eet away, sitting a little back, was an officer
whose uniform and badges attracted the eyes of the curious. None of
the workmen knew this brown-skinned man with the small, dark moustache
who looked so very professional a soldier, yet Dawson knew them, every
man of them, and had moved among them in their works many times. Ten
of those present were actually his own agents, working among their
fellow unionists and agitating with them--hidden sources of
information and of influence at need--and yet not one of those ten
knew that the Marine Captain upon the platform was his own official
chief. The chairman rose to speak to the men for the last time, and
Dawson sat listening and studying a small slip of paper in his hand.

The chairman said nothing that the men had not been told many times
during the past few days, but there was in his speech a note of solemn
appeal and warning which was new. The hearers shuffled their feet
uneasily, for most of them felt uneasy; they were, as I have said,
most of them honest men. But when the chairman had sat down, and the
men began, one after another, to reply, it appeared at once that there
was present an element not honest, even seditious. Dawson smiled to
himself, and studied his slip of paper, for the snake, whose head he
had come to cut off, was beginning to rear itself before him. Hints
began to appear that there was a strong minority at least which was
unwilling both to fight and to work for a country which was none of
theirs--"What has this country done for us that we should bleed and
sweat for it? It has starved us and sweated us to make profits out of
us, and now in its extremity slobbers us with fair words." At last one
man rose, a thin-faced, wild-eyed man, who, under happier conditions,
might have been a preacher or a writer, and delivered a speech which
was rankly seditious. "The workers," he declared, "are being shackled,
gagged, and robbed. Our enemy is not the German Kaiser. Our enemy
consists of that small, cunning, treacherous, well-organised, and
highly respectable section of the community who, by means of the money
power, compels the workers to sweat in order that their bellies may be
full and their fine ladies gowned in gorgeous raiment. They pass a
Munitions Act to chain the worker to his master. They 'dilute' labour
to call into being an invisible army which can be mobilised at short
notice to defeat the struggles of striking artisans. The attack of the
masters must