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diff --git a/old/8lrds10.txt b/old/8lrds10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..49849ec --- /dev/null +++ b/old/8lrds10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11758 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lord of the Sea, by M. P. Shiel + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Lord of the Sea + +Author: M. P. Shiel + +Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6993] +[This file was first posted on February 20, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO Latin-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE LORD OF THE SEA *** + + + + +Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreaders. + + + +THE LORD OF THE SEA + +By M. P. SHIEL + + + + + +CONTENTS + + I. THE EXODUS + + II. THE FEZ + + III. THE HUNTING-CROP + + IV. THE SWOON + + V. REID'S + + VI. "PEARSON'S WEEKLY" + + VII. THE ELM + + VIII. THE METEOR + + IX. HOGARTH'S GUNS + + X. ISAAC + + XI. WROXHAM BROAD + + XII. THE ROSE + + XIII. OUT OF THE WORLD + + XIV. THE PRIEST + + XV. MONSIGNOR + + XVI. THE ROPE + + XVII. OLD TOM'S LETTER + + XVIII. CHLOROFORM + + XIX. THE GREAT BELL + + XX. THE INFIRMARY + + XXI. IN THE DEEP + + XXII. OLD TOM + + XXIII. UNDER THE ELM + + XXIV. FRANKL SEES THE METEORITE + + XXV. CHURCH ARCHITECTURE + + XXVI. FRANKL AND O'HARA + + XXVII. THE BAG OF LIGHT + + XXVIII. THE LETTER + + XXIX. PRIORITY OF CLAIM + + XXX. MR. BEECH + + XXXI. THE HAMMERS + + XXXII. WONDER + + XXXIII. REEFS OF STEEL + + XXXIV. THE "KAISER" + + XXXV. THE CUP OF TREMBLING + + XXXVI. THE "BOODAH" AND THE BATTLESHIPS + + XXXVII. THE STRAITS + +XXXVIII. THE MANIFESTO + + XXXIX. THE "BOODAH'S" LOCK-UP + + XL. THE WEDDING + + XLI. THE VISIT + + XLII. REBEKAH TELLS + + XLIII. THE LAND BILL + + XLIV. THE REGENCY + + XLV. ESTRELLA, THE PROPHETESS + + XLVI. THE ORDER IN COUNCIL + + XLVII. THE EMIGRANTS + + XLVIII. THE SEA-FORTS + + XLIX. THE DÉBACLE + + L. THE DECISION + + LI. THE MODEL + + + + +I + +THE EXODUS + + +In the Calle Las Gabias--one of those by-streets of Lisbon below St. +Catherine--there occurred one New Year a little event in the +Synagogue there worth a mention in this history of Richard, Lord of +the Sea. + +It was Kol Nidrè, eve of the Day of Atonement, and the little Beth- +El, sweltering in a dingy air, was transacting the long-drawn +liturgy, when, behind the curtain where the women sat, an old dame +who had been gazing upward smote her palms together, and let slip a +little scream: "The Day is coming...!" + +She then fainted, and till near ten lay on her bed, lit by the Yom +Kippur candle, with open eyes, but without speech, her sere face +still beautiful, on each temple a little pyramid of plaits, with +gold-and-coral ear-rings: a holy _belle._ About ten P.M. three women +watching heard her murmur: "My child, Rebekah...!" + +She was childless, and whom she meant was not known. However, soon +afterwards there was a form at the amulet-guarded door, and Estrella +sat up, saying: "Rebekah, my child..." + +A young lady of twenty-two ran in and embraced her, saying: "I have +been to Paris and Madrid with my father--just arrived, so flew to +see you. We leave for London to-night". + +"No: I shall keep you seven days. Tell Frankl _I_ say so. What +jewels! You have grown into a rose of glory, the eyes are profounder +and blacker, and that brow was made for high purpose. Tell me--have +you a lover?" + +"No, mamma Estrella". + +"Then, why the blush?" + +"It is nothing at all," Miss Frankl answered: "five years ago when +at school in Bristol I thrice saw through a grating a young man with +whom I was frivolous enough to speak. Happily, I do not know what +has become of him--a wild, divine kind of creature, of whom I am +well rid, and never likely to see again". + +The old lady mused. "What was he?" + +"A sailor". + +"Not a common sailor?" + +"I fancy so, mamma". + +"What name?" + +"Hogarth--Richard". + +"A Jew?" + +"An Englishman!" + +She laughed, as the old lady's eyes opened in sacred horror, and as +she whispered: "Child!" + +Within three months of that night, one midnight the people of Prague +rose and massacred most of the Jewish residents; the next day the +flame broke out in Buda-Pesth; and within a week had become a +revolution. + +On the twelfth morning one of two men in a City bank said to the +other: "Come, Frankl, you cannot fail a man in this crisis--I only +want 80,000 on all Westring--" + +"No good to me, my lord," answered Frankl, who, though a man of only +forty--short, with broad shoulders,--already had his skin divided up +like a dry leaf; in spite of which, he was handsome, with a nose +ruled straight and long, a black beard on his breast. + +But the telephone rattled and Frankl heard these words at the +receiver: "Wire to hand from Wertheimer: Austrian Abgeordneten-haus +passed a Resolution at noon virtually expelling Jewish Race...." + +When Frankl turned again he had already resolved to possess Westring +Vale, and was saying to himself: "Within six months the value of +English land should be--doubled". + +The bargain was soon made now: and within one week the foresight of +Frankl began to be justified. + +Austria, during those days, was a nation of vengeful hearts: for the +Jews had acquired half its land, and had mortgages on the other +half: peasant, therefore, and nobleman flamed alike. And this fury +was contagious: now Germany--now France had it--Anti-Semite laws-- +like the old May-Laws--but harsher still; and streaming they came, +from the Leopoldstadt, from Bukowina, from the Sixteen Provinces, +from all Galicia, from the Nicolas Colonies, from Lisbon, with +wandering foot and weary breast--the Heines, Cohens, Oppenheimers-- +Sephardim, Aschkenasim. And Dover was the new Elim. + +With alarm Britain saw them come! but before she could do anything, +the wave had overflowed it; and by the time it was finished there +was no desire to do anything: for within eight months such a tide of +prosperity was floating England as has hardly been known in a +country. + +The reason of this was the increased number of hands--each making +more things than its owner could consume himself, and so making +every other richer. + +There came, however, a change--almost suddenly--due to the new +demand for land, the "owners" determining to await still further +rises, before letting. This checked industry: for now people, +debarred from the land, had only air. + +In Westring Vale, as everywhere, times were hard. It was now the +property of Baruch Frankl: for at the first failure of Lord Westring +to meet terms, Frankl had struck. + +Now, one of the yeomen of Westring was a certain Richard Hogarth. + + + + +II + +THE FEZ + + +Frankl took up residence at Westring in September, and by November +every ale-house, market, and hiring in Westring had become a scene +of discussion. + +The cause was this: Frankl had sent out to his tenants a Circular +containing the words: + +"...tenants to use for wear in the Vale a _fez with tassel_ as the +Livery of the Manor...the will of the Lord of the Manor...no +exception..." + +But though intense, the excitement was not loud: for want was in +many a home; though after three weeks there were still six farmers +who resisted. + +And it happened one day that five of these at the Martinmas "Mop," +or hiring, were discussing the matter, when they spied the sixth +boring his way, and one exclaimed: "Yonder goes Hogarth! Let's hear +what _he's_ got to say!" and set to calling. + +Hogarth twisted, and came winning his way, taller than the crowd, +with "What's up? Hullo, Clinton--not a moment to spare to-day--" + +"We were a-talking about that Circular--!" cried one. + +At that moment two other men joined the group: one a dark-skinned +Jew of the Moghrabîm; the other a young man--an English author--on +tour. And these two heard what passed. + +Hogarth stood suspended, finding no words, till one cried: "Do you +mean to put the cap on?" + +He laughed a little now. "_I!_ The whip! The whip!"--he showed his +hunting-crop, and was gone. + +His manner of speech was rapid, and he had a hoarse sort of voice, +almost as of sore-throat. + +Of the two not farmers, one--the author--enquired as to his name, +and farm; the other man--the Moghrabîm Jew-that evening recounted to +Frankl the words which he had heard. + + * * * * * * * + +One afternoon, two weeks later, Loveday, the author, was leaning +upon a stile, talking to Margaret Hogarth; and he said: "I love you! +If you could _deign_--" + +"Truth is," she said, "you are in love with my brother, Dick, and +you think it is me!" + +She was a woman of twenty-five, large and buxom, though neat- +waisted, her face beautifully fresh and wholesome, and he of middle- +size, with a lazy ease of carriage, small eyes set far apart, a +blue-velvet jacket, duck trousers very dirty, held up by a belt, a +red shirt, an old cloth hat, a careless carle, greatly famed. + +"But it isn't of your brother, but of _you_, that I am wanting to +speak! Tell me--" + +"No--I can't. I am a frivolous old woman to be talking to you about +such things at all! But, since it is as you say, wait, perhaps I may +be able--But I must be going now--" + +There was embarrassment in her now: and suddenly she walked away, +going to meet--another man. + +She passed through stubble-wheat, disappeared in a pine-wood, and +came out upon the Waveney towing-path. On the towing-path came +Frankl to meet her. + +He took her hand, holding his head sideward with a cajoling +fondness, wearing the flowing caftan, and a velvet cap which widened +out a-top, with puckers. + +"Well, sweetheart..." he said. + +"But, you know, I begged you not to use such words to me!"--from +her. + +"What, and I who am such a sweetheart of yours?"--his speech very +foreign, yet slangily correct, being, in fact, _all_ slang. + +"No," she said, "you spoke different at first, and that is why--But +this must be the last, unless you say out clearly now what it is you +mean--" + +"Now, you are too hard. You know I am wild in love with you. And so +are you with me--" + +"_I_?"--with shrinking modesty in her under-looking eyes. "Oh, no-- +don't have any delusions like that about me, please! You said that +you liked me: and as I am in the habit of speaking the truth myself, +I thought that--perhaps--But my meeting you, to be frank with you, +was for the sake of my brother". + +"Well, you are as candid as they make them," he said, eyeing her +with his mild eye. "But what's the matter with your brother? Hard +up?" + +"He's worried about something". "He must have some harvest-money put +away?" + +"He has something in Reid's Bank at Yarmouth, I believe". + +"Well, shall I tell you what's the matter with him? He's _afraid_, +your brother. He has refused to wear the cap, and he thinks that I +shall be down upon him like a thousand of bricks...But suppose I +exempt him, and you and I be friends? That's fair". + +"What _do_ you mean?" + +"Give us _one_--" + +"Believe me, you talk--!" + +"Don't let your angry passions rise. I am going to have a kiss off +those handsome lips--" + +Before she could stir he was in the act of the embrace; but it was +never accomplished: for he saw her colour fade, heard crackling +twigs, a step! as someone emerged from the wood ten yards away-- +Richard. + +The thought in Margaret's mind was this: "Father in Heaven, whatever +will he think of me here with this Jew?" + +Hogarth stopped, staring at this couple; did not understand: +Margaret should have been home from "class-meeting"...only, he +observed her heaving bosom; then twisted about and went, his walk +rapid, in his hand a hunting-crop, by which, with a very sure aim, +he batted away pebbles from his path, stooping each time. + + + + +III + +THE HUNTING-CROP + + +Along the towing-path to the farmhouse. He did not look behind: was +like a man who has received a wound, and wonders whence. + +A pallor lay under his brown skin, brown almost as an Oriental's, +and he was called "the Black Hogarth"--the Hogarths being Saxon, on +the mantel in the dining-room being a very simple coat--a Bull on +Gules. But Richard was a startling exception. His hair grew away +flat and sparse from his round brow; on his cheeks three moles, jet- +black in their centre. Handsome one called his hairless face: the +nose delicate, the lips negroid in their thick pout, the left eye +red, streaked with bloodshot, the eyes' brown brightness very +beautiful and strange, with a sideward stare wild as that sideward +stare of the race-horse; and the lids had a way of lifting largely +anon. + +He passed through Lagden Dip orchard into the old homestead, into +the dining-room, where cowered the old Hogarth, smoking, his hair a +mist of wool-white. + +He glanced up, but said nothing; and Richard said nothing, but +walked about, his arms folded, frowning turbulently, while the +twilight deepened, and Margaret did not come. + +Now he planted a chair near the old man, sat, and shouted: "Listen, +sir!" + +Up went the old Hogarth's hand to push forward the inquiring ear, +while Richard, who, till now, had guarded him from all knowledge of +the Circular, snatched it from his breast-pocket, and loudly read. + +As the sense entered his head, up the old man shot his palms, +shaking from them astonishment and deprecation, with nods; then, +with opening arms, and an under-look at Richard: "Well, there is +nothing to be said: the land is his...." + +Hogarth leapt up and walked out; he muttered: "The land is his, but +he is mine...." + +The question at the bottom of his mind had been this: "Does +_Margaret_, too, go with the land?" But he did not utter it even to +himself: went out, fingering the crop, stalking toward the spot +where he had left the man and the woman. But Margaret was then +coming through the wood; Frankl had gone up to the Hall; and Hogarth +crossed the bridge and went climbing toward the mansion. + +It was a Friday evening, and up at the Hall the Sabbath had +commenced, two Sabbath-tapers shining now upon the Mezuzzah at the +dining-room door, Frankl being of the Cohanîm, the priestly class--a +Jew of Jews. As he had passed in, two Moghrabîm Jews had saluted him +with: "Shabbath"; and mildly he had replied: "Shabbath". + +But swift upon his steps strode Hogarth: Hogarth was at the lodge- +gates--was on the drive--was in the hall. + +But, since Frankl was just preparing to celebrate the _kiddush_, "He +cannot be seen now", said a man in the hall. + +"He must", said Hogarth. + +As he brushed past, two men raised an outcry: but Hogarth continued +his swift way, and had half traversed a _salon_ hung with a chaos of +cut-glass when from a side-door appeared the inquiring face of +Frankl in pious skull-cap. + +"What is it?" he cried--"I cannot be seen--" + +He recognized the man of the towing-path, and on his face grew a +look of scare, as he backed toward a study: but before he could slam +the door, Hogarth, too, was within. + +"Who are you? What is it?" whined Frankl, who was both hard master +and cringing slave. + +Hogarth produced the Circular: but of Margaret not a word. + +"Caps-and-tassels, you?"--flicking Frankl on the cheek with a fillip +of his middle finger. + +"You dare assault me! Why, I swear, I meant no harm--" + +Down came the whip upon the Jew's shoulders, Frankl, as the stings +penetrated his caftan, giving out one roar, and the next instant, +seeing the two Jews at the doorway, groaned the mean whisper: "Oh, +don't make a man look small before the servants", crying out +immediately: "Help!" + +Soon five or six servants were at the door, and, of these, two Arab +Jews rushed forward, one a tall fellow, the other an obese bulk with +bright black eyes, the former holding a slender blade--the knife +with which "shechita", or slaughtering, was done: and while the +corpulent Jew threw himself upon Hogarth, the other drew this knife +through the flesh of Hogarth's shoulder, at the same time happening +to cut the heavy Arab across the wrist. + +Now, there was some quarrel between the two Arabs, and the injured +Arab, forgetting Hogarth, turned fiercely upon his fellow. + +Hogarth, meanwhile, had not let go Frankl, nor delivered the +intended number of cuts: so he was again standing with uplifted +whip, when his eye happened to fall upon the doorway. + +He saw there a sight which struck his arm paralysed: Rebekah Frankl. + +Two months had she been here at Westring--and he had not known it! + +There she stood peering, of a divine beauty in his eyes, like half- +mythical queens of Egypt and Babylon, blinking in a rather barbarous +superfluity of jewels: and, blinded and headlong, he was in flight. + +As for Frankl, he locked that door upon himself, and remained there, +forgetting the sanctification of the Sabbath. + +The Hebrew's eyes blazed like a wild beast's. The words: "As the +Lord liveth..." hissed in whispers from his lips. + +He took up a pinch of old ashes, and cast it into the air. + +As Shimei, the son of Gera, cursed David, so he cursed Richard +Hogarth that night--again and again--with grave rites, with +cancerous rancour. + +"I will blight him, as the Lord liveth; as the Lord liveth, I will +blight him..." he said repeatedly, his draperied arms spread in +pompous imprecation. + +As a beginning, he sat and wrote to Reid's Bank, requesting the +payment in gold of £14,000--to produce a stoppage of payment at the +little Bank in which were Richard's savings. + +Afterwards, with mild eyes he repaired to the dining-hall, and +sanctified the Sabbath, blessing a cup of wine, dividing up two +napkined loaves, and giving to Rebekah his benediction. + + + + +IV + +THE SWOON + + +Hogarth went moodily down the hillside to the Waveney, across the +bridge, and home, his sleeve stained with blood. + +In the dining-room, he threw himself into an easy-chair in a gloom +lit only by the fireglow, in the room above mourning a little +harmonium which Margaret was playing, mixed with the sound of +Loveday's voice. + +The old man said: "Richard, my boy..." + +Hogarth did not answer. + +"Richard, I have somewhat to say to you--are ye hearkening?" + +Richard, losing blood, moaned a drowsy "Yes". + +And the old Hogarth, all deaf and bedimmed, said: "I had to say it +to you, and this night let it be: Richard, you are no son of mine". + +At this point Hogarth's head dropped forward: but many a time, +during long years, he remembered a dream in which he had heard those +words: "Richard, you are no son of mine..." + +The old Hogarth continued to ears that did not hear: + +"I have kept it from you--for I'm under a bargain with a firm of +solicitors in London; but, Dick, it doesn't strike me as I am long +for this world: a queer feeling I've had in this left side the last +hour or two; and there's that Circular--I never heard of such a +thing in all my born days. But what can we do? You'll have to wear +the cap--or be turned out. Always I've said to myself, from a young +man: 'Get hold of a bit of land someways as your own God's own': but +I never did; the days went by and by, and it all seems no longer +than an after-dinner nap in a barn on a hot harvest-day. But a bit +of land--the man who has that can make all the rest work to keep +him. And if they turn me out, I couldn't live, lad: the old house +has got into my bones, somehow. Anyhow, I think the time is come to +tell you in my own way how the thing was. No son are you of mine, +Richard. Your mother, Rachel, who was a Londoner, served me an ill +turn while we were sweethearting, hankering after another man--a Jew +millionaire he was, she being a governess in his house; but, +Richard, I couldn't give her up: I married her three months before +you were born; and not a living creature knows, except, perhaps, +one--perhaps one: a priest he was, called O'Hara. But that's how it +was. Your father was a Jew, and your mother was a Jew, and you are a +Jew, and in the under-bottom of the old grey trunk you will find a +roll of papers. Are you hearkening? And don't you be ashamed of +being a Jew, boy--_they_ are the people who've got the money; and +money buys land, Richard. Nor your father did not do so badly by +you, either: his name was Spinoza--Sir Solomon Spinoza--" + +At that point Margaret, bearing a lamp, entered, followed by +Loveday, and at the sight of Richard uttered a cry. + + + + +V + +REID'S + + +By noon Hogarth knew the news: his hundred and fifty at Reid's were +gone; and he owed for the Michaelmas quarter--twenty-one pounds +five, his only chattels of value being the thresher, not yet paid +for, half a rick, seed, manure, and "the furniture". If he could +realize enough for rent, he would lack capital for wages and +cultivation, for Reid's had been his credit-bank. + +After dinner he stood long at a window, then twisted away, and +walked to Thring, where he captained in a football match, Loveday +watching his rage, his twisting waist, and then accompanying him +home: but in the dining-room they found the lord-of-the-manor's +bailiff; and Loveday, divining something embarrassing, took himself +away. + +The same evening there were two appraisers in the house, and the +bailiff, on their judgment, took possession of the chattels on the +holding except some furniture, and some agricultural "fixtures". The +sale was arranged for the sixth day. + +From the old Hogarth the truth could no longer be hidden... + +Two days he continued quiet in the old nook by the hearth, +apparently in a kind of dotage doze; but on the third, he began to +poke about, hobbled into the dairy, peered into the churn, touched +the skimmer. + +"You'll have to wear the cap", Margaret heard him mutter--"or be +turned out". + +As if taking farewell, he would get up, as at a sudden thought, to +go to visit something. He kept murmuring: "I always said, Get a bit +of land as your own, but I never did; the days went by and by...." + +Margaret, meantime, was busy, binding beds with sheets, making +bundles, preparing for the flitting, with a heaving breast; till, on +the fifth day, a van stood loaded with their things at the hall- +door, and she, with untidy hair, was helping heave the last trunk +upon the backboard, when the carman said: "Mrs. Mackenzie says, mum, +the things mustn't be took to the cottage, except you pay in +advance". + +Now Margaret stood at a loss; but in a minute went bustling, +deciding to go to Loveday, not without twinges of reluctance: for +Loveday, with instinctive delicacy, had lately kept from the farm; +and to Margaret, whose point of view was different, the words "false +friends" had occurred. + +Passing through an alley of the forest, she was met by a man--a +park-keeper of Frankl's--a German Jew, who had once handed her a +note from Frankl. And he, on seeing her, said: "Here have I a letter +for your brother". + +"Who from?" she asked. + +"That may I not say". + +When he handed her an envelope rather stuffed with papers, she went +on her flurried way; and soon Loveday was bowing before her in his +sitting-room at Priddlestone. + +"You will be surprised to see me, Mr. Loveday," said she, panting. + +"A little surprised, but most awfully glad, too. Is all well?" + +"Oh, far from that, I'm afraid. But I haven't got any time--and, oh +my, I don't know how to say it,--but to be frank with you--could you +lend Richard two pounds--?" + +Loveday coloured to the roots of his hair. + +He could not tell her: "Open that envelope in your hand", for that +would have meant that it was he who had sent the £50 it contained; +and he had now only one sixpence in Priddlestone. + +"That is", she said--"if it is not an inconvenience to you--" + +He could find no words. Some fifteen minutes before, having enclosed +the notes, he had descended to the bar to get mine host to find him +a messenger, and direct the envelope--for Hogarth knew his +handwriting. Mine host was not there--his wife could not write: but +she had pointed out the Jewish park-keeper sipping beer; so Loveday +had had the man upstairs, had made him write the address, and had +bribed him to deliver the envelope with a mum tongue. + +"I'm afraid I've taken a great liberty--" she said, shrinking at his +silence. + +Then he spoke: "Oh, liberty!--but--really--I'm quite broke myself--!" + +"Then, good-afternoon to you", said she: "I am very sorry--but you +will excuse the liberty, won't you--?" + +In the forest she began to cry, covering her eyes, moaning: "Why, +how could he be so _mean_? And I who loved that young man with all +my heart, God knows--!" + +Her eyes searched the ground for two sovereigns. Then she happened +to look at the envelope: and instantly was interested. "Why, it is +the Jew's hand!" she thought, for the letters were angular in the +German manner, making a general similarity with Frankl's writing. + +Curiosity overcame her: she opened, and saw... + +"Oh, well, this is _generous_ though, after all!" she exclaimed. + +And now she ran, coming out from mossy path upon wide forest-road: +and there, taking promenade, was Frankl, quite near, with +phylacteried left arm. + +"Why, sweetheart..." said he. + +She stopped before him. "Well, you can call me what you like for the +time being", said she, laughing rather hysterically; "for I am most +grateful to you for your generous present to my brother, Mr. +Frankl!" + +She had still no suspicion of Richard's visit of chastisement to the +Hall! + +"Now, what do you mean?" said Frankl. + +"Why, you might guess that I know your handwriting by this time!" +she said coquettishly, and held out the notes and the envelope. + +His eyes twinkled; he meditated; he had, more than ever, need of +her; and he said: "Well, you are as 'cute as they make them!" + +"But instead of sending us this, which I am not at all sure that +Richard will touch, why couldn't you pay it to yourself, and not +turn us out--" + +"I let business take its course: and afterwards I do my charity. But +it wasn't for your brother, you know, that I sent it--but for +_you_". + +"I must be running--" + +When she reached the farm, she gave the carman a secret glimpse of +the notes, while Hogarth, who was now there, went to seek the old +Hogarth, for whom a nest had been made among the furniture in the +cart. + +He was found above-stairs in an empty room, searching the floor for +something. + +"Come, sir", said Hogarth, and led him step by step. + +But as the old man passed the threshold, he fell flat on the slabs +of the porch, striking his forehead, printing a stain there. + +And the next day, the day of the sale, he still lay in the old +chamber, on the ancient bed, dead. + + + + +VI + +"PEARSON'S WEEKLY" + + +"Rose Cottage" was without roses: but had a good-sized "garden" at +the back; and here Hogarth soon had a shed nailed together, with +bellows, anvil, sledges, rasps, setts, drifts, and so on, making a +little smithy. + +He engaged a boy; and soon John Loveday would be leaning all a +forenoon at the shed door, watching the lithe ply of Hogarth's hips, +and the white-hot iron gushing flushes; while Margaret, peeping, +could see Loveday's slovenly ease of pose, his numberless +cigarettes, and hear the rhymes of the sledges chiming. + +As to Loveday's £50, she had dared to say nothing to Richard, but +kept them, intending to make up the amount already spent, and give +them to Frankl. Loveday, meantime, she avoided with constant care. + +So two weeks passed, till, one day, Loveday, leaning at the forge- +door, happened to say: "Are you interested in current politics? The +East Norfolk division is being contested, one of the candidates, Sir +Bennett Beaumont, is a friend of mine, and I was thinking that I +might go to the meeting to-night, if you could come--" + +"I invite you to supper here instead". + +"Not interested?" queried Loveday. + +"Not at all. Stop--I'll show you something in which I _am_ +interested". + +He ran to a corner, picked up a _Pearson's Weekly_, and pointed to a +paragraph headed: + +"FIVE HUNDRED-POUND NOTES! + +"FIFTY TEN-POUND NOTES!! + +"ONE HUNDRED FIVE-POUND NOTES!!!" + +--a prize for "the most intelligent" article, explaining the cause, +or causes, of "the present distress and commercial crisis". + +Loveday read it smiling. + +"Ah", said he, "but who is to be the judge of 'the most intelligent' +article? Pearson must himself be of the highest intelligence to +decide". + +"True", said Hogarth. "But the man who offered that prize has +indicated to the nation the thing which it should be doing. If I was +able to form an Association to enter this competition--and why not? +Stop--I will go with you--" + +So that evening they walked to Beccles, and took train for Yarmouth. + +The candidate to speak was a Mr. Moses Max, a Liberal Jew; the chair +to be taken by Baruch Frankl; and in the midst of a row, the stately +great men entered upon the platform and occupied it, hisses like the +escape of steam mixing with "He's a jolly good fellow". Midway down +the pit sat Loveday, and with him Hogarth, whose large stare ranged +solemnly round and down from galleries to floor. + +Frankl sipped water, and rose, amid shouts of: "Circular!" "Caps- +and-tassels!" + +He made a speech of which nothing was known, except the amiable +bows, for a continual noising filled the hall; and up rose Mr. Moses +Max, a stout fair Jew, whose fist struck with a regular, heavy +emphasis. After ten minutes, when he began to be heard, he was +saying: + +"...Sir Bennett Beaumont! Is _he_ the sort of man you'd send to +represent you? (Cries of: "Yes!") What is he?--ask yourselves the +question: a fossilized Tory, a man who's about as much idea of +progress as a mummy--people actually say he's _got_ a collection of +mummies in his grand fashionable mansion at Aylesham, and it's only +what we should expect of him. (Cheers, and cries of: "Oh, oh!") And +what has he ever done for East Norfolk? Gentlemen, you may say as +you like about Jews--Jews this, and Jews that--and every man has a +right to his opinion in this land of glorious Saxon liberty--but no +one can deny that it's Jews who know how to make the money. (Cheers +and hisses.) They know how to make it for themselves (hisses)--and, +yes, they know how to make it for the nation! (Loud triumph of +cheers.) _That's_ the point--_that_ touches the spot! (Cries of: +"Oh, oh!") Righteousness, it is said, exalteth a nation: well, so do +Jews--" + +"That is false", said a voice--Hogarth, who had stood up. + +The words were the signal for a shower of cheers swept by gusts of +hisses; and immediately one region of the pit was seen to be a +scrimmage of fisticuffs, mixed with policemen, sticks, savage faces, +and bent backs; while the two galleries, craning to see, bellowed +like Bashan. + +Moses Max was leaning wildly, gesticulating, with shouts; while +Loveday, who had turned pale on Hogarth's rising, touched Hogarth's +coat-tail, whereupon Hogarth, stooping to his ear, shouted: "We will +have some fun..." + +"The paid agents of Beaumont!" now shouted Moses Max; "sent to +disturb our meeting! Englishmen! will you submit to this? The nation +shall hear--" + +At that point Moses Max, in his gesticulation, happening to touch a +switch in the platform-rail, out glowered into darkness every light +at that end of the hall: at which thing the audience was thrown into +a state of boisterous lawlessness, a tumult reigning in the gloom +like the constant voice of Niagara, until suddenly the platform was +again lit up, and the uproar lulled. + +And now again Moses Max was prone to speak, with lifted fist; but +before ever he could utter one single word, a voice was ringing +through the Assembly Rooms: + +"_Where_ was Moses when the light went out?" + +This again was Hogarth; and it ended Moses Max for that night. + +Hogarth had not sat since he had called out "That is false": his +tall figure was recognized; and, with that electric spontaneity of +crowds, he was straightway the leader of the meeting, men darting +from their seats with waving hats, sticks, arms, and vociferous +mouth, the chairman half standing, with a shivering finger directed +upon Hogarth, shrieking to the police: but too late--Hogarth had +brushed past Loveday's knees--was dashing for the crowded platform- +steps--was picking his way, stumbling, darting up them. + +Crumpled in his hand was a _Pearson's Weekly_. + +Now he is to the front--near Frankl. + +"Friends! I have ventured to take the place of our friend, Moses, +here--no ill-will to him--for with respect to the question before +us, whether we elect Beaumont or Max, I care, I confess, little. I'm +rather an Anti-Jew myself (hissing and cheers), but it strikes me +that the Jews are the least of our trouble. To a man who said to me +that the cause of all our evil days is the inability of England to +feed these few million Jews I'd answer: "I don't know how you can be +so silly!" Why, the whole human race, friends, can find room on the +Isle of Wight--the earth laughs at the insignificant drawings upon +her made by the small infantry called Man. Then, why do we suffer, +friends? We _do_ suffer, I suppose? I was once at Paris, and at a +place called 'the Morgue' I saw exposed young men with wounded +temples, and girls with dead mouths twisted, and innocent old women +drowned; and there must be a biggish cry, you know, rising each +night from the universal earth, accusing some hoary fault in the way +men live together! What is the fault? If you ask _me_, I answer that +I am only a common smith: _I_ don't know: but I know this about the +fault, that it is something simple, commonplace, yet deep-seated, or +we should all see it; but it is hidden from us by its very +ordinariness, like the sun which men seldom look at. It _must_ be +so. And shall we never find the time to think of it? Or will never +some grand man, mighty as a garrison, owning eyes that know the +glances of Truth, arise to see for us? Friends! but, lacking him, +what shall we do to be saved?--for truly this 'civilization' of ours +is a blood-washed civilization, friends, a reddish Juggernaut, you +know, whose wheels cease not: so we should be prying into it, +provided we be not now too hide-bound: for that's the trouble--that +our thoughts grow to revolve in stodgy grooves of use-and-wont, and +shun to soar beyond. Look at our Parliament--a hurdy-gurdy turning +out, age after age, a sing-song of pigmy regulations, accompanied +for grum kettledrum by a musketry of suicides, and for pibroch by a +European bleating of little children. We are still a million miles +from civilization! For what is a civilized society? It can only be +one in which the people are proud and happy! The people of Africa +are happy, not proud; not civilized; the people of England have a +certain pride, not a millionth part as superb as it might be, but +are far from happy: far from civilized. The fact is, Man has never +begun to live, but still sleeps a deep sleep. Well! let us do our +best, we here! I have here a paper offering a prize to the man of us +who will go to the root of our troubles, and my idea in usurping the +place of our friend, Mr. Max, was to ask you to form an association +with me to enter that competition. There is no reason why our +association should not be large as the nation, nor why it should not +spread to France and Turkey. For the thing presses, and to-morrow +more of the slaughtered dead will be swarming in the mortuaries of +London. Will you, then? The understanding will be this: that each +man who writes his name in a note-book which will lie at Rose +Cottage, Thring, or who sends his name, will devote sixty minutes +each day to the problem. I happen to be in a position to use a +chapel at Thring, and there I will hold a meeting--" + +At this point Frankl rose: Thring was _his_, his own, own, own; and +now his eyes had in them that catlike blaze which characterized his +rages. + +"Here, police! police!" he hissed low, "what's the use of police +that don't act!" And now he raised his voice to a scream: "Jews! +Shew yourselves! Don't let this man stay here...!" + +About twenty Jews leapt at the challenge; at the same time Hogarth, +seeing two policemen running forward from the back, folded his arms, +and cried out: "Friends! I have not finished! Don't let me be +removed..." + +Whereupon practically every man in the pit was in motion, for or +against him, the galleries two oblongs of battle. + +As up the two curving stairs stormed the mob, by a sudden rush like +an ocean-current he was borne off his feet toward the side, and was +about to bring down his sharp-pointed little knuckles, when his eye +fell upon the face of a lady who had fainted. + +He had had no idea that she was there!