The Crimson Tide Part 41

"The bourgeoisie has its agents here!" bawled a red-haired Jew. "I offer a solemn protest----"

"Agent provocateur!" cried many voices. "Pay no attention to her! Go on with the debate!"

An I. W. W.--a thin, mean-faced American--half arose and pointed an unwashed finger at Ilse.

"A Government spy," he said distinctly. "Keep your eye on her, comrades. There seems to be a bunch of them there----"

"Sit down and shut up!" said Shotwell, sharply. "Do you want to start a riot?"

"You bet I'll start something!" retorted the man, showing his teeth like a rat. "What the h.e.l.l did you come here for----"

"Silence!" bawled Bromberg, hoa.r.s.ely, from the platform. "That woman is recognised and known. Pay no attention to her, but listen to me. I tell you that your law is the law of hatred!----"

Palla attempted to rise. Jim tried to restrain her: she pushed his arm aside, but he managed to retain his grasp on her arm.

"Are you crazy?" he whispered.

"That man lies!" she said excitedly. "Don't you hear him preaching hatred?"

"Well, it's not your business----"

"It _is_! That man is lying to these ignorant people! He's telling them a vile untruth! Let me go, Jim----"

"Better keep cool," whispered Brisson, leaning over. "We're all in dutch already."

Palla said to him excitedly: "I'm afraid to stand up and speak, but I'm going to! I'd be a coward to sit here and let that man deceive these poor people----"

"Listen to Bromberg!" motioned Ilse, her blue eyes frosty and her cheeks deeply flushed.

The orator had come down into the aisle. Every venomous word he was uttering now he directed straight at the quartette.

"Russia is showing us the way," he said in his growling voice. "Russia makes no distinctions but takes them all by the throat and wrings their necks--aristocrats, bourgeoisie, cadets, officers, land owners, intellectuals--all the vermin, all the parasites! And that is the law, I tell you! The unfit peris.h.!.+ The strong inherit the earth!----"

Palla sprang to her feet: "Liar!" she said hotly. "Did not Christ Himself tell us that the meek shall inherit the earth!"

"Christ?" thundered Bromberg. "Have you come here to insult us with legends and fairy-tales about a G.o.d?"

"Who mentioned G.o.d?" retorted Palla in a clear voice. "Unless we ourselves are G.o.ds there is none! But Christ did live! And He was as much a G.o.d as we are. And no more. But He was wiser! And what He told us is the truth! And I shall not sit silent while any man or woman teaches robbery and murder. That's what you mean when you say that the law of the stronger is the only law! If it is, then the poor and ignorant are where they belong----"

"They won't be when they learn the law of life!" roared Bromberg.

"There is only one law of life!" cried Palla, turning to look around her at the agitated audience. "The only law in the world worth obedience is the Law of Love and of Service! No other laws amount to anything. Under that law every problem you agitate here is already solved. There is no injustice that cannot be righted under it! There is no aspiration that cannot be realised!"

She turned on Bromberg, her hazel eyes very bright, her face surging with colour.

"You came here to pervert the exhortation of Karl Marx, and unite under the banner of envy and greed every unhappy heart!

"Very well. Others also can unite to combat you. A league of evil is not the only league that can be formed under this roof. Nor are the soldiers and police the only or the better weapons to use against you.

What you agitators and mischief makers are really afraid of is that somebody may really educate your audiences. And that's exactly what such people as I intend to do!"

A score or more of people had crowded around her while she was speaking. Shotwell and Brisson, too, had risen and stepped to her side. And the entire audience was on its feet, craning hundreds of necks and striving to hear and see.

Somewhere in the crowd a shrill American voice cried: "Throw them guys out! They got Wall Street cash in their pockets!"

Sondheim levelled a finger at Brisson:

"Look out for that man!" he said. "He published those lies about Lenine and Trotsky, and he's here from Was.h.i.+ngton to lie about us in the newspapers!"

The I. W. W. lurched out of his seat and shoved against Shotwell.

"Get the h.e.l.l out o' here," he snarled; "--go on! Beat it! And take your lady-friends, too."

Brisson said: "No use talking to them. You'd better take the ladies out while the going is good."

But as they moved there was an angry murmur: the I. W. W. gave Palla a violent shove that sent her reeling, and Shotwell knocked him unconscious across a bench.

Instantly the hall was in an uproar: there was a savage rush for Brisson, but he stopped it with levelled automatic.

"Get the ladies out!" he said coolly to Shotwell, forcing a path forward at his pistol's point.

Plain clothes men were active, too, pus.h.i.+ng the excited Bolsheviki this way and that and clearing a lane for Palla and Ilse.

Then, as they reached the rear of the hall, there came a wild howl from the audience, and Shotwell, looking back, saw Sondheim unfurl a big red flag.

Instantly the police started for the rostrum. The din became deafening as he threw one arm around Palla and forced her out into the street, where Ilse and Brisson immediately joined them.

Then, as they looked around for a taxi, a little shrimp of a man came out on the steps of the hall and spat on the sidewalk and cursed them in Russian.

And, as Palla, recognising him, turned around, he shook his fists at her and at Ilse, promising that they should be attended to when the proper moment arrived.

Then he spat again, laughed a rather ghastly and distorted laugh, and backed into the doorway behind him.

They walked east--there being no taxi in sight. Ilse and Brisson led; Palla followed beside Jim.

"Well," said the latter, his voice not yet under complete control, "don't you think you'd better keep away from such places in the future?"

She was still very much excited: "It's abominable," she exclaimed, "that this country should permit such lies to be spread among the people and do nothing to counteract this campaign of falsehood! What is going to happen, Jim, unless educated people combine to educate the ignorant?"

"How?" he asked contemptuously.

"By example, first of all. By the purity and general decency of their own lives. I tell you, Jim, that the unscrupulous greed of the educated is as dangerous and vile as the murderous envy of the Bolsheviki. We've got to reform ourselves before we can educate others. And unless we begin by conforming to the Law of Love and Service, some day the Law of Hate and Violence will cut our throats for us."

"Palla," he said, "I never dreamed that you'd do such a thing as you did to-night."

"I was afraid," she said with a nervous tightening of her arm under his, "but I was still more afraid of being a coward."

"You didn't have to answer that crazy anarchist!"