in all his muscles on his well-trained
cyclist's legs. The siren called. The bells rang sharply through the
shops. Five minutes later another shot was heard behind the machine
halls. Engineers went watching back and forth. The individual
workingman disappeared behind the steel monsters; nothing was seen but
the movement of shining metal limbs. There was a roar, and there a
crash. Now an iron cry echoed through space. An uncanny shrill ringing
of bells followed. The walls seemed to throw back a cruel hard
laughter. The gearing cracked and rolled. The belts were swaying. Cold
bluish lightning flashed all over the machines. The idol wheezed and
squealed.

Sabotage had recently become more frequent. Several men had been
caught, expelled from the organization and forced to leave the
iron-works. If they refused, they were given up to the authorities.
Hoeflinger was the most bitter foe of those malefactors. One day he
again discovered that screws had been loosened and that some parts of
the idol were even missing. In this way the black sheep among the
workingmen were trying to take revenge. In the lower strata of the
force there was a tendency toward disorganization. A group of secret
anarchists and born marauders hoped to bring about general disorder
during the strike and to have an occasion either to derive some
personal profit or to destroy the whole plant. Though Victor did not
belong to them and by his inborn middle-class honesty was separated
from those wild rebels, still there was a bridge leading from the
shores of youthful discontent and ignorance to the camp of those
law-breakers, and there was always intercourse through the medium of
deserters and newsmongers. Victor realized the danger of sabotage, but
he could not grow indignant about it, because he really wished injury
to the capitalists.

Hoeflinger was of course not ignorant of his ideas. Victor had a bad
conscience, though this time he was innocent. He suspected that
Hoeflinger distrusted him and anticipated that he would make use of this
opportunity to frame a case against him. He spent a half day full of
hatred and torture in helping him to repair the damage, while the
engineers walked about excitedly. That clay there was not a moment when
Victor did not wish the death of Hoeflinger and in his mind was menace
to his life. Pain gnawed at his very vitals. He felt as if his lungs
were compressed in iron hoops. From time to time his teeth chattered.
Sometime