Aladdin of London.

by Sir Max Pemberton.

CHAPTER I

THE HALL BY UNION STREET

The orator was not eloquent; but he had told a human story and all listened with respect. When he paused and looked upward it seemed to many that a light of justice shone upon his haggard face while the tears rolled unwiped down his ragged jerkin. His lank, unkempt hair, caught by the draught from the open doors at the far end of the hall, streamed behind him in grotesque profusion. His hands were clenched and his lips compressed. That which he had told to the sea of questioning faces below him was the story of his life. The name which he had uttered with an oath upon his lips was the name of the man who had deprived him of riches and of liberty. When he essayed to add a woman's name and to speak of the wrongs which had been done her, the power of utterance left him in an instant and he stood there gasping, his eyes toward the light which none but he could see; a prayer of grat.i.tude upon his lips because he had found the man and would repay.

Look down upon this audience and you shall see a heterogeneous a.s.sembly such as London alone of the cities can show you. The hall is a crazy building enough, not a hundred yards from the Commercial Road at Whitechapel. The time is the spring of the year 1903--the hour is eight o'clock at night. Ostensibly a meeting to discuss the news which had come that day from the chiefs of the Revolutionaries in Warsaw, the discussion had been diverted, as such discussions invariably are, to a recital of personal wrongs and of individual resolutions--even to mad talk of the conquest of the world and the crowning of King Anarchy. And to this the wild Asiatics and the sad-faced Poles listened alike with rare murmurs and odd contortions of limbs and body. Let Paul Boriskoff of Minsk be the orator and they knew that the red flag would fly. But never before has Boriskoff been seen in tears and the spectacle enchained their attention as no mere rhetoric could have done.

A man's confession, if it be honest, must ever be a profoundly interesting doc.u.ment. Boriskoff, the Pole, did not hold these people spellbound by the vigor of his denunciation or the rhythmic chant of his anger. He had begun in a quiet voice, welcoming the news from Warsaw and the account of the a.s.sa.s.sination of the Deputy Governor Lebinsky. From that he pa.s.sed to the old question, why does authority remain in any city at all? This London that sleeps so securely, does it ever awake to remember the unnumbered hosts which pitch their tents in the courts and alleys of Whitechapel? "Put rifles into the hands of a hundred thousand men who can be found to-night," he had said, "and where is your British Government to-morrow? The police--they would be but as dead leaves under the feet of a mighty mult.i.tude. The soldiers! Friends," he put it to them, "do you ever ask yourselves how many soldiers there are in the barracks of London to-night and what would happen to them if the people were armed? I say to you that the house would fall as a house of cards; the rich would flee; the poor would reign. And you who know this for a truth, what do you answer to me? That London harbors you, that London feeds you--aye, with the food of swine in the kennels of the dogs."

Men nodded their heads to this and some of the women t.i.ttered behind their ragged shawls. They had heard it all so often--the grand a.s.sault by numbers; the rifle shots ringing out in the sleeping streets by Piccadilly; the sack of Park Lane; the flight of the Government; the downfall of what is and the establishment of what might be. If they believed it possible, they had sense enough to remember that a sacked city of amnesty would be the poorest tribute to their own sagacity. At least London did not flog them. Their wives and sisters were not here dragged to the police stations to be brutally lashed at the command of any underling they had offended. Applause for Boriskoff and his sound and fury might be interpreted as a concession to their vanity. "We could do all this," they seemed to say; "if we forbear, let London be grateful." As for Boriskoff, he had talked so many times in such a strain that a sudden change in voice and matter surprised them beyond words. What had happened to him, then? Was the fellow mad when he began to speak of the copper mines and the days of slavery he had spent therein?

A hush fell upon the hall when the demagogue struck this unaccustomed note; rude gas flares shed an ugly yellow glow upon faces which everywhere asked an unspoken question. What had copper mines to do with the news from Warsaw, and what had they to do with this a.s.sembly?