--Rebekah Frankl. + +She had quietly fainted, not at the rush--but before--during +Hogarth's speech. + +Hogarth managed to fight his way to a door at the platform back with +her, entered a room where some chairs were, but, seeing a stair, +could not let her go from his embrace, but descended, passed along a +passage and out into a patch of green. + +She, under the dark sky, whispered: "It is you", her forehead on his +shoulder; and added: "My carriage, I think, is yonder". + +Hogarth saw the carriage-lights at the field's edge, bore her +thither, laid her with care on the cushions, kissed her hand: and +this act Frankl saw--with incredulity of his own eyes. As he +approached, Hogarth walked away. + +Frankl mastered his voice to say blandly in Spanish: "Well, how did +you get through, sweet child? Who was that man--? But stay: where +are those two fools?" + +This meant the two familiars--the Arabs, Isaac and Mephibosheth, one +of whom had come as footman, the other as coachman--and, as he went +raging about the carriage, with stamps, his boot struck against a +body. There was enough light to reveal to his peering that it was +Mephibosheth, whom Isaac had stabbed, and fled... + +Frankl lowered his ear--doubted whether he could detect a breathing; +and though scared, he being a Cohen, and the presence of death +defilement, yet he stayed, bending over Mephi several minutes, +thinking, not of him, but of Hogarth. + +"It is that fool, Isaac, has done it", he thought; "and if the man +be dead--" What then? "_If_ he be dead, I've got you, Mr. Hogarth, +in the hollow of this hand...." + +His fingers passed over the body: there, sticking in the breast, was +a cangiar which Isaac, in his panic, had left, and Frankl's hand +rested on the handle; if he did not consciously press the knife +home, very heavily his hand rested on it, eyes blazing, beard +shaking.... + +Then he drew out the knife carefully, to hide it in the carriage, +listened again close, felt sure now that death was there, and now +scuttled, as if from plague, guiltily hissing: "Putrid dog...!" + +Presently he led his carriage to the station, and made a deposition +of the murder. + +Asked if he had any suspicion as to the culprit, he said: "Not the +least: I left the man alone with the carriage, and who could have +had any motive for killing him beats me." + + + + +VII + +THE ELM + + +Hogarth, meantime, had made his way to the front of the room, then +vomiting its throng, discovered Loveday, and, deciding to walk home, +they were soon on the cliffs. + +And suddenly Loveday: "To-morrow will conclude my fifth week in +Westring. What, do you suppose, has made me stay?" + +"I have wondered". + +"I work better here...Hogarth, you inspirit me". + +"Is that so?" + +"It is, yes. Merely your presence is for me a freshness and an +enthusiasm: I catch in the turn of your body hints of adventurous +Columbuses, Drakes, nimble Achilles; and sibylline meanings in some +glance of yours infect my fancy with images of Moses, blind old +Homers--prophet, lawgiver, poet--" + +They were passing along a stretch of sand, with some lights of +Lowestoft in sight, arm in arm; and Hogarth said: "Well, you speak +some big words. But my life, you understand, has been as simple and +small as possible. I will tell you: my father sent me to an +extraordinary school--where he got the coin I could never find out-- +Lancing College at Shoreham. There I did very well--only that I was +continually _getting_ it! What was the matter with me when a boy I +can't understand: I was the devil. One summer vacation (I was +fourteen) I stole three pounds from the old man, and ran away one +Sunday night. Passed through London and soon was apprentice in a +blacksmith's shop in a Kent village called Bigham. But in six months +I had the forge at my fingers' ends, and was off: nothing could hold +me long. One day I turned up before the Recruiting Office of Marines +in Bristol--just of the right age for what they call 'second-class +boys'--and decided upon the sea--that sea there--which, from the +moment I saw it at the age of four, caused me a swelling of the +breast with which, to this day, it afflicts me. Well, I got the +birth-certificate of another boy, scraped through, was entered into +a District Ship, and finally sailed in the _St. Vincent_ to the +Pacific Station. + +"However, my trial of His Majesty's ships was not a success: twice I +was in irons, once leapt into mid-ocean; nor could the battleship +hold me when she had nothing to teach me; so I did to the King what +I had done to the old man--cut and ran. + +"It was at Valparaiso, and I made my way across the continent to +Buenos Ayres. + +"I forget now what took me to Bristol: but there I was one day when +I happened to see--what do you think?--a girl--sixteen--I a +stripling of nineteen, or so--but she most precocious, spoke like a +woman--a grating in a wall between us. Ah, well, God is good, and +His Mercy endureth for ever. But she said it could never be--she a +Jewess: though that, by the way, is nonsense, for she is a Jewess, +and a Parisienne, and a Hindoo, and a Negress, and a Japanese, and +the man who marries her will have a harem. My friend, I have seen +her this very night!" + +He was silent. Suddenly he broke out: "I came home raving! The old +man was scared out of his wits by my frenzy--I drank like ten men-- +in a month was the terror of Westring. One midnight, going home +through the beech-wood--I don't know if you have noticed a hollow +elm-tree which stands to the right of the path?" + +"I think I have", said Loveday. + +"We shall pass near it presently; and at the moment when we approach +it, I shall feel a little thrill in my back: always it is so with +me. But I was saying: that midnight, as I passed the tree, drunk as +I was, I saw a naked black man with a long beard run out; I took to +my heels; he was after me; till I reached the bridge, when I +stopped, faced him, fired a blow into his eyes, and he vanished. + +"During the week I continued to see apparitions. My groans were +heard in the farm-yard: Lord have mercy upon me! Christ have mercy +upon me! I was visited by the Methodist preacher at Thring; and +finally I found solace: I became a class-member, a leader, a local +preacher. + +"For some time I have been conscious of dissatisfaction among the +people with my preaching, who say that my God 'is not a personal +God', and that my Christianity is 'rum stuff': I am therefore +meaning to give it up. But I still preach every second Thursday +night. + +"It was about that time that, by accident, I found out the power of +my hand to cure headache, and things like that, and the sensation +among these villagers was enormous, I can tell you, six years ago; +now they come to be touched without the slighest sense of the +unusual. But what I have done well in was--the farming. I knew +little of agriculture--" + +At this point they turned into the lane to Westring: and Loveday +went with him a little beyond Priddlestone to see the fatal elm. + + + + +VIII + +THE METEOR + + +The next morning, after breakfast, Hogarth went down old Thring +Street, and spent a penny for a note-book to contain the signatures +of his association. + +But this was no day for interest in that scheme: for under the +projecting first-floor of the paper-shop were newspaper placards +bearing such words as: + +THE EARTH IN DANGER + +SHALL WE PERISH TO-NIGHT? + +and Hogarth was soon bending in the street over a paragraph, short-- +but in _pica_. + +M. Tissot, the astronomer, had, at half-past ten the previous night, +observed through the 40-inch telescope of the Nice observatory a +body which seemed a tiny planet or aerolite of abnormal size. It was +sighted at a point two degrees W. of _a_ Librae at an angle of +431/2° with the horizon, and had been photographed, its elements +calculated, its spectrum taken. The ascertained diameter was 3° 17", +or about 73 miles, and its substance seemed to consist of ironstone +mixed with diamond. + +By noon a fresh light was thrown upon the little world, the Yerkes +observatory and Greenwich both uttering their voice, the Astronomer +Royal announcing that the so-called planet was merely a meteor--not +more than 400 yards in diameter, with a low velocity of two miles a +second; and its distance was less than a tenth of that estimated by +Tissot. The Yerkes observatory fixed the diameter at 230 yards. All, +however, agreed in the opinion that it must strike the earth between +ten and twelve that night. + +These later announcements so much allayed the panic, that by one +o'clock Hogarth, on peeping into the note-book on the box before the +smithy, saw six signatures; and a young man who came about six P.M. +to sign, cried out: "Hullo! the book is filled up!" on which Hogarth +ran out, saying: "Don't run away on that account, I'll run and get-- +" darting into the house to ask Margaret where a certain account- +book was. + +"Didn't I throw it into the box of rubbish in the cellar at Lagden, +when we were leaving?" she asked; on which he threw off his apron, +and was off toward Lagden Dip to get it. + +He had almost cleared the village when he was blocked by a crowd +before a cottage, from out of which were coming screams--a woman's; +and he ran in, found a man named Fred Bates beating his wife, +planted a blow on his chest. + +The next morning the wife of Bates was found dead, greatly +disfigured about the face, whereupon Bates was arrested, and +Hogarth, as we shall see, was subpoenaed to give evidence of the +beating. + +In ten minutes he was at the old farm-house of the Hogarths. + +The new tenant was a Mr. Bond, a bankrupt metal-broker, who had two +hobbies--farming and astronomy; and, as Hogarth approached the yard- +gate, he saw Mr. Bond, his two daughters, his servants, grouped +round an optic tube mounted on a tripod. He asked permission to get +the account-book, got it, in a few minutes was again passing +through, and, as he went by, bowing his thanks, Mr. Bond said: +"But--have you seen the asteroid?" + +"No--whereabouts?" + +"Not quite visible to the naked eye yet: but come--you shall see". + +He himself looked through, fixing the sight, turning the adjuster; +then with fussy suddenness: "Now, sir--" + +Hogarth put an eager eye to the glass. + +"You see her?" said Mr. Bond, rubbing his soft old palms; "straight +for us she comes--in a considerable hurry by this time, I can tell +you! and if she happens to break up in the air, then, pray, sir, +that a splinter of her may fall into your back yard--not too big a +one! but a nice little comfortable _piece_"--he rubbed his palms-- +"for you know, no doubt, of what her substance is composed? Diamond, +sir, in extraordinary evidence! in conjunction with specular iron +ore, commonly called the red haematite, and the ferrous carbonate, +or spathic iron. You see her, sir? you see her?" + +Hogarth whispered: "Yes". + +There, fairest among ten thousand, sailing the high seas she came; +and longer than was modest he stopped there, gazing, then ran, +wondering at her daisy loveliness, not dreaming that between himself +and her was--a relation. + +She broke up with a European display soon after eleven that night +over the North Sea. + + + + +IX + +HOGARTH'S GUNS + + +At the moment when Hogarth was peering through the telescope, a man +was loitering before his cottage--one of the Hall's park-keepers; +and when Margaret put out her head to look for Richard's coming, the +man whistled. + +In a moment a note was in her hand. + +"DEAR MISS HOGARTH, + +"This is to ask you to be certain sure to meet me this evening at 9 +P.M. on the towpath. It isn't to-day that you are well aware of the +state of my feelings toward you: but it is not to talk sweethearting +that I wish to see you now, but about your brother, and the matter +is about as important as can be. If I were in your place, I should +destroy this letter. + +"Yours, with my respects, + +"BARUCH FRANKL". + +Margaret tore it up, and "My goodness!" she thought, "what is anyone +to do? If I only had the money to make up those fifty pounds! May +the Holy Spirit guide me now...!" + +Later in the evening she stole out, and met Frankl. + +He assumed a very respectful tone. + +"Miss Hogarth", said he at once, "have you heard?" + +"No, sir". + +"You have not been told that your brother has been to the Hall?" + +"What in patience for?" + +"He came--you couldn't believe--to beat me!" + +"Richard! I don't understand. When?" + +"Yesterday". (In reality it was four weeks before.) + +"But what about?" + +"Revenge! Blind, murderous revenge for turning him neck and crop out +of Lagden!" + +"You _are_ in a temper! But I can't understand a word of it!" + +"Well, that is what I had to tell you. He came to my house--And how +good have I been to this man! Didn't I send him the fifty pounds--?" + +"Well, that _was_ kind. But I must tell you, Mr. Frankl, that +Richard knows nothing of the fifty pounds--" + +"Well, then it is _your_ fault! Oh, he did not know of the fifty +pounds? Then it is your fault entirely, this rage of his against me--He +threatened to shoot me dead--thrice he threatened--soon, he +said--" + +"Not Richard?" + +"Yes, Richard!--your nice Richard! But what did I want you for to- +night? It was to let you see that I have it in my power to let your +brother in for three months hard--not less. But you know, my dear, +don't you, that I wouldn't do anything to give you pain? That is +why, so far, I've taken no steps. But your brother must be unarmed. +I can't have my life exposed, after his threats, and all". + +"Unarmed...." + +"Yes. I have it on good authority that your brother has guns. I must +have those guns put into my own hands by you..." + +"But I couldn't! He would find out..." + +"Then I must act, that's all. Or no--I give you another chance--tell +him of the fifty pounds I sent--that may disarm him in another way--" + +He was sure that this she would not now do, yet felt relieved when +she cried out: "I couldn't! Not now! Can't you see?" + +"Well, there is nothing to be done, then. I must act, that's all". + +"But don't be _hard_! What can I do? Sooner or later he'd be sure to +miss them!" + +"Poh! he is not always shooting, I suppose? And after a few weeks +I'd give them back. Anyway, think it over: and I'll be here on +Tuesday night next at nine to receive them. Good night--" + +She looked palely after him, her feet in a net, new to her, woven of +concealments and deceit. + +At eleven that night she was sitting in their diminutive parlour,-- +Hogarth at a table inscribing the association's names received by +post that evening; and at last, bending low over her sewing, she +said: "Richard, is it true you have been to the Hall?" + +He started! "Yes. Who told you?" + +"I heard it". + +He looked at her piercingly. "_Answer!_" + +"I heard it", she said with a stubborn nod, quite pallid. + +He turned upon her a stare of displeasure; but in that second they +heard a shouting down the village, ran to the front, and saw heaven +all like cancer and cracked window-panes, for from a central plash +of passion the shattered asteroid had shot long-lingering ribbons of +lilac light over the bowl of the sky. + + + + +X + +ISAAC + + +On the Tuesday was the inquest on the murdered Mephibosheth; ending +in a verdict of wilful murder against some person unknown. + +The same night at nine Frankl had Hogarth's two guns from Margaret +on the towing-path, she now well inveigled into his net, and under +his commands. + +"I want you", he said, "to meet me-here again on Thursday night, at +7.30". + +"But you will tell one why, I suppose!" + +"When you come you will hear. And don't let anything keep you away-- +not _anything_, mind--if you take my hint". + +She left him with her head hung, praying for deliverance, but +consenting. + +The next (Wednesday) morning Frankl was in a high room of the Hall, +in a corner of which cowered the Arab, Isaac, and he said in his +strong bass in Arabic: "Well, Isaac, well". + +A groan broke from the obese heap of grief; down each side of his +kefie streamed waves of trembling; on his square-cut beard of ritual +flecks of foam. + +"Isaac, why did you kill Mephibosheth?" + +Vigorously sputtered Isaac, spitting out the ill-omened words. He +said: "Your servant did not kill Mephibosheth". + +"Well, there was an inquest to-day, the Court decided that you did, +and has sentenced you to be hanged by the neck like a dog". + +The Arab sprang up, his thick bluish under-lip shivering. + +"An eye for an eye", said Frankl solemnly: "it is written in the +Torah". + +"_Mercy_ My father served your father--" + +"I have remembered that: that is why I have saved you from hanging +like a dog at the hands of these _Goyim_ vermin: but, Isaac, you +must die--" + +"God of--!" + +"You dare raise your voice! Blood for blood--" + +"_Mercy_!--I did not mean to kill--!" + +"Blood for blood, you dog! Raise it, and I fell you! Raise it, and +the noose sinks into your fat swine's-throat! Can't you understand?--you +have been tracked by the avengers of blood! and you may swing lingeringly, +with a crowd of Christian boys and girls mocking round you, or you may +shoot yourself in one painless flash. Which shall it be?" + +Isaac, again dropping a-heap, covered his face, without answer. + +"Well", said Frankl, walking away, "I can't wait all day. The +detectives are at this moment downstairs--" + +Now the Arab leapt up, and, in a movement of great dignity, with an +out-rush of both arms, rent his caftan from the top to its muslin +girdle. + +"I will shoot myself", he said quietly. + +Frankl took snuff. + +The same night he took his secretary's typewriter, and spelled out +the following note: + +"SIR, + +"Permit me to ask you as an old friend of your father's if you are +aware that your sister Margaret is the lover of the lord of the +manor? Everybody seems to see it, but yourself. I have reason to +know that the very day you receive this she will be meeting him at +about 7.30 P.M. under the old elm in the beech-wood near the Hall- +park. + +"ONE WHO SHALL BE NAMELESS". + +Hogarth received it by post the next morning. + +He had to think, as he worked, of something to say at the service +that night on the text: "God's way is in the Sea", but the glare of +forge and heated metal swam vaguely, a fog of red, about his +consciousness. And mixed with those recurring words: "the old elm", +"God's way", something with a voice shouted inside him--a name-- +_Margaret!_ Anon his face flushed to a dusky turbulence, and he +hurled the sledge high to shatter the earth, like Thor. + +Suddenly he had the thought that he would clean his rifle, and, +dropping a hot iron which vanished with a stifled cry into black +water, he tossed his tongs clattering, and almost ran toward the +cottage. + +He had not, however, reached the back door when he heard his name +called from behind. + +And now happened to him the most momentous event of his life--though +nothing could have seemed more commonplace. + +It was an old fellow named Tom Bates who had called him--father to +that Fred arrested for the murder of his wife--a Yarmouth fisher and +herring-curer. + +And when Hogarth twisted round, with that stare of his large and +bloodshot eye, "Here", said the old man, "take them"--holding out a +basket of herrings. + +Hogarth seemed not to understand, but then said: "All those for me?" + +"Every bloomin' one!" answered Bates, with the dropped jaw of +pantomime, and a far-away look of blue astonishment which he had. + +"It is extremely handsome of you. Can you spare all that--?" + +"Spare, _ya'as!_ They're easy enough come by, for that matter. Why, +the day's work of a fisherman gives him enough fish to live on all +the week, and he could lie around idling the other six days, if he +chose, only anybody can't live on nothing but fish ". + +These words, destined to produce a horror of great darkness, and a +cup of trembling of which all the nations should drink, hardly +affected Hogarth at the time. He _did_, indeed, shoot an interested +glance at the old man, but the next moment his mind, numb that +morning, was left dark. + +"Here--take them--they are yours", said Bates. "But with regard to +that God-forsaken son of mine: you'll be givin' evidence agen him, +I'm told--" + +When his sleeve wiped a tear, Hogarth promised to make his evidence +mild, and was left alone. + +Now his purpose of cleaning the rifle was turned: he went back to +the forge, and worked till Margaret, at one o'clock, called: "The +dinner is on the table". + +At that table, for a long time, silence reigned, Margaret's eyes +fixed on his face, his on his plate. + +Toward the end he said: "Are you going to chapel to-night?" + +Her bosom heaved; she cleared her throat: she had to meet Frankl by +the towing-path. + +"I don't think I shall..." + +_Margaret!_ + +"Why not?" + +"I have something to do". + +"_What?_" + +Silence. + +"_What?_" + +"Something"--with a stubborn nod, and pallor--"if I tell you +_something_ that should be enough". + +"You will go to chapel to-night". + +"That I shan't". + +"Yes" + +Silence. + +A little before seven they left the cottage together for the chapel, +Hogarth taking his hunting-crop--from habit; he had also a little +Bible; in his jacket, tight at the slight waist, unbuttoned at the +breast, lay the anonymous letter, and a little poetry-book, neither +moon nor star lighting the night, bleak winds swooping like the +typhoon among the year's dead leaves. + +The chapel was a paltry place, though in the wall to the right of +the preacher was a slab bearing the inscription: + + ON THIS STONE + JOHN WESLEY PREACHED + IN THE VILLAGE, ON THE + 9TH JULY 1768 + +And they sang a hymn; Hogarth "prayed"; read a chapter; once more +the harmonium mourned; Hogarth gave the text: "God's way is in the +sea..." + +Even as he uttered it, he happened to glance toward the "mission- +pew"--a square pew rather behind the pulpit: Margaret no longer +there. + +A paleness as of very death--then a dreadful wrath reddened his dark +face. + +He seized his hunting-crop; and, without a word, sped bent and +thievish down the steps--and was gone. + +Upon which Loveday in a middle pew, perceiving here something +sinister, like a still wind flew to a back door, before ever the +amazement of the people had given place to a flutter like leafage; +and running fast, he came up with Hogarth by a stile twenty yards +behind the chapel, touched his shoulder. + +"To the devil with you...!" shouted Hogarth, running still, and +there Loveday stood. + +Margaret, meantime, was hurrying toward the towing-path, while +Richard, in a direction at right angles to hers, was pelting toward +that spot terrible to him--the elm. + +At the moment when he entered the deep darkness of the beeches, he +heard what sounded like a pistol-shot, rain now falling drop by +drop, and through the forest with an uplifting whoop, like batsmen, +swooped the tomboy winds. + +Now, approaching the elm, again he felt that thrill which the spot +had for him, and came peering, at slower pace: no sound but the +gibbering rout of the stiff-stark beech-leaves. Some steps more, and +now he was at the mound which surrounds the tree: stood, listened: +silence, sightlessness: Margaret not there. + +One more forward step: and now his foot struck a body. + +As he stooped, his hand touched a revolver--which was his own; +another moment, and he saw running lanterns borne by two park- +keepers, and by their light saw the body of Isaac, who but now had +shot himself with the weapon that was in Hogarth's hand. + +The park-keepers had just been urged by their master to the spot, he +having, he told them, heard a pistol-shot; and before anyone could +speak Frankl himself was there, defiled with the presence of the +dead. + +He looked from Hogarth to the corpse, and from the corpse to +Hogarth, then, snatching the weapon from Hogarth's hand, exclaimed: +"Why, bless my heart, you've _murdered_ the man...." + + + + +XI + +WROXHAM BROAD + + +In a cottage in Thring Street, marked "E. Norfolk, E. 58, +Constabulary", Hogarth passed the night, having been arrested the +moment he returned home from the elm. + +A few minutes afterwards Margaret, who had found no Frankl at the +towing-path, came home to the ghastliest amazement throughout +Thring, so that sleep overcame the village only toward morning. + +At 7.30 A.M. Hogarth was marched to Beccles, then after an inquest- +verdict appeared before the magistrates' court, and was committed. + +One of the witnesses in the summary-jurisdiction court had been +Loveday, who had deposed that Hogarth, on leaving the chapel, was, +beyond doubt, in a passion; and mixed with the crowd was Margaret, +who, standing thickly veiled, heard that evidence. And thought she: +"Is it possible that he can be giving evidence against Richard like +that? And smiling, the mean, false thing--" + +She had disappeared on the morning after the arrest: and Loveday was +now racked by disquiet, wondering how she was living, though she and +he were in the same train, unconscious of each other, when he +followed Hogarth to Norwich; and, as Margaret stepped upon the +Thorpe platform there, a Jew, who was watching the arrival of every +train, spied and shadowed her to the old Maid's Head, this intricate +city being now crowded, the Assizes all in the air, mixed with the +Saturday cattle-market. + +At ten the next morning Margaret learned at the Guildhall the +address of her brother's defending solicitor, and set out to find +him, the wretchedest woman on earth now. + +But as she passed by the archway in the tower of St. Peter Mancroft, +Loveday stood before her; and she started like a shying horse. + +"Good morning"--she went on past him. + +He took two steps after her. "Are you in a hurry? Can I come with +you?" + +"It is quite near. Thank you--I'd liefer go alone". + +He, a delicate being, all nerves, was repelled; lifted the old cloth +hat; but then again stepped after her, saying: "But are you angry +with me for something?" + +"Why should I be? I have no right to expect anything from you, Mr. +Loveday". + +"No right? You _have_, a little, I fancy!" + +He said it at her ear with such a lowering of the eyelids, that it +pierced to her fond heart, and she smiled with a "H'm!" uncertain, +half turned to him; but said: "I must be getting on--" + +"But it is most important that I should talk to you about +everything. Where are you staying?" + +"It is some distance from here", she answered, undecided whether or +not to give her address. + +"Ah--in that case--but still--will you meet me? Say here--this +evening?" + +"I will see if I can". + +"At seven?" + +"I will see". + +So they parted, she to tread that intricacy of streets round the +Market, with stoppages for enquiries, till she found the office, +where she presently sat in an inner room, veil at nose-tip, and +before her at a grate stood Hogarth's solicitor. + +What, till now, for shame, she had concealed, she revealed: showing +how Richard could not possibly have taken the revolver with him to +the elm, since she, two days previously, had secretly given it to-- +someone. + +Mr. Carr, the solicitor, frowned, elaborating his nails. + +"This is very extraordinary", he said. "Whyever did you keep us in +the dark as to all this before? And to whom was it that you gave the +revolver? and why?" + +"Am I bound to tell that?" + +"No, but you may be sure that the truth will be got from you. Stay-- +I must ask you to excuse me now. But tomorrow morning at this hour-- +will you? As for your brother, have no fears at all: he is now +absolutely safe". + +Margaret went rapidly away, not knowing whither, only returning +toward late afternoon to her inn. As she entered, a letter was +handed her from Frankl. + +"Dear Miss Hogarth: + +"It is only due to you that I should see you at once to explain the +mystery of this affair, so as to clear your brother, and as it would +not do for me to call upon you for obvious reasons, the only thing +for us to do is to meet to-night on Mousehold Heath at 7 P.M. +without fail..." + +What now was she to do? At "7 P.M." she had half promised Loveday to +meet him. + +And what had her meetings with Baruch Frankl, innocent as they were, +brought upon her and hers! + +Yet Frankl _must_ be kindly intentioned, she reasoned--since he had +sent them the £50; and she thought of that agony of humiliation when +she had asked Loveday for £2, and he had refused. + +And he had given evidence against Richard with his down-turned +smile. + +But he had said a word at her ear--and her crushed heart had leapt. +She did not know what to do, fell by her bedside and prayed to be +taught which of the two was Richard's best friend. + +As she passed over the inn-threshold, she decided in favour of +Frankl: and a few minutes past seven was on Mousehold Heath. + +Frankl hurried to meet her, and the hand which he held out was +rather cold; but she did not take it. + +"No, Mr. Frankl", said she, "before I give my hand, it is only what +is due to me to hear how Richard's pistol, which I trusted to you, +was found where it was--" + +"Well, that is only fair", answered Frankl; "that is only fair. But +I have a carriage there, let us get into it, and sit as we talk". + +She could see no carriage in that dark, yet it stood only some yards +away--Frankl's own. + +"I think I prefer to stand..." said she. + +"As you like. But with regard to the gun, I should have thought that +you could have guessed how it was--but no, you always mistrust me +instead--the Jew. Don't you know that the dead man was a servant in +my house? Well, I left the two guns in my study, and he, wanting to +shoot himself, stole one, that's all". + +"It was _he_ shot himself?" + +"Why, who else? You don't suppose Richard shot him! You are as cool +as they make them". + +"Well, that was how it was! But couldn't you say that at the police- +court--?" + +"I am _going_ to at the big trial, of course. But I was ill, am ill +now, and here have I been running about all day on your brother's +behalf, and dead tired--and ill, and all--and you won't let me have +a rest in the carriage--" + +"Well, as you put it in that way..." she said. + +So they walked to a motor-brougham, sat within, and as they +commenced to talk again, the brougham moved. + +"Tell me", said Frankl, "have you mentioned to anyone that you had +given the guns to me?" + +"I told Richard's solicitor this morning--" + +"That was horribly imprudent, without consulting me!" + +"I think I have been silent long enough, don't you? I didn't mention +your name, but--" + +"Oh, you didn't mention my name! That's all right, then! Look here, +do you know--?" + +"Well?" + +"I believe you love me in your heart. Can't help yourself". + +"Oh, Mr. Frankl, do I look as if I was in the mood for that kind of +fun to-night, a poor wretch like me, steeped in misery, my God +knows". + +"_I_ love _you_!" + +He suddenly grasped her wrist, his eyes blazing. + +"Stop--let me get out of this--" she said. + +"Wait!--I give you your chance!--Listen: I am not a man whose mind +you can read right off like a book, I twist like an eel, I am deep, +I am tricky, and I never yet met the man that I didn't hoodwink. +Ninety-nine per cent of what I say is a lie; even when it is the +truth, it is a lie just the same. But at this particular moment I am +talking the God's truth: I want you! You shall be my little girl! +Chuck Richard!--chuck the swine's-flesh!--I'll take you right away-- +to Paris--this very night--" + +She had arisen, alarmed by his hissed fury. "But, you are stark, +staring, raving mad", she said proudly, "that is what you are". + +Frankl struck the side of the brougham, it flew, and Margaret +tottered backward with an exclamation. The next moment she sent +forth a scream, the grip of Frankl on her wrist agonizing her bones. + +"Where are we going?" she cried out. + +"I gave you your chance!" was Frankl's fierce answer. + +"Let me get out!