and when he discovered this they possessed him more than ever. For they were at once so grateful to him and yet so hopeless. He crouched under their miserable matsheds with them in the cold late autumn rain. They looked at each other and at him and shook their heads, and a man said, “You speak out of your heart’s goodness, and yet it is no use. No one can help us. The truth is, there is no other way for us to get even our poor food. Who wants us? No one, anywhere. Who cares whether we live or die, or has ever cared?”
“Then you yourselves must care,” he told them.
“What can we do?” they said. “We can do nothing—and we know it.”
Little by little he began to try to teach them they were of some worth.
“You must be strong enough to hope,” he told them. “To have no hope is to give up tomorrow as well as today.”
But it was a long time before he could persuade them there was any reason even for hope that there would ever be anything better. Bit by bit, over weeks, he persuaded a few men to come to an open place beyond the huts, where not many people passed, and there he began to teach them the military drill which he had himself been taught. They shuffled their heavy feet and hung their heads shamefaced, but he compelled them and scolded them.
“Hold up your heads!” he commanded them. “Some day you will have to fight for yourselves.”
By now he had explained to them often the whole plan of the days to come, how the revolutionary army would sweep down the river, how there would be a general strike declared in all the mills—everywhere they were working for that strike—and in each place there must be a workers’ brigade, men who could march and shoot and be ready to attack from within while the revolutionary army attacked from without. They listened, doubting everything.
“We are like men who flee from a dragon to find a tiger in the path,” one said.
In the end I-wan had cried, “Let only the men who believe what I say, stay to learn!”
Instantly the older men had gone back to their huts, choosing the miseries they knew. But seventeen young men remained and with these I-wan began his brigade. But even they were doubtful until one day I-wan gave them each a gun. For plans were growing quickly real, as autumn grew into winter. To a certain shop whose master had been bribed, a certain number of guns was sent for their band, not all at once, but ten by ten. And I-wan had claimed eighteen, one for himself and one for each of his seventeen young men. He gave them by night one by one, here into a hut and there into a hut, and they were hidden in the piles of straw upon which the people slept and under the rags of their garments. One by one he taught his men how to shoot, meeting them far outside the city in the fields. If anyone asked them what they did, they said they were hunters.
On the piece of open ground they had marched without their guns. But it was different now when they marched. They had new strength because each thought of the weapon he now had been given. And I-wan came and went secretly at night through the gate in the garden. He had bribed the gardener, and the gardener laughed and gave him another key.
“You are like I-ko, too!” he said. “Ah-ha, young sir!”
I-wan smiled. Let the old man think he was going out to pretty girls and flower-houses as I-ko did!
Each worked blindly in his own place through that autumn and the winter. En-lan knew what every one in the band did, but beyond that he, too, knew nothing, except that all through the city there were bands like theirs, each doing its allotted work. Somewhere there were those who knew the whole, but where they were or who they were, no one knew. I-wan felt himself part of a great secret body, through which the life blood flowed, whose heart they could all feel beating, whose brain directed, and yet they knew no more.
All that had seemed real in his life before now became of no importance. His family he scarcely
“Then you yourselves must care,” he told them.
“What can we do?” they said. “We can do nothing—and we know it.”
Little by little he began to try to teach them they were of some worth.
“You must be strong enough to hope,” he told them. “To have no hope is to give up tomorrow as well as today.”
But it was a long time before he could persuade them there was any reason even for hope that there would ever be anything better. Bit by bit, over weeks, he persuaded a few men to come to an open place beyond the huts, where not many people passed, and there he began to teach them the military drill which he had himself been taught. They shuffled their heavy feet and hung their heads shamefaced, but he compelled them and scolded them.
“Hold up your heads!” he commanded them. “Some day you will have to fight for yourselves.”
By now he had explained to them often the whole plan of the days to come, how the revolutionary army would sweep down the river, how there would be a general strike declared in all the mills—everywhere they were working for that strike—and in each place there must be a workers’ brigade, men who could march and shoot and be ready to attack from within while the revolutionary army attacked from without. They listened, doubting everything.
“We are like men who flee from a dragon to find a tiger in the path,” one said.
In the end I-wan had cried, “Let only the men who believe what I say, stay to learn!”
Instantly the older men had gone back to their huts, choosing the miseries they knew. But seventeen young men remained and with these I-wan began his brigade. But even they were doubtful until one day I-wan gave them each a gun. For plans were growing quickly real, as autumn grew into winter. To a certain shop whose master had been bribed, a certain number of guns was sent for their band, not all at once, but ten by ten. And I-wan had claimed eighteen, one for himself and one for each of his seventeen young men. He gave them by night one by one, here into a hut and there into a hut, and they were hidden in the piles of straw upon which the people slept and under the rags of their garments. One by one he taught his men how to shoot, meeting them far outside the city in the fields. If anyone asked them what they did, they said they were hunters.
On the piece of open ground they had marched without their guns. But it was different now when they marched. They had new strength because each thought of the weapon he now had been given. And I-wan came and went secretly at night through the gate in the garden. He had bribed the gardener, and the gardener laughed and gave him another key.
“You are like I-ko, too!” he said. “Ah-ha, young sir!”
I-wan smiled. Let the old man think he was going out to pretty girls and flower-houses as I-ko did!
Each worked blindly in his own place through that autumn and the winter. En-lan knew what every one in the band did, but beyond that he, too, knew nothing, except that all through the city there were bands like theirs, each doing its allotted work. Somewhere there were those who knew the whole, but where they were or who they were, no one knew. I-wan felt himself part of a great secret body, through which the life blood flowed, whose heart they could all feel beating, whose brain directed, and yet they knew no more.
All that had seemed real in his life before now became of no importance. His family he scarcely
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