Presently, however, it came to the people that they were listening to the story of a wrong, that the pages of a human drama were being unfolded before them. In glowing words the speaker painted the miner's life and that of the stokers who kept the furnaces. What a living h.e.l.l that labor had been. There were six operations in refining the copper, he said, and he had served years of apprenticeship to each of them.

Hungry and faint and weary he had kept watch half the night at the furnace's door and returned to his home at dawn to see white faces half buried in the ragged beds of his house or to hear the child he loved crying for the food he could not bring. And in those night watches the great idea had come to him.

"Friends," he said, "the first conception of the Meltka furnace was mine. The white heat of the night gave it to me; a child's cry, 'thou art my father and thou wilt save me,' was my inspiration. Some of you will have heard that there are smelting works to-day where the sulphurous acid, which copper pyrites supplies when it is roasted, is used for the manufacture of sulphuric acid. That was my discovery. Many have claimed it since, but the Meltka furnace was mine--as G.o.d is in heaven it was mine. Why, then, do I stand among you wanting bread, I who should own the riches of kings? My friends, I will tell you. A devil stole my secret from me and has traded it in the markets of the world.

I trusted him. I was poor and he was rich. 'Sell for me and share my gains,' I said. His honor would be my protection, I thought, his knowledge my security. Ah, G.o.d, what reward had I? He named me to the police and their lashes cut the flesh from my body. I lay three years in the prison at Irkutsk and five at Saghalin. The white faces were turned to the earth they sprang from, my son was heard at the foot of G.o.d's throne when they bade me go and set my foot in Poland no more. This I knew even in that island of blood and death. Letters had come to me from my dear wife; the Committee had kept me informed even there at the end of the earth. I knew that my home had perished; that of all my family, my daughter Lois alone remained to me; I knew that the days of the tyranny were numbered and that I, even I, might yet have my work to do.

Did they keep me from Poland? I tell you that I lived there three years in spite of them, searching for the man who should answer me. Maxim Gogol, where had he hidden himself? The tale at the mines was that he had gone to America, sold his interest and embarked in new ventures. I wrote to our friends in New York and they knew nothing of such a man. I had search made for him in Berlin, in Vienna and Paris. The years were not too swift for my patience, but the harvest went ungathered. I came to London and bent my neck to this yoke of starvation and eternal night.

I have worked sixteen hours a day in the foul holds of ships that I might husband my desire and repay. Friends, ten days ago in London I pa.s.sed the man I am seeking and knew him for my own. Maxim Gogol may hide from me no more. With these eyes have I seen him--ah, G.o.d give me strength to speak of it--with these eyes have I seen him, with these hands have I touched him, with this voice have I accused him. He lives and he is mine--to suffer as I have suffered, to repay as I have paid--until the eternal justice of G.o.d shall decide between us both."

There would have been loud applause in any other a.s.sembly upon the conclusion of such an impa.s.sioned if verbally conventional an harangue; but these Asiatics who heard Paul Boriskoff, who watched the tears stream down his hollowed cheeks and beheld the face uplifted as in ecstasy, had no applause to give him. Had not they also suffered as he had suffered? What wrong of his had not been, in some phase or other, a wrong of theirs? How many of them had lost children well beloved, had known starvation and the sweater's block? Such sympathy as they had to give was rather the cold systematical pity of their order which ever made the individual's cause its own. This unknown Maxim Gogol, if he were indeed in London so much the worse for him. The chosen hand would strike him down when his hour had come--even if it were not the hand of the man he had wronged. In so far as Boriskoff betrayed intense emotion before them, it may be that they despised him. What nation had been made free by tears? How would weeping put bread into the children's mouths?

This was the sentiment immediately expressed by a lank-haired Pole who followed the speaker. Let Paul Boriskoff write out his case and the Committee would consider it, he said. If Maxim Gogol were adjudged guilty, let him be punished. For himself he would spare neither man, woman, or child sheltered in the house of the oppressor. A story had been told to them of an unusual order. He did not wholly regret that Paul Boriskoff had not made a fortune, for, had he done so, he would not be a brother among them to-night. Let him be a.s.sured of their sympathy.

The Committee would hear him when and where he wished.

