Banzai! Part 9

As the policeman would not allow him to enter any of the houses because, as he said, it meant certain death, Robertson decided to go to the nearest telephone pay-station in order to 'phone his story to the paper.

The policeman went with him as far as the police-station. By the uncertain light of the street-lamps they stumbled along the pavement, which was often almost entirely hidden by heaps of rubbish and regular mountains of refuse. They saw several more bodies suspended from lamp-posts, and the blood on the pavement before many of the mutilated houses testified eloquently to the manner in which the mob had wreaked its vengeance on the sons of the Celestial Kingdom. Ambulance officers were carrying away the wounded and dead on stretchers, and after Robertson had stayed a little while at the police-station and received information as to the number of people killed thus far, he walked in the direction of Broadway, having found the entrance to the Subway closed.

At Broadway he again came upon a chain of police, and learned that the troops had been called out and that a battalion was marching up Broadway.

Robertson plunged once more into the seething human whirlpool, but made little progress. For about fifteen minutes he stood, unable to move, near a highly excited individual, who, with a b.l.o.o.d.y handkerchief tied around his head and with wild gesticulations was reciting his experiences during the storming of a Chinese house. This was his man. A momentary lull in the roar around him gave him a chance of getting closer to him and screaming into his ear: "I'll give you two dollars if you'll step into the nearest hallway with me and tell me that story!"

The man stared at him in astonishment but when Robertson added, "It's for the _New York Daily Telegraph_," he was posted at once. They made their way with considerable difficulty to the edge of the crowd and managed to squeeze into a wide doorway full of people, whose attention, however, was not directed to the doings on Broadway, but rather to a meeting that was being held in a large rear room. Robertson managed to find an unoccupied chair in a neighboring room, which was packed to the door, and sitting astride it, proceeded to use the back of the chair as a rest for his note-book. The story turned out to be somewhat disjointed, for every time a push from the crowd sent the man flying against the hard wall, he uttered a long series of oaths.

"For Heaven's sake," said Robertson, "quit your swearing! Make a hole in the wall behind you and hustle with your story!"

"This'll mean at least a column in the _Telegraph_," mused Robertson as the story neared its end. But he was already listening with one ear to what was going on in the big room, whence the sharp, clear tones of a speaker could be heard through the suffocating tobacco fumes. Over the heads of the attentive crowd hung a few gas-lamps, the globes of which looked like large oranges. Robertson gave his Mott Street hero the promised two dollar bill and then made his way to the rear room.

Standing in the doorway, he could clearly distinguish the words of the speaker, who was apparently protesting in the name of some workmen against a large manufacturer who had at noon dismissed three thousand of them.

The orator, who was standing on a table in the rear of the room, looked like a swaying shadow through the smoke, but his loud appeal completely filled the room, and the soul-stirring pictures he drew of the misery of the workmen, who had been turned out on the streets at the word of the millionaire manufacturer, caused his hearers' cheeks to burn with excitement.

"--and therefore," concluded the speaker, "we will not submit to the absolutely selfish action of Mr. Hanbury. As leader of our Union I ask you all to return to work at the factory to-morrow at the usual hour, and we will then a.s.sert our right to employment by simply continuing our work and ignoring our dismissal. Of course the simplest and most convenient thing for Mr. Hanbury is to shut down his plant and skip with his millions to the other side. But we demand that the factory be kept running, and if our wages aren't paid, we'll find means for getting them. Our country cannot fight the enemy even with a thousand millionaires. When the American people take the field to fight for the maintenance of American society and the American state, they have a right to demand that the families they are compelled to leave at home shall at least be suitably cared for. Again I say: We'll keep Mr.

Hanbury's factory open."

The air shook with thunderous applause, and a firm determination lighted up hundreds of faces, wrinkled and scarred from work and worry. And who would have dared oppose these men when animated by a single thought and a common purpose? Again and again enthusiastic shouts filled the room, and the speaker was a.s.sured that not a man present would fail to be on hand the next morning.

Leaning against the door-post, Robertson made notes of this occurrence also and then looked round in a vain endeavor to find a means of escape from the suffocating atmosphere. While doing so his glance fell on the spot where only a few moments before he had observed the swaying shadow of the speaker. The latter's place had been taken by another, who was making a frantic but vain effort to secure quiet and attention. With his arms waving in the air he looked through the murky atmosphere for all the world like a quickly turning wind-mill.

Gradually the applause ceased, while everybody in the room, Robertson included, was startled by the announcement of the chairman that Mr.

Hanbury was most anxious to address the a.s.semblage. A moment of astonished silence and then Bedlam broke loose. "What, Mr. Hanbury wants to speak?" "Not the old one, the young one!" "He must be mad. What does he want here?" "Three cheers for Mr. Hanbury!" "Down with him! We don't want him here, we can manage our own affairs!" "Let him speak!" "Three cheers for Mr. Hanbury!" "Be quiet, d.a.m.n you, why don't you shut up?"