--you must be a wretch--to take advantage--" + +He put his mouth to her ear till it touched. "Your nice Richard +flogged me like a dog! I felt the cuts to the marrow of my damned +soul! Now I've got him in the hollow of this hand! Why, you helped +me! you helped me! That's good! And I've got you, too". + +Blackness and swiftness bound her; a dizziness overcame her. Soon +they were by a great pool of gloomy water--Wroxham Broad--where +hern, wild duck, and the mast of the darkling boat brooded among +bulrush; and now in three minutes more the brougham was sweeping +over the lawn of a lonely building, surrounded by walls. + +She, peering, saw with joy both lights and a well-dressed man and +woman; and, as the carriage stopped, she sprang out with alacrity, +Frankl with her, still grasping her wrist. + +"Sir", she blurted out at once, "you will help me, I know. I am a +poor unfortunate woman--my name is Margaret Hogarth--" + +"We know!" said the gentleman, and, approaching Frankl's ear, asked +in Yiddish: "How long has she had her delusion?" + +"Only about a week, I think. She may be violent at first, but--" + +"Come in, Miss--Hogarth", said the gentleman. + +Margaret passed the threshold; the doors closed upon her... + + + + +XII + +THE ROSE + + +On the third morning of his confinement in Norwich, Hogarth was +hurried into the hall of justice and the witness-box--in the dock +Fred Bates. + +Bates had denied--with sufficient impudence, it seemed: for his wife +had been found dead, battered and burned about the face, Bates' own +hand also burned by the poker with which, _red-hot_, he was presumed +to have beaten her. + +The same afternoon Bates was sentenced to death: but, having had +sunstroke in Egypt, was afterwards reprieved. + +And two mornings later Hogarth heard the bar of the prisoner's dock +clang behind himself. + +The speech of leading counsel for the Crown was short: a letter, +found on the prisoner, would be produced, in which some busybody had +falsely informed the prisoner that Mr. Frankl would meet his sister +under a certain elm-tree: and the prisoner, in a crisis of passion, +had hurried from the pulpit to that tree, on observing that his +sister had left the chapel (to keep a real appointment with Mr. +Frankl elsewhere). Under that tree the prisoner had encountered the +murdered man, whose Oriental dress on a dark night would give him a +resemblance to Mr. Frankl, himself a Jew. The prisoner had then shot +the deceased, mistaking him for Mr. Frankl, and had been found +holding the smoking weapon, which he admitted to be his own. It was +a painful case; but the chain of inference was not assailable. + +"Not assailable" found an echo in the minds of solicitor and counsel +for Hogarth, who with growing anxiety were awaiting the coming of +Margaret with her story of the weapons. Margaret was where her name +was changed to Rachel. + +Now was the régime of examining counsel for the prosecution. The +usher called: "Baruch Frankl!" + +A voice in the gallery shouted: "Caps and tassels!" while Frankl, in +the witness box, bowed largely to both bench and bar. He put his +palms on the red-hot rail, caught them up, put them again, caught +up, put them; and still he bowed, while a trembling of the chin gave +to his beard a downward waving. + +"Now explain to the court the reasons for the state of the +prisoner's feelings toward you". + +"For one thing I had turned him out, because he could not pay his +rent; for another, his sister was inclined, my lord, to be a little +bit weak on my account--" + +"A little bit _what_?" asked his lordship. + +"Just a little bit weak, my lord". + +"A _reciprocal_ weakness?" + +"Well, my lord, you know the world--so do the gentlemen of the jury--" + +"And of the Jewry!" screamed his lordship, amid laughter from the +merry wigs. + +As Frankl stepped down, a name was called at which Hogarth went cold +as a ghost: "Rebekah Frankl". + +And in she stepped splendent, to stand like a Nubian woman, with +that retreat of the hips, her ears torn with their load of gold, her +throat and breast ablaze, she bringing into that English court the +gaudy heat of the Orient, Baal and Astarté, orgies of Hindoo women +in temples of Parvati, the pallid passion of Bacchantes. Though not +tall, she was lofty, and her ebon eyes had that very royalty of the +stare of the bent form in the dock, whose heart throbbed quick like +paddle-wheels that thrash the sea, she his wild divinity, wild wife +of his wild youth.... + +At her shocking beauty the Court stood hushed. + +She suggested the East: but in her speech was the energy of the +West--sharp--a bass almost like her father's. + +"You recognize the prisoner?" + +"Yes". She smiled. + +"You were present on the day of the 11th November when the prisoner +entered your father's house, and attempted to strike him?" + +"Did strike him". + +"He did?" + +"Yes". + +"Did he seem in a passion?" + +"Seemed severe". + +"Severe! But was he not highly excited?" + +"He did not seem so. Frowned and flogged". + +"By whom was he ejected?" + +"Went of his own accord". + +"But--try to remember. What made him go?" + +"He suddenly saw _me_, and fled". + +Laughter droned through the court, in which she naïvely joined, +while Hogarth's eyes and hers met one instant, blazed outrageously, +and dropped.... + +That was all. Counsel bowed. + +The day grew toward evening, and still the stuffy Court sat. + +But Margaret Hogarth did not come; a defending counsel finished +examination, counsel on the other side again addressed the Court, +and again defending counsel. The judge then held the scales, the +jury trooped away, the crowd buzzed. + +The light in the room seemed to brood to a denser yellow, and anon +to grow dim; the stuffed court festered; voices spoke, but low. The +King of Terrors was here. + +When the jury came, the judge was called, Hogarth stood up, and the +clerk of arraigns put a question to the foreman. + +The foreman said: "We find the prisoner guilty: but beg to recommend +him to the mercy of the Crown". + +"On what grounds?" asked his lordship. + +"On the grounds of past good conduct and strong provocation". + +The judge then placed on his head a square of velvet and passed the +sentence of the Court. + +During the reign of stillness that followed, while the court clock's +ticking was still loud, something which was thrown struck Hogarth on +the arm, a red rose, black at heart, that had lain on the breast of +Rebekah, who, when Hogarth looked round at her, was calmly drawing +her mass of cloak about her throat. + + + + +XIII + +OUT OF THE WORLD + + +A week later a governor and a chaplain together entered Hogarth's +cell with news of his reprieve. + +Eight months later he was being trundled in "Black Maria" to +Paddington Station amid a Babel of escaped tongues, when, sitting in +his pigeonhole, he heard the unknown voice before him cry: "Well, +Jim, we're away to the mountain's brow!" + +Jim, nothing but a voice, was heard: "Worse luck! I knows Colmoor, +and I knows the Scrubs, and I knows Portland; and of the five I say--give +me Jedwood. Who's the guy in front o' you?" + +"Hi, you in front there, who _are_ yer?" cried the first, pounding. + +He was answered by a deep voice, which said: + +"I AM WHO I AM". + +"All right, keep yer 'air on, if you've any left! It's the Lawd +Chief Justice, mate! 'E says 'e's 'oo 'e are!" + +"'Old on! _I_ knows who it is: it's that new-comer, 33. They say he +was once a priest--" + +But now speech was swallowed up in hubbub, as the van ran battering +down a rough street near the station. + +Then again Hogarth was whirled into night and space, and, toward +morning, after the bumping climb of a van, was bidden to alight on +moorland, where he spied, far off, set on a hill, a mighty palace of +Romance, all grim, aloof, which was Colmoor. + +The next morning while the outdoor gangs were being searched on +parade before the exit, Hogarth saw a face which he knew; and "You, +Bates", he said, "I thought you were in Eternity!" + +But no: there stood Bates, all capped and arrowed, cropped and neat, +not wearing the filthy old scarf of liberty any more. + +The neighbor of Hogarth now was a stout man, with black hair, and +grey eyes. + +He it was who had been--a priest: and in "Black Maria" had given +that answer: "I am who I am". + + + + +XIV + +THE PRIEST + + +A year passed, during which John Loveday exhausted the resources of +civilization, (1)in seeking Margaret, and (2)in investigating the +innocence of Richard. + +He had, however, a sprightly, adventurous nerve in the mind, and +would pull his velvet sleeves busily up--such was his little way. He +began to plot. + +About the same time the ex-priest, in that far-off world of Colmoor, +said one day to Hogarth: "_You_ won't be here long!" + +"You jest," Hogarth answered; "if I had the chance of escape, I +should never take it. I am here by due legal process". + +"Tut, if I say that you will escape, it is not because I am a +prophet, but a man of the world, and know what happens in it". + +Converse with this deep, world-wise, and fluent man had now become +to Hogarth like manna, or rather a vice, like opium: for in those +grey eyes of the cleric was hinted anon the baleful glint of the +cobra's. + +That day, a Saturday, outdoor gangs were recalled early, to "clean +up" for Sunday, and out across the heath rang the great bell, +Colmoor being famous for its bell, its tone and great size, larger +than even the eight-ton "Mighty Tom" of Christ Church, for though +its thickness was only six inches, it weighed, bell and clapper, ten +tons, and was seven feet high and seven in diameter. + +A busy Saturday afternoon ensued, and whatsoever Hogarth's hand +found to do he did it with his might, though his face now seemed all +eyes--brown, bloodshot, imperially large, morbidly staring. + +He was giving the finishing touches of order to his wooden spoon and +salt-cellar, his tin knife, plate, and pint cup for gruel, when a +Warder Jennings peeped in with, "No. 76--you are to follow the +assistant warder at once", and Hogarth descended to an ante-room +where an official handed him a letter, which had been read and +initialed by governor and chaplain. + +An event!--a letter in Colmoor, like a shark's fin on the voyages of +old sailing ships. + +It was from Loveday, and concluded with a reference to Hogarth's +"poor old grandmother". + +So Hogarth, who had no "grandmother", propped his forehead to ponder +that thing; and presently said: "Oh, it is a cypher". + +And by noting little peculiarities in the shapes of the letters, a +double cross to a t, a q like a g, etc., he soon had "flemecops- +leftquary"--which he took to mean: "flee to me in the copse to the +left of the quarry". + +He smiled with tenderness at the dear heart planning and daring so +very much for him. But in his smile was a touch of disdain also, he +not intending to "flee". + + + + +XV + +MONSIGNOR + + +Hogarth's first thought, as getting-up bell clattered réveille +through the gallery, was of Loveday's cypher, and by the time the +warder came to ask if he would see governor or doctor, a thought of +Monsignor O'Hara had somehow mixed itself with the thought of the +cypher; when an orderly handed in the day's brown loaf, he was +thinking, "Strange that he never told me what he has done"; eating +his pint of gruel, he thought: "If I will not escape myself, I might +perhaps let another." + +"What!" said O'Hara on the march out, "you still here?" + +"Where should I be?" answered Hogarth, dull and sullen. + +"Where palaces stand open for you, and bank-notes--have you ever +realized something very charming in the Helen pallor of a bank-note, +Hogarth? And gold-yellow, sparkling gold! Hogarth, I--_love_ gold! +It is a confession--" + +"Is it that love which brought you here?" Hogarth asked with his +sideward stare. + +Whereupon the priest turned a cold gaze upon him--had regarded +Hogarth as a well-bred man, or would hardly have conversed with him. + +"I had a motive for asking", said Hogarth, eyeing the face of the +prelate--a man of very coarse feature; a small head, made to receive +the tonsure, with a low brow; a stern bottom lip, and long upper; a +fat neck held majestically erect; and up stuck his double chin. In +profile, the part between the sharp edge of the bottom lip and the +chin-tip was divided, down near the chin tip, by an angle and +crease; and the lower face seemed too massive for the size of the +head. + +Nothing could be more exquisite than the contrast between his air of +force, authority and importance, and the knickerbockers, the coarse +cap, the canvas slop-jacket, which he wore. + +Outwardly calm, he was yet very excited by that "I had a motive"; he +said to himself: "Suppose this man has some plan! He could invent +ten, if he only knew it. And suppose he would tell me it, if I make +him believe me innocent! It would be like him!" + +When the eleven o'clock dinner-bell rang, and they two were again +together, O'Hara said: "Hogarth, I have for some time been intending +to give you my story. Have I in your eyes the air of a guilty man?" + +"God knows," answered Hogarth, with a shrug; "you talk nicely, and +you know much". + +"So much for the hollowness of friendship!" + +"Don't be sentimental", said Hogarth: "I never pretended to be any +friend of yours; but I do respect your talents, do pity your misery: +and if I knew the solid facts of, as you have said, your +'innocence', I might--" + +"_What_?" whispered O'Hara with a thievish, fierce glance. + +"Help you". + +"_In God's truth?_" + +"I might". + +O'Hara said: "I don't find it so cold as it was this morning. You +must have observed a certain peculiarity of moorland climates--the +same being true of the Roman Campagna, and of Irish peat-lands--that +they are colder than elsewhere in the absence of the sun, and warmer +in its presence. This afternoon--_I will tell you_--" + +They had reached the great gates, and were marched to parade-ground +for the second of the four daily searches; then, after three ounces +of fat mutton and forty minutes' rest, the third search, the second +march-out. + +And immediately beyond the gates O'Hara began: "In order to paint +you my life, Hogarth, I must give you at once to understand what has +been its mainspring and secret: my passion for my Church--" + +He paused, while his lips moved in prayer, and he crossed himself. + +"From boyhood my dream was to see my Church supreme in the warfare +of the world, I being a King's College and Maynooth man, at twenty- +three was Senior Chancellor's Medallist, and seven years later, sent +to Rome was quickly received into the Vatican household. It was +recognized that I had a future: both gifts and graces; piety; a +versatile tongue; a powerful voice; some learning; could dine, I +could look august; above all, I knew my man and could talk him over. +My great day came when, one morning, in St. Gregory the Great on +Mount Coelius, I was consecrated Bishop Coadjutor to his Eminence +the Archbishop of Westminster. Now I was on the heights. My life +during the next ten years was a life of bustling action--and was led +always with one unselfish object. No man ever spoke a greater number +of words than I, Hogarth. I have breakfasted with the Prime +Minister, lunched with a President of the Conference, and dined with +the Bishop of London: between the three meals I have written a +hundred letters and pitched into ten cabs. Such a life is very +exhilarating, in comparison, for example, with quarrying. Oh, my God +what am I fallen! Most of that time I was running over Europe: from +Madrid to Vienna, from Rouen to Rome. It happened that the +Archbishop of Paris was organizing a scheme of Church-workhouses in +France, in the absence of municipal ones, such as we have here.... +Well, it was a grand thing, but was falling through for lack of +funds: so I, on my way to Rome, undertook the mission to plead the +cause before his Holiness, and succeeded to this extent that, on my +return, I had with me a casket from the good old man containing +seven diamonds, which I might either dispose of personally, or hand +over to the Paris fund. Now, it was during my stay at Rome that that +series of events, culminating in the Jewish exodus from Europe, +occurred; and on my journey home I was seized with the mighty +thought that, since many of the Jews were perishing of want, _that_ +was the moment to reach their spirit through the body, and add their +race to the trophies of the Church. Was it not a thought? You +yourself, who are a Jew--" + +Hogarth's eyes opened in surprise."_I_ am not a Jew ". + +"No? I should have said that there was a hint of expression +somewhere--But to resume. I retained those seven diamonds, and +disposed of them". + +"Honest behaviour!" + +"Perfectly honest! I acquainted the Pope--he sanctioned it! And now, +I, single-handed almost, threw myself into that task. I hired, I +built, I begged, I borrowed, I formed committees, I haunted +Religious Houses, I sweated, I ran, I wept, I visited dens, I smoked +opium, I drank gin, I framed memorials, I learned Yiddish, I read +the Mishna and Gemara, I interviewed Rabbonim, I wrote tracts: I was +busy. In the midst of it, I had to visit Rome ceremoniously, to +assist at an interview between the Duke of York and his Holiness-- +arrived on the Monday, and on the Wednesday, I remember, attended a +Court Ball in the suite of his Royal Highness. That night, when I +returned to the Vatican, I found all the Piazza di San Pietro +crowded. I do not know if you were free at the time when my friend, +M. Tissot, startled everybody by predicting the collision of an +asteroid with the earth? Tut, the silly being--he should have known +from the body's response to the spectroscope that its condition was +too friable to resist our atmosphere. But I never yet knew an +astronomer not imbued with sensationalism they acquire a certain +megalomania from their intercourse with space. But, at all events, +the people, dreading the destruction of everything, had crowded +toward the Vatican. The Duke of Genoa, I, and some of the College of +Cardinals, stood watching from a balcony; and very imposing, I +remember, was the moment when a glare appeared--I must stop--" + +They were at the face of the rock, and the "halt" and "set to work" +parted them. + +But again on the final march back at 5.15 when nightshades were +falling fast like snow, and the arm now felt the pick a load, O'Hara +began his muttering: + +"I was telling you about the asteroid", he said. "Now this body, it +was given out, contained diamonds in large evidence, and the mere +thought of such a thing bursting in mid-air, and scattering itself +about was, I--I confess, a little fascinating to my mind. A man +might let his soul gloat upon such a hope till he went lunatic with +lust! I--I confess, the thought was alluring to me. Diamond, my son: +lucid--But when the body burst, and none of it came my way, I drove +it from my mind: in fact, I never heard of a trace of it having been +seen--hissed itself into gases in mid-air. Except in one instance-- +one instance. + +"When I reached Calais on my homeward way, stopped there a day, +awaiting the coming of Rouen, for whom I had nuncio communications, +and in the evening went to visit a cottage where I had once been a +great favourite with an old fellow called Santé-you know those +Calais fishers, with painted sabots, and ochred trousers. And +'What!' said I to Santé, 'the nets already spread at this hour?' +'Nothing to be done to-day, my Father', he answered, and explained +that he had attempted to pick up a stone before his door, and--it +had burned him: he showed it me: it had the appearance of a piece of +ferruginous rock, stuck with pieces of dirty glass; and it had +burned Santé on the midnight of the asteroid's scattering. + +"Imagine my excitement: 'The asteroid', I thought, 'may add fifty +thousand Jews to the Church'. I asked Santé for the stone--Do you +blame me?" + +"Go on," said Hogarth. + +"That day two months I had the diamonds lying polished in a casket +in my house. My evil destiny, Hogarth, ordained that the casket was +the one given me for Paris by the Pope, the number of the new +diamonds the same--seven: and one day, about that time, the Vatican +organ, the _Osservatore Romano_, published a dreadful article, +hinting that I had applied to my own purposes seven diamonds +entrusted me for Paris: the Pope, just dead, must have left some +record of his gift. My friend, before I had heard a whisper of the +attack upon me, the casket, whose lid was mosaicked with the Papal +fanon, was secretly searched by a secretary in my house: the seven +diamonds were seen. + +"Imagine the horror of what followed: I was abandoned by all-- +superior and inferior; the story of the meteor was received with +sneers. The scandal reached the public papers--the public +prosecutor. And here now is the wretch, Patrick O'Hara." + +The latter part of this narrative was fiction! The Pope's diamonds +O'Hara had duly handed to the Archbishop! and though there was such +a man as Santé, no asteroid had ever fallen at his door. In fact, +O'Hara was "serving time" for an assault upon a lady in a railway +compartment between Whitchurch and Salisbury. + +But Hogarth spent that night in meditating the pros and cons as to +O'Hara's escaping; and, in a moment of destiny, said at last: "If he +is undeservedly doomed--" and swooned to sleep. + +The very next day was foggy.... + +On the march out O'Hara said: "Here is something like a fog. On the +Carinthian Alps, where you have dense woolly fogs, there is a race +of goats, which--" + +"Would you like to escape?" whispered Hogarth. + +"_Who?_" + +"You". + +"Hogarth--! My God--!" + +A trembling seized the priest's leathery left cheek, he at that +instant seeing a vision of the world--Andalusian wines, hued ices, +the opera-house, and great greyhounds of the sea, and a snuff which +his gross nose loved at Gorey. + +"Hogarth, you are not mocking me?" chattered the priest's jaws, +hurrying like a jarred spring. + +"I am quite serious. You will have to run for it though". + +"_Run!_ I am not such a young man! Have pity Hogarth". + +"Bah! Be a man". + +The priest approached his mouth to Hogarth's ear: "_I should die of +fright!_ My heart--" + +"What would it matter? I thought you had more beans". + +"But have you--a plan?" + +"Yes. You must run to the copse--" + +"I shall be shot!" + +"Probably". + +"I _could_ not--" + +"Then, do not". + +"Tell me, boy! Tell me, Hogarth..." + +"Within the copse to the left of the quarry there is almost +certainly at this moment waiting a man who, as soon as you pronounce +my name, will help you--" + +"You say _almost_ certainly". + +"I can't see him, O'Hara. But I should say he is there on a morning +like this". + +"_What_ a risk! _What_ a risk!" went the priest with lifted eyelids +each time. + +"You cannot escape from prison without risk. But I, personally, +would venture upon ten times as much, if I thought it becoming. +There is, however, another risk: that you may not strike the part of +the copse where he is. But near the 1 middle it is high--" + +"Why, it is nothing but risks!" whined O'Hara with opening arms. + +"You are not bound to try it. By the way--can you swim?" + +"Yes--I suppose so--yes". + +"Then lift yourself to it, and risk it. I should, if I were you. +Think of liberty, activity. Prick your spirit, grip at it, and +spring it". + +"Do you think I shall be shot?" + +"No! It does not matter! Crush your doubts, martyr yourself to your +aim, and your aim will give you the crown of martyrdom". + +"Well--God reward you--I will think of it--" + +"_Do_ it!" + +"I will!" + +"In that case, don't trust to your own eyes--_I_ will give you the +signal with my handkerchief--so: you keep your eyes fixed on me. +Then run, zigzagging. And tell Loveday for me to look after you, +and not make any more plans for me. Good-bye, O'Hara! All this is +very unselfish of me, for I lose my old talky-talky O'Hara--" + +They parted at the rock, and set to work. + +As minutes, half-hours passed, the condition of O'Hara became +piteous, hideous. His knees knocked together. Like death he dreaded, +like life awaited, that signal. He said to himself: "This Hogarth +will be my ruin...God deal not with me after my sins...!" + +Hogarth was waiting that the warders' morning watchfulness might +yield to the influence of use and time; but near nine, when the +morning fog showed signs of thinning, he approached the water-can to +ask for a drink, O'Hara being then two yards from him, wheeling a +barrow. + +As he stooped to the water, his huge stare ranged the moor, took in +the truth of it, and, after waiting ten, fifteen seconds, he upset +the can. As two officers, at the outcry, ran toward the spot, +Hogarth, his eyes fixed upon them, waited--and all at once, with a +flourish, drew his handkerchief. + +O'Hara, with a heavy but impassioned run, was away... + +He had not run five yards when a chorus of whistles was shrilling. + +And quick, that monotony reels into a very frenzy of sensation: it +is no more the same world, the same men. Lo, in the Palace of +Continuity is an Event. + +33 was off. + +Five hundred pairs of eyes lit up, and the flurried warders ran in +random dismay to see to it! How if all the five hundred should do +the like, simultaneously?--a possibility underlying, through all its +breadth, the little social "system" which has produced Colmoor. + +But the five hundred, exhorted, stamped at, shouted at, remained +quiet, though restive, only the wild eye showing the wild thought, +while two of the warders pursued O'Hara who had also to run the +blockade of two pickets of the civil guard. + +The escaping convict, however, has this advantage: that his mind is +strung to a far higher pitch than his pursuers'; and, given a +certain ecstasy, everything can be accomplished. + +So O'Hara separately dodged the two pickets, and was making bolt for +the copse before three rifles, aimed at a large vague ghost, rang +out, and did not hit. He plunged madly into the brambly bush. + +Immediately a bleating like a child's trumpet was heard from its +midst; and in a few seconds, not one, but _four_, men were seen to +rush toward the river, all in convict knickerbockers, stockings, +caps, all in black overcoats: and one carried a bundle. + +Beyond the river one was shot in the leg--a black sailor, who, with +two roughs, had undertaken the risk for lucre. The rest escaped. + + + + +XVI + +THE ROPE + + +Soon after this Hogarth was taken with vomitings, his heart retching +at Colmoor. His dark cheeks jaundiced; those mobile nostrils of his +small bony nose yawned, like an exhausted horse's; his face was all +a light of eyes. + +Whether or not some suspicion of his complicity with O'Hara had +occurred to the authorities, he now found himself transferred to +another "graft": from quarrying was set to trenching. + +Four things are inexhaustible in the earth: the hope of a gambler; +the sea; the lip of a lover; and the capacity of Colmoor to be +trenched and quarried. + +And in Hogarth's new gang was--Fred Bates. + +One day, Hogarth, intent upon his work, heard a sob and, glancing, +saw that Bates had dropped his spade and buried his face in his +hands. + +"What, Fred, not giving in?" He went quickly and pressed his palm on +Bates' brow, saying: "Patience! Stiffen your back: look how _I_ slip +into it!" + +"Ah, Hogarth, you don't know. I am an innocent man". + +"So am I." + +"Yes, but _I_ was certain in my own mind to be out within anyway, +six months; _you_ wasn't. That makes a difference, don't it? That +touches the nerve, don't it? Ah!" + +"And how did you expect to be out?" + +"I had a brother-Bob-in the 9th Lancers in Punjab and his regiment +was ordered home just a week before I was arrested. Well, the +morning after the missus was killed, I went early--for I knew I'd +soon be arrested--to a stableman at Beccles--you know old Harris--and +I made him swear to give a letter to Bob the moment Bob put foot in +Southampton, and to nobody else. In the letter I told Bob where he +was to look for so-and-so, and how he was to prove my innocence--" + +"But I don't understand a word of what you are saying", interrupted +Hogarth. + +"I'll tell you. I did not kill my Kit. The burn on her face, and on +my hand, wasn't any red-hot poker. Did you ever hear such bosh? Look +here, you mind, don't you, the talk that week about the world +getting blowed up by some comet? Well, about 3 P.M. on the comet +day, as I was walking home through Lagden Dip, an old gent, the same +as took the farm over after you, he comes up to me, and he says: +'If you should happen to see anywhere in your travels', sez 'e, +laughin' and rubbin' his hands, 'a piece of hot iron after eleven +to-night, you bring it to me, and I'll put a cheque for One Thousand +Pounds there in the middle of your palm'. Well--I said it was a +Wednesday, didn't I? And Wednesday bein' the pay-day on the Eastern, +me and the missus had a drop o' beer that afternoon, and you know +'ow you come and catched me a-paying of her--dirty dog that I was +those days. But, Hogarth, you hadn't hardly gone when we made it up +between us, and the rest of that evening we was just like--well--two +bloomin', cooin' doves! kissin', blubblin', havin' drinks, and doin' +our week's shoppin' together. Well--stop, here's Black--" + +They were interrupted, and for two days found no other chance. + +Two days during which Hogarth received another letter from Loveday, +of which one paragraph was as follows: "The fifteen pounds which you +left in Lloyd's Bank I have managed to withdraw for you on the +authority of your aunt, Miss Sarah Hogarth", and at once he scented +a cypher, having no fifteen pounds, and no aunt. + +When he had unravelled it as before, he had: "Why you failed? +Expect--Balloon--Rope". + +He was astounded: and could only conclude that O'Hara had not +delivered his message. + +And as the image of O'Hara had mixed itself with his thoughts of the +copse, so now the image of Fred Bates mixed itself with the balloon. + +It was partly through _his_ evidence that Bates was here...! + +On the third day Bates, as though he had just left off, resumed his +story: + +"You know Seely's, the general shop, at Priddlestone", said he; "it +was there we always did our Wednesday-night marketin'--nobody would +believe what high old jinks those Wednesday pay-days was to us Great +Eastern blokes! By the time we reached Priddlestone, we had a quart +of four-ale down us, let alone what we'd had before, and, as the +saying is, one glass leads to another. By now we was feeling just +nicely, thank you, and instead of going to Seely's, we took a short +cut to 'The Broom', and it was going on for past eleven when we +found ourselves in--you know the beechwood between Priddlestone and +Thring--she singing all the time with her head thrown back, at the +top of her voice. + +"Hogarth, it gives me the creeps to think of! Suddenly it looked as +if the whole wood was lit up: there was the sky all cut up with +streamers, I saw my Kit quite plain, then all at once there was a +whishin' and a rushin' among the trees, like steam--and I saw my Kit +drop smack. In two ticks my head was sober: but, as I ran to her, I +staggered sideways upon my left hand, and I let such a _yell_ out of +me--had put my hand upon something flamin' hot. + +"The minute I bent over my old woman I knew she was a deader; and I +dropped down, and I called of her, and I shook of her, and it was +quite two hours before I come to myself properly, by which time the +affair what struck her down was gone out in darkness. Of course, the +first thing I thought of was the old gent at Lagden. 'This should +mean a cool thou', says I to myself. But I knew I should be arrested +first thing in the morning, except I told plain out what had +happened: and that, you bet, I didn't mean to do, for if once I +mentioned that there piece of iron before I had it safe off the +lord-o'-the-manor's land, I knew it 'ud be taken from me. But to +take it off before another day or two was out of the question--it +was too hot. So says I to myself: 'I'll _get_ convicted; and to- +night I'll write a letter to Bob, telling him where to find the +affair, how to get the thou, and _after_ he's got it, how to set +about gettin' the case retried '. + +"Well, so said, so done. You know that old elm in the beech-wood? I +dug a grave at the foot of it, and managed to kick and roll the +affair into the grave, then I took up my Kit, carried her home, and +by the time I pegged out the letter to Bob, I saw day breakin'. So I +made paces for Beccles, knocked up old Harris, and gave him the +letter for Bob. By eight o'clock I was arrested--" + +At this point the 5.15 recall-bell rang out, and there was falling +into line. + +The next time that they had speech together, Hogarth said: "And were +you such a clown, Fred Bates, as to imperil your life for a paltry +thousand pounds?" + +"_Paltry_ thousand pounds?" answered Bates, surprised: "Hark at +this! Didn't I peril my life ten times more in Egypt for a bob a +day? I tell you I was certain in my own mind of getting out in a few +weeks!" + +"Well, what happened to prevent you?" + +"Only this: Bob died on the troop-ship coming home; that's all". + +"But you could write old Harris to open your letter to Bob, and act +on it, or else hand it over to your father". + +"My word, but haven't I wrote? Old 'Arris is either dead and buried, +or gorn away, or somethin'. I've waited a year and nine months--good +God! and no answer yet". + +"Poor Fred! I could weep blood for you. Believe in God!" + +"More Devil than God about Colmoor, it strikes me". + +"As though _you_ knew! Suppose I strike you blind--_now_--with a +flash of Him?" + +"I don't take your meaning, sir", said Bates, with a strange heart- +bound and sense of awe. + +"Do you remember 33 of the quarry-gang, Fred?" + +"Yes". + +Hogarth whispered: "It was _I_ who got him off". + +Bates whitened to the lips. "I--I thought as much". + +"There is yet another chance, which _you_, if you like, may take". + +Bates saw heaven opening; but with this vague hope was left two +days. + +On the third, Hogarth explained what he assumed to be the new plan +of Loveday. + +"I take it", he said, "that he will pass over the moor in a balloon +trailing a rope, which will have a loop to be slipped under the +arms. I tell you, there are dangers in this scheme: you may be shot. +Are you for trying it?" + +"Trying it, aye", said Bates, with fifty times the boldness of +O'Hara. + +And now began for these two a painfulness of waiting days, the sleep +of both, meanwhile, being one nightmare of confused affrights, +balloons and deliriums. + +Ten times they re-discussed every possibility of the scheme, Hogarth +giving messages for Loveday, heaping counsels upon Bates. Nothing +remained to be said, and still the days passed over the time-worn +hearts, till a month went by. + +At last something was observed in the sky--afar to the N.W.--in the +afternoon turn, about two o'clock, a mist on the moor, but the sky +almost cloudless. + +Whereupon Hogarth, who first saw the object, stepped, as if looking +for something, close to Bates, hissing: "_Goodbye!_ Keep cool-- +choose well--" + +Bates shovelled on steadily, as though this was a day like others; +but twice his knees gave and bent beneath him; and there was a +twitching of the livid under-lip, piteous to see. + +It drew nearer, that silent needle, while Bates worked, delving, +barrowing, making little trips; plenty of time; and no one noted his +lip which pulled and twitched. + +Without visible motion it came, wafted on the breaths of high +heaven: half an hour--and still it was remote, fifteen hundred feet +up. Bates and Hogarth peered to see a rope, but could none. + +After fifty minutes it was actually over the moor, all now conscious +of it; but the rope was indistinguishable from the air. + +Yet it was there, walking the ground, at its end a horizontal +staff....Hogarth, with wiser forethought than Loveday's, had +predicted, not a staff, but a loop. + +It passed twenty yards from the quarry, Loveday no doubt imagining +that Hogarth still worked there; but the quarry was some hundred and +fifty yards from the trench. + +Its course, nevertheless was toward the trench: and on walked +deliberately the fluctuating rope, the staff now travelling the +gorsey ground, now bounding like a kangaroo yards high, to come down +once more yonder. + +A moment came when Hogarth, with intense hiss, was whispering to +himself: "If I were he, I should dash _now_". + +But Fred Bates did not move. + +Hogarth suffered agonies not less excruciating than the rack. + +"Oh, whyever does he wait?" he groaned. + +But now--all suddenly--it was known, it was felt, deep in five +hundred ecstatic hearts, that a convict was gone--a man overboard--a +soul in the agony--battling between life and death. + +Like tempests the whistles split the air. + +Where is he? Who is he? What mother bare him? It is 57! And he is +_there!