PUTTING THE LIGHT OUT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 17597, 9 October 1920, Page 1 (Supplement)

PUTTING THE LIGHT OUT.

A SEQUEL.

BY MATANGA.

Who they were doesn't much matter now. From their faces, lit up by the guttering candle that made, with the chilling draught's aid, a queer shadow pantomime upon the bare walls of the attic where these men were met, you could not tell what unlucky country had spawned the three of them. No beloved motherland had bestowed upon them any proud distinction of physical feature. But they were remarkable, for all that, and they had made themselves known a well if not favourably.

Their hands, whenever their nervous restlessness allowed them to lie for a brief instant upon the uncovered tableSbout which they sat, showed white and soft in the. candle-light. Their eyes, unrestful like their hands, shot keen glances here and there as eager tongues claimed heeding or looked through the intervals of silence out of the open window near by. Their voices were hoarse and low, as if they had been often strained in declaiming what their hearts did not dictate, but had been schooled also to the subdued pitch of conspiracy.

Yet ihere seemed to-night no need to curb speech, for the city office-tenements that filled the floors beneath them had been deserted sines sundown for want of lighting, and through the open window came the surety that even at that early night hour few folk were abroad. Queen Street, a block away, had been for months without any but foot and horse traffic. There was no sound from the side street beneath. The whole world without appeared inert ; and, save' for the stars that seemed to take but a distant interest in mundane things, no light twinkled over the wide space of water that stretched from the Waitemata far to the east and north. Wherever their eyes wandered frcm that window, the lights were out.

I " Ah! Now at last we have achieved I tire revolution!*' breathed rather than j spoke the burliest of the three. "It has j been a long time coming. It had to | wait until we got possession of the coal. j They thought to beat us with their threats j to close the State mines: we closed them ourselves'. They made oversea bargains: we held up the shipping. They . dallied with hydro-electric schemes till we starved them of labour for carrying them out." Privations of the Poor. "Starved*" interrupted one of the others, whose own body bore no obtrusive marks of privation. 'Yes: T but 'in the process w-j starved some labourers, too; and . some awkward situations arose. Remember the Runanga riot? There-f at any rate, was coal in plenty : but the miners couldn't eat. it, couldn't wear it, couldn't j get much amusement out of it, they told jus They would have more strike pay or | liberty to work. That *riot nearly ruined 1113. And you know the factory -hand's J new gagthat he. can't feed his children j without a coal-shovel '." .

" But you can't have a revolution without some revolutionists getting hurt," countered the burly one, oracularly. " What arc a few thousand starved work-people to the great cause.?—our cause, I mean. Poor fools ! A few less won't make much difference, anyway. . We are to be the masters.now—not they.-any more than the bloated capitalists. You and I are on top somebody must be at the bottom! Now that oil fuels have run out, the fight's curs. No trains, no steamers, no trains, no buses, no machines, move without our permission. No meals* can be served in i.he restaurants until we —through the stomachs of the people lies the shortest cut to our' own way." "True; but.of what people?" asked the third member of the group, his speech betokening a quieter mind than his fellows'. " The frequenters of restaurants are mostly work-people*—our people. Cornering ; the coal left the rich untouched at first. They travelled by- motor-car instead of train or tram. They cooked with fuel from their own plantations. They could afford a little personal loss when factories closed down. They had reserves of clothing and footwear, and it, mattered little to them that the production of these things suddenly ceased. Anti when we put out the lights it was the common-folk's night school and the poor-man's picture entertainment that went "out of business first."

That had to be. Faintheart," was the burly one's rejoinder. "at first. But that stage is past Look"—and he swept a Land across the window space. " Coast lights, harbour lights, street lamps,—all out. Not one house in twenty has so i.Tjch as a candle. Benzine is exhausted. That tin"indicating the four-gallon holder that stood in an inner corner of the room"is almost the last in the city. The rich are no better off than the poor now." ,A Level of Loss.

"And that means," bitterly commented the quieter disputant. " that the poor are no worse off than the rich. That's spoiled our cause. Irritation strikes were better than this grand slam. We've gone too far. I warned you long ago. It was a poor man that> was done to death in an Jiilightcd down-town street on Mooday night. When the hospital lights went out without warning a fortnight back, it was a working p umber whose life slipped through the surgeon's fingers at the operating tablean artery end couldn't be located quickly enough in the darkness. And listen! in every street in this city there's always somebody ill —somebody to whom the nights are a thousand times longer than the days; .light is the one relief. The horror of tin: unlit sickrrx m has sent many a patient mad and eaten t.way the endurance of those who care for them. Have you heard about "those who look for the morning " and " the child's sob in the darkness':" Why didn't i we think of them before':'' A cynical smile crossed the burly one's ; face ; "then a scowl. Bali '" he began. ! Bui he checked himself, listening. A ; hurried step disturbed the quiet of the I sidewalk; a key turned ; the stairway ; creaked: and in a few moments a groping ! ■ foot was heard on the topmost landing. i The door of the attic opened. " Well, i j what now, comrade'.'" greeted the in- | ' tomer. H:s words came unevenly, pro- I :p- lied by his panting breath. " Last • night . . . mail steamer Tuatara . . . i ; smash on '1 iri . . . no light . . . j i heavy sea running . . - lost with nearly j ' all hands . . . Many Alanders . . . < i survivors brought by launch . . . crowd | ' coming from foreshore. . . . this place • i marked . • want to lynch you . . . | i l'ut your light out . . '. Get for your, ' lives I" . ', I lives . ; A muffled roar from a distance hroke ■■ ia, ross his last spasm of speech. " Quick '. I i The manhole to the roof '." cried the burly • : one. The table was dragged to a corner ; of the room and the boarded cover of the : n'anhole pushed partly aside, by his : vigorous arms. Miscalculating his hold in i the- flickering light, he clutched the loose ' cover with one upstretched hand, and jumped. H;s weight pulled it. angle wise through the manh He and it struck him ' •is it fell. He swayed, and the table overtmned beneath him flinging the li-ng- , wicked candle to the floor; a projecting • nail on the manhole cover went with a I tearing thriut into the tin of benzine. ! In a moment the attic was ablaze and | the witid swept the flames into the roof. ' When iln- crowd entered I lie side-street. ' i!,-'ii ruled victims were helpless in the | i i.gu'ting -ire. Its tierce fury, sendingI l.'oadcast oof" 1 light and heat, made little ! of their boast that such forces waited on i their consent. Ere the morning came, the '• 'Jars whoso glow no foolish man may uare to dim shone on the ash heap that entombed these traitors to their kind, and the sundawn brought a day free from their dark designs.