued above my own—that of a fellow-countryman of the audience which I have the pleasure of addressing to-night—my secretary and friend, whom I loved more than a brother.' His voice trembled as he ended.
There was another round of applause, and, no more questions being forthcoming, the meeting broke up, and people stood talking together in little groups. Richard was discussing a knotty economic point with a sturdy carpenter and trades unionist, and Roland, close by, was earnestly questioning a French Communist to whom Litvinoff had introduced him, and was receiving an account of the so-called murder of the hostages very different from any which had appeared in the daily papers of the period, when the Count came up to them.
'Excuse me,' he said, 'I am désolé; but I shall be unable to stay longer. You will be able, doubtless, to pilot yourselves back to civilisation, and will pardon my abrupt departure. I have just seen someone going out of the door whom I've been trying to catch for the last three months, and I'm off in pursuit.'
And he was off. As he passed a small knot of youths outside the door they looked after him, and one of them said with a laugh, 'Blest if I don't believe he's after that handsome gal. What chaps these foreigners are for the ladies.'
The discerning youth was right. He was after that girl—but though he followed her and watched her into the house where she lived, he did not speak to her.
'Think twice before you speak once is a good rule,' he said to himself, as he turned westwards, 'and I know where she lives, at any rate.'
Even discussions on political economy, and historical revelations by those who helped to make the history, must come to an end at last, and the Ferriers came away, after Dick had received a pressing invitation from the chairman to address the club, and to choose his own subject, and Roland, who had suddenly conceived a passion for foreigners of a revolutionary character, had made an appointment with his Communist acquaintance for an evening in the week.
As they passed down the street, two men standing under a lamp looked at them with interest. One was the man who had put the questions regarding the pamphlet. The other was a foreigner too, though he was clean in his attire and had not a scrubby chin, but a long, light silky beard. He wore the slouch hat so much affected by the High Church Clergy, and which is popularly supposed to mark any non-clerical wearer as a man of revolutionary views. He was tall, and pale, and thin, and had very deeply-set hollow eyes, which he kept fixed on the retreating millowners till they turned the corner and went out of sight. Then he said, in a Hungarian dialect—
'Our pamphlet-writing friend doesn't seem to choose his friends solely among the poor and needy; and that is politic to say the least of it.'
'Money seeks money,' growled the other, 'and he has plenty.'
'Not so much as you'd suppose. The greater part of the Litvinoff property is quite out of his reach. Our "little father" takes good care of that.'
'That which he has he takes care to keep,' said the other.
'I'm not so sure; at anyrate, he uses his tongue, which is a good one, in our cause. Speeches like that are good. A man who can speak so is not to be sneered at, and I'm certain he could not speak like that unless he felt some of it at least. He has done us good service before, and he will again. The Mantle of the Prophet fits him uncommonly well.'
CHAPTER VIII.
'YOU LIE!'
'Morley's Hotel, Sunday Evening.