_--on high--caught, to the skies. + +The tumbling of four ballast bags from the balloon was marked: the +balloon darted high, wildly high; and with her, seated on the bar, +the cord between his thighs, darted high Fred Bates. + +Exultant! the five hundred faces wax fire-eyed, each heart a flame +of madness. But yonder is Warder Black taking trembling, yet +careful, aim: now the report is echoing from the two Tors, the +granite-works; and that smoke no sooner thins than a whole volley of +crackling musketry is winging toward that dot under the clouds. + +And it was hideous--pitiful--the quailing heart waited and was still +to see the dot dissever itself from its rod: he had been hit: was in +the middle of the vast and vacant air: and wheeling he came. + +A shockingly protracted interval did that fall fill up: the five +hundred, gazing as at some wonder in heaven, did not, could not, +breathe: the outraged heart seemed to rend the breast in a shriek. +Would it _never_ end, that somersault? Wheeling he came. + +In reality it occupied much less than a minute: and now he is no +more ethereal, but has grown, is grossly near, attended by the +raving winds of his travelling: is arrived. And the thump of his +coming was heard. As he touched the earth he jerked out circular.... + +Here was a tragedy remembered many a year at Colmoor, and always +with feelings of the deepest awe. + + + + +XVII + +OLD TOM'S LETTER + + +The fate of Bates filled Hogarth's mind with a gloom so funereal, +that now his strength, his great patience, all but succumbed. + +One evening, while his broom lay stuck out under the notch of his +cell-door in order that Warder Black might count him, he took his +tin knife, and began to scratch over the hills and valleys of his +corrugated wall some shining letters: + + VEN + +He was now, after long reflection, convinced that he was the victim +of a plot of Baruch Frankl's: yet in his heart was little rancour +against Frankl, nor, when he wrote his "V E N", was he thinking +specially of Frankl--hardly knew of whom, or what. It may have been +of the system of things which had given to Frankl such vast powers +over him; but, the "N" finished, he pshawed at himself, and threw +the knife down. If something was wrong, he knew not at all how to +right it, supposing the world had been his to guide. + +But a simple incident was destined to transform his mood--a letter +from old Tom Bates, the father of Fred. + +And as hitherto we have seen him passive, bearing his weight of pain +with patience, after that letter we shall find him in action. + +Old Bates' letter was handed him three weeks after the scratching of +his vague "VEN". + +"DERE MISTER HOGARTH: + +"thise fu lines is to ast you how you er getn on, and can you giv a +pore old feller ane noos ov that godfussakn sun ov mine hopn they ma +find you as they leave me at present wich i av the lumbeigo vere Bad +and no Go the doctor ses bob wot you no was in the ninth lansers he +dide comen home so ive only fred left out of the ate. I rote to im +fore munths agorne, but no anser, no doubt becos i cum to london +soon arter, so no more at present from + +"Yours trule, + +"TOM BATES". + +The old fellow, Hogarth saw, did not know of Fred's fate: Fred, the +last of eight. He would find it hard to answer that letter. + +When "beds down" was called, his head was still full of one thought: +old Tom Bates; and he could not sleep; heard the bell ring for the +change of warders; the vast silence of the prison's night; and still +his brain revolved old Tom. + +The stealthy slipper of the night-warder passed and re-passed. Anon +a click of metal on metal, and the bull's-eye searched him. + +Suddenly he remembered that visit to the forge at Thring, and the +present of herrings which old Tom in his guernsey, had brought. + +"Here--take 'em--they're yours", old Tom had said. + +He had just then, he remembered, been on the point of going into the +cottage to examine his guns, when the old man came, and stopped him--a +fatal, appointed thing, apparently. Had he actually gone, he would have +found the guns vanished, and would never have been condemned.... + +And what was it that the old man had said about fish, and fishermen, +and the sea? + +He bent his brow to it, and finally remembered: "The day's work of a +fisherman gives him enough fish to live on all the week, and he +could lie round idling the other six days, if he chose; only anybody +can't live on nothing but fish all the time". + +Was it true? Yes! He remembered facts of Yarmouth.... + +But since true, it was--strange. + +Was the sea, then, a more productive element for men to work in than +the land? No, that was absurd: the land, in the nature of things, +was more productive. + +Then, why could not _all_ men procure an easy superfluity by one +day's work, as the fisher could, if he chose to live naked in a +cave, eating fish alone? In that case the fisher could change some +of his day's-work fish for the shore people's day's-work things, and +so all have a variety as well as superabundance. + +At the interest of this question, he leapt from his hammock, peering +into that thing, and his fleet feet were away, running after the +truth with that rapt abandonment that had characterized his hunting +and football. This was clear: that there was some difference between +land and sea as working-grounds for men. Shore people, like a +shoemaker, did not have for themselves enough shoes from even five, +or six, days' work on which to live in plenty for a week: and hence +would take nothing less than an enormous quantity of the fisher's +fish in exchange for a pair of shoes, making him, too, poor as +themselves. But since land work was as productive as sea work, and +far more so, it could only be that the shoemaker did not get for +himself all the shoes which he made, as the fisher got for himself +all the fish which he caught: some power took from shore people a +large part of what they made, a power which did not exist on the +sea. That much was sure. + +What was this power, this inherent difference? + +He could think of no inherent difference except this: that shore +workers paid rent for land--directly and indirectly--in a million +subtle ways; but fishers paid none for the sea. + +So, then, if shore folk paid no rent, they would have a still +greater superfluity of shoes, etc., from one day's labour in six +than the fish-rich fisher? + +So it seemed. So it _was_--as with savages. He started! But one +minute's reflection showed him that it was in the very nature of the +shore to pay rent: because one piece of land was better than +another--City land, for instance--and those working on the better +must pay for that benefit. Civilized land, therefore, was bound to +pay rent. + +So that the shore people could never have the easy superfluity of +the fish-rich fisher--because land was bound to pay rent? And the +fisher must buy the shore things so dear with his easy-got fish, +toiling, he, too, all the week--because land was bound to pay rent? + +The wretchedness of Man, then, was a Law? + +Hogarth, confronted by a wall, groaned, and while his body was cold, +his brow rolled with sweat, he feeling himself on the brink of some +truth profound as the roots of the mountains.... + +"Land was bound to pay rent": he reached that point; and there +remained. + +"But suppose the workers on shore paid the rent _among +themselves_....?" + +At last those words: and he gave out a shout which begat mouths of +echo through the galleries of Colmoor. + +"If the workers on shore paid rent among one another"--then they +would--on the whole--be in the very position of the fish-rich +workers on sea, who paid no rent at all, the nation--as a whole-- +living on its country rent-free: England English, America American, +as the sea human: and our race might then begin to think, to live! + +It seemed too sublime--and divine--to be true! Again, point by +point, he went over his reasoning with prying eye; and, on coming +back to the same conclusion, hugged himself, moaning. At last--he +knew. + +And away now with the dullness and lowness! That blithe and hand- +clapping day! Good-bye, Colmoor! the daily massacre, the shame and +care. Men could begin--if in a baby way at first--to think, to see, +to sing, to live. + +He saw, indeed, that that would hardly have been fair business if +he, for example, had paid his rent to the English Nation instead of +to Frankl, Frankl having bought Lagden with money earned. But he +thought that Frankl would hardly be slow to resign that rent, if +once he was shown.... + +But if Frankl _was_ slow--what then? + +The oblong of ribbed glass over his flap-table showed a greyness of +morning, as he asked himself that thing. + +In that case--Frankl could be argued with. + +But if he still refused? + +Then the question could be gone into as to whether that which is +good for forty millions, though apparently bad for Frankl, is not +_forty million times_ more just than unjust, goodness being justice; +also, as to which had the primary right to England, Frankl or the +English. + +But if he still refused? + +Suddenly Hogarth giggled--his first laugh in Colmoor. + +_That_ could be arranged.... + +For him, Hogarth, the great fact was this: that he saw light. Into +that humble cell the rays of Heaven had blazed. + +After standing motionless a long time, he dropped to his knees, and +"O, Thou, Thou", he said.... + +An hour later, when asked by an orderly if he wished to see doctor +or governor, he replied: "The Governor". + + + + +XVIII + +CHLOROFORM + + +(Captain Bucknill, the Governor, was making his morning rounds, when +he heard that among the convicts claiming to see him was 76.) + +A little man, prim, snappy, compact: an army officer, with +moustachios stuck upon him, to curve and finish him off. + +"Well, what is it, 76?" said he busily at the cell door. + +Hogarth struck a hand-salute--his old habit on His Majesty's ships. + +"Sir, I wished to tell you that I have determined to escape from +this prison--if I can". + +"Indeed, now! This is a most refreshing candour, 76!" + +"I have said what I had to say", said Hogarth. "You keep a sharp eye +on me, and I, too, will keep a sharp eye". + +The Governor puffed a breath of laughter, turned on his heels, +walked away, and that day spoke to three officials with regard to +Convict 76. + +And during a week Hogarth lay deep, chained, in a punishment-cell. + +But during its first four days he had invented three separate plans +of escape, and had determined upon the one which seemed the surest, +though longest. + +When he again came up into the light, he was a marked man, under +Warder Black's constant suspicion. + +Now, however, his expression was changed: he no longer belonged to +Colmoor, though he was there. Sometimes he felt like shouting at the +burden of his secret. In his impatience to proclaim it, he pined to +write to Loveday--but now his punishment had lost him that +privilege. + +Meantime, the problem was to get ten good miles beyond Colmoor: a +hard one; but his brain had already accomplished a task far harder: +and the greater implied the less. + +His first thought, when he had begun to plan, had been Loveday; his +second, that on no account could he permit Loveday to incur further +risk, or expense, for him; his third, that he might yet use Loveday +to any extent not involving risk or expense. + +At the next weekly "School" he sat near a Thames-works hackle-maker, +who, though he could write, was no scholar, and was laboriously +spoiling a second letter-sheet, when Hogarth whispered him: "Can I +help you? I see it's to your mother. I could get her a quid from a +friend of mine". + +"Well, I'm much obliged....!" + +The laborious letter, after half an hour, had in it: + +"If you go to 15, Cheyne Gardens, the gentleman will give you a +sovereign which he owed me for cutting down the elm in the beech- +wood at Teddington for him". + +Now, Loveday lived at 15, Cheyne Gardens, and had only to see those +words "_the elm in the beechwood_," to scent a cypher from Hogarth. + +He offered five pounds for that letter: but it was two weeks before +he decided upon the intended words: "Small chloroform--trenches-- +rock". + +There were several trenches, many rocks: yet one midnight, when a +blustering wind huddled the bracken, and the prison stood darkling, +wrapped in mystery, a lonely figure in an ulster was there; and +under each of three rocks he deposited two vials: for the formation +of only three gave the least chance of concealment. + +What Hogarth's plan could be he racked his brain in vain to dream, +guessing that prisoners, on returning from the moor, must be +searched, even to the ears: Hogarth, therefore, could never use the +vial within the walls, and must mean to use it without--a +sufficiently wild proceeding. But the finding of the vials, was +sure: for the "rock" which Hogarth had had in mind was one of those +granite ones common on Colmoor, standing five feet high on a small +base; and one day he swept his hand among the gorse under it, and, +with a glad half-surprise, touched two vials. + +Three days later he again swept his hand among the gorse, touched +the vials, breasted his handkerchief, laid the vials on it, and +presently contrived to tie them together with a twig. + +At his feet now was a wheelbarrow full of marl, and two yards off +Warder Black, waiting for him to roll the barrow; but, inserting his +spade between a wheel and a side of the barrow, his back toward +Black, Hogarth, with a tug, bent the spade: then walked to Black. + +"Look here", he said, "that spade isn't much good now...." + +Black strode to look, Hogarth a little behind him: and at the +instant when the officer was a-stoop to lift the spade, Hogarth took +the vials from his breast, and laid them upright in the little +pocket of Black's tunic, near his bayonet-sheath and cartridge-box, +above the belt. + +By the time the matter of the spade was settled, the great bell +rang, the gangs went marching over the old familiar level, up the +old path in the grass-mound on which the Palace stands, and so, in +lax order, like shabby French conscripts, powdered, toil-worn, into +the gates. + +Then the search on parade: during which, as Black busily searched +him, Hogarth said: "Search well". + +They were then led up to cells. + +And the moment Hogarth's door closed upon him, he put his skilly-can +on the floor, and, with one stamp, stamped it out of shape; also he +broke his cup, and pocketed two fragments of it. + +A few minutes afterwards, before cocoa, Black, trotting in heavy +haste here and there in the gallery, looked in to say: "Bath to- +night". + +And Hogarth: "Warder! a word with you! sorry, I have trodden on my +can...." + +Upon which Black went stooping to look, the can now standing on the +low shelf; and as he said "I shall report this", Hogarth, stooping, +with quick deftness had the vials picked from the thick pocket. + +"Well, fall in", said Black to him; "better take your precious can, +and give it to a bath-room warder for the store-keeper to change". + +Hogarth, as he passed out, placed the vials on the shelf over his +door, where they were secure, since cells were never searched; and, +the bathers having formed in single file, five feet between man and +man, away they moved and down--away and down--lost in space, +treading the journey of galleries, till, at the bottom, they passed +up a vaulted corridor, monastically dim, across a yard open to +starry sky, and into the door of a semi-detached, steep-roofed +building, which was the bath-house. + +A row of thirty-five baths; a very long bench for undressing; in the +space between bench and baths three warders walking: such was the +bath-house: all whitewashed, galvanized iron, and rigour; but for +its old record of uneventfulness a scandal was preparing that night. + +Outside the door a fourth officer paced, and a cord within rang a +little bell in one click, to tell when, the bathing over, the door +should be unlocked outside. + +After giving up his can near the door to a warder, who laid it on +the bench, Hogarth undressed slowly; got off his boots; and now had +on only knickerbockers and stockings: he got off his stockings. + +And the moment his bare soles touched the floor, he felt himself +once more agile on the ratlines, larky for a shore-row, handy in any +squall. Let them all come, therefore! He smiled; passed his palms +down his crib of lean ribs. + +"Good gracious, why don't you hurry up there...?" an officer came +asking, stooping. + +At "there" he saw stars-and-stripes, dropped upon his back: Hogarth +was away toward the door, while the bathers started with shouts, +though in no bosom arose any impulse to follow, the bath-house being +the centre of a maze of twenty unscaleable walls, prison within +prison. + +But as for Hogarth, in such a dazzling flash did he dash toward the +door, that he had struck down the second officer before the outcry +of the first, and had pulled at the door-bell before the third could +cry _"Don't open!"_--a cry muffled into his maw by a cuff prompt as +thunder. + +This third man, however, grasped the fugitive by the middle: and +while the overthrown two were running up, and the key without +seeking the lock, a short, venomous tussle was waged just near the +door, till Hogarth, wringing his naked body free, tossed his +antagonist by the knees to slide into the path of the two on-comers; +at the same time, catching up his battered can, and smashing it into +the face of the door-orderly, who now peeped in, he slipped through, +and was gone into a yard, small, of irregular shape, and dim, with +one wall-lantern, and but one egress (except the egress into the +prison-hall), namely a blind-alley between the laundry and carpet- +makers' building on one side, and stables on the other: blind alley, +yard, and all, being shut in by big buildings. + +By the time the door-orderly opened his eyes, and one of the inside +three had rushed out, Hogarth had vanished; and these two, shrilling +whistles to reinforce the bath-room guard, pelted down the blind- +alley to effect, as they thought, a sure capture. But Hogarth was +not there. + +Back they came trotting, breathless, rather at a loss. One panted: +"He must have run back into the great hall...." + +The other panted: "He'd hardly do that--hiding in the yard still, +_must_ be. There's that little nook...." + +The "little nook" is a three-sided space in a corner, very dark, +formed by one wall of the campanile, or bell-tower, together with a +wall of the laundry-house, and a third wall which shuts in the yard; +the entrance to it narrow, and one looking up within it seems to +stand at the bottom of a triangular well, split at one corner. It is +not far from the bathhouse, and into it Hogarth had really darted; +but when the officers came peering, no trace of him. + +He had, in fact, gone up the lightning-conductor, which runs down a +bell-tower remarkably high, Colmoor having been built during the +Napoleonic wars for French prisoners at a time when the theory was +accepted that a lightning-conductor protects a space whose radius is +double the height of the conductor. The tower is a five-sided +structure with a Gothic window into which it is impossible to get +from the conductor, because a corner intervenes, and it is a feat to +swing from the conductor to the laundry-wall coping, and thence, +leaping up, to grip the window: at each of which ordeals Hogarth +hesitated, pierced with chills; to his observations from afar it had +seemed so much less stupendous; but in each case he dared, and +reached. + +All this time the can was between his teeth. + +Arrived on the window, his arms out groping, he felt a slanting +beam--climbed it--found it short-mounted upon a horizontal one, all +here, as he had expected, being a chaos of beams, raying every way. +Thrice he sneezed low, and felt cobwebs in his face. + +And groping he went, seeking the great Bell of Colmoor, which he had +doomed, hearing sounds of the to-do, echoes that ran below, and the +vague shout of somebody, till he touched the flat top of the bell, +clamped to the swing-beam on which he sat astraddle; felt also that +along the top of the beam lay an iron bar; made sure that this was +in actual contact with the clamps of the bell: and, no longer +hesitating, set to work upon the can. + +Tugging with his dog-teeth under the upper rim, he got a loose end, +and wrenched the rim off; then, tearing along the solder, got the +cylinder separated from the bottom; and, opening it out, had a sheet +of tin. And now, by the help of his fragments of cup, he set to +hack-sawing, breaking, tearing this into strips, no easy thing, in +spite of the thin-worn condition of the can: but finally had six +strips. + +The edge of one strip he inserted under an end of the bar of iron on +the beam; then connected that strip with another by loops, slid +again to the window, and there lay connecting the six strips by a +smith's-trick, with skew loops, non-slipping, getting a tin string +five feet long. He then took the leap to the laundry coping, and +thence the spring to the conductor, this being all the more +ticklishly perilous because he could barely see it. + +Hanging away now from the conductor by the left elbow, he reached +out the right arm across the corner to catch the tin, which stuck +toward him from the window: and he wound its end round the +conductor, electrically connecting the bell with the conductor. + +And now, standing with one foot on a staple below the tin, he twice +sawed the conductor's soft metal with the fragments of cup, cutting +and tugging out three inches of it, thus isolating the conductor's +point atop from its earthing; then he tossed the piece cut out +behind the laundry-coping. + +This done, he listened, cast a searching eye below, slid down the +rod. + +The yard was at present silent, but as he moved to give himself up +in the prison-hall, five night-warders with bull's-eyes fell out, +still seeking him. + +And as he knelt with clasped hands of supplication and bent bare +back, like a captured slave, they fell savagely upon him, and cried +one: "Well, of all the idiots...!" + + + + +XIX + +THE GREAT BELL + + +The next morning Hogarth was not marched out, and near dinner-time +was summoned before the Governor. Here he stood in a cage of bars in +a room of "No.1" prison, devoted to prison-offences; and before him, +at a littered table, sat governor and chief warder, with the +witnesses of the outbreak near. + +The case was gone into, the report made: whereupon the Governor +looked up and down the length of Hogarth, and suddenly gave vent to +a laugh. + +"So, No. 76", said he, "this was the threatened escape?" + +Hogarth was now all contrition and hanging head. + +"I beg for mercy", he said, with a little smile. + +"Oh, I am not your judge...Where were you when the officers were +looking for you in the yard?" + +"I was hiding in that little nook". + +"Confounded carelessness on someone's part...And what cut and +swelled your mouth?" + +"I bashed into the wall in the nook" (The can had cut him!). + +"You must have been mad!" + +"Yes, sir". + +During the next two weeks he had round his ankles a chain which, +rising in two loops, was fastened to a band round his waist; and he +was set to turn "the crank". + +Finally, he was led forth to stand before the periodic Director, +who, after reading the report, turned to a volume of writing in +which was Hogarth's record: good--till lately; and the Director +addressed him with sternness, which yet was paternal: he would +sentence him to one month in a punishment cell, to two months in +chains, and to one dozen lashes. + +And two days later he was led to the flogging-hall, which, as he +approached it, sent forth screams; the doctor looked at him and +consented; the Governor said: "Get it over". + +Hogarth stripped to the waist, his teeth chattering: but not with +fear. On the contrary, he felt a touch of exultation. + +The wrists of his outstretched arms having been bound to "the +triangle", the Governor gave the sign, the cat rose, and sang, and +fell. + +Slowly up, and whistlingly down, rasping, reaping. At the seventh +shock he fainted: and thence onward had a long dream, in which he +saw Rebekah Frankl in Hindoo dress and jewellery, and she threw at +him a red rose black at heart with passion, and her body balanced in +dance, and her hands clapped at him. + +During the next month he tholed the cold of that same punishment- +cell; and during the next was in his old cell, but in chains, +picking oakum. All this time, if he was aware of high winds by +night, he was in an agony, till the next day the great bell rang its +treble. + +About the middle of February he was once more trenching in the open +air. + +But a fear had stolen into his mind: for the string of tin was not +strong, and the winds of the last month may have dislocated it. In +any case, he might have to wait a year, two, ten.... + +Occasionally he would redden with suppressed and turbulent energy. + +But on the 17th of March, toward evening, England was visited by a +storm long remembered, lasting three days, during which the poor +prisoners were comforted with rations of hot soup and cocoa. + +On the morning of the fourth day when the gangs were once more taken +out Hogarth was hardly conscious of frigid winds or agued limbs: for +three days the great bell of Colmoor had not rung; and his ears were +open. + +Of the prisoners, who, by practised instinct, get to know the moment +at which it should sound, three presently straightened up, spade in +hand, to glance at the prison: and suddenly heard--a sound. + +A dull something somewhere--from the prison? unless it was some +shock of the wind...Hogarth gazed piteously into the faces near +him...No one seemed to have heard. + +A few seconds, like eternities...Then he saw a warder look at his +watch; then--another! and--they glanced at the prison; and--they +approached each other; and--they laid whispering heads together. + +Then--joy!--came five officers, wildly running from the prison +gates, calling, waving.... + +And now he knew, and smiled: the babble of that lalling tongue was +dumb. + +And the very next day, when the afternoon-gangs were marching out, +they saw descending from a carriage before the Deputy Governor's +house a gentleman with a roll of diagram-paper--a bell-foundry +expert, summoned by telegraph from Cardiff. + +Hogarth resolved to act that night. + + + + +XX + +THE INFIRMARY + + +As soon as the cell-door clicked upon him, he commenced to work: +first took off his boots; then felt over the doorshelf for the +chloroform; wet his handkerchief with some of it: then inserted the +vials across the toes of his boots, which were a succession of +wrinkles, far too large; then put on the boots again. + +He then lay on the floor, close to the low shelf; and, pressing the +handkerchief over his mouth and nose, breathed deep, knowing that in +four minutes, when he did not obey the order of "brooms out", his +cell would be opened. + +As he sank deeper and deeper into dream, it was with a concentration +of his will upon one point--the handkerchief, which, if smelled by +anyone, would ruin all; and finally, as he drew the last gasp of +consciousness, he waved it languidly from him under the shelf; then, +with a sigh, was gone. + +He had known that he must have about his body the unmistakable signs of +an abnormal condition in order to sleep a night in the infirmary--which +was what he wanted. And thither, when shakings and the bull's-eye had +sufficiently tested him, he was swung away, and the doctor's assistant +summoned. + +Hogarth's pupils were hurriedly examined, his heartbeat tested; and +the freshman frowned, smelling an odour which, in another place, +might have been chloroform, but here was pharyngitis; and he +muttered, "Digitalis, perhaps...." + +From a table Hogarth was swung to a bed by two of those well-behaved +convicts who act as hospital-orderlies, and there two hours later +had all his wits about him, and a racking headache. + +His first thought was his boots--expecting to find them under his +stretcher, and himself in flannels; but he had them still on, and +also his work-clothes, humanity to the sick in the first stages not +being in the Colmoor code. + +He spent half an hour in stealthily tearing a square foot from his +shirt-tail; then, weary and sick, went to sleep. + +When, soon after 3 A.M. his eyes again opened, all was still. He lay +in a long room, rather dim, in the midst of a row of stretchers +which were shut in by bars containing locks and gates, and on the +other side of the room a row of stretchers, shut in by bars. At a +table in the middle, on which were bottles, lint, graduated glasses, +sat a warder, with outstretched legs and fallen head: near him, +standing listless, a convict hospital-orderly, who continually edged +nearer the stove; and, half-way down the room, another. + +Occasionally there were calls from the sick-beds--whispered shouts-- +apologetic and stealthy, as of men guiltily conscious of the luxury +of being ill; but neither night-warder nor orderlies made undue +haste to hear these summonses. There was, beside, an octagonal +clock, which ticked excessively in the stillness, as though the +whole place belonged to it. + +Hogarth took off his boots under his blanket, and from them took out +the vials; then, sitting up, commenced to call the warder, at the +same time wetting the torn piece of shirt with some of the fluid. + +"All right, I'm coming--shut up!" said the warder, but did not come. + +So Hogarth grew loud; and the warder, presently rousing his drowsy +bulk, unlocked the gate of that compartment, as Hogarth said to +himself: "Do it handy..." + +And as the warder stooped, Hogarth clapped the rag upon his mouth +and nose. A struggle followed a muffled sob, both standing upright +now, till the warder began to paw the air, sank, toppled upon the +bed, whereupon Hogarth slipped into the blanket again, and called +out in the voice of the warder: "Come here, Barrows--see if this man +is dead ". + +He had now drawn the warder over him, holding up his chest with one +arm, had also poured chloroform upon the rag, and when the convict- +orderly came, Hogarth, by means of a short struggle, had him asleep, +then seized the warder's truncheon and keys, and ran out in his +stockinged feet. + +At that sight, the sick, the dying, the two rows of stretchers, were +up on elbow, gazing with grins. To the second convict-orderly who +came running to meet him Hogarth hissed: "Not a word--or I brain you +with this! If I tie your feet, you won't have to answer for +anything. Come along...." + +He was an old fellow, and when he realized the impending truncheon, +the menace of Hogarth's eyes, and the silence of the warder, he +permitted himself to be dragged toward Hogarth's stretcher; and his +feet were quickly knotted in his own stockings. + +Now again Hogarth ran: but not many steps, when he felt himself +tapped on the back, and, glancing in a horror of alarm, saw one of +the two patients who had occupied with him his cage of bars--a wiry, +long-faced Cockney shop-boy, who had had his ankle crushed by a rock +at the quarry. + +"Are you off?" he asked. + +"That's _my_ business--" + +"No, you don't. Part, or I give the alarm". + +"What is it? Do you want to come with me?" + +"That's about it". + +"But--your foot's sick, you fool". + +"You'll carry me in your awms, as a father beareth his children...." + +"You are cool! What are you in for?" + +"Murder, my son-red, grim, gory murder!" + +"Guilty?" + +"Guilty, ya'as. What do _you_ think?" + +"Then you may go to hell". + +"_'Ell_ is it? I'm _there_: and if I linger longer loo in it, you +linger, too, swelp me Gawd!" + +Hogarth was nonplussed. + +"But the foot..." + +"Never mind the _foot_. Foot's still good for a run. Do we go +shares?" + +"Come along, then". + +"But you ain't 'alf up to snuff, I can see, though you are pretty +smart in your own way: I'd 'ave felt the confidence of a son in you, +if you 'adn't overlooked that wine--" + +To Hogarth's dismay, he turned back to the table, put a black +bottle, half full, to his lips, and with tilts anc stoppages set to +gulp it, while eager jokes, touched with jealousy, began to jeer +from the beds. + +"Lawd Gawd, that was good!" said the Cockney with upturned eyes, +"and what do I behold?--broth, ye gawds!" + +Now a saucepan of cold broth was at his lips; and not till he had +drunk all did he run after Hogarth into the other arm of the ward, +where one of the keys unlocked the door at its end, and they passed +out into the infirmary exercise-hall, now dark, Hogarth dragging the +Cockney, who limped, and kept up a prattle of tipsy ribaldries. + +Then, emerging upon a platform of slabs, from which the jump into +the infirmary exercise-yard is twenty feet, Hogarth leapt. The +Cockney stood hesitating on the brink. + +"As sure as my name's 'Arris, you'll be the bloomin' ruin of me..." +he said aloud. + +"_Sh-h-h_", went Hogarth, "one more word, and I leave or knock you +speechless". + +Now at last Harris jumped, Hogarth catching him, and they ran across +the yard northerly, Harris complaining of cold, being in hospital +flannels, his feet bare, Hogarth bitterly regretting the burden of +this companion, meditating on deserting him. Accordingly, when they +had run down a passage, and were confronted by a great gate, spiked +a-top, Hogarth said: "I'll get up first", and, forcing the small end +of the truncheon into the space at the hinges, he got foot-hold from +which he caught the top hinge and scaled, a feat of which he +considered Harris incapable; and, instead of helping him up, leapt +down with a new feeling of lightness, hearing from the other side +"Dastardly treachery...!" + +Again he ran through dark night wild with winds wheeling snowflakes; +and, seeing in the unpaved court in which he now was a clothes-line +supported on stakes, he seized both, to run with them to where the +court is bounded by the great outer wall: for though it is thirty +feet of sheer rock, the mere fact of stakes being found there, and +of a vanished rope, would furnish grounds for the belief that he had +scaled it: he therefore leant the stakes against it, and kept the +rope. + +About to turn, he felt his back touched; and, spinning round, saw +Harris panting. + +"There's a friend that sticketh closer than any bloomin' brother, +Mr. 76", Harris said. "Try that game on again, and I give myself up; +and where will _you_ be then?" + +"You silly wretch!" said Hogarth: "before I am free, there'll be a +hundred difficulties and pains. Are you prepared to undergo them? +You couldn't, if you tried". + +"Bear ye one another's burdens, it _is_", said Harris: "with thee by +me what need I fear? Lawd Gawd, that wine was good! it's got into my +poor 'ead, I believe. On, general; where thou leadest, I will +follow". + +Hogarth looked at him, half inclined to knock him down, and half to +shelter, and save. + +"All right", said he. "Can you climb?" + +"Climb, yes, like a bag of monkeys". + +"Come, then". + +He mounted three low steps before four doors at the north end of the +infirmary buildings, where, as he had observed from the moor, a +spout runs up the wall at its east end; and up this he began to +climb. + +"'Old on!" called Harris: "I can't do that lot". + +"_Sh-h-h!_--you must!