n truth, his very death was incurred by his devotion to duty.
In the great storm of 1927, while attending a meeting of our leaders, he
contracted the pneumonia of which he died.*

* The case of this young man was not unusual. Many young
men of the Oligarchy, impelled by sense of right conduct, or
their imaginations captured by the glory of the Revolution,
ethically or romantically devoted their lives to it. In
similar way, many sons of the Russian nobility played their
parts in the earlier and protracted revolution in that
country.

CHAPTER XXI

THE ROARING ABYSMAL BEAST

During the long period of our stay in the refuge, we were kept closely
in touch with what was happening in the world without, and we were
learning thoroughly the strength of the Oligarchy with which we were
at war. Out of the flux of transition the new institutions were
forming more definitely and taking on the appearance and attributes
of permanence. The oligarchs had succeeded in devising a governmental
machine, as intricate as it was vast, that worked--and this despite all
our efforts to clog and hamper.

This was a surprise to many of the revolutionists. They had not
conceived it possible. Nevertheless the work of the country went on.
The men toiled in the mines and fields--perforce they were no more than
slaves. As for the vital industries, everything prospered. The members
of the great labor castes were contented and worked on merrily. For the
first time in their lives they knew industrial peace. No more were they
worried by slack times, strike and lockout, and the union label. They
lived in more comfortable homes and in delightful cities of their
own--delightful compared with the slums and ghettos in which they had
formerly dwelt. They had better food to eat, less hours of labor, more
holidays, and a greater amount and variety of interests and pleasures.
And for their less fortunate brothers and sisters, the unfavored
laborers, the driven people of the abyss, they cared nothing. An age
of selfishness was dawning upon mankind. And yet this is not altogether
true. The labor castes were honeycombed by our agents--men whose
eyes saw, beyond the belly-need, the radiant figure of liberty and
brotherhood.

Another great institution that had taken form and was working smoothly
was the Mercenaries. This body of soldiers had been evolved out of the
old regular army and was now a million strong, to say nothi