'These,' replied the conspirator, 'are the devices by which I continue to exist. Conceive me now, accused before one of your unjust tribunals; conceive the various witnesses appearing, and the singular variety of their reports! One will have visited me in this drawing-room as it originally stood; a second finds it as it is to-night; and to-morrow or next day, all may have been changed. If you love romance (as artists do), few lives are more romantic than that of the obscure individual now addressing you. Obscure yet famous.
Mine is an anonymous, infernal glory. By infamous means, I work towards my bright purpose. I found the liberty and peace of a poor country, desperately abused; the future smiles upon that land; yet, in the meantime, I lead the existence of a hunted brute, work towards appalling ends, and practice hell's dexterities.'
Somerset, glass in hand, contemplated the strange fanatic before him, and listened to his heated rhapsody, with indescribable bewilderment. He looked him in the face with curious particularity; saw there the marks of education; and wondered the more profoundly.
'Sir,' he said - 'for I know not whether I should still address you as Mr. Jones - '
'Jones, Breitman, Higginbotham, Pumpernickel, Daviot, Henderland, by all or any of these you may address me,' said the plotter; 'for all I have at some time borne. Yet that which I most prize, that which is most feared, hated, and obeyed, is not a name to be found in your directories; it is not a name current in post-offices or banks; and, indeed, like the celebrated clan M'Gregor, I may justly describe myself as being nameless by day. But,' he continued, rising to his feet, 'by night, and among my desperate followers, I am the redoubted Zero.'
Somerset was unacquainted with the name, but he politely expressed surprise and gratification. 'I am to understand,' he continued, 'that, under this alias, you follow the profession of a dynamiter?'
The plotter had resumed his seat and now replenished the glasses.
'I do,' he said. 'In this dark period of time, a star - the star of dynamite - has risen for the oppressed; and among those who practise its use, so thick beset with dangers and attended by such incredible difficulties and disappointments, few have been more assiduous, and not many - ' He paused, and a shade of embarrassment appeared upon his face - 'not many have been more successful than myself.'
'I can imagine,' observed Somerset, 'that, from the sweeping consequences looked for, the career is not devoid of interest. You have, besides, some of the entertainment of the game of hide and seek. But it would still seem to me - I speak as a layman - that nothing could be simpler or safer than to deposit an infernal machine and retire to an adjacent county to await the painful consequences.'
'You speak, indeed,' returned the plotter, with some evidence of warmth, 'you speak, indeed, most ignorantly. Do you make nothing, then, of such a peril as we share this moment? Do you think it nothing to occupy a house like this one, mined, menaced, and, in a word, literally tottering to its fall?'
'Good God!' ejaculated Somerset.