There were other speakers in a similar mood, but the immediate interest in the dramatic recital quickly evaporated. A little desultory talk was followed by the serving of vodki and of cups of steaming coffee to the women. The younger people at the far end of the hall, who had been admitted to hear the music which should justify the gathering, grew weary of waiting and pushed their way into the street. There they formed little companies to speak, not of the strange entertainment which had been provided for them, but of commonplace affairs--the elder women of infantile sufferings, the girls of the songs they had heard on Sat.u.r.day at the Aldgate Empire or of the shocking taste in feathers of more favored rivals. But here and there a black-eyed daughter of Poland or a fair-haired Circa.s.sian edged away discreetly from the company and was as warily followed by the necessary male. The dirty street caught s.n.a.t.c.hes of music-hall melodies. Windows were opened above and wit exchanged. A voice, that of a young girl evidently, asked what had become of the Hunter, and to this another voice replied immediately, as though greatly satisfied, that Alban Kennedy had gone down toward the High Street with Lois Boriskoff.

"As if you didn't know, Chris. Gawsh, you should 'ave seen her feathers waggin' at the Union jess now. Fawther's took wiv the jumps, I hear, and Alb's gone to the Pav to give her hair. Oh, the fine gentleming--I seed his poor toes through his bloomin' boots this night, s'welp me Gawd I did."

The admission was received with a shout of laughter from the window above, where a red-haired girl leaned pensively upon the rail of a broken balcony. The speaker, in her turn, moved away with a youth who asked her, with much unnecessary emphasis, "what the 'ell she had to do with Albey's feet and why she couldn't leave Chris Denham alone."

"If I ain't 'xactly gawn on Russian taller myself, wot's agen Albey a-doin' of it," he asked authoritatively. "Leave the lidy alone and don't arst no questions. They say as the old man is took with spasms round at the Union. S'welp me if Albey ain't in luck--at his time of life too."

He winked at the girl, who had put her arm boldly round his waist, and marched on with the proud consciousness that his cleverness had not failed to make a just impression. The red-haired girl of the pensive face still gazed dreamily down the court and her head inclined a little toward the earth as though she were listening for the sound of a footstep. Not only the dreamer of dreams in that den of squalor, this Alban Kennedy was her idol to-night as he had been the idol of fifty of her cla.s.s since he came to live among them. What cared she for his ragged shoes or the frayed collar about his neck? Did not the whole community admit him to be a very aristocrat of aristocrats, a diamond of cla.s.s in a quarry of ashes, a figure at once mysterious and heroical?

And this knight of the East, what irony led him away with that white-faced Pole, Lois Boriskoff? What did he see in her? What was she to him?

The pensive head was withdrawn sadly from the window at last. Silence fell in the dismal court. The Russians who had been breathing fire and vengeance were now eating smoked sturgeon and drinking vodki. A man played the fiddle to them and some danced. After all, life has something else than the story of wrong to tell us sometimes.

CHAPTER II

ALBAN KENNEDY MAKES A PROMISE

The boy and the girl halted together by one of the great lights at the corner of the Commercial Road and there they spoke of the strange confession which had just fallen from Paul Boriskoff's lips. Little Lois, white-faced as a mime at the theatre, her black hair tousled and unkempt, her eyes shining almost with the brightness of fever, declared all her heart to the gentle Alban and implored him for G.o.d's sake to take her from London and this pitiful home. He, as discreet as she was rash, pitied her from his heart, but would not admit as much.

"If I could only speak Polish, Lois--but you know I can't," he said.

"Bread and salt, that's about what I should get in your country--and perhaps be able to count the nails in the soles of my boots. What's the good of telling me all about it? I saw that your father was angry, but you people are always angry. And, little girl, he does his best for you.

Never forget that--he would sooner lose anything on earth than you."

