"With such a leader, they may even be meaning that," said the official reflectively.
Arthur"s brow grew dark, "Nonsense! Hartmann is an unruly fellow, a furious madman even, when he is irritated, but he is not a scoundrel, and that would be a scoundrelly act. He would have injured the engines to prevent the descent being made, but when he found he could no longer prevent it, why do you suppose he rushed off to the sheds? Certainly not to see that his father and comrades were given up to destruction; he wanted to recall his former orders, and it was only when he saw we had been beforehand with him that he broke out against us in his wrath at the failure of his plans. The engines are secured to us by the fact of the men being below. Not a hand will be raised to injure them while the Manager and the rest are in the mine, and so the storm is now turned against the house. I shall go out and make an attempt to calm them."
During the last few weeks the officials had been accustomed to see their leader act on similar occasions with resolute boldness and without regard to his own personal safety, but this time entreaties and remonstrances resounded on all sides; even the chief-engineer joined in to dissuade him, and Schaffer, knowing from what quarter opposition would alone avail, turned to Eugenie, still standing at her husband"s side.
"Do not allow it, your ladyship. Not to-day, it is much more dangerous to-day than it has ever been before. The men are horribly excited, and Hartmann is staking his last throw. Keep Herr Berkow back."
At this warning, which did but confirm her own fears, she grew deadly pale, but she retained her composure; something of Arthur"s calm seemed to have been communicated to her.
"My husband has told me he must make the attempt," she answered steadily, "he shall not say that I kept him back with tears and lamentations from what he holds to be his duty. Let him go."
Arthur held her hand clasped in his. He only thanked her by a look.
"Now, gentlemen, take example by my wife"s courage. She has most cause to tremble. I repeat it, the attempt must be made. Let the hall-door be opened."
"We will all go with you," said the chief-engineer. "Fear nothing, my lady, I will not stir from his side."
Arthur put him aside quietly, but firmly.
"I thank you, but you must remain here with the other gentlemen. In such a case one man alone is generally safe against a crowd. If you were all to appear, they might take it for a challenge. Hold yourselves in readiness to cover my retreat into the house, if it comes to the worst. Farewell, Eugenie."
He went, accompanied as far as the stairs by the chief-engineer and several of the officials. No one attempted to stay him now. They all knew that in his appearance outside lay the only chance of averting a danger which it would be hard, if not impossible, for them to withstand for hours together here shut up in the house.
Eugenie rushed to one of the windows. She did not notice how all present were anxiously pressing round the others, did not hear the remarks exchanged in an undertone by the Director and Schaffer who were standing close behind her; she only saw that wild rebellious crowd, that sea of heads so densely packed together surging round the house, only heard those fierce cries demanding the surrender of the prisoners.
To this crowd her husband was about to expose himself alone; in the very next instant his life might be menaced by it. The iron gates of the park, more elegant than strong, had already yielded to the battery; they lay broken to pieces on the ground; the beautiful, carefully kept gardens, trodden under foot by hundreds, were nothing now but a desolate chaos of earth, remnants of flowers and plants, and trampled-down bushes.
Already the foremost men among the rebels had all but reached the terrace, and so were drawing very near the house itself; already here and there clenched fists could be seen, armed with stones and ready to hurl them at the windows. There was a confused rumour of shouts, threats and cries of all descriptions; every minute the clamour waxed louder and louder, until now and again it would rise for a second to a howl which was almost unearthly.
Suddenly there came a deep breathless silence. The uproar ceased abruptly, as though by an order from on high; the agitated groups paused in their restless movement, the great ma.s.ses fell back, as if they had all at once encountered an obstacle, and all eyes, all faces, were turned in one direction. The hall-door had been opened, and the young master stepped out on to the terrace.
The lull lasted a few seconds, then the momentary surprise gave place to a fresh and more terrible outburst of fury which no longer lacked an aim. Those fierce yells, those faces distorted by pa.s.sion, those threatening upraised arms, were all directed against one man; but that man was their master, the proprietor of the works, and that which the father, with all his industrial genius, his tenacity of purpose and arbitrary will, had failed to acquire during twenty years and more, the son had won for himself in a few weeks: the authority of his own personal influence; it worked even now when all the customary restraints of order were loosed.