--come--" + +Harris made three attempts before he reached the first footrest, and +there stuck, vowing in loud whispers that he would no further go, +and Hogarth had to come back, and encourage him up. Finally, they +went running southward on the leads between the infirmary roof and +its coping, and had hardly reached the south end when a whistle +shrilled, and they saw a warder run across the exercise-yard with a +lantern. + +"Stoop!" whispered Hogarth. + +Crouching, they stole along the south coping, and thence dropped to +a flat cistern-top, Hogarth, with a painful "_Sh-h-h_", catching +Harris as he fell, for the signs of alarm and activity every moment +increased. + +Up a series of little brick steps, the base of a chimney over the +kitchen--then across another stretch of leads beneath which is the +tailor's shop--then, stealing in shadow under the beams of +overhanging eaves by a garret window, behind which was a light, and +someone moving--then a spring of three feet between two cornices-- +then a running walk at a height of a hundred feet along a beading +four inches wide, holding on with the upstretched arms--then, with +course changed from south to east, along more leads--then a climb of +ten feet up a glazed main--and now they were skulking behind the +coping of the great No. 2 prison. + +Now, contiguous with the back of the bath-house is a wall which runs +from No. 2 prison to the bell-tower, dividing the bath-house yard +from the bell-yard; but the top is not horizontal, being lower at +the bell-tower end, neither is it broad, and to reach it from the +prison coping a drop of seven feet is necessary: this Harris refused +to do. "Not for Joe", said he: "I've already run my 'ead into enough +perils by land and sea on your account. If this is what you've +brought me out moonlighting here for...." + +Hogarth did not wait, but disappeared over the side: and Harris, +after five minutes' pleadings, followed. They then drew on the belly +to the bell-tower; and here again Harris refused the leap to the +conductor. When finally he dared, and Hogarth sought to steady him, +as he came sprawling upon the rod, both went gliding down, till +checked by a staple. + +But they climbed again; Hogarth undid the half-fused string of tin +from the conductor, swung to the laundry coping, caught Harris, +leapt to the window, drew up Harris; and was ensconced far up among +the beams in thick darkness in the belfry an hour before daybreak. + +At this time the great gates were open, and the moor being scoured +for the two. + + + + +XXI + +IN THE DEEP + + +They had not been ten minutes in the tower when Harris began to +whine of the cold; whereupon Hogarth took off his slop-jacket and +waistcoat, and put them upon the Cockney. + +As from two sound-escapes far down near the bell some twilight came +in, near eight Hogarth descended, working from beam to beam, to find +that on one side the bell-metal had been melted into a lumpish mass, +its rim shrivelled up, leaving an empty space under the motto +_Laudate Domino_ (mistake for _Dominum_) _omnes gentes_; and on the +opposite side ran a crack from top to rim. Sliding still lower on a +slanting beam, he could look obliquely upward into the bell's +interior, and see the clapper, a mass weighing eight hundredweight, +and so long, that quite down at the bell's rim were two hollows +where it had constantly struck. It, too, had been blasted; but the +bell-rope hung intact from a short beam at right angles to the swing +beam; and, having found this much, he searched where he had left the +bottom of his tin can, and clambered back with it into the upper +regions. + +About eleven, lying along two beams, they could see the portal below +opened, and four men came in, looking unreal and small; whereupon +the leverage wheel was pulled, the swing-beam swung, the bell struck +the clapper, and throughout the tower growled grum sounds: after +which the four stood talking half an hour, and went away. + +A little later--it must have been after the forty minutes' dinner- +interval--about twenty convicts entered with two warders, bearing +three ladders. When these had been fastened together and set up, and +the leverage wheel removed, they went away. + +It was evidently to be slow work. Not till about four did a solitary +man mount the ladder, and take stand, far down under the bell, +gazing up a long while, with stoops, and changes of posture. Hogarth +thought that it was the bell-foundry expert whom he had seen; but +could only guess: for all here was dim and remote. + +By now he had sawed the clothes-line into two pieces with the tin, +one piece eight feet, the other much longer--had intended tearing +his clothes into strips for ropes, but the clothes-line was still +better. In both ropes he made knots for hand-hold, a large knot at +one end of the short one, and he attached the string of tin to the +other end. Descending now, he tied the longer rope round the +swingbeam, let himself down to the rim of the bell, and with the +right hand pushed the tin into the hole in which the clapper swung, +reaching up, until the tin over-balanced, ran, and toppled down +beside the clapper; drawing the tin now, he brought the rope down +till it was stopped by the knot; and now, by a swing off from rope +to rope, could climb into the bell. He then reascended, taking the +longer rope, and the tin, with him. + +As night fell, he judged that by the next he would succumb. Happily, +Harris, who had eaten later than he, was snoring in a nook; but +toward morning began to whine again, and sulk, and kept it up all +the day. Not a soul now entered, and as the blackness of night once +more filled the place, Harris threw up the sponge, with "Here goes +for this child....!" Hogarth flew across the space which divided +them, and a quarrel of cats ensued, both being under the influence +of the fury called "hunger-madness". It was only when Harris felt +the grip of Hogarth at his windpipe that he squealed submission, +whereupon Hogarth threw himself away; and half the night they sat, +nothing but four eyes, eyeing each other. + +That night what was a revival of the great gale took place, belling +like bucks about their heads, and noising through the tower in many +a voice. This so increased their sense of desolation, that even the +heart of Hogarth fainted, they like castaways on some ocean whose +glooms no sunrise ever goldens; and now a doubt arose whether, even +if the bell were removed on the morrow, Harris would have strength +to cling on during the descent. + +However, early the next day hope revived when five men entered, four +mounting among the beams to the swing-beam with tools, one at the +ladder-head shouting up orders; and Hogarth, when they had gone, +whispered Harris: "They have been unscrewing the sockets in which +the bell-beam swings". + +"Let them unscrew away", said Harris, his chin shivering on his +hand. + +Five more hours; during which only once did three men enter, seeming +to do nothing but talk, with upward glances. + +But at three it was evident that there was considerable to-do, +though above there the row of the winds drowned all sound. A crowd, +chiefly of convicts, passed in and out; then twelve men, one after +the other, ran up the ladder, and thence climbed among the beams, +with six cables. Half went to the east, half to the west, side of +the bell; and three of the cables were fastened round the swing-beam +near one end, three near the other end; one three were then cast +over a beam higher than the swing-beam, to the north of it; the +other three cast over a beam to the south of it; and the six ends +lowered--operations which Hogarth, lying on his face, could just +see; and the twelve had hardly begun to descend, when he saw a lorry +backed into the gateway, filling half 1 the area of the tower; +whereupon over a hundred convicts were swarming over and round it. + +"Now", said Hogarth; and he hurried down, tacking his way with +slides and runs among the intricate beams, tied the rope to a beam +above the swing-beam, and let himself down to the bell's rim; +reached out then, caught the knotted rope that was within the bell, +and climbed, the clapper now so rough, that hand and knee found +grip; and he spent a minute in estimating his power of holding on +with one arm, and with both, to its support-shaft. + +And now he whispered Harris, and caught and half-sustained the +Cockney. + +Now they could hear echoes of the tongues below; and now Harris, +clinging alternate with Hogarth, arms and legs, face to face, by +rope and shaft and clapper, whispered: "But-good Lord-look 'ere- +there are some people coming up!" + +Four convicts were indeed climbing: but even directly beneath the +bell, where it was impossible to come, they would hardly have +distinguished the forms huddled in its dark cavern, and their aim +was higher, to stand ready, when the beam should lift, to swing it +diagonally across the square of beams which had supported it, so +that it might find space to descend. And soon the bell-beam stirred +at the tightening ropes: the fugitives felt themselves swinging, +rising, poised--descending. + +They were dizzily aware of shouted orders, the creaking of the +toiling, slipping ropes, little jolts and stoppages, two hundred +eyes blinking up, not seeing their cringed-up limbs--unnecessary +cautious: for the nearer they descended to-ward the half-light, the +surer did the area of the lorry make their invisibility. At last +they were near; the bell lingered, swinging; babel was around them; +the Governor's voice; a cheer: the bell was on the lorry. + +Someone struck the bell with a hammer, there was talk, swarmings +round it, then shoulders pushed at the lorry wheels, which squealed +and moved amid a still fussier babel drawn by four horses, and seven +yoke of cattle. The fugitives could hear the opening of the great +gate, the laborious exit, and, in a moment's pause, again the +Governor talking, it seemed far off, to the expert.... + +Wearily creaked the cart--beyond the moor--to a country road. + +Now chattering words came from Harris: "All damned fine! I don't +deny that you know your way about--" + +"Way out", said Hogarth. + +"Yes, a gamesome sort of cock you are in all weathers...but what +next?" + +"'Next' is to fall upon your knees and worship me, you cur". + +"Thou shalt worship the Lawd thy Gawd", chattered Harris; "no +bloomin' fear! This is only a new kind of punishment cell. You've +got me in; 'ow are you going to get me out?" + +Hogarth believed that the lorry was _en route_ for the railway, and +hoped to escape in the transfer of the bell; but that night lorry +and bell slept in a shed outside a village _en route_ for the sea. + +At four A.M. they were again _en route_, and at intervals during the +day, opening their now feeble and sleep-infected eyes, could hear +the hoots of the two cattlemen, the sound of winds, the rowdy gait +of the crooked-legged oxen, and stoppages for drink or rest, and +anon an obstruction, with shouting and fuss. It was night before the +waggon came to rest on a jetty, the elaborate day's journey done. + +The fugitives were then deep in sleep, and only awoke at the rattle +of a steam-crane in action above them, to find the bell beginning to +tilt, lift and swing; then they were on a deck; and soon afterwards +knew that it was a steamer's, when they heard the bray of her +whistle, and presently were aware of blaring winds, and billows of +the sea. + +Harris was for then and there crying out, but Hogarth, now his +master, said: "To-morrow morning"; and they fell again into their +morbid slumber. + +When they again awoke, uproar surrounded them, voices, a heaven-high +shouting of quenched fires and screaming steams; moreover, the bell +was leaning steeply, they two huddled together at its edge. + +Harris began to bellow: but he was not heard, or not heeded.... +There had been a collision. + +"If you can't swim, better catch hold of me", Hogarth shouted-- +"there will be--" + +But the earth turned turtle, and Hogarth felt himself struck on the +shoulder, flung, and dragged down, down, into darkness. + +After an upward climb and fight to slip the clutch of the ship's +suction, in the middle of a heavy sea he managed to get off his +clothes, and set to swimming, whither he did not know, a toy on +mountains of water. + +Exultation raged in him--a crazy intoxication--at liberation +attained, at the sensation of warmth, at all that water and waste of +Nature. + +But within ten minutes it is finished: he shivers, his false +strength changing to paltriness, the waves washing now over his +head; and now he is drowsing...drowning... + + + + +XXII + +OLD TOM + + +He continued, however, to swim after his conscious efforts ceased: +for his body was found next morning on a strip of Cornish sand +between Gorran and Mevagissey, washed by every sheet of surf. + +His rescuer, a shrimp-fisher, occupied one of three cots perched on +a ravine; and there on the evening of the second day he opened his +eyes on a settee, four children screaming in play around him; he so +far having been seen only by a reporter from Mevagissey, and the +doctor from Gorran, who, on his wide rounds, had been asked into the +cottage. + +The same night Hogarth spoke to the fisher: told him that he was not +a wrecked sailor, had reasons for avoiding observation, and would +pay for shelter and silence: whereat the fisher, who was drinking +hot beer, winked, and promised; and the next day took for Hogarth a +telegram, signed "Elm Tree", to Mevagissey, asking of Loveday five +pounds. + +Finally, one midnight, after two weeks of skulking, he reached +Whitechapel, where, the fact of his brown skin now giving him the +idea of orientalizing himself, at a Jew's, in a little interior +behind the counter, he bought sandals, a caftan, a black sudayree, +an old Bagdad shawl for girdle, and a greenish-yellow Bedouin head- +cloth, or kefie, which banded the forehead, draped the face like a +nun's wimple, and fell loose. For these he discarded the shrimp- +man's clothes; and now dubbed himself "Peter the Hermit". + +For he meant to start-a Crusade. + +At a police-station on the third day he saw a description of +himself: three moles, bloodshot eye, white teeth, pouting mouth; but +over the moles now hung the head-cloth. + +For several days he lay low in a garret, considering himself, +abandoning himself to sensuality in cocoa, vast buns, tobacco: +rioting above all in the thought of the secret truth which lay in +his head. + +Up to now, not a word to anyone about it; but on the seventh night +he spoke. + +It was in some "Cocoa Rooms" in a "first-class room", strewn with +sawdust, where, as he sat alone, another man, bearing his jug, came +and sat; and soon he addressed Hogarth. + +"Talk English?" + +"I am an Englishman", answered Hogarth. + +"What, in those togs? What countryman?" + +"Norfolk". + +"Know Manchester?" + +"I was there one day". + +"Difference between Manchester and London, isn't there? I am a +Manchester man, I am. All the difference in the world. This cold, +stiff, selfish city. Londoners, eh? A lot of peripatetic +tombstones!" + +And so he went on; this being his whole theory of God and Man: that +Londoners are peripatetic tombstones, but Manchester-men just the +other way--seemed a mechanic, brisk-eyed, small; a man who had read; +but now, evidently, down on his luck. + +"Then, why come to London?"--from Hogarth. + +"Looking for work",--with a shrug--"looking for a needle in a bundle +of hay. What would you have? the whole place overrun with Jews. +England no longer belongs to the English, that's the long and short +of it". + +Hogarth looked him in the face. "Did England belong to the English +before the Jews came?" + +"How do you mean? Of course it did". + +"Which part of it?" + +"Why, all of it". + +"But fix your mind upon some particular piece of England--some +street, or field, that you know--and then tell me: did that belong +to the English?" + +"Belonged to some Englishman". + +"But you don't mean to say that some Englishman is the English?" + +"Ah, yes, I know what you are driving at", said the mechanic, with a +patronizing nod: "but the point is this: that, apart from vague +theorizing, a man did manage to make a good living before these dogs +overran the country". + +"But--a _good_ living? How much did you make?--forty shillings a +week? toiling in grime six days, sleeping the seventh? I call that a +deadly living". + +"Well, I _don't_, you see. Besides, I made, not forty, but forty- +_five_ shillings, under the sliding-scale". + +"Yes, but no brave nation would submit one day to such petty +squalors after it was shown the way to escape them". + +"There _is_ no way", said the mechanic: "there are the books, and +the talkers; but the economic laws that govern the units like you +and me are as relentless as gravitation. Don't believe anyone who +talks to you about 'ways of escape'". + +"But suppose someone has a new thought?" + +"There can be no new thoughts about _that_. The question has long +since been exhausted". + +"Well, come "--with sudden decision--"I will tell you a thought of +my own ". And he told. + +If the English people paid the rent for England to themselves--to +their government--instead of to a few Englishmen, then, by one day's +labour in six, Englishmen would be much more rich in all things than +a fisherman, by one day's labour in six, was rich in fish. + +The expression which he awaited on the face before him was one of +illuminated astonishment; but, with a chill in his nerves, he saw +the workman's lips curve. + +"Bah!" said the Manchester man, "that is an exploded theory!" + +_Exploded!!!_ + +Hogarth was rather pale. + +Yet he knew that it was true....Who, then, could have been +exploding the Almighty? + +"Who has exploded it?" + +"Been exploded again and again!" said the Manchester man; "of all +the theories of land-tenure, that is about the weakest: _I_ should +know, for I've studied them all. The fact is, no change in the +system of land-tenure will have the least effect upon the lot of the +masses; would only make things worse by unsettling the country--if +it didn't mean a civil war". + +"I begin to see". + +Hogarth got up, walked home meditating: and suddenly blushed. + +It was known! by mechanics in cocoa-rooms!--that secret thing of +his secret cell. And it was not believed! + +As for him, what was he now doing outside Colmoor? That question he +asked himself, as he sat unsandaling his feet; and he commenced to +dress himself again: but paused--would first see Loveday. + +Accordingly, the next night, the two friends met at Cheyne Gardens. + +And a long time they sat silent, Loveday feeding his eyes upon his +friend's face, that hard, rounded brow which seemed harder, and +frowned now, that gallant largeness of eye which seemed now wilder, +and that manly height, which seemed Mahomet's in the Oriental dress. + +"But where have you been for five weeks?" asked Loveday. + +"Skulking, and thinking. But about my sister...." + +"Do not ask..." said Loveday. + +There was a long silence. + +"Did not O'Hara tell you to make no more efforts for my escape?" +asked Hogarth. + +"Who is O'Hara?" + +"Why, the priest who escaped, instead of me, through the copse". + +"O'Hara was not the name he gave me; and no, he said nothing about +that. I got him off to America, and only saw him twice. I thought +him rather--But why didn't you escape youself?" + +"I thought it improper". + +"But you did finally?" + +"For a reason: you remember the association which I was forming to +answer the question as to the cause of misery? Well, that question I +have answered for myself in prison". + +"Really? Tell me!" + +Hogarth absently took up a water-colour drawing from the table, and +turned it round and round, leaning forward on a knee, as he told how +the matter was. Meantime, he kept his eyes fixed upward upon +Loveday's face, who stood before him. + +In the midst of his talk Loveday scratched the top of his head, +where the hair was rather thin, and said he, twisting round: +"Forgive me-let me ring for some brandy-and-soda--" + +Hogarth stood briskly up. + +"What I say, I can see, is not new to you?" said he. + +"No, not new", Loveday confessed: "I believe that it is quite an +ancient theory; there are even savage tribes whose land-tenure is +not unlike what you advocate--the Basutos, for example". + +"And are these Basutos richer, happier, prettier fellows than +average Englishmen?" + +"Oh, beyond doubt. Don't suppose that I am gainsaying you: I am only +showing you that the theory is not new--" + +"But why do you persist in calling it a _theory?_ Is the fact that +one and one make two a _theory?_"--Hogarth's brow growing every +moment redder. + +"What can one call it?" + +"Call it what you like! But do you believe it?" + +"It is quite possibly true; and now that you say it I believe it; +but I have never seriously considered the matter" + +"Why not?" + +"Because--I don't know. It is out of my line". + +"Your line! Yet you are a human being--" + +"Well, partly, yes: say--a novelist". + +"Do not jest! It is incredible to me that you have written book +after book, and knew of this divine thing, and did not cram your +books with it!" + +Loveday flushed. "You misunderstand my profession; and as to this +theory of land-tenure, let me tell you: it will never be realized-- +not in England. Anyway, it would mean civil war...." + +Again those words! "Civil war...." + +And as, for the second time, he heard them, Hogarth dashed the +picture which he held to the ground, shattering glass and frame: +which meant that, then and there, he washed his hands of the world +and its wagging; meant also his return to Colmoor. + +He dashed from the room without a word; down the stairs; out into +the street. + +As he ran along the King's Road, he asked a policeman the way to the +nearest police-station, then ran on through a number of smaller +streets, seeking it, till, at a corner, he stopped, once more +uncertain, the night dim and drizzling. + +He was about to set off again, when, behind him, he heard: "Excuse +me, mister--could you give a poor man a penny to get a night's +lodging?" + +Turning, he saw--old Tom Bates: still in the guernsey; but very +senile and broken now. + +The fish-rich fisher...! he had come to this... + +Hogarth had twenty-eight shillings about him, and, without +disclosing himself, put hand to pocket to give them all, just as the +old man reached up to his ear to say: "It's the lumbago; I got it +very bad; but it won't be long now. It wur a bad day for me as ever +I come to Lunnon! I'm Norfolk born, I am: and I had eight sons, +which the last was Fred, who, they say, met his death in Colmoor...." + +At that word, "Fred", Hogarth started: for under the elm in the +beech-wood between Thring and Priddlestone Fred had concealed a +thing fallen from heaven, which could be sold for--a thousand +pounds. + +That would keep the fisher rich during the few days that remained to +him! + +But the old man could hardly go himself; if he could, would bungle: +the thing was heavy--on the lord-of-the-manor's land.... + +Do a kind act, Hogarth. He would see the old place, his father's +grave; and there was a girl who lived in the Hall at Westring whom +it was a thrilling thing to be near, even if one did not see.... + +"Here are two shillings", said he, in an assumed voice: "and if you +be at this spot, at this hour, on Thursday night coming, you shall +have more. Don't fail". + +Again he ran, and took train, two hours later, for Beccles. + + + + +XXIII + +UNDER THE ELM + + +His risk of arrest here, round about his old home, was enormous, and +he drew the Bedouin kefie well round his face, skulking from the +station to the "Fen", northward, where he got an urchin to buy him a +paper lantern in a general shop, and now trudged up to Priddlestone, +then down through meadows to the beech-wood, the night rough with +March winds. + +It was not the winds, however, which made him draw close his Arab +cloak, but his approach to the elm: there, one night, he had seen a +naked black man! there had fallen the Arab Jew. + +He stood twenty yards from the tree, till, with sudden resolution, +he strode, soon had the lantern ruby, and since the grave of "the +affair" had been digged with a piece of wood, for such a piece he +went seeking, having thrown off his caftan. + +Instead, he found the rusted half-blade of a spade, and commenced to +dig round the roots, the lantern shine reddening a face strangely +agitated, uncertainty of finding what he sought heightening his +excitement: for the earth showed no disturbance, and since three +years had passed since that night of Bates in the wood, the object +might have been already unearthed. After an hour his back was +aching, his hands dabbled, his brow beaded, while the night-winds +blew, the light now was commoved, and now glowed a steady red; and +still he grovelled. + +Presently, as he shovelled in a circle, always two feet deep, moving +the light as he moved, he saw on the top of a shovelful of marl--a +twig: barkless, black, cracked--_scorched!_ + +To an immoderate degree this thing agitated him--some whisper in the +back of his head--some half-thought: he began now to root furiously, +with a frowning intentness. + +But suddenly he shuddered: a finger seemed to touch his shoulder +behind; and he twisted with wild eyes, caught up the light, peered, +saw no black man--nothing: but quite five minutes he stood defiant, +with clenched fists; then resumed the work, though with a constant +feeling now that he was being watched by the unseen seers. + +After two new strokes he struck upon something hard, and, digging +eagerly round it, found a quart-can, full of earth. And instantly +all doubt vanished: for this must have been the beer-can carried by +Bates. + +Strong curiosity now wrought in Hogarth, a zeal to lay eyes upon +that object which had careered through the heights of space to find +that beech-wood and that elm-tree; and during fifteen minutes his +little implement digged with the quick-plying movement of a distaff- +shuttle, he fighting for breath, anon casting a flying wild glance +behind, but still digging. + +Now, frequently, he came upon burned objects, twigs, cinders. Even +the marl had a scorched look; and his agitation grew to ecstasy. + +Something very singular had happened to his mind with regard to this +"affair" of Bates: Bates had said that it had fallen on the asteroid +night; and O'Hara had told him--falsely, indeed--that a piece of the +asteroid, fallen upon the French coast, had had diamonds; yet, +somehow, never once had his mind associated the Fred Bates "affair" +with the thought of diamonds, but only with the "thousand pounds" +which Bates had been promised by old Bond. So at the moment when he +had begun to dig, his whole thought was of "a thousand pounds"; but, +somehow, by the time his implement at last grated against something +two feet down, that word "diamonds" had grown up in his brain. + +But diamonds! In the midst of his shovelling the thought flashed +through him: "The world is God's! and to whom He wills He gives +it...." + +Now at last the thing lay definitely before him: he grated the spade +from end to end, scraping away the marl; and it was very rough.... + +The size and shape of a man's leg, and red, anyway in the red +lantern-shine--his sight dim--he moved and saw in an improbable +dream; and when he tried to lift the object and failed, for a long +time he sat on the edge of the trench, passing one palm across and +across his forehead, till the lantern-light leapt, and went out. + +He sprang upright then--awake, sure: they were diamonds, those bits +of glass, big celestial ones, not of earth, in hundreds; when he +passed his hand along the meteorite he felt it leprous, octahedron, +dodecahedron, large and small: if they were truly diamonds, he +divined that their owner must be as wealthy as some nations. + +About three in the morning he managed to raise the meteorite; +refilled the trench; and since it still rained, rolled the meteorite +to the hollow of the elm, put on his caftan, and with his back on +the interior of the tree, his feet on the meteorite, tumbled into a +wonderful slumber. + + + + +XXIV + +FRANKL SEES THE METEORITE + + +He was awaked by a footstep, and, starting, saw rocking along the +forest path one Farmer Pollock, wearing now fez and tassel, and he +saw his clothes all clay, and, with a smile of fondness, saw how, +even beneath its grime, the meteor dodged and jeered, with frolic +leers, in the beams of a bright morning that seemed to him the +primal morning, a fresh wedding-morning, swarming with elves and +shell-tinted visions, imps and pixy princes, profligate Golcondas. + +Going first to the spot where he had digged, to give to the surface +a natural look, he trampled the lantern into the mire, threw the tin +can far, then, taking a quantity of marl, plastered the meteorite, +to cover its roughness; then boldly left it, starting out with +consummate audacity for Thring, where everybody, police and all, +knew him well. + +A singular light now in his eyes, an evil pride; and he had the step +of a Prince in Prettyland. Corresponding to an inward majesty, of +which, from youth, he had been conscious, he now felt an outward, +and had not been awake eight minutes when his brain was invaded by +plans--plans of debauchery, palaces, orgy, flying beds of ivory +arabesqued in fan-traceries of sapphire, in which Rebekah Frankl +lolled, and smiled; and on toward Thring he stepped, prince new- +crowned, yet by old heredity, high exalted above laws, government, +and the entire little muck of Man. + +At one point where the path ran close to Westring-park proper, the +park on higher ground, a grass-bank seven feet high dividing them, +he saw a-top of the bank in caftan, priest-cap, and phylacteries, +taking snuff--Baruch Frankl. + +Hogarth skipped up, and stood before the Jew, having drawn his face- +cloth well forward. + +"What's the row?" asked Frankl. + +"Could you give a poor man a job?" + +"You a Jew?" + +"Yes", replied Hogarth, not dreaming how truly: "London born". + +"A Froom?" + +"I keep the fasts". + +"What you doing about here?" + +"Tramping". + +"Fine mess you are in". + +"I slept in a hollow tree down yonder--an elm tree". + +"Well, there's many a worse shake-down than that. Who are you? Ever +been about here before?" + +"I was once". + +"You put me in mind of an old chum of mine....Well, here's half-a- +crown for you to go on with". + +"Make it a crown", said Hogarth, "and get me to clean up down there; +in a shocking state with mast and leaves". + +Frankl considered. "All right, I don't mind". + +"I shall want a spade, and--a barrow". + +"Go down the path yonder, till you come to the stables, and tell +them". + +Frankl resumed his musing stroll, and Hogarth ran for the barrow. + +In twenty minutes he was again at the elm tree, and, with a scheme +in him for seeing Rebekah, heaped the barrow with refuse, pushed it +between a beck and the wood, till, wearying of this, he was about to +get the meteorite into the barrow, when he had the mad thought that +Frankl must be made to see and touch it, so set off to seek him: and +a few yards brought him face to face with Frankl. + +"Well, how goes it?" asked the Jew. + +"There is a weight there which I can't lift", said Hogarth. "Then +you must do the other thing. Don't lift it, and you don't get the +pay. What weight is it?" + +"It is here". + +Hogarth led him, led him, pointing. Frankl kicked the meteorite. + +"What is it?" he asked. + +"It can't be a branch", said Hogarth; "too heavy--more like a piece +of old iron". + +"Well, slip into it. A strapping fellow like you ought to be able to +do that bit". + +"But suppose it's valuable?" + +"I make you a present of it, as you are so hard up". + +Now Hogarth, by tilting the barrow, with strong effort of four +limbs, got the meteorite lodged, while Frankl, his smile lifting the +wrinkles above his thick moustache, watched the strain: then, with +arms behind, went his contemplative way. + +Hogarth rolled the barrow toward Thring. + + + + +XXV + +CHURCH ARCHITECTURE + + +It was already eleven o'clock, the sun shining in a bright sky, +under which the country round the Waveney lay broad to the hills of +mist which seemed to encompass the valley; yet, when one came to +them no hills were there, but were still beyond. When Hogarth came +out from the wood upon a footbridge, to his right a hand-sower was +sowing broadcast, with a two-handed rhythm, taking seed, as he +strode, from his scrip; and to the left ran a path between fields to +an eminence with a little church on it; straight northward some +Thring houses visible, and north-east, near the river, Lagden Dip +orchard. Only two stooping women in fields near Thring could Hogarth +see; also, still further, a gig-and-horse whose remote motion was +imperceptible; also the trudging two-handed process of the sower +nourishing the furrows. But for these, England, supposed to be +"overcrowded", seemed a land once inhabited, but abandoned. + +To Hogarth the whole, so familiar, looked uplifted now, the sunlight +of a more celestial essence. Westring he would buy--though one +memorable night in Colmoor he had arrived at the knowledge that it +was not just that Westring should be anyone's; but then what one +bought with his own diamonds was surely his own--his name being +Richard. + +He had passed the bridge, when, glancing to the left, he saw a fifth +person in the landscape--a man under a sycamore near the church, +gazing up, with hung jaw, at the apse window--dressed in a grey +jacket, but a clerical hat, and he had a note-book, in which he +wrote, or drew. Hogarth, whose mind was in weathercock state, rolled +the barrow to the hill, left it, went stealing fleetly up, and +gripped the man's collar, to whisper: "In the King's name I arrest +you". + +The man's hand clapped his heart, as he turned a face of terror. + +"There is--some mistake--My God! Are you--?" + +"Yes". + +"Hogarth?" + +"Who else?" + +"But you have killed me! My heart--" + +"Serves you right. Why didn't you give your right name to Loveday? +And what are you doing here?" + +"I was just examining this lovely old church, with its two south +aisles, and one north, like St. John's at Cirencester. When the +church fell in England, architecture was abolished--But as to why I +am in Norfolk at all, I am skulking: and here is as another place. +Your friend packed me off to America; but for some reasons I should +prefer Golmoor--old Colmoor, eh? I fear I am a voluptuary, my son, +fond of comfort, and old things, and pretty things. And all that I +shall have yet! Tut, O'Hara is not done with the world, nor it with +him. As to Norfolk, I once knew--a person--in this neighbourhood--" + +The priest paused, regarding Hogarth with a smile, the "person" +meant being Hogarth's mother; and he said: "But you are quite the +Jew in dress: do you know now, then, that you are of the Chosen +Race?" + +"Singular notion! This is a mere disguise". + +"Ah. But you look quite radiant. You must have come into a fortune. +When I heard of your escape, I said to myself--" + +"How did you hear?" + +"Why, from Harris". + +"Harris is drowned". + +"Harris is now under that little roof down there--there"--the +prelate stabbed with his forefinger: "Harris is my shadow; Harris is +my master. He was picked up naked by the ship which ran down your +vessel, recognized me one day in Broadway, and threatened to give me +in charge if I did not adopt him 'as my well-beloved son'. Well, +from him I heard all, how you called fire from Heaven--it was +gallant. But aren't you afraid of capture down here in your own +country?" + +"I cannot be captured". + +Those stony eyeballs of O'Hara, bulging from out circular trenches +round their sockets, surveyed Hogarth, weighing, divining him, while +his bottom lip, massive as the mouth of Polynesian stone gods, +trembled. + +"How do you mean?" + +"I can buy King on throne, Judge on bench, Governor and Warder, the +whole machinery. Even O'Hara I could buy". + +"I am for sale! Hogarth! I _smelled_ it about you, the myrrh of your +garments! And didn't I prophesy it to you years ago? What a +development! That beast, Harris, will dance for joy! Oh, there is +something very artistic to my fancy, Hogarth, in the metal gold-- +brittle, bright, orpimented--" + +"And diamonds?" + +"Hogarth, have you diamonds?" + +"Yes", said Hogarth, smiling at the effect of ecstasy upon O'Hara. + +"Prismic diamond!" cried the prelate: "but how--?" + +"Do you want to enter my service?" + +"Do I _want_?" + +"Well, I want a tutor, O'Hara; and you shall be the man. Undertake, +then, to teach me all you know in two years, and I'll give you--how +much?