Page:MacGrath--The drums of jeopardy.djvu/238

228 a physical frenzy. Once those gorilla-like hands reached out for him Stefani Gregor's neck would break.

"Be still, fiddler! You know what I mean. There will be no upper class, which is idleness and wastefulness; no middle class, the usurers, the gamblers of necessities, the war makers. One great body of equals shall issue forth. All shall labour."

"For what?"

"The common good."

"Your Lenine offered peace, bread, and work for the overthrow of Kerensky. What you have given—murder and famine and idleness. Can there be common good that is based upon the blood of innocents? Did Ivan ever harm a soul? Have I?"

"You!" Karlov trembled. "You—with your damned green stones! Did you not lure Anna to dishonour with the promise to show her the drums, the sight of which would make all her dreams come true? A child, with a fairy story in her head!" "You speak of Anna! If you hadn't been spouting your twaddle in taverns you would have had time to instruct Anna against guilelessness and superstition."

"How much did they pay you? Did you fiddle for her to dance? … But I left their faces in the mud!"

A madman, with two obsessions. A pitiable Samson with his arms round the pillars of society to