He let the storm take its course. With his slight figure well erect, his steady eyes fixed on the mult.i.tude before him, every individual of which was superior to himself in strength, he stood facing them, alone and unarmed, with no protection save that which his authority gave him, waiting, as though the breakers of revolution, beating idly against him, must spend themselves in vain.
And they spent themselves. The general clamour gradually subsided into distinct and separate cries, then into a sullen murmur. At last even this was hushed, and Berkow"s voice was raised, unintelligible at first through the movement surging round him, interrupted often by the tumult, which at intervals would break out afresh, then sink powerless again, until finally it died out altogether. Then the master"s voice was heard, loud, clear and distinct, reaching the ears even of those who were farthest from him.
"Thank G.o.d!" muttered Schaffer, pa.s.sing his handkerchief across his brow, "he has got them in hand now; they may be restive and struggle, but they will obey. See, my lady, how they are quieting down, how they recoil before him. They are actually retreating from the terrace and letting the stones drop from their hands. If Providence will only keep Hartmann out of the way, the danger is over."
He little knew with what intensity Eugenie reechoed the wish in her own mind. Up to this time she had sought in vain for that one dreaded figure; so long as it was not visible her courage did not fail her, so long she believed Arthur might yet be safe; but now security and hope were over. Whether the sudden lull in the uproar he had busied himself to raise had summoned the missing man to the spot, or whether a suspicion of what was taking place drew him thither at that critical moment, Ulric Hartmann, risen, as it were, from the ground, appeared suddenly at the park entrance behind them. One look sufficed to show him how matters stood.
"Cowards that you are!" he thundered to his comrades, as, followed by Lawrence and Deputy Wilms, he forced his way through the dense ma.s.ses.
"I thought as much almost, I thought you would be getting yourselves caught in his nets again while we were seeking information as to what they had done with the prisoners. We know now where they are, there at the balcony to the right, on the ground-floor, just at the back of the dining-room; that is where the attack must be made. Break in the plate-gla.s.s, it will save forcing open the door."
No one obeyed the injunction as yet, but it had its effect. Nothing is more vacillating, more unstable of purpose, than an excited crowd, accustomed to bow to the will of one resolute man.
In all the previous clamour and disturbance there had been an absence of any fixed plan, an indecision which had kept the rebels from any positive action; the eye, the arm, of the leader had been wanting. He was there now, and, as he grasped the reins, he gave them an aim and sure direction. They knew now where the prisoners were lodged, and knew how to get to them, and thus the danger, which had so nearly been conjured, was kindled afresh.
Ulric cared little at that moment whether his order were obeyed or not.
He had forced a pa.s.sage for himself through to the terrace, and stood confronting the master with all the defiant hostility of his rebellious nature, his gigantic form towering nearly a head above his fellows. He was a born leader of the ma.s.ses; his fierce energy and despotic will carried them with him in blind obedience, and, spite of all that had happened, that might happen yet, his command over them was still for the time being unlimited. All the advantage which Arthur had obtained was called into question, if not wholly destroyed, by the mere appearance on the scene of this man whose influence worked at least as powerfully as his own.
"Where are our mates?" asked Hartmann in a tone of menace, and stepping up still closer. "We want them out at once! We will have no violence used to any of us."
"And I will not have my machinery destroyed," answered Arthur coldly and calmly. "I had the men arrested, though they were only the tools in another"s hand. Who ordered that attempt upon the engines?"
There was a triumphant gleam in Ulric"s eye; he had foreseen this firmness and built his plan upon it. He himself needed no pretext; he was bent on satisfying his hatred at any cost, but his partisans, wavering and ready to desert their flag, were in want of some provocation to urge them forward; it was necessary now to goad them on, and the adversary was bold and proud enough to offer them an incentive.
"I owe you no answers," he said disdainfully, "and I shall not allow myself to be questioned in that dictatorial way. Give up the prisoners, all the men on the works demand it, or" .... and his look completed the threat.
"The prisoners will be detained," declared Arthur unmoved, "and you, Hartmann, have no longer the right to speak in the name of all the men employed on the works; half of them have seceded from you already. I have nothing more to say to you."
"But I have something to say to you," shouted Ulric, desperate with rage. "Forwards," he cried, turning to the rebel ma.s.ses, "forwards, on to our mates, strike down all that comes in your way!"
