Gladiator, Philip Wylie [win 10 ebook reader .TXT] 📗

the first degree. A mob assaulted the jail where they were confined⁠—without success. Two of the mob were wounded by riot guns.

A meeting was held in Berlin, one in London, another in Paris. Moscow was silent, but Moscow was reported to be in an uproar. The trial assumed international proportions overnight. Embassies were stormed; legations from America were forced to board cruisers. Strikes were ordered; long queues of sullen men and women formed at camp kitchens. The President delivered a message to Congress on the subject. Prominent personages debated it in public halls, only to be acclaimed and booed concomitantly. The sentence imposed on two Russian immigrants rocked the world. In some cities it was not safe for American tourists to go abroad in the streets. And all the time the two men drew nearer to the electric chair.

It was then that Hugo met Skorvsky. Many people knew him; he was a radical, a writer; he lived in Washington, he styled himself an unofficial ambassador of the world. A small, dark man with a black moustache who attended one of Hugo’s informal afternoon discussions on a vicarious invitation. “Come over and see Hugo Danner. He’s something new in Washington.”

“Something new in Washington? I shall omit the obvious sarcasm. I shall go.” Skorvsky went.

Hugo listened to him talk about the two prisoners. He was lucid; he made allowances for the American democracy, which in themselves were burning criticism. Hugo asked him to dinner. They dined at Hugo’s house.

“You have the French taste in wines,” Skorvsky said, “but, as it is to my mind the finest taste in the world, I can say only that.”

Hugo tried to lead him back to the topic that interested both of them so acutely. Skorvsky shrugged. “You are polite⁠—or else you are curious. I know you⁠—an American business man in Washington with a purpose. Not an apparent purpose⁠—just now. No, no. Just now you are a host, cultivated and genial, and retiring. But at the proper time⁠—ah! A dam somewhere in Arizona. A forest that you covet in Alaska. Is it not so?”

“What if it is not?”

Skorvsky stared at the ceiling. “What then? A secret? Yes, I thought that about you while we were talking to the others today. There is something deep about you, my new friend. You are a power. Possibly you are not even really an American.”

“That is wrong.”

“You assure me that I am right. But I will agree with you. You are, let us say, the very epitome of the man Mr. Mencken and Mr. Lewis tell us about so charmingly. I am Russian and I cannot know all of America. You might divulge your errand, perhaps?”

“Suppose I said it was to set the world aright?”

Skorvsky laughed lightly. “Then I should throw myself at your feet.”

Both men were in deadly earnest, Hugo not quite willing to adopt the Russian’s almost effeminate delicacy, yet eager to talk to him, or to someone like him⁠—someone who was more than a great self-centerd wheel in the progress of the nation. Hugo yielded a little further. “Yet that is my purpose. And I am not altogether impotent. There are things I can do⁠—” He got up from the table and stretched himself with a feline grace.

“Such as?”

“I was thinking of your two compatriots who were recently given such wretched justice. Suppose they were liberated by force. What then?”

“Ah! You are an independent communist?”

“Not even that. Just a friend of progress.”

“So. A dreamer. One of the few who have wealth. And you have a plan to free these men?”

Hugo shrugged. “I merely speculated on the possible outcome of such a thing; assume that they were snatched from prison and hidden beyond the law.”

Skorvsky meditated. “It would be a great victory for the cause, of course. A splendid lift to its morale.”

“The cause of Bolshevism?”

“A higher and a different cause. I cannot explain it briefly. Perhaps I cannot explain it at all. But the old world of empires is crumbled. Democracy is at its farcical height. The new world is not yet manifest. I shall be direct. What is your plan, Mr. Danner?”

“I couldn’t tell you. Anyway, you would not believe it. But I could guarantee to deliver those two men anywhere in the country within a few days without leaving a trace of how it was done. What do you think of that, Skorvsky?”

“I think you are a dangerous and a valuable man.”

“Not many people do.” Hugo’s eyes were moody. “I have been thinking about it for a long time. Nothing that I can remember has happened during my life that gives me a greater feeling of understanding than the imprisonment and sentencing of those men. I know poignantly the glances that are given them, the stupidity of the police and the courts, the horror-stricken attitude of those who condemn them without knowledge of the truth or a desire for such knowledge.” He buried his face in his hands and then looked up quickly. “I know all that passionately and intensely. I know the blind fury to which it all gives birth. I hate it. I detest it. Selfishness, stupidity, malice. I know the fear it engenders⁠—a dreadful and a justified fear. I’ve felt it. Very little in this world avails against it. You’ll forgive so much sentiment, Skorvsky?”

“It makes us brothers.” The Russian spoke with force and simplicity. “You, too⁠—”

Hugo crossed the room restlessly. “I don’t know. I am always losing my grip. I came to Washington with a purpose and I cannot screw myself to it unremittingly. These men seem⁠—”

Skorvsky was thinking. “Your plan for them. What assistance would you need?”

“None.”

“None!”

“Why should I need help? I⁠—never mind. I need none.”

“You have your own organization?”

“There is no one but me.”

Skorvsky shook his head. “I cannot⁠—and yet⁠—looking at you⁠—I believe you can. I shall tell you. You will come with me tonight and meet my friends⁠—those who are working earnestly for a new America, an America ruled by intelligence alone. Few outsiders enter our councils. We are all⁠—nearly all⁠—foreigners. Yet