"I don't believe it," said the girl, tossing her head angrily, "what's he care about anything but that ole machine of his which he says they stole from him? Ten hours have I been sewing to-day, Alb, and ten it will be to-morrow. Truth, dear, upon my soul. What's father care so long as the kettle boils and he can read the papers? And you're no better--you'd take me away if you were--right away from here to the gardens where he couldn't find me, and no one but you would ever find me any more. That's what you'd do if you were as I want you to be. But you ain't, Alb--you'll never care for any girl--now will you, Alb, dear?"

She clutched his arm and pressed closely to him, regardless of pa.s.sers-by so accustomed to love-making on the pavements that neither man nor woman turned a head because of it. Alban Kennedy, however, was frankly ashamed of the whole circ.u.mstance, and he pushed the girl away from him as though her very touch offended.

"Look here, Lois, that's nonsense--let's go and see something, let's go into the New Empire for an hour. Your father will be all right when he's had a gla.s.s or two of vodki. You know he's always like this when there's been news from Warsaw. Let's go and hear a turn and then you can tell me what you want me to do."

They walked on a little way, she clinging to his arm timidly and looking up often into his eyes as though for some expression of that affection she hungered for unceasingly. The "Court" had named them for lovers long ago, but the women declared that such an aristocrat as Alban Kennedy would look twice before he put his neck into Paul Boriskoff's matrimonial halter.

"A lot of good the Empire will do me to-night," Lois exclaimed presently. "I feel more like dancing on my own grave than seeing other people do it. What with father's temper and your cold shoulder, Alb--"

"Lois, that's unfair, dear; you know that I am sorry. But what can I do, what can any one do for men who talk such nonsense as those fellows in that hall? 'Seize London and the Government'--you said it was that, didn't you?--well, they're much more likely to get brain fever and wake up in the hospital. That's what I shall tell your father if he asks me.

And, Lois, how can you and I talk about anything serious when I haven't a shilling to call my own and your father won't let you out of his sight lest he should want something. It will all be different soon--bad things always are. I shall make a fortune myself some day--I'm certain of it as though I had the money already in the bank. People who make fortunes always know that they are going to do so. I shall make a lot of money and then come back for you--just my little Lois sewing at the window, the same old dirty court, the same ragged fellows talking about sacking London, the same faces everywhere--but Lois unchanged and waiting for me--now isn't it that, dear, won't you be unchanged when I come back for you?"

They stood for an instant in the shadow of a shuttered shop and, leaping up at his question, she lifted warm red lips to his own--and the girl of seventeen and the boy of mature twenty kissed as ardently as lovers newly sworn to eternal devotion.

"I do love you, Alb," she cried, "I shall never love any other man--straight, my dear, though there ain't much use in a-telling you.

Oh, Alb, if you meant it, you wouldn't leave me in this awful place; you'd take me away, darling, where I could see the fields and the gardens. I'd come, Alb, as true as death--I'd go this night if you arst me, straight away never to come back--if it were to sleep on the hard road and beg my bread from house to house--I'd go with you, Alb, as heaven hears me, I'd be an honest wife to you and you should never regret the day. What's to keep us, Alb, dear? Oh, we're fine rich, ain't we, both of us, you with your fifteen shillings from the yard and me with nine and six from the fronts. Gawd's truth, Rothschild ain't nothink to you and me, Alb, when we've the mind to play the great lidy and gentleman. Do you know that I lay abed some nights and try to think as it's a kerridge and pair and you a-sittin' beside of me and nothink round us but the green fields and the blue sky, and nothink never more to do but jess ride on with your hand in mine and the sun to shine upon us. Lord, what a thing it is to wake up then, Alb, and 'ear the caller cryin' five and see my father like a white ghost at the door. And that's wot's got to go on to the end--you know it is; you put me off 'cause you think it'll please me, same as you put Chris Denham off when you danced with her at the Inst.i.toot Ball. You won't never love no girl truly, Alb--it isn't in you, my dear. You're born above us and we never shall forget it, not none of us as I'm alive to-night."

She turned away her head to hide the tears gathering in her black eyes, while Alban's only answer to her was a firm pressure upon the little white hand he held in his own and a quicker step upon the crowded pavement. Perhaps he understood that the child spoke the truth, but of this he could not be a wise judge. His father had been a poor East End parson, his mother was the daughter of an obstinate and flinty Sheffield steel factor, who first disowned her for marrying a curate and then went through the bankruptcy court as a protest against American compet.i.tion.

