throbbed and ate its destructive way slowly but surely on, and Sergius
Thord, who longed to lay a sharp knife against it and cut it out, for
the health of the whole community, was as powerless as Dante in hell to
cure the evils he witnessed. Yet it was not too much to say that he
would have given his life to ease another's pain,--as swiftly and as
readily as he would have taken life without mercy, in the pursuit of
what he imagined to be a just vengeance.

"How vain, after all, is my labour!" he thought--"How helpless I am to
move the self-centred powers of the Government and the Throne! Even
were all these wretched multitudes to rise with me, and make havoc of
the whole city, should we move so much as one step higher out of the
Gehenna of poverty and crime? Almost I doubt it!"

He walked on past dark open doorways, where some of the miserable
inhabitants of the dens within, stood to inhale the fresh wet air of
the rainy night. His tall form was familiar to most of them,--if they
were considered as wolves of humanity in the sight of the law, they
were all faithful dogs to him; doing as he bade, running where he
commanded, ready at any moment to assemble at any given point and burn
and pillage, or rob and slay. There were no leaders in the political
government,--but this one leader of the massed poor could, had he
chosen, have burned down the city. But he did not choose. He had a far-
sighted, clear brain,--and though he had sworn to destroy abuses
wherever he could find them, he moved always with caution; and his
plans were guided, not by impulse alone, but by earnest consideration
for the future. He was marked out by the police as a dangerous
Socialist; and his movements were constantly tracked and dodged, but so
far, he had done nothing which could empower his arrest. He was a free
subject in a free country; and provided he created no open disturbance