He would have rushed upon Berkow, thereby giving the signal for a general onset, but, before he could do so, before it could be determined whether the crowd behind him would render or refuse obedience, there boomed suddenly through the air a strange and terrible sound, making all the ground around them tremble.
The leader stopped electrified, and all present stood spell-bound, listening breathlessly for what would follow. It had been like the reverberation of a dull and distant shock, coming, as it seemed, from the very bowels of the earth, and was succeeded by a low rumble under ground which lasted a few seconds; then all was still as death, and hundreds of scared faces were turned in the direction of the works.
"Good G.o.d! that came from the mine; something has happened there!"
cried Lawrence, with a great start of alarm.
"That was an explosion!" said the voice of the chief-engineer; during the last few critical minutes he had been on guard in the great hall at the head of the younger officials and all the available servants, ready to hasten to Arthur"s a.s.sistance. "An accident has happened in the mine, Herr Berkow, we must go over."
For one moment horror seemed to paralyse every limb. No one moved; the warning was all too terrible. At the very moment when one party was rushing forward bent on the other"s annihilation, destruction of another kind had reached their brothers down below. Now they were imperatively called on to abandon the attack and hurry to the rescue.
Arthur was the first to recover himself.
"To the shafts!" he cried to the other officials, who by this time had come out of the house and were pressing round him, and, so saying, he set the example by himself speeding off before them all in the direction of the works.
"To the shafts!" shouted Ulric, turning to the miners.
The command was unnecessary; in an instant the crowd was rushing in wild haste, their leader at their head, to the scene of the disaster.
He and Arthur reached the works first, and almost simultaneously.
Nothing was to be seen as yet of the effects of the destroying element; the thick column of smoke issuing from the shafts alone bore witness to what had happened, but it was eloquent enough. In less than ten minutes the whole surrounding s.p.a.ce was crowded with human beings, who, now that their first mute horror was over, broke out loudly into lamentations and cries of fear and despair.
There is something appalling and yet elevating about a great misfortune which is not due to the hand of man, for it almost invariably brings into play the better side of human nature, saving its honour, and cleansing it from those evil pa.s.sions which at other times disfigure and obscure it. The revolution in the general feeling was so sudden, so instantaneous, it hardly seemed to be the same mult.i.tude which, but a few minutes before, had clamoured round the house, menacing destruction if not murder, because their wild demands were not conceded. Strife, enmity, the hatred of long months, all gave way now to the one thought of rescuing those below.
To this rescue, miners and officials, friends and foes, pressed forward indiscriminately, and foremost among them were they who had been most ardent in rebellion. An hour before they had threatened their comrades, and would have attacked and beaten them down if their leader"s own father had not led the gang, and now that the self-same comrades were in peril of their lives, each man would have risked his own to have succoured them. The awful message had borne fruit.
"Back!" cried Arthur, stepping forward to meet them, as, without any definite plan, they pressed blindly forward. "You cannot help now, you will only hinder the officials" approach. We must first ascertain how and where it is possible to penetrate into the shaft. Make way for the engineers."
"Make way for the engineers!" repeated those nearest him. The cry resounded through the ranks, and a narrow pa.s.sage was at once formed for the chief-engineer and his staff, who now came up from an opposite direction.
"There is no possibility of forcing our way in over there yonder," said he to Arthur, pointing towards the lower shaft which was in connection with the upper one, and from which mighty columns of smoke and thick vapour were issuing. "We have not even made the attempt, for no human being could breathe in that infernal steaming cauldron. Hartmann tried it, but when he had gone five or six steps, he was forced to beat a retreat half stifled, and he was just able to drag out Lawrence, who had followed him, but had fallen at the entrance. Our only hope lies in the upper drawing-shaft; perhaps they may have taken refuge there. Set the engines going, we must make the descent that way."
The man in charge of the machinery, to whom these words were addressed, stood by pale and agitated without preparing to obey.
"The engines have refused service for the last hour," he reported in a tone of distress. "I wanted to send word of it, for all the gentlemen were up at the house, but my messenger could not get through on account of the row there was up there, and I thought, at all events, the gang at work could ascend by the lower shaft which remained free. We have been trying hard to work them, but we can"t make them move."