These and other similarly emphatic shouts reached Robertson's ears. He hunted for his last pencil in his vest-pocket, and when he looked up again, he saw through the cloud of smoke a tall, refined person standing on the table.

"We don't want to be discharged! Don't let our wives starve!" the voices began again, and it was some time before it became possible for the speaker to make himself heard.

"Is that really Mr. Hanbury?" Robertson asked one of his neighbors.

"Yes, the son."

"It seems incredible! He's taking his life in his hands."

Gerald Hanbury's first words were lost in the uproar, but gradually the crowd began to listen. He spoke only a few sentences, and these Robertson took down in shorthand:

"--The demand just made by your speaker, and supported by all present, that my father's factory should not be shut down in these turbulent times, was made by myself this very morning, the moment I heard the news of the base attack on our country. I don't want any credit for having presented the matter to my father in most vigorous fas.h.i.+on, and I regret to say I have accomplished nothing thus far. But the same reasons which you have just heard from the lips of Mr. Bright have guided me. I, too, should consider it a crime against the free American people, if we manufacturers were to desert them in this hour of national danger. I am not going to make a long speech; I have come here simply to tell you that I shall go straight to my father from here and offer him the whole of my fortune from which to pay you your wages so long as the war lasts, and not only those employed in the factory, but also the families of those who may enter the army to defend their homes and their country."

Such an outburst of pa.s.sionate enthusiasm, such wild expressions of joy as greeted this speech Robertson had never witnessed. The crowd screamed and yelled itself hoa.r.s.e, hats were thrown into the air, and pandemonium reigned supreme. Mr. Hanbury was seized by dozens of strong arms as he jumped down from the table and was carried through the room over the heads of the crowd. After he had made the rounds of the hall several times and shaken hundreds of rough hands, the group of workmen surrounding the foreman on whose shoulders young Hanbury was enthroned marched to the entrance, while the whole a.s.sembly joined in a marching song.

By pure chance Robertson found himself near this group as they came to a halt before the door, just in time to save Mr. Hanbury from having his skull smashed against the top. So they let him slide down to the ground, and then the whole crowd made a rush for the Broadway entrance. Such a jam ensued here, that another meeting was held on the spot, which, however, consisted chiefly in cheers for Mr. Hanbury.

Suddenly some one shouted: "We'll go with Mr. Hanbury to his father!"

Inch by inch they moved towards Broadway, whence a terrific roar and wild shouts greeted the ears of the closely packed ma.s.s at the entrance.

Robertson was standing close to Mr. Hanbury, whose face shone with happy excitement. Just as they reached the entrance to the street, the crowd outside suddenly started to run north in mad haste.

"This is the proudest day of my life as an American citizen!" said Robertson to Hanbury. Hardly had he finished the sentence, when a cras.h.i.+ng sound like thunder rent the air and resounded down the whole length of Broadway, as if the latter were a canon surrounded by precipitous walls of rock.

"They're firing on the people," burst from thousands of lips in the wildest indignation.

Some one shouted: "Pull out your revolvers!" and in response red sparks flashed here and there in the crowd and the rattle of shots greeted the troops marching up Broadway. The mob seemed to be made up largely of Russians.

Just in front of Robertson and Gerald Hanbury a young woman, who had been wounded by a stray shot, lay on the pavement screaming with pain and tossing her arms wildly about.

"Three cheers for Mr. Hanbury!" came the loud cry once more from the entrance. At this instant a big workman, apparently drunk, and dressed only in s.h.i.+rt and trousers, stepped in front of the door, and swinging the spoke of a large wheel in his right hand shouted: "Where's Mr.

Hanbury?" And some one shouted as in reply: "The blackguard has turned three thousand workmen out on the streets to-day so that he can go traveling with his millions." The workman yelled once more: "Where is Mr. Hanbury?" Gerald moved forward a step and, looking the questioner straight in the eye, said: "I'm Mr. Hanbury, what do you want?"

The workman glared at him with wild, bloodshot eyes and cried in a fierce rage: "That's what I want," and quick as a flash the heavy spoke descended on Hanbury's head. The terrific blow felled Gerald to the ground, and he sank without uttering a sound beside the body of the wounded woman lying at his feet.

Robertson flew at the drunken brute as he prepared for a second blow, but some of the other laborers had already torn his weapon out of his hand, and, as if in answer to this base murder, the troops discharged a fresh volley only a hundred yards away, which was again received with shots from dozens of revolvers.

Robertson felt a stinging pain in his left arm and, in a sudden access of weakness, he leaned for support against the doorway. His senses left him for a moment, and when he came to, he saw a company of soldiers pa.s.sing the spot where he stood. The next instant the b.u.t.t-end of a musket pushed him backwards into the doorway.