--twenty thousand pounds a year". + +"My son", whispered O'Hara, "what a development--!" + +"Good-bye. In Thring Street there is a little paper-shop. Come there +to-night at seven". + +He ran down the hill: and as he went northward, pushing his barrow, +O'Hara had a lens at his eyes, saw the meteorite, and wondered. + + + + +XXVI + +FRANKL AND O'HARA + + +Mrs. Sturgess, of the paper-shop, a clean, washed-out old lady, held +up both averting hands at her back door, as Hogarth threw back his +kefie, finger on lips; but soon, her alarm warming into welcome, she +took him to a room above, to listen to his story of escape. + +"And to think", said she, "there is the very box your sister, poor +thing, left with me to keep the day she went away, which never once +have I seen her dear good face from that day to this. Anyway, +_there's_ the box--" pointing to a trunk covered with grey goat's- +hair, the trunk to which the old Hogarth had referred in telling +Richard the secret of his birth, saying to deaf ears that it +contained Richard's "papers"--a box double-bottomed, on its top the +letters "P. O.", with a cross-of-Christ under them. + +"But, sir", said Mrs. Sturgess, "you must be in great danger here. I +hope"--with a titter--"I shan't be implicated--" + +"Don't be afraid, Mrs. Sturgess, it will be all right, and, for +yourself, don't trouble about the paper-shop any more, but buy a +little villa near Florence, where it is warm for the cough--don't +think me crazy if I tell you that I am a very rich man. Now give me +a steak". + +Mrs. Sturgess served him well that day with a pang of expectancy at her +heart! Always, she remembered, Richard Hogarth had been strange--uplifted +and apart--a man incalculable, winged, unknown, though walking the +common ways. He _might_ be a "very rich man"... + +His meal over, Hogarth threw himself upon a bed, to dream another +trouble of bubbles and burden of purples; woke at four; and, with a +procured cold-chisel, hammer, and a calico bag, went to the fowl- +house where he had left the meteorite, shut himself in. + +Sitting in the dust there, he set to chisel out the gems from the +porous ore, and as the chisel won the luscious plums, held them up, +glutting his gaze, scratched his name on a fragment of window-pane, +and was enchanted that the adamant rim ripped the glass like rag: +the whim, meanwhile, working in him to purchase Colmoor, to turn the +moor into a paradise, the prison into a palace; where his old cell +stood in Gallery No. III to be the bedroom of Rebekah. + +To see _her_ that very night was a necessity! and when it was dark +he set out. + +But that plot failed: on presenting himself at the front of the +mansion, he was sent round to the back, where he received payment, +and was dismissed; and when he again started for the front, +intending to force his way in, he decided upon something else, and +walked back to Thring. + +He reached the Sturgess cottage soon after six, ate, with a candle +returned to the lean-to to resume his work, and was still intent +upon it at seven, when Mrs. Sturgess ran out to tell him that "the +gentleman had come". He said: "Show him up to my room". + +The first thing which O'Hara noticed in that room was the goat-hair +trunk, with the initials and cross, the initials his own. + +After some minutes he furtively turned the key, dived into a mass of +things, paused to remember the whereabouts of a spring, found it, +and, lifting the upper bottom, peered beneath; saw a bundle of +papers; and, without removing the band, ferreted among them, and was +satisfied---Hogarth's "birth-papers". + +He presently went to a back window, and saw ruddy streaks between +the boarding of the shanty, while sounds of the hammer reached him. + +He would go and meet Hogarth: no harm in that; but it was stealthily +that he hurried down the stair and carried himself across the yard, +grinning a grimace of self-conscious caution, to peep through a +cranny. + +Hogarth's back was toward him, the iron leg lying near a box in +which was a sitting hen, on its top a candlestick, the calico bag, +and a lot of the gems: at which the priest's palm covered his awed +mouth, and with a fleet thievishness, like a cat on hot bricks, he +trotted back to the cottage. + +Ten minutes later Hogarth entered, nodding: "Ah, O'Hara..."; and he +called down: "Mrs. Sturgess! pen, ink, and paper!" + +When these came, he sat and wrote: + +"I have escaped from prison, and come into great power. I summon you +to meet me at the elm in the beech-wood to-night at nine. I beseech +you, I entreat you. I burn to ashes. Rebekah! My flames of fire! I +am dying. + +"R. H." + +He enclosed, and handed it, without any address, to O'Hara. + +"O'Hara", said he, "I want you to take that for me. Come--I will +show you the place. You ask in the hall to see 'the young lady': her +name does not concern you; but you can't mistake her: she is so- +pretty. Give the note to no one else, of course: it mentions my +escape, for one thing. I know you will do it well". + +He conducted O'Hara, till the two towers of Westring were visible; +pointed them out; then went back, and in an hour had finished his +work on the diamonds. + +O'Hara, meantime, going on his way alone, muttered: "You go fast, +Hogarth: prelates of the Church your errand boys? But there is a +little fellow called Alf Harris...if he had seen what I have seen +to-night, you would be a corpse now". + +In twenty minutes he was at Westring, which he knew well, for +twenty-five years before he had lived in the Vale: but he supposed +that Lord Westring de Broom was still the inmate. + +He asked to see "the young lady", persisted, and after a time +Rebekah came with eyebrows of inquiry. + +The moment O'Hara saw her well, his visage acquired a ghastly ribbed +fixity. Even before this, _she_, by one flashed glance, had known +him. + +But she took the envelope with easy coolness. And, instead of then +returning upon her steps, went still beyond, and whispered to two +men in the hall: "Do not let that man pass out!" + +As she again returned inward past O'Hara, she remarked: "You might +wait here a little". + +She travelled then, not hurrying, down the breadth of a great +apartment to a side room where her father sat, capped and writing; +and she said: "Papa, the man who assaulted me in the train is now in +the hall. As his sentence was three years, he must have escaped--" +She was gone at once, the unaddressed envelope, still unopened, +shivering a little in her hand. + +Frankl leapt up, rather pale, thinking that if the man had come +_here_, he must mean mischief; but remembering that the man was a +gentleman, a priest, he took heart, and went out. + +O'Hara, meantime, stood at bay, guessing his exit blocked, while the +terrors of death gat hold upon him, the flesh of his yellow jaw +shivering. But he was a man of stern mind--stern as the rocky aspect +of his face, and the moment he saw Frankl coming (he had seen him in +the Court), he started to meet him--stooped to the Jew's ear, who +shrank delicately from contact. + +"There isn't any good in running me down, sir", he whispered in +sycophant haste. "I pledge you my word I came here without knowing +to whom. O do, now! I have already suffered for my crime; and if you +attempt to capture me, I do assure you, I strangle you where you +stand! Do, now! I only brought a letter--" + +Frankl, half inclined to tyrannize over misery, and half afraid, +swept his hand down the beard. + +"Letter?" said he: "from whom?" + +"From a friend". + +"Which friend?" + +"A man named Hogarth". + +O'Hara said it in an awful whisper, though not aware of any relation +between Hogarth and Frankl. + +Whereupon an agitation waved down Frankl's beard. The news that "a +man named Hogarth" had written to his daughter would hardly have +suggested _Richard_--safe elsewhere; but, one night at Yarmouth, he +had seen Richard Hogarth inexplicably kiss his daughter's hand. + +"Hogarth?" said he: "what Christian name?" + +"Richard". + +The agonized thought in Frankl's brain was this: "Well, what's the +good of prisons, then?"--he, too earnest a financier to read +newspaper gossip, having heard not a word of the three escapes from +Colmoor. + +He said: "Well, sir, generally speaking, I'm the last to encourage +this sort of thing; but, as yours is a special case, I tell you +plain out that, personally, I don't mean a bit of harm to you. Just +step into a room here, and let us talk the matter quietly over". + +He led O'Hara to his study; and there they two remained locked half +an hour, conferring head to head. + + + + +XXVII + +THE BAG OF LIGHT + + +Rebekah, having excused herself from three ladies, her guests, alone +in her room opened her letter. + +Glanced first at the "R. H.", and was not surprised. He had +"escaped", had "come into great power": that seemed natural; but he +"summoned" her to meet him, and she saw no connection between his +"great power" and his right to summon her. + +She held the paper to a fire, and, as it began to burn, in a panic +of flurry extinguished the edge, and hustled it into her bosom; then +perambulated; then fell to a chair-edge with staring gaze; then, +rocking her head which she had dropped upon a little table, moaned: +"He is mad...." + +"My flames of fire! Rebekah! I am dying...." + +He suffered; and a pussy's wail mewed from her; but with a gasp of +anger which said "Ho!" she sprang straight, and went ranging, with a +stamping gait, through the chamber, filling it with passion. "I +_won't go_!" she went with fixed lips, as something within her +whispered: "You must". + +To escape herself, she went again to see what had happened with +regard to the convict, whose face would carry to the grave the scars +of her nails. + +There were no signs of any disturbance; and she asked a footman: +"Where is the man who was here?" + +"With your father in the study". + +That seemed a strange proceeding: she felt a touch of alarm for her +father, and, passing again by the study, peeped; could see nothing +for the key, but heard voices. + +This messenger of Hogarth, she next thought, was a criminal: he +might betray...so she stole into an adjacent room, to peep by a +side door of the study, and though a key projecting toward her +barred her vision, the talkers were near this point, and she could +hear. + +"The diamond block", O'Hara said, "is the same which he rolled +across the bridge this morning; to that I'll swear". + +"Then it must be the very same block he showed me", Frankl said in a +whisper; "that thing was worth millions....!" + +"Undoubtedly it was the same". + +"Oh, but Lord", groaned the Jew in an anguish of self-deprecation, +"where were my _eyes_? where were my _wits_? I must have been +_dreaming_! No, that's hard!" + +"Well--_nil desperandum_! Let us be acting, sir!" + +"My own land--!" + +"They are still safe enough: come--" + +"He may have lost one or two--in his excitement. Thousands gone! He +may have hidden some!" + +"Tut, he has hidden none", said O'Hara; "we may have all. Let us +make a move". + +"But he is a strong man, this Hogarth. Why do you object to the +assistance of the police?" + +"What have the police to do with such a matter? Hogarth would simply +bribe. And there are three of us--" + +"Who is this Harris?" + +"He is a Cockney--assassin". + +Frankl took snuff, with busy pats at alternate nostrils. + +"What will you tell him is in the bag?" + +"Anything--rings--something prized by you for sentimental reasons. +We offer him a thousand--two thousand pounds. And he will not fail. +He strikes like lightning". + +"And we share--how?" + +"Come--let us not talk of that again, sir. What could be more +generous than my offer? You divide the diamonds into two heaps, and +I choose one; or I divide, you choose; and, before I leave you, you +give me a declaration that it was by your contrivance that I escaped +prison, and that the gems which I have, once yours, are duly made +over to me". + +"And you collar half!" gibed the Jew with an ogle of guile; "that's +about as cool a stroke of business as I've come across. You don't +take into account that the whole is mine, if the concern fell, as +you confess, on my own land! And just ask yourself the question: +what is to prevent me handing you over this minute to the police, +and grabbing the lot? Only I'm not that sort of man--" + +O'Hara drew a revolver. + +"You talk to me as though I was a schoolboy, sir", said he sternly. +"Be good enough to learn to respect me. I am not less a man of the +world than you are, and quite competent to safeguard my own +interests. Supposing I was weak enough to permit you to send for the +police, the moment they had me I should tell of Hogarth in hiding; +they would go for him, and he, after bribing, may be trusted to take +wing with the stones, leaving you whistling. Or perhaps you would +care to tackle him in person? He would wheel you by the beard round +his arm like a Catherine-wheel, I do assure you. All this you see +well, and pretend not to. Do let us be honest with each other!" + +"Well, I don't want to be hard", said Frankl, looking sideward and +downward, plotting behind an unwrinkled brow, intending to have +every one of the diamonds; so did O'Hara, who already had his plot. + +"No, don't be hard", said O'Hara: "_I_ am not. I give you an +incalculable fortune; I take the same. Live and let live! Why should +two shrewd old fellows like you and me be like the dog which, +wanting two bones, lost the one he had? Come, now--give me your hand +on it". + +"Well, I'm hanged if you are not right!" cried Frankl, looking up +with discovery: "Share and share alike, and shame the devil! That's +the kind of little man I am, frank, bluff, and stalwart--Ha! ha! +Give me your hand on it, sir!" + +"Ha! ha! you are very kind. That is the only way--absolute +sincerity--" and they shook hands, hob-nobbing and fraternizing, +with laughs and little nods, like cronies. + +"Stop--I'll just ring for a drop of brandy--" said Frankl. + +"No! no ringing!--thanks, thanks, no brandy--" + +"Well, you are as cautious as they make them. Oh, perfectly right, +you know--perfectly right"--he touched O'Hara's chest--"not a word +to say against that. I am the same kind of man myself--" + +"Come; are you for making a move?" + +"Agreed. Where is my hat? I suppose a man may get his hat!--ha! ha!-- +I can't very well go in this cap---" + +"You use mine--with the greatest pleasure. I do not need--Ah? quite +the fit, quite the fit". + +"Why, so it is. Ha! ha! why, it's a curate's hat, and-- + _I'm a Jew_!" + +"Excellent, excellent, ha! ha!" + +So they made merry, and, with the bitter lip-corners of forced +merriment, went out, while Rebekah, who had caught a great deal of +that dialogue, crouched a long time there, agitated, uncertain what +to do. + +That her father should coolly look on at an assassination for a +fortune was no revelation to her: she had long despised, yet, with +an inconsistency due to the tenderness of Jewish family ties, still +loved him; the notion of appealing to the police, therefore, who +might ruin Hogarth, too, did not enter her head. + +She ran and wrote: "Your life and bag of gems are _at this moment_ +in danger"; and sent it by a mounted messenger addressed to "The +Guest at the Paper Shop". + +But in twenty minutes the messenger returned to her with it, Hogarth +having gone to the _rendezvous_ at the elm--long before the +appointed time. + +When, accordingly, Frankl, O'Hara, and Harris arrived at the paper- +shop back yard, and Harris had stolen up the back stairs, he +presently, to the alarm and delight of the others, sent a whisper +from the window: "No one 'ere as I can see!" + +And the search for the diamonds was short: for Hogarth had actually +left the bag containing them on the trunk, and Frankl and O'Hara +returned with it to Westring, holding it out at arm's length, one +with the right, one with the left hand, like standard-bearers. + +Hogarth, meantime, was striding about the elm, and once fell to his +knees, adoring a vision, and once, at a fancied step, his teeth- +edges chattered. + +Rebekah! He called, groaned, hissed that name, while his to-and-fro +ranging quickened to a trot. + +And now, fancying that he heard a call "_Come !_" he stood startled, +struck into a twisting enquiry to the four winds; but could not +locate the call, ran hither and thither, saw no one. + +"Come to me, little sister", he wailed tenderly, while to swallow +was a doubtful spasm for him, her name a mountain in his bosom. + +When he was certain that it must be nearer ten than "nine", he set +out in the sway of a turbulent impulse to spurt for the Hall: but as +he reached the point of proximity between path and park, just there +where her father had stood that morning he saw her patiently +waiting--ever since that "_Come!_" + +He flew, and was about to skip up the bank, when, with forbidding +arm, she cried: "Don't you approach me!"--and he stood checked and +abject, one foot planted on the bank, looking up, ready to dart for +her in her Oriental dress, flimsy, baggy at the girdle, her arms +bare, her fingers clasped before her, making convex the two tassels +of the girdle, from her ears depending circles of gold large enough +to hoop with, a saffron headdress, stuck backward, showing her hair +in front, falling upon a shawl which sheltered her frank recumbent +shoulders. She did not see Hogarth at all, but stood averted, +implacable, unapproachable, looking across the park, while Hogarth +occupied a long silence in gazing up to where, like a show, she +stood, illumined by the moon. + +At last he sent to her the whisper, "Did you call just now? Did you +say '_Come_'?" + +"What is it you want with me, Hogarth? You have '_summoned_' me: but +be very quick". + +"I told you: I am wealthier than all the princes--" + +"Well, let me inform you that your life is in danger here; if you +are a wise man, you will not fail to leave this neighbourhood this +night". + +"But no one knows--" + +"It is known, Hogarth: your friends are false, and your enemies +crafty. You will have to walk with your eyes open, my friend. What +will you do with all the money?" + +"I will buy the world, because _you_ are in it". + +Now she flashed upon him one glance, in which there was +astonishment, and judgment. + +"You said that so like my father! Hogarth among the dealers? I +thought you would be more squeamish, and arduous, and complex". + +"But if a man is famished, he is not complex, he runs to the +baker's. You can have no conception how I perish! And I cannot be +contradicted-I claim you-I have the right-I am the lord of this +lower world--" + +"But you do not see the effect of your words: you disappoint me +Richard. How of what the poet sings: + + ...this is my favoured lot, + My exaltation to afflictions high? + +That is more in your line, you know, but you are dazzled, Hogarth- +fie. To _buy me_! And how would you like me afterwards, having +renounced my obligations? And how would I like _you_-I whose name is +Rebekah, who will mate with none but a wrestler, a fellow of heroic +muscle? I feel certain that you are dazzled. It is natural, I +suppose--But are all the people in the world so happy, that _you_ +too, can find nothing to occupy you but the market-place, with its +buying and selling? And to buy _me_? I am _not_ for sale! How dare +you, Hogarth?" + +With this she walked off; but, having a creepy instinct in her back +that he was on the point to follow, catch, and snatch her away, she +span round again, crying: "Do not follow me! Mind you! If you like, +be at the elm-tree again at half-past ten-and I will communicate +with you. Goodbye--" + +Now she did not once look back; and he had not heard that fainting +"Good-bye", it had fainted so. + +He found himself presently in his room at the paper-shop, and lay +biting the bed-clothes, spasm after spasm traversing his body. + +Then, turning on his back, he lay with his face now toward the +trunk, and a little clock ticked ten more minutes before the fact +stole into his consciousness that the bag was not on the trunk. + +For some time the disappearance was too stupendous to find room in +his brain. He got up and paced, stunned, just conscious of a feeling +of unease. + +Now he was searching the room mechanically. It was not there.... + +And again he paced, tapping his top teeth with a finger-nail; and +now he called down the stair: "Have you seen, Mrs. Sturgess, the +calico bag you gave me to-day?" + +"Why, no". + +"Has anyone been in my room?" + +"Why, _no_, sir! Only myself". + +Again he began to pace, and suddenly the grand reality stabbed his +brain like a dagger: he was poor.... + +O'Hara! Where was he....? + +His forehead dropped upon the mantel-board, and he leant staring +downward there, a miserable man. + +But suddenly the man said quietly aloud, raising himself: "All +right: better so. O, I have not been myself--virtue has gone out of +me--!" + +Presently he noticed that it was near the hour of her unexpected +_rendezvous_ under the elm.... + +And nearly all the way he ran--wild to see her again--until he +neared the tree, when, descrying a female form, he came stooping +with humility, but soon saw that it was a girl, her head in a shawl, +whom he did not know. + +And she, coming to meet him, said: "What is your name, sir?" + +"Why?" + +"I am Miss Frankl's messenger". + +"My name is Hogarth". + +"Will you turn this way that I may see your eyes?...All right: +Miss Frankl directs me to give you these". + +The girl, who had been weighted down toward the left, handed him an +envelope, and a steel box. + +Never was he so bewildered! On the way home, he observed that the +box had three knobs of gold, surrounded by rays, and, inlaid in the +top, the letters "R. F."; when he tore open the envelope in his room +he found in pencil on one half-sheet: + +"Turn the 10 of the right knob to the ray 5; the 5 of the middle +knob to the ray 0; the 15 of the left knob to the ray 10: and the +box will open". + +No more. When he had set wildly to work, and the lid turned back, +his eyes beheld the calico bag. + +Rebekah had, in fact, before setting out to the _rendezvous_ at +nine, seen her father and O'Hara return to the Hall, bearing the bag +between them; and, she, crouching at the side door, as before, had +heard them talk, arranging details. Her father had then said that +before he could write any document, he must either ring or go search +for paper: and suddenly she had heard an oath, a thud, a scuffle, +had turned the key, softly entered, seen the men struggling against +the other door, a revolver, held by the muzzle, in O'Hara's hand; +and before she had been sighted by the two desperate men, had had +the bag, lying near on an escritoire, and was gone. She had then +sent some servants to the scene, and hurried to her chamber. + +Later she had heard that O'Hara had escaped through a window, and +that her father was raving below in a sort of fit: for Frankl +supposed that O'Hara had the jewels, as O'Hara that Frankl had them; +and after tending her father, she had dashed out to the +_rendezvous_, the jewels then in her room. + +As for Hogarth, he did not neglect her warning: and, having left a +note for O'Hara, telling him where to find him, at Loveday's, took a +late train southwards. + +By what marvel Rebekah had become possessed of the jewels he did not +even seek to fathom; but one of his uppermost feelings was shame for +having suspected O'Hara of stealing them: and for years could never +be got to believe in the bad faith of the prelate, his tutor. + +Near midnight, on reaching the obscure townlet of Hadston, he there +took a bed--not to sleep. + +At the tiny inn-window he made periodic arrivals, looked out +unseeing at a cart, a wall of flint and Flemish brick, and a moonlit +country, then weighed anchor, and swerved away on another voyage; +then arrived anew, looked out, saw nothing, and weighed. + +He walked now in the dark of the valley of humiliation, with those +words written in flame in his brain: "This is my favoured lot--my +exaltation to afflictions high": he had allowed a woman to say them +to him, and he went "_I!_" + +He, the richest of men, was, therefore, that night poorer than any +wretch, brought right down, naked, exposed to death, and he filled +that chamber with his moans: "God have mercy upon me! a vulgar rich +man...a dreadful contented clown...." + +But toward morning he lay calmer, weeping like Peter, and at peace. + +Being without money, he sent the next day a small stone to Loveday, +asking him to sell it; also to meet old Tom Bates on the night +appointed, and keep him till he, Hogarth, came to London. + +Four days later he received the money in the name of "Mr. Beech", +but the old Bates had not kept the _rendezvous_; and a month later a +detective agency discovered that the fisher was dead. + +At Hadston Hogarth remained two months, the most occupied man +anywhere, yet passing for a lounger in the townlet. + +Here and now he was descended deep into himself, aspiring to +greatness, set on high designs; and, as the days passed, his +thoughts more and more took form, though sometimes, with a sudden +heart-pang, he would flinch and shrink, pierced by a consciousness +of the unwieldy thing which he was at; and he would mutter: "I +_must_ be mad". Anon he would start and cower at a distinct sound of +cannon in his ears. + +Usually, during the day, he had with him an atlas, a pair of +compasses. + +One day he took train, to see the sea. + +Another day, happening to look into the goat-hair trunk, he saw that +account-book, containing the addresses of the signatories to his old +"association", and was overjoyed. "Quite a little army", he tenderly +said: "I won't forget them". + +After two months he left Hadston for London, having in his head a +new age hatched. + + + + +XXVIII + +THE LETTER + + +It was night when Hogarth broke into the presence of Loveday at +Cheyne Gardens with a glad face, crying: "Forgive me, my friend, for +being a boor!" + +"You are forgiven", Loveday answered with his smile, hastening to +meet him: "the broken picture, you see, is in a better frame, and so +are we. What could have made us invent a quarrel about--land, of all +things!" + +"Come, let us talk", said Hogarth: "not long--all about land, and +sea, too. I suppose you have nothing to tell about my sister? Never +mind--we shall find her. Come, sit and give me _all_ your +intelligence. You are not interested in land, then? You _will_ be in +ten minutes--it is interesting. Listen: all the land of the earth is +_mine_, and all the sea especially--a good thing, for, for a hundred +years Europe, especially England, has wanted a master: the anarchy +of our modern life is too terrible! it cannot arrange itself; and +now the hour has struck, though none has heard the bell". + +"Hogarth! but you gabble like a mad god", cried Loveday. "I am all +in the dark--" + +"I will tell you". + +And he spoke, first going into his discovery at Colmoor, frowning +upon Loveday, ploughing the truth into his brow; proving how modern +misery, in its complexity, had its cause in one simple old fault, +sure as the fact that smoke ascends, or apples fall. And when he saw +conviction beam in Loveday's face, he next told what had happened at +the elm-tree, and what would happen-soon; whereat Loveday, like a +frightened child, clung to his arm, and once gasped: "Oh no--my +God!" and once felt a gory ghost raise horror in his hairs. + +An hour afterwards they were bending over a sheet of paper, Hogarth +in his shirt-sleeves, writing, Loveday overlooking, suggesting, when +two men were announced, and in stepped O'Hara with bows and polished +hesitations, followed by his shadow, Harris; and, "Ah, O'Hara..." +cried Hogarth, still writing, "who is that with you?" + +"A friend of mine", said Loveday, for O'Hara had introduced Harris +to him, and he had adopted Harris as a human study, horrid, but +amusing. + +The moment O'Hara saw the face of Hogarth, he started, muttering: +"He has the diamonds back! God! is he a magician?" + +And Harris drawled nasally: "Of course, you wouldn't know me now, +Mr. 76! Were there not ten cleansed, but where are the nine, it +_is_". + +Hogarth was silent--had not yet decided what to do with Harris. + +"This is my tenth call here, Hogarth", said O'Hara, "in the hope of +seeing you, and the streets, you know, are no small risk. You see +how I am muffled up, and this gentleman, too. By the bye, I have +selected a cargo of books for you--" + +"No study for a month", said Hogarth, "but I shall want you all the +same. Just come over here and watch me write this thing. You, +Harris, sit right over there". + +Harris cursed, but obeyed, while O'Hara came and bent under the +golden glow of the silk shade a brow puckered with a care of +puzzlement, as he read. + +Then he fell into the work, and was soon the director of it-- +invaluable! knew everything! remembered forgotten points; +explained technicalities; the proper person in each little State to +whom the document must be directed, the style of addressing him. Of +one sentence he said: "That will never do--lacks formality"; and of +another: "Tut, they will laugh at that--it is provincial and +insolent", distracted between the work and his brandy glass. At +last, about eleven, the three brains had produced a letter. + +Hogarth laid claim to the sea as his private property, and warned +the nations. + + + + +XXIX + +PRIORITY OF CLAIM + + +A gentleman--a Permanent Under-secretary--stood one noon, his back +to a fireplace in a bright-carpeted room at the Foreign Office, +letting his eyes move over some opened letters submitted to him, and +presently came upon the following document, its crest a flag, +containing in blue the letters "R. F.": + +"17 LEADENHALL STR., E.G. + +"To the Most Hon., + +"The Marquis of Hallam, K.G., + +"Foreign Office, + +"Westminster, S.W. + +"MY LORD MARQUIS: + +"I have the honour hereby to make formal announcement to Your +Lordship that I am on the point of setting up in the midst of the +world a new Power, whose relations with the King's Government will, +I trust, be relations of friendliness. + +"It is my desire that Your Lordship forthwith convey to the King's +Most Excellent Majesty the announcement which is the subject of this +Memorandum. + +"My purposes and policy in the establishment of the new Power will +hereafter appear; and my properly accredited Ministers will, in due +course, present themselves at the Chancelleries of the world. + +"Hitherto a British subject, it is my will to acquire diplomatic +recognition--as soon as such shall comport with the dignity of the +Great Powers--as an Independent Sovereign, under the title of: 'Lord +of the Sea'. (Address: 'Your Lordship's Majesty', or 'My Lord +King'.) + +"The domain of my Power will be the sea: and to the sea I hereby set +up claim as far as such points of latitude as have been attained by +Man, and over all degrees of longitude. Provided only: that nothing +in this claim shall be held to infringe upon the prior claim of any +nation to a 'three-mile limit' round its coasts, nor to any national +fisheries whatsoever, nor to any claim of the Kingdom of Denmark +with respect to the Sound. + +"The validity of my title to the sea must be considered to rest on +the same basis as the title of any private owner to any area of the +earth's crust: namely, Priority of Claim. If one is valid, so, +necessarily, is the other, this title to land, based on _Priority of +Claim_, being admitted in the Law of all civilized Nations. + +"This my claim will come into operation on this day three years +hence. + +"I have the honour to subscribe myself + +"Your Lordship's + +"Obdt. Servant, + +"RICHARD HOGARTH ". + +The Under-secretary, a pale, distinguished man, read this letter +with a little lift of one eyebrow, then let it drop from him into a +waste-paper basket. + +At the German, the Turkish, capitals it met much the same reception. +Nowhere did it reach the eye of a Departmental Head. It went to +Siam, to the Prince of Monaco, to Ecuador, and was tossed to cumber +a basket, or moulder on a file. + +But Hogarth, who knew that it would be instantly forgotten, had +written it so as to be able to say that he had written it. + +At that time he was lodging in a top room in Bloomsbury, and had an +underground den in Leadenhall Street, on its doors the words: "R. +Beech & Co." Thither in a brougham he drove daily, lying very low, +but holding in that den interviews with all sorts and conditions of +men, and feeling his way toward operations of dimensions so immense, +that their mere project had a modifying influence upon industry. + + + + +XXX + +MR. BEECH + + +During six weeks Hogarth lived that life of daily passage between +Keppel Street and his office, unknown to the general world, but +spreading a noise of rumour through certain circles of the business +world. All day in the den the gas-jets brawled upon him, he not for +minutes casting a glance, if a clerk brought a caller's name. And +here was no novice modesty in the tackling of affairs; as O'Hara, +who would be there, said: "You must have been _born_ in the City; +you have the airs, the very tricks, of Threadneedle Street, you-- +Jew". In a day the prelate counted seven hundred and thirteen +telegrams from the Terni Cannon foundry, many a diamond dealer, +polisher, cutter, the Vulcan Shipyard of Stettin, the Clydebank, +Cramp of Philadelphia, the Russian Finance Minister, San Francisco, +Lloyd's, metal brokers, the Neva, and one night, the eve of a dash +to Amsterdam, he, with O'Hara, Loveday, and five clerks, sat +swotting till morning broke, sustained by gin and soda-water. The +priest lived with wide eyes at the easy fleetness with which Hogarth +rolled off him the greatest affairs: as when on the day after his +return from Holland he stood, his thumbs in his waistcoat armholes, +with quite the right air of serene City-king, his tallness +possessing considerable natural courtliness, and the De Beers' +Secretary sat before him, saying, "Well, Mr. Beech, I have spent the +morning with your brokers, and have felt that I must see you +personally before calling a meeting. This proposition is so +tremendous--" + +"I only wish I had some time", said Hogarth, "I would invite you to +dine upon the matter; but it is really so simple--everything at +bottom is merely twice two are four. And you are not obliged to turn +over Kimberley to me: only, in that case, as I have said, I shall be +compelled to flood the market with diamonds as cheap as cat's-eyes--" + +When De Beers stared, Hogarth shrugged, saying: "I suppose I must +convince you--" and, unlocking a safe, he took out an _écrin_ which +contained three stones. De Beers appeared to see Titania peering in +their fairy painting. + +"Of stones of this water and carating", said Hogarth, "we have two +hundred and eleven in the Bank of England, two hundred and thirty- +eight in other English and Continental banks, and seventy-five in +safe-deposit. The carating of these three is 111-1/2; and in the +sixties, such as this one"--he took a stone from among coppers in +his pocket--"we have three hundred odd on hand, all flawless, and an +equal number cutting. When I point out, what you know, that our mine +is as yet without the delicate plant of Kimberley, the stones being +simply picked from the blue-earth by three inexpert friends of the +firm on the spot, you will recognize that the wealth of a mine can +no further go...." + +He was rid of the visitor within six minutes, and within three +weeks, by knack and organization, had gathered into his hands most +of the reins necessary to the control of the world's trade in +diamonds. + +In an outer room sat O'Hara, writing, reading Theocritus, or a +little book on mediaeval embroidery, forefinger on cheek; and anon, +absolutely without motive, he would rise, creep, and peep through a +keyhole at Hogarth, then on stalking, bowing tiptoe, grinning a +rancid grimace of stealth, get back to his seat, and read--the tutor +falling over head and ears in love with his pupil: one of those +passions that end tragically. + +One day, as he so sat, the bell _pinged_, the door opened, and +O'Hara jumped to find himself face to face with--Frankl, who had +come to see the new diamond king, in the firm belief that Mr. Beech +was none other than O'Hara; and, "I thought as much!" said he. + +"_Sh-h-h_", went O'Hara bitterly--"for God's sake! he is _in +there_--!" + +"Who is?" + +"_Hogarth!_" + +"Well, but--" + +"Outside--in the passage--" + +They stepped out; and Frankl, his eyelids red, said: "I have only +this day crawled from bed with the blow you struck my temple, or I +should have had you before this--" + +"_Sh-h-h_. Your own fault, sir. _You_ played false first--" + +"Played false with my own diamonds? You hand me over this day one- +half those stones, or I bring a civil action for the whole, hound +you to beggary, and drag you back to your convict-cell where you +come from". + +"Don't lift your voice, I beg of you. Tut, you rave. You can't bring +a civil action against a great millionaire who doesn't care to +defend; and as for me, I do assure you, I haven't fifty pounds to- +day. _It is Hogarth who is Mr. Beech!_" + +"_Who?_"--Frankl obtruded a startled ear, frowning his eyes small. + +"Hogarth. He has the diamonds back!" + +"Which diamonds? How did he get 'em?" + +"He is--_in_--_there_: better go and ask him! He got them by black +art--by the aid of the legion of mediaeval witches which wait on +him--_God_ knows how he got them! _You_ gave them to him! _I_ gave +them to him! but he's got them--_in--there_! Better go and ask him--don't +be afraid--just for the roaring fun of it--" + +"Hogarth?" + +"Yes--Hogarth, Hogarth". + +"Cheated the gallows? And out of prison? And rolling in my wealth, +my riches, my diamonds? Oh, no!--is that fair? A dog? Is that how +the world is run? God of Israel!" + +"There is this to be said for him: that he _deserves_ to be rich--" + +"Who? So you are taking his part now?" + +"Tut--!" + +"There is no _tut_ about it! You confess that you are nothing more +than a penniless hanger-on: well, then, I have _you_! back to +prison you go this hour---!" + +O'Hara's cheek trembled; but he said: "A sufficiently vain threat, +sir: I am Hogarth's tutor: he won't let me be taken. Don't waste +your time, you impotent Jew--" + +"Tutor? That's good! What you teaching him?--murder? _outrage?_ He +_ought_ to have a tutor, he! That's good! Tutor! Well, suppose I +drop a line first post to your nice _pupil_ to let him know that it +was his _tutor_ who stole his diamonds--" + +At this threat O'Hara felt himself outflanked; and though his eyes +surveyed the Jew unflinchingly during a silence, inwardly he had +succumbed. + +"A man in Hogarth's situation", he slowly said, "is always liable to +attack. Why should two sharp old fellows like you and me, whose +interests are identical, quarrel?"