So far Alban knew himself to be an aristocrat--and yet how could he forget that among that very company of Revolutionaries he had so lately quitted there were sons of men whose n.o.bility was older than Russia herself. That he understood so much singled him out immediately as a youth of strange gifts and abnormal insight--but such, indeed, he was, and as such he knew himself to be.

"I won't quarrel with you, Lois, though I see that you wish it, dear,"

he said presently, "you know I don't care for Chris Denham and what's the good of talking about her. Let's go and cheer up--I'm sure we can do with a bit and that's the plain truth, now isn't it, Lois?"

He squeezed her arm and drew her closer to him. At the Empire they found two gallery seats and watched a j.a.panese acrobat balance himself upon five hoops and a ladder. A lady in far from immaculate evening dress, who sang of a flowing river which possessed eternal and immutable qualities chiefly concerned with love and locks and unswerving fidelity, appealed to little Lois' sentiment and she looked up at Alb whenever the refrain recurred as much as to say, "That is how I should love you." So many other couples about them were squeezing hands and cuddling waists that no one took any notice of their affability or thought it odd. A drunken sailor behind them kept asking the company with maudlin reiteration what time the last train left for Plymouth, but beyond crying "hush" n.o.body rebuked him. In truth, the young people had come there to make love, and when the lights were turned down and the curtain of the biograph revealed, the place seemed paradise itself.

Lois crept very close to Alban during this part of the entertainment, nor did he repulse her. Moments there were undeniably when he had a great tenderness toward her; moments when she lay in his embrace as some pure gift from this haven of darkness and of evil, a fragile helpless figure of a girlhood he idolized. Then, perchance, he loved her as Lois Boriskoff hungered for love, with the supreme devotion, the abject surrender of his manhood.

No meaner taint of pa.s.sion inspired these outbreaks, nor might the most critical student of character have found them blameworthy. Alban Kennedy's rule of life defied scrutiny. His ignorance was often that of a child, his faith that of a trusting woman--and yet he had traits of strength which would have done no dishonor to those in the highest places. Lois loved him and there were hours when he responded wholly to her love and yet had no more thought of evil in his response than of doing any of those forbidding things against which his dead mother had schooled him so tenderly. Here were two little outcasts from the civilized world--why should they not creep close together for that sympathy and loving kindness which destiny had denied them.

"I darsn't be late to-night, Alb," Lois said when the biograph was over and they had left the hall, "you know how father was. I must go back and get his supper."

"Did he really mean all that about the copper mines and his invention?"

Alban asked her in his practical way, and added, "Of course I couldn't understand much of it, but I think it's pretty awful to see a man crying, don't you, Lois?"

"Father does that often," she rejoined, "often when he's alone. I might not be in the world at all, Alb, for all he thinks of me. Some one robbed him, you know, and just lately he thinks he's found the man in London. What's the good of it all--who's goin' to help a poor Pole get his rights back? Oh, yer bloomin' law and order, a lot we sees of you in Thrawl Street, so help me funny. That's what I tell father when he talks about his rights. We'll take ours home with us to Kingdom come and n.o.body know much about 'em when we get there. A sight of good it is cryin' out for them in this world, Alb--now ain't it, dear?"

Alban was in the habit of taking questions very seriously, and he took this one just as though she had put it in the best of good faith.

"I can't make head or tail of things, Lois," he said stoically, "fact is, I've given up trying. Why does my father die without sixpence after serving G.o.d all his life, and another man, who has served the devil, go under worth thousands? That's what puzzles me. And they tell us it will all come right some day, just as we're all going to drive motor-cars when the Socialists get in. Wouldn't I be selling mine cheap to-night if anyone came along and offered me five pounds for it--wouldn't I say 'take it' and jolly glad to get the money. Why, Lois, dear, think what we would do with five pounds."

"Go to Southend for Easter, Alb."