"This is madness!" he cried. "You're firing on the people."

"Because the people are murdering and plundering downtown!" answered an officer. Gradually the tumult calmed down. Another company pa.s.sed by Robertson, who had sat down on the step before the door. He examined his arm and found that he was uninjured; a stone splinter must have struck his left elbow, for the violent pain soon disappeared. The mob was quickly lost to view up Broadway, while some ambulance surgeons appeared on the other side of the street. Robertson called over to them and told them Mr. Hanbury had been murdered, whereupon they crossed the street at once.

Gerald Hanbury's corpse was lifted on a stretcher.

"How terrible, they've broken in his skull," said one of the surgeons, and taking a gray shawl from the shoulders of the charwoman who was writhing with agony, he threw it over the upper part of Gerald's body.

"Where shall we take it?" asked one of the surgeons.

"To Mr. Hanbury's house, two blocks north," directed Robertson, and going up to one of the surgeons he added: "I'll take your place at the stretcher, for you can make yourself useful elsewhere."

"How about her?" asked one of the ambulance attendants, pointing to the woman on the ground.

"I'm afraid we can't do much for her," replied one of the surgeons, "she seems to be near death's door."

Then the men lifted their burden and slowly the sad procession walked up Broadway, which was now almost deserted.

A few shots could still be heard from the direction of Union Square; to the left the sky was fiery red while clouds of smoke traveled over the high buildings on Broadway, shutting out the light of the stars.

Robertson looked back. The street lay dark and still. Suddenly far away in the middle of the street two glaring white lights appeared and above them flared and waved the smoky flames of the petroleum torches, while gongs and sirens announced the approach of the fire-engines. And now they thundered past, the glaring lights from the acetylene lamps in front of the fire-engines lighting up the whole pavement. Streams of light and rus.h.i.+ng black shadows played up and down the walls of the buildings. Next came the rattling hook and ladder wagons and the hosecarts, the light from the torches dancing in red and yellow stripes on the helmets of the firemen. And then another puffing, snorting engine, with hundreds of sparks and thick smoke pouring out of its wide funnel, hiding the vehicle behind it in dark clouds. They're here one moment, and gone the next, only to make way for another hook and ladder, which sways and rattles past. The clanging of the gongs and the yells of the sirens grow fainter and fainter, and finally, through the clouds of sparks and smoke the whole weird cavalcade was seen to disappear into a side-street. Little bits of smoldering wood and pieces of red-hot coal remained lying on the street and burned with quivering, quick little flames.

As they walked on the man next to Robertson told him why the troops had been compelled to interfere. The excited mob which had tasted blood, as it were, in the Chinese quarter and become more and more frantic, had continued plundering in some of the downtown streets without any discrimination--simply yielding to an uncontrollable desire for destruction. As a result a regular battle ensued between this mob, which consisted chiefly of Russian and Italian rabble, on one hand, and Irish workingmen who were defending their homes, on the other. The Russian contingent seemed to consist largely of the riff-raff which had found such a ready refuge in New York during the Russian Revolution, and some of these undesirable citizens now had recourse to dynamite. Some of the bombs caused great loss of life among the Irish people living in that part of town, and several policemen had also been killed in the performance of their duty. It was at this point that the authorities deemed it advisable to call out the troops, with whose arrival affairs immediately began to take on a different turn.

The soldiers did not hesitate to use their bayonets against the rabble.

At several corners they encountered barricades, but they hesitated resorting to their firearms until several bombs were thrown among the troops while they were storming a barricade defended by Russian Terrorists. That was the last straw. With several volleys the soldiers drove the gang of foreign looters up Broadway, where a volley discharged near the spot where Gerald Hanbury had been murdered, dispersed the last compact ma.s.s of plunderers.

In the meantime the men had reached Mr. Hanbury's house and Robertson rang the bell. Not until they had rung loudly several times did the butler appear, and then only to announce gruffly that there was no one at home. A policeman ordered him to open the door at once, so that Mr.

Hanbury's dead body might be brought in.

"But Mr. Hanbury is at home, you can't possibly have his dead body there!"

"Tell Mr. Hanbury right away!" interrupted the policeman. "It's young Mr. Hanbury, and he's been murdered. Open the door, do you hear!"

Silently the heavy bronze door turned on its hinges and, with the policeman in the lead, the men were ushered into the high marble entrance-hall of the Hanbury palace. They carried the stretcher on which lay the murdered body of the son of the house up the broad staircase, the thick carpets deadening the sound of their steps. At the top of the stairs they lowered their burden and waited in silence. Doors opened and shut in the distance; from one of them a bright stream of light fell on the s.h.i.+ning onyx pillars and on the gilt frames of the paintings, which in the light from strange swinging lamps looked like huge black patches.