--and instantly Frankl took note +of that surrender, that weak spot, and knew that the man was his. + +"Well", said he, "so true--two old gaol-birds like you and me, eh? +So true, so true. But what beats me--who runs Beech's? Hogarth is +only a young farmer: he can't operate all the big things I hear +about this Mr. Beech--" + +"Tut, you do not conceive the man as he is at all", said O'Hara: +"perhaps you cannot. High finance, the first day he looked into it, +ceased to mystify him, for he goes always to the ground of things, +touches bottom, where first principles lie, and first principles are +simple as two and two. It was because he had discovered a first +principle that he escaped from Colmoor. And he is as nimble as six +twisting minnows: what you or I learned in a year he learns in an +hour, and if he does not know the usual way, not an instant does he +hesitate to invent a way. You know about Owthwaite's: how the recent +shake-out of the market threatened their collapse, like so many +others'. Owthwaite's, in fact, had already declared, when Hogarth +decided to help them over. And how? Not Bills! He filled up a call- +in of two millions and a half by the India Council, resettled loans +and short-discount business, cheapened money, and in twelve hours +his _protégés_ were off the rocks. And now I hear--" + +"But why not buy a chapel, and preach about him? I hate--" + +"Stop! O Lord--he is calling--" + +"Here's my card; I want to see you to-night at that address at +eight". + +And that night at Frankl's town-house in Hanover Square Jew and +prelate conferred, O'Hara for some time resisting, but finally again +taking sides against his saviour. He disclosed that Hogarth, beyond +doubt, kept a few diamonds in a goat-hair trunk in his room--enough +to make two ordinary fortunes, and also carried two or three, with +some hundred-pound notes on his person; and this was made the basis +of a scheme for bringing about the arrest of Hogarth, the first step +being to get from Hogarth the sum he carried about him, leaving him +in a situation where he would find himself powerless to bribe. + +This Frankl undertook; and O'Hara promised to lend Harris, and some +friends of Harris. + +Now, during these weeks Hogarth was living in some fear, haunted by +insecurity and a vision of Colmoor; and, remembering the theft at +Thring, with a consciousness of Frankl somewhere in him, he went not +only with diamonds on his person, but a revolver as well, and a +_puñal_ of Toledo. + +But three evenings after the conference in Hanover Square, he +received this letter: + +"Dearest Richard: + +"It is long since we have met. This is to let you know that I have +heard of your getting out, and your coming into great things, which +has made my heart rejoice. I, alas, am just the other way about. I +am staying for the next two days at Woodfield Cottage, Wylie Street, +Finchley Road, N. I understand that you are lying low, so better not +come to see me perhaps, but send me something. + +"Your loving + +"Margaret". + +And at sight of these words such a whirlwind transacted itself in +the brain of Hogarth, that he hardly awoke to sense till he found +himself in a railway compartment, going northward. It was only then +that, reading the letter again, he started. + +The handwriting was hers! he was sure. But the words...? + +"I, alas, am _just the other way about_"--"better not come to me +perhaps, but _send me something_". There was a tone here not in +character. But her handwriting! This was no forgery. If she had +written _from dictation_ that might explain it. + +In this uncertainty he left the train, and took cab, scenting +trouble ahead. + +The difficulty was to find Wylie Street, which was a half-built +street of five cottages in a new neighbourhood of brick, and when +what was supposed to be Wylie Street was discovered, the cab had to +stop, for across it lay bricks, hods and barrows in mud. So Hogarth +alighted, and, peering, stumbled forward: no lamp; above, a +labouring half-moon riding a sky of clouds, like a poor ship riding +the bleak morning after a hurricane, her masts all gone by the +board: and Hogarth could just see that three of the five cottages +were roofless brick, the fourth unfinished, so the fifth, alone on +the other side, must be--"Woodfield" + +"Woodfield" was unlighted: and the moment he ascertained this, he +felt himself the victim of a plot; but not all the whispers of +prudence could hold him now from seeing the adventure through. +Loudly he flung back the little gate, with rash precipitancy +entered: and as he sprang up the three steps to ring, he was seized. + +They were five, three being big fellows, two masked. + +His main sensation was gladness that none, apparently, was a +policeman; and he set hilariously to work with his knuckles. This, +however, could not save, soon he was on his back, striking his head; +but when he saw that the object was to rifle his pockets, letting +be, he managed to steal out the _puñal_ from his breast, and +presently with a sudden upheaving and scattering rage, was +staggering to his legs. Before he could be stopped, he was making +for the gate, but close upon him ran one of the five--a slim man, +masked--who fired Hogarth's own pistol at his legs, but missed: +whereupon, Hogarth, with a backward twist, struck at random with the +dagger, which entered the man's breast. But at the same time a +whistle shrilled, and from an opposite cottage rushed out at last +what he dreaded--three policemen. + +These had been placed there on the understanding that it was thither +that Hogarth would go, the object of the plot being to rifle his +pockets before he was officially taken; and it succeeded to the +extent that his pockets _were_ rifled: but he knocked down one +officer, and dodged the other two, reaching his taxi; and, having +previously arranged with the cabman, got off racing. + +But the masked man whom he had struck down was Harris, who for weeks +lay raving in fever--an ill-fated stroke, for Harris had a memory. + +As for Hogarth, he rushed home to Keppel Street, hurried down the +trunk, and was off to Cheyne Gardens. + +"Well", he cried, breaking in upon Loveday, "this phase of our life +is up! Look at my clothes: I have had a fight--Frankl, I suppose. I +wanted to live a simple life for two years: but they won't let me, +you see. Ha!--then the other thing. From this night we bury our +identity under mountains of splendour. It is disgusting to me, this +life, skulking, thinking to bribe honest men. Meantime, you must +find me some room to hide in with the trunk--mustn't stay here to- +night. And to-morrow you buy me a boat to take us off from some +point of the coast--Come--" + + + + +XXXI + +THE HAMMERS + + +Within six months Hogarth, as distinct from "Beech", had risen upon +the consciousness of Europe, say like the morning sun: and the +wearied worker, borne at evening through crowded undergrounds, might +read his name with a listless incomprehension. + +He impressed the popular fancy, especially in Paris, where he was +best known, as erratic: as once when, by a stroke of financial +sleight-of-hand, he got the young Government of Russia into a tight +place, then refused them a loan, except on condition of the lease to +him of the Kremlin: and for three months squalid old Moscow was the +most cometary Court anywhere--acts savouring of a meteorite +waywardness which impressed him, more than anything, upon the +everyday world; and he won a tolerant wonder. + +However, an outcry, led by the _Intransigeant_, denounced his +acquisition of the site of royal St. Cloud for his Paris residence +on the ground that he was a Jew, betrayed by his face--an accusation +which caused the buying up of hundreds of thousands of his +photographs--and on the ground that his design was to familiarize +the people with the idea of his sovereignty, and by a _coup_ to +seize the Government; at which Paris was in a ferment, and a +midnight mob traversed the _Bois_ and demolished some of his mason- +work. The next day, however, the Minister of the Interior announced +from the Tribune that Hogarth was no Jew, but an Englishman _pur +sang_; and, on the whole, Hogarth had his way: the noise died down; +and where parterres and avenues had stood on the old palace site, +there arose one of those enchanting fabrics, which, from the +Bosphorus to London, bore the name of "The Beeches". + +At this time he had dependent upon him a retinue, serving him in +multifarious ways from electrical adviser to spy, and from +chancellor to recruiter, numbering many hundreds. He knew five +thousand faces by sight; in England had two armies--a small one +collecting data as to acreages, tenures, trades, scales, wages, +prices, crimes, mines, and a large one, numbering five thousand, +doing gun-practice in Westring Vale: for, England being for sale, he +had bought at thrice its market value that part of it called +Westring; and on the sea also he kept a little army of a thousand, +borne in old cruiser-hulks bought from the English Admiralty, hulks +whose crews, in rotation, changed places with drafts from the +Westring barracks. + +Once he disappeared from Europe, and when he returned the President +of the Republic of Ecuador, thenceforth one of his closest friends, +was with him; whereupon, through newspapers in the pay of Beech's, +the rumour commenced to appear that the Ecuador Government was +giving orders for coast-defence on an unparalleled scale, in view of +probable hostilities with Peru. + +In the midst of which activities O'Hara said to him one morning: +"You can now be called a mathematician". + +"I have many admirers, and but one teacher, O'Hara", Hogarth +answered: "teach me". + +O'Hara cut a secret grimace. + +After the failure of the Finchley Road plot he had had another +repentance, and had set himself earnestly to the cultivation of +Hogarth's mind; but the priest's spirit was not "erect"; he had +"falls"; maintained a correspondence with the Jew, whose eye of +malice never slept; and once at Cairo, twice in Paris, Hogarth had +to use words like these: "I must tell you, O'Hara, that I have heard +of your recent behaviour. Naturally, there are those that see for +me, and I do not mean to be compromised by your low revels". + +"Wretch that I am!" broke out O'Hara with smitten brow, and for half +a day was on his knees in an affliction of self-reproach. Yet the +same night he wrote a letter to Frankl containing the words: "You do +not know, _you cannot dream_, the high and slippery road which H. +has chosen for his feet: the future is _big_ with events. Wait: his +sublime path is not without pitfalls...." + +Study with O'Hara was in the morning; at night, when possible, that +other study of the working world: and often then Hogarth would +withdraw from opera in the St. Cloud palace, or from some "crush", +to give an hour to the river of statistics with which he was +inundated. + +Till these years he had never seen into the sea of things as it is: +his life so isolated--had not even read newspapers. + +Now he saw and knew. There below him blazed some masque of beauty +and majesty, moving under a moonlight of blue-darting jets of +electric light all among colossal columns of alabaster robed in vine +and rose; or there below some Melba voice, all trembles and maze of +wobbly trebles, warbling: and the thronged hall sat tranced; but +before _him_--figures: parents killed their children for insurance- +money--keeping children in cellars till their flesh grew green, +keeping sore the stumps of children's legs; with some trades certain +comic-sounding names had got to be associated, "potter's rot", +"phossy jaw",--enormous horror; each day in England one million +people had to seek pauper-relief, many perished; of aged persons 40 +per cent were permanent paupers; children were paid 2-1/2d. for +making 144 match-boxes; pretty girls (though pretty girls were +detestably rare) were allowed to work, nay _forced_ to--far harder +than any ten savages ever dreamt of working; in Glasgow 41 of every +100 families lived in one room: fathers, for weeks, did not see +their children, except asleep; girls took emetics to vomit up +cotton-dust--enormous horror, comic-opera in Hell: and below in the +"crush" the voice of the warbler, cooing, shook. + +Sometimes he would mutter: "But that can't be true!" There, though, +the figures lay; and presently he would take heart, and say: "Well, +not for long now, God help me...." + +Whether God helped him or not, certainly Man was helping him: ten +thousand and ten thousand hammers--from Spezzia to Belfast--in +model-office and mould-loft and rolling-mill--in foundry and yard +and roaring forge--were ringing upon metal for him, their clamorous +industry clattering over Europe and America carillons of his name. + + + + +XXXII + +WONDER + + +Almost suddenly that noise of chiming hammers reached the general +ear. + +First in the German Admiralty was wonder when a spy, engaged as a +workman at Birkenhead, sent to his Government information that the +British Government was up to something: something of a novelty so +extraordinary, that as yet he could form no conception as to its +object. That it was intended for the sea one must suppose: yet it +was evident that nothing of such odd draughtsmanship--of such +mastodon proportions--had ever yet taken the water. + +He had been clever: had penetrated even the model-office, peered at +detailed draughtsman's-plans, developed from the original +specifications, as well as at orders for Krupp plates, frames, etc.; +had listened in the yard to the talk of four naval men acting as a +Board of Inspection; was able to give details of the machining of +enormous processed plates to sizes determined by templates, the +length of pan-headed rivets, the specific gravity of an average +cubic foot, the scarfing of edges, the accumulation of prepared +material. The wooden half-model, he said, was a one-ninety-sixth, +instead of the usual one-forty-eighth; yet, even so, it was 5 ft. 7- +1/2 ins. long, as much broad, and 1 ft. 3/4 in. high. This meant +that the structure would measure 180 yards square--over one-tenth of +a mile--with a depth of 34 yards. Already the far-reaching chaos of +scaffolding had run up eight yards, with stringers and frames to a +like level. There were no keel-blocks, for there was no keel--or +rather, the keel was a circular plate a yard in diameter, resting on +a single block, the shape of the structure to be a perfect square, +along the sides of which four battleships might lie like toy-boats: +the bottom, from circular keel to upward bend, having the same shape +as a battleship's seen in midship section, only with four faces +instead of two. From the knee-bend the sides ran up perpendicular; +but at the level evidently intended to be the water-line they struck +inward, so that the flat roof was smaller than the area below; the +position of this water-line giving a definite clue to the intended +displacement; and this again showing that the whole--roof, sides, +bottom, and all--would be one wall of Simmons armour--steeling and +backing--layer on layer--no less than 4ft. 9-1/4 ins. thick. + +Yet this stupendous ark, or citadel--so simple was its plan--would +be turned out in less time than a second-class cruiser; and its +cost, apart from yard-modifications and groundways, small in +proportion. + +This, and much else, the spy reported: but the new fact was obvious +as the sun; the British and French Intelligence Departments, too, +were soon conning it; and a week later it was established that, not +one, but at least eleven, such structures were a-building in the +world. + +There went the rumour: "It is the Government of Ecuador's order...." + +This was at the end of April; Hogarth, obeying some instinct which +continually drew him toward Asia, then loitering alone in Trebizond +tea-gardens and bazaars, buying a braid-bag, mule-trapping, or +silver sword of the Khurdish cavaliers; while Trinity House gave the +alarm that if ever the steel monsters, whatever their object, were +launched, "they would constitute, in the absence of proper +precautions, a serious danger by night to the world's mercantile +marine ", and while Lloyd's, the Maritime Exchanges, the +Hydrographic Offices, lived in a species of amazement, and were +already putting the steel islands into the gazetteers and manuals; +the newspapers, too, inundated with the views of the public, took +sides, maintaining, some of them, that it was the part of +Governments to ascertain the objects of the new works, others that +any tampering with their progress at this late stage might even mean +revolution, so profound was their intimacy with industry. Hogarth, +meanwhile, having come to El Khiff, the camp of the Bedouin +pilgrims, there spent some days, and then, passing between Jerusalem +and Jericho in a caravan of Moabite sheiks, went visiting the holy +places of Israel, everywhere examining the country, especially its +agriculture, with great minuteness. It was only on his return to +Jerusalem that he heard of the agitation in Europe: and at once set +off Westward from Joppa. + +From his arrival at Paris toward the end of May the wildest legends, +originated by him, began to be printed, the most persistent relating +to the diamond and banking House of Beech, which, it was given out, +had discovered diamonds within the crust of a Pacific rock-island: +the new structures, ordered by them, being designed to blast the +coast-wall with dynamite guns. Cavillers pointed out that diamonds +never occur in nature in this fashion, and that, even so, it did not +need a fort made of armour five feet thick to fire off dynamite +guns; but so continuously was the thing repeated, explained, and +puffed, that when the London manager of Beech partially admitted it, +the most incredulous acquiesced; though at the very same period it +was proclaimed that the President of the Ecuador Republic, Hogarth's +friend, had admitted to the Great Powers that the forts were to his +order (as, in fact, they nominally were); and anti-climax was +reached when a naval expert, asked to do a hurried article for the +Times, made some error in calculation, and came out with the +statement that the fort-things would sink of their own weight. This +article was headed "Beech's Folly"; and even when the error was +detected, the roar of merriment retained its momentum and rolled: so +that, to the hour of the first launch, the enterprise was commonly +referred to as "Beech's Folly", and scarf-pins, ink-stands, etc., in +the shape of the forts, were sold with that superscription: "Beech's +Folly". + +This, translated into French, became that horrible gallicism: _la +bêtise Biche_. + +Gradually, however, the Ecuador-Beech rage died down the hammers, +heard for nine days through the turmoil of the world, were again +drowned in it. The scarf-pins ceased to sell. The 'buses rolled, the +Bank cashed notes, the long street roared--and all was as usual. + +Only, in the valley of Westring there was drill and target-practice +and barrack-life routine, the Westring-eccentricity being associated +with the millionaire, Hogarth, the island-eccentricity with the +House of Beech: and in the popular mind Beech and Hogarth were two +notions. Islands were building in Italy, France, Germany, Russia; in +England, Scotland, Ireland; at Maine, Baltimore, Newport News: but +the Governments, lacking the machinery, and also the initiative, and +judging to-morrow by yesterday, gave no sign from their Olympus. + +In June, John Loveday being then at Westring, one morning O'Hara +arrived, he, too, having left mediæval chasubles to grind at war, +and though he no longer taught Hogarth, a relation persisted between +them; and always not far from O'Hara was to be found Harris, living +now on the pinnacle of dandy bliss, twisting a dandy stick. + +It was on the last night of this visit to Westring that O'Hara at a +late hour went with stealth and hesitations along a corridor of the +Hall, and finally tapped at Loveday's door, who, detesting the +priest, and reading in bed, disgustedly dashed off his cigarette +ash, as he called: "Come in". + +And a long time they spoke of things other than the real object of +O'Hara's visit, till O'Hara said: "But--may I ask you something?" + +"Do". + +"Well, now, you are a fellow more in the counsels of Hogarth than +another. I want to ask you right out frankly--is it a fact that +Hogarth is choosing Admirals for the islands?" + +"I believe it is", answered Loveday with his long-bow smile of +amusement: "I already know, for example, that Saltoun will admiral +the _Homer_ in the Indian Ocean, Vladimir the _Ruskin_ in the +Atlantic Crescent, and the young Marquis of Erroll the _Justice_ in +the Yellow Sea". + +"Those all?" + +"All I know of. I believe, however, that Hogarth is in the throes of +decision as to the rest". + +"I see". + +There was a silence full of Loveday's smile. + +"But", said O'Hara, "what I meant is this: you know what I have been +to Hogarth; without me, what could the poor fellow have done, after +all? I have taught him to think, to dance, and to dine. Now, then, I +ask you right out frankly--am _I_, my son, in the list of Admirals?" + +Loveday, flushing, started upright, and sank back. "No, I don't +fancy that your name is among those entertained, O'Hara". + +"We will see about that. Woe to Hogarth, and to his advisers, if he +dare slight O'Hara, my son! What! after preparing myself with +toilsome zeal for this post? and after two promises from Hogarth's +own lips--?" + +"I deny the promises on Hogarth's behalf". + +"Oh, you! Hogarth looks upon you as a plaything. I do assure you, +you are not taken seriously, Mr. Loveday. How should such as you +know what Hogarth promises or designs? "--his cheeks trembling. + +And, Loveday, smiling again, though pale: "Well, if we admit the +promises...but--have you accurately acquainted Hogarth with your +past, sir?" + +"Most decidedly, sir!" + +"If you have not, I think he should know it". + +"Your threats do not affect me, sir! In three days I shall be in +Petersburg with Hogarth, and shall take a pleasure in writing you +the name of the island to which I am appointed". + +"In three days I also--!" He stopped: but O'Hara understood. + +Now the door rushed open, and in looked Harris in under-vest and +drawers, beneath his arm a bundle of walkingsticks, which he had +been caring and telling. + +And "'Ere", he drawled, "when are you coming to 'ave that bit of +cold mutton? It's past twelve o'clock as it is". + +"I am coming, boy", said O'Hara, rising with brisk obedience. + +"Then, come, why don't you! There were shepherds watching their +pretty little flocks by night, but to leave a man watching the cold +animal is a bit out. Come along!"--and O'Hara went. + +He reached Petersburg twelve hours before Loveday, his reason for +choosing that time being his knowledge that Frankl was in +Petersburg, and with him Rebekah, Frankl being in a deal with the +new-régime Minister of Finance. + +For, as O'Hara had been asking himself the agonized question: "By +what absolute _finesse_ can I, _just now_, win Hogarth?" the mere +presence of Rebekah in the same city with Hogarth drew him thither. + +But the next day, when Loveday came, nothing had been done--no +chance of _tête-a-tête_ with Hogarth: and that day was O'Hara an +anxious and tremulous man, living on the tip-toe and _qui vive_ of +lynx-eyed keenness. + +The same night at a masque at the Palace of Peterhof Loveday got a +chance of dialogue with Hogarth, they seated amid greenery and +coloured gleams, Hogarth groomed to the glittering glass of his +shoes, his legs stretched, arm akimbo; and presently Loveday led the +talk to things of the sea. "What an extraordinary activity! The +British Government launches the _Peleus_ next Monday at Deptford-- +the first 28,000-ton war-boat; and seven cruisers on the slips. Then +the French, Austro-German, Russian--" + +"Ha!--I know. They won't build long". + +"Still the confidence?" + +"You can only ask, my dear boy, because you do not yet see what a +thing the battleship really is--much more than half a sham. The +march of invention is from the complex to the simple: for simplicity +is strength; but to the moment when I began to construct, naval +construction had not followed this law: for from the old smooth- +bores, aimed with tackle and quoin, to the present regime of +electric wires, you have had a continual advance in complexity-- +always within the same little arc of thought--till now the most +complex of things is a battleship; and if you ask me which is the +weaker, a battleship or a watch, I answer a battleship--_weak_ +meaning liability to the injuries which they were built to resist. +In such a case as that of the _Maine_, sunk at Havana, one might +fancy that the task of naval constructors is to turn out a thing to +sink with a minimum of trouble; and you remember the _Camperdown_ +and _Victoria_, how, playing about together, one happened to touch +the other, when down plunged that other. These ships are a +compromise between three _motifs_--speed, resisting attack, and +attacking: and the first is so antagonistic to the second, and also +to the third, that the net result is almost a Nonentity, or No- +Thing. Nothing, in fact, could be more _queer_, unfounded, than +these ships; and the future will look back upon them with pity. +Hence the simple islands, following the law: and don't think t hat +their efficacy is a thing riskier than arithmetic itself" + +"Good", went Loveday. "But, Richard--captain your islands with +decent men". + +"You have something on your mind: what is it?" + +"It is--delicate. Have I your permission to speak?" + +"Why, John, yes". + +"Well then--is O'Hara to be an Admiral?" + +"Old Pat? Hardly, I think. He may. But no--I don't think. Poor old +talky-talky. He has worked hard for us, John: and his fund of +experience, in one way and another, has been invaluable. Well, I +don't know: I have had the idea, but I don't suppose that, in +reality--Still, I am fond of him, John. Such a tongue, and such a +versatile brain, is he! He was my comfort for many a sombre day in +prison--" + +Listening near with rancid grin behind some greenery, O'Hara kept +nodding emphatic assents of satisfaction to Hogarth's praise. + +"But, stop", said Loveday: "do you know why he was in prison?" + +"He was innocent". + +"Of what?" + +"Of stealing some diamonds entrusted him by the Pope". + +"Bah! he lies. His trial was a _cause célèbre_, and hence the false +name he gave me at first: the moment I heard you say 'O'Hara' I knew +the man. He had committed an assault upon a lady in a train--" + +"Beast that he is", went Hogarth, while O'Hara's eyes started from +his head: "and liar, too, it seems. Ha!--he gave me the most +circumstantial story. Why didn't you tell me this before?" + +"It was delicate--" + +"Beast that he is. Yet how complex is character! the man's +tenderness for his Church is so charming--" + +"Fiddlesticks! Look here, Richard, I am come all the way from +Westring to tell you this thing. Don't you give vast powers to that +man: it isn't decent; and I have a feeling that it will be a baleful +piece of weakness. And don't get easy, and tolerant, and fat in the +eyes, Hogarth. That is a very significant Bible-story--the +implacable disaster sent upon old Eli for no greater crime than a +_bonhomme_ indolence. And in order to arouse your wrath against this +O'Hara, I am going now, against my will, to tell you something: the +name of that lady in that train". + +"Someone whom I know?" + +"Yes". + +"Who?" + +For a moment Loveday's answer hesitated: and in that moment, O'Hara, +with lightning decision, had his mouth at Hogarth's ear: "Come with +me quick--then fall down and worship me for a month! _Someone is in +the Malachite Hall!_" + +Like sudden death Hogarth's colour fled his face; in another instant +he was a blind, oblivious wight...had known that she was in +Petersburg; but not that she was at the masque. + +In a moment shrubbery, lights, all life, rushed into transformation +for him: and with an excitement of the eyes, the bloodshot left +looking bloodier, he went after O'Hara, tossing back at Loveday that +fatal saying: "_To-morrow_...." + +A little previously O'Hara, having got from Frankl details of +Rebekah's dress, had spotted her in primrose silk, black mask and +domino, and soon with Hogarth refound her in the crush: whereas +Hogarth went about prospecting over the crowd, with that excitement +of his red-veined eyeballs, once even entered into talk with a group +of four diplomatists, but all the time with eyeballs absent in +hankering tracking, out prowling after one morbid form, as the +stallion's prowls after his Sally. + +After an hour she said in French over her shoulder: "Why follow me?" + +And as he bowed compliance, she added: "Are you well?" + +He said: "Yes", and bowed, and she nodded twice, smiling a little, +as they parted. + +He, on the wings of exaltation, made haste to salute the Throne and +leave the palace, rushing toward solitude to brood upon that smile, +those familiar nods, and the gentle "Are you well?"--in his landau +with him O'Hara, who persecuted him even to his bedroom; and when, +after an hour, the priest at last reappeared in a corridor, the +night-lights there shone upon an exultant visage, like a climber's +who, after long clamberings, at last stamps on the Matterhorn, and +looks abroad. + +When he entered his own room, he stood with a hung head, till, +sharply looking up, he ejaculated with amazed, realization and +opening arms: "Well, it's done!--I've got it!" Now he put forefinger +to nose, and cut a beastly face at himself in the mirror-wall. + +The next day Hogarth rather guiltily said to Loveday: "Well, I have +promised old O'Hara the _Mahomet_ for the Straits. Don't frown--I +owe him something, and the clever beast got over me in crazy +moment". + +"Quite so", Loveday coldly said: and thenceforth, the thing being +done, was mum as to the name of the lady connected with O'Hara's +crime. + +He returned immediately to England, having there many occupations, +which multiplied as the islands everywhere neared completion, the +first of the launches taking place at Spezzia on the 7th of +February. + +A fortnight before this event the Beech-fever had revived, the +coming launch being no secret, and the doubt whether "Beech's Folly" +might be no folly, and the question what, on the whole, Beech's +Folly might really bode, filled once more the consciousness of the +Western world. By the 1st of February a drop was recorded in many +general securities, in "governments", rentes, and consols; in Berlin +the bank-rate rose one per cent.; it was stated that specie was +accumulating in European vaults; while up leapt futures-cotton in +the Liverpool market. At last the First Lord of the Treasury, in a +speech at Manchester, gave sign of the Government's consciousness of +the new fact, saying that he could only repeat the answer given by +the First Lord of the Admiralty to the recent Deputations of the +Chamber of Shipping and of Merchant Shippers, that Britain and the +other maritime nations would know how to protect the seas from any +nuisance. He anticipated no nuisance. The structures popularly known +as "Beech's Folly" (prolonged laughter) would be provided with +lighthouses: and until they proved a nuisance on the ocean's +fairways, the Governments must permit to private enterprise that +free hand which was the characteristic of our age; moreover, a +recognized Government had avowed its association with these +structures. + +Nevertheless, the fever heightened. The light-system of the +_Boodah_, now included in the usual alphabetical lists of derelicts, +was conned by thousands of mariners, while in the crowded captains', +underwriters', and committee rooms at Lloyd's discussion buzzed and +speechified in every tone of gravity. Suddenly in the F. G. and S. +clause marine insurance underwent a profound modification; and it +was then that the millionaire, Schroeder, at that time a German +clerk in the City, managed to borrow five thousand pounds, and +quickly cleared his pile by underwriting on larger F. C. and S. +terms. And again raged the sale of the islands as penny salt- +cellars, finger-basins, etc.; in broker's and sub-editor's office +the tape-machine clicked the hourly progress of preparations at +Spezzia; while every by-street was dreadful with that music-hall +chorus: + + "To Spezzia runs the Pullman train; + The Follies soon their sense will teach; + We've Beech, O dear, upon the brain, + He brains upon the beach". + +Meantime, the question of the drawing-room was "Are you going to +Spezzia?" and by the 7th so great a pilgrimage of tourists--experts, +idlers, cinematographers, special correspondents, ministers of +state, Yankees, officers, social stars--had flocked to the scene, +that accommodation failed in the town and surrounding hill-country, +from Le Grazie on the west, to Lerici on the east of the Gulf. + +The morning dawned bright--Italian sky, tranquil Italian sea--and by +nine the harbour was alive with small-craft and Portovenere +steamboats, all gala with flags; on the land side, too, over the +hills, up the old road called Giro della Foce, and before the +villages commanding the town, spread a cloud of witnesses; while the +multitude in possession of _permessos_ for the dock-region stretched +across a hundred and sixty acres, perched on every coign, and +murmuring like the sea. + +And all in the air a fluttered consciousness of the to-come, the +present nothing, an hour hence everything--like the suspense of +nature before gales, and that greatness and novelty of marriage- +mornings: for such a bride that day would rush to the brine as it +had never embraced. + +There lay the hulk, all nuptial in colours, her roof looking like a +_plaza_ of Lima or La Paz at Carnival, flags in mountain-ridges +round her edges, flags in festoons, in slanting clothes-lines, in +trophy-groups, on bandroled poles, bedecking her; some scaffolding +still round her; and three running derricks, capable of wielding +guns and boilers of 140 tons, craned their shears about her. A +temporary stair under flags ran right up to a ledge above the +waterline: from which ledge little steel steps led here and there to +the roof; round the edge of roof and ledge running two balustrades, +surrounding the hulk; and over that upper portion, four times +repeated in white letters ten feet high, the name _BOODAH_ boomed +itself. + +By eleven some seven hundred people stood and sat on the roof--the +_élite_ of Europe, invited to the luncheon after the launch, seeming +to the tract of on-lookers quite dainty and visionary there, like +objects mirrored in an eye. And they formed groups, of which some +chatted, and were elegant, and some spoke the gravest words uttered +for centuries. + +"What, really, is the _Boodah_?" asked a Servian Minister of a +French: "is she a whim, a threat, or a tool?" + +"She is too heavy for a whim", answered the French, "too dear for a +threat, and too fantastic for a tool. Time will show". + +But this was no answer at all: something more to the point came from +a multitudinous tumult of sledges below--the workmen "wedging-up". + +At last, soon after noon, Hogarth, with a considerable following, +was seen ascending the steps, on his arm the Queen of the Ceremony-- +a little Bavarian Gräfin, famous for her face: he, princely now with +that cosmopolitan polish picked up in Courts, bending above her with +laughter, making her laugh also, as they paced up. And at once the +invited, including the Board of Verification, entered the hull upon +a tour of sight-seeing, conducted by a manager of the contractors. + +Already the set-up wedges had raised the _Boodah_ from her keel- +block, and left her resting on the great braced ground-ways; and now +down to the sea's brink the greasers were busy, prodigals in tallow, +while, within, the seven hundred trooped from spectacle to +spectacle, like a tourist group guided through the Louvre. + +An hour, and they anew appeared on the roof, trooping toward that +balustrade that faced the sea: upon which the throngs felt the +impending of the event, and intently watched. But there seemed no +hurry, Hogarth all gay chatter, anon lowering the lids a moment, as +he looked over the water; till suddenly hundreds of glasses detected +a champagne-bottle with ribbons in the christener's hand; and the +consciousness of the moment come moved the hosts when Hogarth, even +as he chatted, disengaged a flag, and let it fall: it was a signal; +down it fluttered; and instantly, down there, bustle broke loose, as +the call "Saw-off!" went forth, and the saws set flurriedly to fret +through the timbers which bind groundways to slidingways. + +"_Now?