Hartmann, the Anarchist

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 57323-h.htm or 57323-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/57323/pg57323-images.html) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/57323/57323-h.zip)

Images of the original pages are available through the Google Books Library Project. See https://books.google.com/books?id=DWooAAAAMAAJ&hl=en

Transcriber’s note:

Enclosed italics font in underscores.

Enclosed bold font in =equals=.

HARTMANN THE ANARCHIST;

Or,

The Doom of the Great City.

[Illustration: SHELLING THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT. See page 147.]

HARTMANN THE ANARCHIST;

Or,

The Doom of the Great City.

by

E. DOUGLAS FAWCETT.

Illustrated by Fred. T. Jane.

London Edward Arnold 37 Bedford Street, Strand, W.C. Publisher to the India Office 1893 [All rights reserved]

Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London & Bungay.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

CONTENTS.

CHAP. PAGE

I. DARK HINTS 1

II. THE ‘SHADOW’ OF HARTMANN 18

III. A MOTHER’S TROUBLES 36

IV. FUGITIVES FROM THE LAW 46

V. A STRANGE AWAKENING 57

VI. ON THE DECK OF THE ‘ATTILA’ 70

VII. THE CAPTAIN OF THE ‘ATTILA’ 79

VIII. A STRANGE VOYAGE 95

IX. IN AT THE DEATH 106

X. THE FIRST BLOW 125

XI. A TEMPEST OF DYNAMITE 137

XII. HOW I LEFT THE ‘ATTILA’ 155

XIII. IN THE STREETS OF THE BURNING CITY 168

XIV. A NOCTURNAL RIDE 177

XV. THE MORROW OF THE DISASTERS 186

XVI. THE LAST OF THE ‘ATTILA’ 201

With seventeen Full-Page and several smaller Illustrations by Fred. T. Jane.

HARTMANN THE ANARCHIST;

OR,

THE DOOM OF THE GREAT CITY.

CHAPTER I. DARK HINTS.

All things considered, I rate October 10th, 1920, as the most momentous day of my life. Why it should be so styled is not at once apparent. My career has not been unromantic; during many years I have rambled over the globe, courting danger wherever interest led me, and later on have splashed through shambles such as revolutions have seldom before been red with. More than once I have tripped near the cave where Death lies in ambush. I am now an old man, but my memory is green and vigorous. I can look back calmly on the varied spectacle of life and weigh each event impartially in the balance. And thus looking, I refer my most fateful experience to an hour during an afternoon conversation in my dull, dingy, severe-looking quarters in Bayswater.

From romance to the commonplace is seldom a long trudge. On this occasion a quite commonplace letter determined my destiny. There was nothing of any gravity in the letter itself. It was a mere invitation to meet some friends. Most people would stare vacantly were I to show it to them. They would stare still more vacantly were I to say that it enabled me to write this terrible story. Bear in mind, however, that a lever, insignificant in itself, switches an express train off one track on to another. In a like manner a very insignificant letter switched me off from the tracks of an ordinary work-a-day mortal into those of the companion and biographer of a Nero.

* * * * *