_" whispered Hogarth at the christener's ear: and, even as he +spoke, the voice of a noising arose and droned from Spezzia, its +hills, its villages, and its sea; the _Boodah_, only half-liberated, +strained in travail; crashed from her bands; slipped down the +greased gradient--plunged--and, gathering momentous way, went wading +deep, deeper--like Behemoth run mad--amid a wrath of froths and a +brawling of waters, into the sea. + +There, deep-planted, she stretched: on the surface appeared a reef +of steel; and the stirred-up water slapped vapidly upon those +flanks, like waters upon the Norway wall. + + + + +XXXIII + +REEFS OF STEEL + + +Nothing was ever so scrutinized as the movements of the _Boodah_ +during the next two months. + +One morning three weeks after her launch three steamers took her in +tow, with progress so slow, that at nightfall they were still +visible from land; but the next morning had vanished. + +Two days later they were met on the Genoa-Leghorn _route_, six +steamers then towing the _Boodah_, their course S. by W. + +Again and again it was met, that funeral of the sea: the prone, +tearing steamers, the reluctant bulk. Sometimes a captain's glass +might make out a few men lost on the roof like men on a raft, +smoking, seated, leaning over a balustrade. + +Southward and westward it swam. On the seventh day there arrived at +Ajaccio from Marseilles twenty-five bluejackets; and these, in a +hired _speronare_, put to sea, and joined the _Boodah_ twenty miles +from the coast. + +Thenceforth, a smoke would be seen at a point of the roof, +indicating that she, too, was steaming: for it was known that she +had a screw and a rudder; and so closely was she observed, that her +now added rate could be fixed--two to three knots a day. + +She must therefore have some small engines about 4,000 H. P.: and +since their _motif_ could only be one thing, resistance to ocean +currents, this meant that the _Boodah_ was intended to rest always +in one spot: a startling conclusion. + +Occasionally a Surveying Service warship would peep above the +horizon, watching her. + +As she passed through the Straits, seventy-five English blue-jackets +put out from Trafalgar, and joined her. + +With such reports passed the weeks. Occasionally five or six coal- +ships would be seen about the _Boodah_; her number of tug-ships +might be as low as two; sometimes nine, ten. + +At night she made a fine display, and homeward-bound boats from Cape +Horn, from Pernambuco, Para, Madeira, spoke highly of her two +revolving-drum lighthouses: for these, from opposite corners of the +roof, at the rate of a revolution per minute, poured into space two +shimmering comets, like Calais and the Eddystone--rapt spinning- +dervishes of the sea that hold far converse with the dark, till +morning. And between these two ran a festoon of electric lanterns, +Japanese and Moorish, cut in ogives; and festoons of coloured moons +drooped round the balustrades, so that the blaze and complexity of +it presented to ships a spectacle of speckled mystery, fresh to the +sea. + +After five weeks a hundred and seventeen blue-jackets put out from +Portsmouth in a chartered barque and joined her, she still in tow, +making now about N. by W. + +But by the time this news reached Europe the eyes of Europe were no +longer given up to the _Boodah_: for _another Boodah_, called the +_Truth_, was a-tow through the North Channel from Belfast; and she +had not reached the Mull of Cantire, when a third was launched at +San Francisco, so that the interest of the islands became +complicated. + +What would they do? What could they? Compared with this question, +the riddle of the Sphinx was simple, the supposition that they were +going to batter coast-walls in the S. Pacific being hardly now +tenable. The _Boodah_ finally came to rest some miles North of lat. +50° and East of long. 20°: and there--just on the northern rim of +the Gulf Stream where it divides, part toward Ireland, and part +toward Africa--she remained, precisely in the middle of the trade- +route between Europe and Boston, New York, Halifax: a _route_ +covered for fifty miles--twenty-five north, twenty-five south--by +her 19.5-inch guns. + +It is impossible to describe with how wild a heart, or thrilling a +boding, the world heard this thing: eight days later the +International Conference of Maritime Nations met at The Hague. + +But nothing happened--or the opposite of what was feared: for, as +months passed, the _Boodah_, planted there in the ocean, rapidly +became the recognized gathering-point of the fashion and gaiety of +Europe, thither flocking the socially ambitious and the "arrived" +together, and to have been invited to those revels of taste and +elegance became a superiority. Gradually, as the names "Beech", +"Ecuador", ceased to be associated with the islands, the name of +Hogarth took their place; and Hogarth had engaged Wanda, sweetest of +tenors, to a year's stay in the _Boodah_, whose orchestra was the +most cultured anywhere; Roche, her _chef_, had two years previously +been put into a laboratory to devote his soul to the enlargement of +his art; and he and that tenor lived in suites of the _Boodah_ such +as most princes would consider Utopian. + +Hardly anything in her interior suggested _the ship_: no hammocks +for marines, rolling-racks, sick-bay, lockers, steam-tables, wash- +rooms, she being just a palace planted in the Atlantic, her bottom +going down to a layer of comparative calm, so that hardly ever, in a +storm, when the ocean robed her sides in white, washed abroad her +slippery plateau, and drenched with spray her lighthouse tops, did +the ballroom below know shock or motion. Into her principal hall, +far down, circular, one descended by a circle of steps of marble, +round which stood a colonnade of Cuban cedar, supporting candelabra +and silks; and from atrium-pools sunk in the floor twelve twining +fountains brandished spiral sprays, the floor being of a glassy +marble, polished with snakestone, suffused with blushes at the +coloured silks and at a roof gross with rose and pomegranates, +hanging chandeliers; round the raised centre of the floor stood two +balustrades, three feet high, hung with silks, the inner circle +thirty feet across, higher than the outer, forty-five across: a +roseate room, strewn with cushions, colours, flushes; but that +raised space was empty: reserved for--a throne. + +The throne, still unfinished, had been three years making in India. + +And during nine months the _élite_ and joyous yachts arrived, not at +the _Boodah_ only, but at others of the twelve which, one by one, +were launched and towed to position; and a round of events +transacted themselves in the fortresses: Marie Antoinette balls, +classic concerts, theatrical functions by _troupe_ or amateur, +costume-balls, children's-balls, banquets of the gods, grave +receptions. By now there ran right across the _Boodah's_ roof, in +the form of a cross, two double colonnades of Doric pillars, at the +four ends being Roman arches: and here, some summer afternoon, the +passing ship would see a bazaar, all butterfly flutter, feminine +hues like flower-beds, cubes of coloured ice, flags, and a buzz of +gaiety, and strains of Tzigany music--rainbow-tints of Venice mixed +with the levity of the Andrássy Ut of Pesth. Sometimes a fleet of +craft would surround the islands. Besides, to each was attached a +yacht, and a trawler which continually plied for it between island +and land. + +At this time Hogarth was deep in debt, and Beech's living upon +credit. + +So, gradually, a good deal of the awe which the structures had +inspired passed off. On the whole, they seemed mere whimsical +castles-of-pleasure. The trains of industrious ships grew habituated +to their gaudy brightness by night, to their seething reefs, or +placid mass, by day. On foggy days the mariner was aware of the +islands wailing weird siren-sounds of warning. The islands waved +common-code signals of greeting to the passer. Trinity House sent +them the usual blanks and instruments for recording meteorological +observations. Their positions were marked in British Admiralty +Charts, in American Pilot Charts, in "Sailing Directions". The great +greyhounds, racing to Sandy Hook, raved with jest past them. The +islands began to seem a natural part of the sum of things. There +they lay, stable, rooted, trite, familiar; and the question almost +arose: "How came it that they were never there _before?_"--just that +object, of that form and colour, seemed so old and natural in that +particular spot. So the frogs hopped finally upon the log that God +sent them for sovereign. + +Meantime, the more thoughtful of men did not fail to observe, and +never forgot, that no ship could possibly depart from, or arrive at +Europe, without passing within range of some one of the islands' +guns. A row of eight lay an irregular crescent (its convexity facing +Europe) from just outside the Straits of Gibraltar, where O'Hara +admiraled the _Mahomet_, to the 55th of latitude, where the _Goethe_ +lay on the Quebec-Glasgow _route_: these commanding the European +trade with the States and with S. America, as well as with W. and S. +Africa, and with Australia by Cape Horn; another in the narrows of +the Gulf of Aden, commanding the world's traffic by Suez with the +East and with S. Africa; another in the middle of the narrows of the +Kattegat, commanding all Baltic trade; another, fifteen miles from +San Francisco, and another a hundred and fifty miles from Nagasaki, +on the edge of the Black Stream, commanding the Japanese-San +Francisco, the Australian-San Francisco trades, and great part of +the Japano-Russo-Chinese. These were the principal trades of the +world. + +Like the despair of Samson awaking manacled and shaven, an +occasional shriek would go up from some lone thinker, who perceived +that the kingdoms of the world had lapsed into a single hand; and in +the privy cabinet the governors drank to the dregs the cup of +trembling. But their speech was bold, the matter hung long, the +peoples ignored and wrought: there was seed-time and harvest; the +newsboy brawled; the long street roared. Far yonder in the darkness +and distance of the deep the islands flashed and danced, and were +fashionable. + +Richard Hogarth held back his hand. + + + + +XXXIV + +THE "KAISER" + + +It was the habit of Hogarth, when in the _Boodah_, to rise very +early and ascend in flannels to one of the four doors opening upon +the ledge--blocks five feet thick, moved by hydraulic motors--and +sometimes Loveday would accompany these walks, they always seeing on +the plane of the sea some sail, or by a spyglass the fading light- +beam of the _Goethe_ north, of the _Solon_ south; or they watched +how the _Boodah's_ galaxy, too, waxed faint and garish as some drama +of colour evolved in the East; saw gulls hover and swing, fins +wander: and marking that simple ampleness of the plan of sea and +arch of heaven, their hearts felt enlargement. + +One morning, the 3rd October, Loveday was up even before Hogarth, +having started awake from a gory nightmare, this altogether not +being a day like others: and when the two friends met on the ledge, +they walked a long time in silence. + +Only after the dayspring began definitely to dabble in its chromatic +chemistries Loveday at last remarked: "Did you ever think why I took +such pains to get you to come down with me to Lord Woolacot's last +autumn two years?" + +"Yes", answered Hogarth: "you wanted me to see the model farms, and +how the young ladies fed the poor, and how the tenants loved their +lord, and everyone thought himself happy. Only, I didn't see what +the pastimes of Lord Woolacot's daughters have to do with the +process of the suns, and with the woe of Oldham. Ah, Lord, it is a +job, I tell you, pulling this vile thing straight! Of course, the +eagle doesn't blink: but I am only one man, and the world, and its +stupid sins, are a tidy burden. Ha!--never mind. Look at that big +_Boodah_ of a sun how he blooms: isn't he launched and handled all +right? Let us of this desert bend the knee to him like the old +Sabæans. There is hope".... + +It was known that on that day, at half-past eleven A.M., the _Kaiser +Wilhelm der Grösste_ would pass on her second voyage within some +miles of the _Boodah_, this ship being the greatest afloat, having a +cargo-carrying deadweight of 45,000 tons, and travelling the waters +like a railway-train at 37 miles (32 knots). + +So toward noon Hogarth, in a peaked cap, jacket, and white boots, +was again on the roof, a glass and book of Costonlights in his hand, +while not far off a knot of five officers in frockcoats talked, and +near one light-house, where a number of men stood, a flagstaff flew +the ensign--blue letters "R. F." on a white ground, looking Russian; +on the northern horizon two fox-tails of smoke; on the western three +diminutive sails; between the two, quite real and big, a brig +becalmed; and now the _Kaiser Wilhelm_: for that yonder could be +only she, with so fervent a growth, from the first moment of her +upward climb, did she approach. It was twenty minutes to noon, and +she was somehow a little late, that punctual strong wrestler with +space. + +The officers on the _Boodah_ spoke of her in low and stealthy +voices; looked at her with queer and stealthy glances. + +"'As a bird to the snare...'" muttered one. + +"She comes all right, but will never go", said another. + +"She will be always near us", said a third. + +"Life is an earnest thing, after all", said a fourth: "there are +wrongs, it seems, which only blood can wash out: it comes to that at +last". + +Now Loveday ran up, looking scared and busy, a quill behind his ear, +Hogarth now having the glass at his face, while his eyes struggled +with the reek from his cigar-end. + +"Is that she?" Loveday asked him. + +"Yes, poor boat". + +She was nine miles away; in four minutes she was less than seven, +and now distinct:--her three staysails; her four funnels; the +stretched-out space between her raked masts; her host of cowls and +boats; her high victorious hull, silently running. + +And all along her lines were lines of faces thick as dahlia-rows in +June--globe-trotters; captains of industry; children; the Wall +Street operator who plotted a stroke in Black-Sea wool, and to him +time was money--I guess; commercial travellers, all-modern, +spinning, prone, to whom the sea was an insignificant and conquered +thing; engineers; capped enthusiastic Germans, going forth to +conquer; publishers, ladies, lords, all the nondescript prosperous: +and all ran there blithe, sublime, and long drawn-out; and they +toyed with oranges, nuts; and they looked abroad to see the +_Boodah_--ship's-surgeons and officers with them--jesting, as they +munched or sucked. + +But the Captain who had often seen the _Boodah_, was log-writing in +the chart-room... + +As her ensign of greeting ran up her main, her clocks struck twelve, +the full noon--like an omen--come; she not then three miles from the +_Boodah_. + +And simultaneously with the hoisting of that ensign, and the +striking of those clocks, the old-worn wheels of Roman Civilization +stopped dead. + +The _Boodah_ ran up the signal: "_Stop!_" + +Those who understood rubbed their eyes: it was like a vision at high +noon; they could not believe. + +At that news the Captain, a handsome fair-bearded man, rushed like a +madman from pilot-house to bridge, and the startled passengers saw +his lighted eyes. He had some moments of indecision; then down he, +too, rang that word: "_Stop_". + +The engines left off; the _Kaiser's_ speed, as from heart-failure, +gave in, died away. + +By this time all the passengers knew, in a state of tremor saw +confused runnings to and fro, and face caught from face dismay; the +voyage was spoiled, the record! What, then, had happened to the +world? And now again the _Boodah_ is signalling: "_Let the Captain +come_". + +The Captain's hands were shaking; he could not speak, could only +gasp to the first-officer: "By God, no; O, by God, no". Then, as +great quantities of black-grey reek, wheeling all convolved, were +now enveloping the vessel, resting on the sea, reaching away in +thinner fog even to the _Boodah_, and as, the day being calm, there +was a difficulty in reading the flags, the Captain gasped: "Take the +trumpet--ask them--But don't they pay for this...?" + +So out brayed the trumpeted query, and back the inexorable trumpeted +answer: "_Let the Captain come_". + +So, then, the _Kaiser_ would never reach Sandy Hook? To put out +boats!--to parley!--while the earth span with quick-panting throbs, +every second worth seven thousand pounds! + +"But don't they _pay_ for it...?" so, with a painful face of care, +the Captain questioned space. + +But he would be mild and patient as a lamb that day! His order went +forth: the ship forged ahead; a longboat, hurriedly lowered to +starboard, was manned for the first-officer to put off in her, while +every heart of the passengers thumped, every face an ecstasy of +emotions. + +Then a wretched, long interval... + +The ship's-officers were received on the _Boodah_ in a deck-room +containing a number of boats with castored keels, capable of being +quickly launched down an incline, where Mr. F. Quilter-Beckett, the +Admiral, with some lieutenants, awaited them at a bureau on which +lay documents, while in the background stood Hogarth and Loveday, +and, "Gentlemen, this is a most damned wild piece of madness!" broke +out wrathfully the first-officer, as he dashed up wild-eyed to the +level: "in consideration of the guns you have in this thing--" + +"But your Captain?" asked Quilter-Beckett, a courtly man, with a +dark-curling beard, a star on his breast. + +"The Captain won't come!" whined the officer in perfect English: "I +suppose you realize the terrible consequences of this stoppage, +gentlemen?" + +"But you are wasting time, sir. You represent your Captain?" + +"Of course, I represent--!" + +"Then just cast your eye over this"--that so slighted letter, sent +years before by Hogarth to Foreign Offices, claiming the sea as his +private manor. + +The officer read it half through with flurried closeness; then, +"Well, but what is all this?" he broke out: "is it a piece of +comedy, or what, gentlemen?" + +"It is serious; and the last clause comes into operation to-day: +only such ships being held authorized to pass on the sea as pay to +the first-reached sea-fort on any voyage a tax, or sea-rent, of 4s. +per ton on their registered tonnage, with an additional stamp-tax of +33s. 4d. for receipt, and a stamp-tax of £1 16s. 8d. for clearance. +You will see at a glance the clauses of the law, if you cast your +eyes over this schedule--" + +"Law!" the other broke in: "you talk of _Law_! But doesn't the sea, +then, belong by right to all men--?" + +"Not more than the land. Ask yourself: why should it? But I do hope +you won't argue: your time must be so precious". + +Out shrilled the _Kaiser Wilhelm's_ whistle of recall. + +"I must go!" said the officer with a worried hand-toss: "I must go. +If you give me those documents, I will show them to the Captain--but +he is not the sort of man--this is mere piracy, after all! But, good +God, gentlemen, if you only dare touch that ship, I shouldn't put +myself in your place this day week for all--" + +He snatched the papers, dashed, and his men, in a passion of haste, +lay to the oars, the _Kaiser_ only four hundred yards from the +_Boodah_; and the officer, shaking aloft the documents, pitched up +the stair, the centre of five hundred pairs of scared eyes, while +the captain bored his way to him. + +Two minutes of intense low speech, crowded with gestures: and +suddenly the Captain's face, till now haggard, reddened; out went +his shaken fist; with eyes blazing like lunacy, up he flew to the +bridge; and now he is bending down with howling throat: "Passengers +to their berths!" + +Simultaneously, above the engine-room stair a bell jangled; round +swung the pointer to "_Full Ahead_"; and ere the decks were cleared +of their bustle the _Kaiser_, like a back-kicking hen, scratched up +under her poop a spreading pool of spume, which tossed spasmodic +spray-showers and spoutings: and she stirred, stretched like a +street, churned the sea, and, wheeling to reveal her receding stern, +was away. + +By which time Hogarth was standing at a cubical cabin of steel on +the roof, with him Loveday and Quilter-Beckett, his brow puckered +with wrinkles, the sun troubling his eyes. + +"I suppose the _chef_ is warned?"--he threw away his cigar. + +"Oh, yes, my Lord King", Quilter-Beckett answered. + +And Loveday: "She sweats like a thoroughbred"--haggard, but assuming +calm: "few things could be more profusely expeditious". + +"Ah, make phrases, John," murmured Hogarth...."Well, but hadn't you +better be getting out the boats?" + +Upon which Quilter-Beckett stepped into the little erection, touched +a button, and in a minute the water round the southern side was +swarming with twenty-three boats whose blue-jackets began to row +toward the _Kaiser_. + +And presently, "It's no use waiting", said Hogarth, looking in upon +Quilter-Beckett: "I should mine and shell her at the same moment, if +I were you; tell them to get it in well amidships". + +Now a few seconds, full of expectation, passed, the _Kaiser Wilhelm_ +already two miles away: till suddenly space opened its throat in a +gulf to bay gruff and hollow like hell-gate dogs; and, almost at the +same moment, close by the _Kaiser_ a column of water hopped with one +humph of venom two hundred feet on high: when this dropped back +broad-showering with it came showering a rain of wreckage; and +instantly a shriek of lamentation floated over the sea, mixed with +another shriek of steam. + +For the moment the ship, enveloped in vapours, could not be seen; +but in two minutes glimpses of her hull appeared, shewing the bluff +bulge of her starboard bottom: for she leaned steeply to port with a +forward crank, her two starboard screws, now free, spinning asleep +like humming-tops. A six-inch shell, beautifully aimed, had +shattered her engines, killing two stokers, and a torpedo-mine had +knocked a hole nine feet across in her port beam. + +But as the _Boodah's_ boats, meanwhile, had been racing toward her, +and as her own port boats were quickly out, all were got off; in +fact, she floated so long, that her ship's papers with £270,000 in +specie, and a few hundred-weight of mailbags were saved, and even +after the boats reached the _Boodah_ she still stretched there +motionless, until, with a sudden flurry, she determined to plunge. + +Soon afterwards Hogarth had the Captain in his suite, to tell him +that he did not wish any intelligence of the event to reach the +world for four days, during which passengers and crew would be his +guests, and then be sent on to America, his object, he said, being +to impress the loss of the _Kaiser_ upon the consciousness of all, +by making all anxious as to her fate. + +So that night her passengers danced till late, for there was no +resisting the hospitality of Hogarth, or the witchery of those +vistas and arcades, grand hall and lost grot, _salons_ and +conservatories, there in the dark of the ocean, or such an +enchantment of music, and fabulousness of table; the host, too, +pleaded prettily for himself; and now they pardoned, and now they +pouted, but always they banqueted, kissed, lost themselves in +visions, were charmed, and danced. + + + + +XXXV + +THE CUP OF TREMBLING + + +It was by the merest chance that Baruch Frankl and his daughter were +not on the _Kaiser_: for Frankl was the half-nephew of Mrs. Charles +P. Stickney, a New York Jewess, and as the marriage of Miss Stickney +with Lord Alfred Cowern was only fifteen days off, Frankl had made +arrangements to accompany the bridegroom across, but had been +detained by stress of business; happily for him--for Lord Alfred, +the bridegroom, was a dancing prisoner in the _Boodah_. + +Early, then, on the third morning thence, Charles P. Stickney, the +bride's father, a natty little Yankee, hurried a-foot to the +Maritime Exchange: for, to his infinite surprise, the _Kaiser's_ +arrival had not been in the morning's paper: so the little arch- +millionaire stepped toward Beaver Street, sure that the _Kaiser_ had +come in too late for the press. + +Early as it was, he found the place as thickly a-buzz as though it +was that feverish hour between eleven and twelve. + +He pushed his way to the bulletin-board, inscribed with the hours at +which ships are sighted and entered into dock: the Kaiser was not +there: and with prone outlook he went seeking an assistant +superintendent; but, sighting a fellow-operator, come, as usual, to +digest the world, from barometer-reports to coffee-quotations at +Rio, Charles P. Stickney cried to him: "Funny about the _Kaiser_! +Know anything?" + +"It's the darndest thing..." mumbled the other, still star-gazing at +a blackboard prices-current of American staples: "raise Hell this +day, I guess".... + +And on through the rooms Stickney shouldered: all in the air here an +odour of the sea, and of them that go down to it in ships; pilot, +captain, supercargo, purser; abstracts from logs, copies of +manifests and clearances, marks and numbers of merchandise, with +quantities, shippers, consignees; here peaked caps, and the jaw that +chewed once, and paused long, and, lo, it moved anew; Black Books, +massive volumes enshrining ancient wrecks; vast newspaper-files in +every tongue; records of changes in lightships, lights, buoys, and +beacons, from Shanghai to Cape Horn; reports, charts, atlases, +globes; the progress of the rebellion in Shantung, and the +earthquake last night in Quito; directories, and high-curved +reference-books, and storm-maps; every minute the arrival of cipher +cablegrams, breathless with the day's Amsterdam exchange on London, +or with the quantities of tea _in transitu_ via Suez or Pacific +Railway; and the drift of ocean-currents, and the latest position of +the _Jane Richardson_, derelict, and the arrival of the _Ladybird_ +at Bahia; and the probabilities of wind-circulation, atmospheric +moisture, aberrations of audibility in fog; and in the middle of it +the pulse of the sun, the thundering engines and shooting shuttles +of this Loom; a tiptop briskness and bustle of action; a scramble of +wits; a _mêlée_ to the death; mixed with pea-jackets, and aromas of +chewed pigtail, and a rolling in the gait. + +Into this roar of life that word _Kaiser_ stole: and it grew to a +chorus. + +Charles P. Stickney, butting upon a tearing clerk who was holding +aloft a bulletin of icebergs and derelicts, tried to stop him: upon +which the clerk, who would not be stopped, cried with a back-looking +face of passionate haste: "London message just received--_no +intelligence of Kaiser_--" + +But he had hardly disappeared, when another man from an inner room +rushed, waving something: the Navesink Highlands lookout had wired +the _Kaiser_ in sight! And while the Exchange rang with cheers, +Stickney, a colour now in his sere cheeks, went boring his way +outward. + +The lookout had said it--those blue eyes that never failed there on +his watch-tower, he knowing the ships that sail the sea as the +Cyclops his sheep, in his heart so knowing them all, that as that +sea-glass detected a speck on the horizon, those sea-wise nostrils +sniffed its name: for between the _Mary Jane_ and the _Mary Anne_, +both off-shore schooners, is all the world of difference: if you +would not see it, _he_ knows. And he had wired the _Kaiser!_--so +expectant his outlook: and that day wept like a ruined man. + +Swift upon his first wire a second flashed: and one of those craped +days of the tragedies of commerce followed, the boding, the loss, +flashed everywhere, pervading Europe and America. + +The next morning the Exchange, all the exchanges, the Lloyds', the +bourses, were crowded from an early hour, but subdued: no news, not +a word; but still--there was certainty: for had the _Kaiser_ and her +wireless been merely disabled, she would undoubtedly by now have +been reported: she had foundered. + +_Foundered!_--in the serenest weather in which ship ever crossed the +water.... + +But at eleven the truth came: for the brig which had lain becalmed +near the _Boodah_ at the moment of the tragedy, and now was nearer +England, had flashed the news: "many of the Kaiser's passengers +mutilated, many drowned". + +Death, then, was in the pottage of Life; the air tainted with specks +of blood.... + +That day Man, as it were, rent his garments, sitting in ashes, and +to Heaven sent up a howl of fear, of anguish, and of hissing hate. + +Those who lacked the intelligence to feel the fear, felt the hate: +every girl, the shirt-maker, the shopman, feeling himself robbed of +his very own; the Duke in the centre of his oak-lands felt it; the +burglar, the junk-dweller of the Yangtse, the pariah of the Hugli. +Lamentation and a voice in Ramah, wail on wail. For God had given +the sea to man, and it had been seized by a devil. + +God had also given the shore; and it, too, had been seized: but, as +that had been before their birth, they had not observed it--in such +a numb somnambulism shambles humanity. + +But the theft of the sea was new and flagrant, it, and the air, +being all that had remained: and a roar for vengeance--sharp, and +rolled in blood--rose from the throat of man. + +Accordingly, when Mr. C. P. Stickney during the afternoon wired for +information to the White House, he received the reply: "Encourage +calm on 'Change. Government in touch with Europe. Great naval +activity. Await good news, seven P.M." + +It was about seven P.M. that what the White House would have +considered specially good news occurred: for the _Boodah_ then +telegraphed through to O'Hara's _Mahomet_ at the Straits: + +"B. 7651. Begins. After to-morrow (Monday) you begin taxation, as +per Order B., 7315, of 2nd inst. But if warships desire to pass out, +(not in), permit, till further order. Richard. Ends". + +Which meant that if any Power, or Powers, desired to concentrate +force upon the attack of any island, the Lord of the Sea granted +them facilities. + +The _Kaiser_ passengers had now been sent off to New York, the +_Boodah's_ halls seemed the home of desolation; and, as the night +advanced, Hogarth and Loveday walked on the roof: for they could +find no rest, the sky without moon or star, the sea making of three +sides of the _Boodah_ a roaring reef, the wind blowing cold, they +two wrapped to the nose in oilskins with sou'-westers, lashed by +rages of rain and spray. + +Yonder, to the north-west, appeared a ghost, a thing, a derelict +brig, driving downhill on the billows, like a blind man gadding +aimless with a crazy down-look, the rags of her one sail drumming on +the gusts; and near, nearer, within a stone's-throw of the _Boodah_, +she swaggered wearily, drab Arab, doomed despondent Ahasuerus of the +deep, nomad on the nomad sea; and on into the gloom of the south- +west she roamed, to be again and again re-created by the rolling +light-drum, while Hogarth with a groan said: "If I were only dead! I +feel to-night like a man abandoned by the Almighty". + +Loveday muttered those words so loved by Hogarth: + + "....this is my favoured lot, + My exaltation to afflictions high".... + +And Hogarth: "Do you know what is burdening me tonight? It is the +curses which the world is at this moment hurling upon me: as when +one man, thinking evilly of another, sticks needles into wax, and +needles of pain pierce the other..." a sense of evil which was +deepened the next day by an ominous little accident, when one of his +old gunpractice hulks arrived from Bombay, bearing the throne: for +as this was being conveyed into the _Boodah_ a front leg was broken. + +Meantime, the world's trade went on as before: only, night and day, +its ships lay-to, to pay rent with threat and curse: in all only +thirteen ships being sunk ere sea and earth had learned the new +conditions. + +And from the very first day of this taxing a deeper sense of pain +and hardship pervaded the world, the Lord of the Sea now taxing at +4s. per ton a world's tonnage of 29 millions, 7 1/2 millions in +sailing-ships, 21 1/2 millions in steamships, once in a voyage--a +little less than the revenue of Britain. + +So one night he received message from O'Hara that "British +Mediterranean fleet has passed through the Straits, homeward". + +It was not for nothing that the nations had allowed three weeks to +pass before avenging the Kaiser: soon enough the Cabinets had been +in intercommunication; but in the "Concert" had occurred--a hitch. + +Britain had proposed the destruction of the islands in detail, the +Powers to contribute weights of metal proportionate to their +mercantile marines: as a basis for calculation she had offered her +force in Home and Mediterranean waters; and, this having been +accepted, by the 5th ships were under the pennant, and outfitting. + +Now, all this time, things had been in a pretty whirl: oratory from +pulpit, platform, stump, eyes on fire, mobs that went in haste, +shrieks of newspaper passion, organized burglary, and a strange +epidemic of fires: for the modern nations lived by the sea, and it +was seized. Moreover, on the 6th, after a meeting at the Albert +Hall, organized by the Associated Chambers of Commerce, our +Government--"Liberal", under Sir Moses Cohen--suffered a defeat of +thirty-four votes on a division. + +And it was during the turmoil that ensued upon this that the German +Foreign Office (on the 9th) sent to the new Russian the wireless +"_Bion_"-meaning--"Let us meet to discuss the subject of-England". + +That meeting took place at Konigsberg. + +It was now that a fort-man--formerly a Nottingham shoemaker--landed +from the Truth's yacht at Frederikshavn, and thence wrote to the +Daily Chronicle, to say, briefly, this: That, supposing the European +navies joined to batter away with l5-inch guns and torpedoes at five +feet of steel, they might finally succeed in mining a hole in it; +but if the thick steel happened to have still bigger guns, "_and +other things_", with which, meantime, to batter back at the thin +ships, then it would be the ships, probably, which would get holes +in them: it was a question of Time. Also he said that the islands +were defended by devoted men, every one of intelligence and high +principle, who knew what they wanted, and meant to have it--their +shooting average being 97 per 100. He advised his country not to try +it, especially in view of certain political rumours which he had +picked up in the Cattegat. + +This letter, although badly spelled, aroused a sensation The "high +principle" of the fort-men, indeed, met with bitter laughter; but +its hearty patriotism, simplicity, technical knowledge, were so +remarkable, that now a doubt as to the battleship arose--and with it +a gnashing of teeth. The service-clubs, the "experts", wrote this +and that; the publics poured forth letters, schemes, plots, +inventions--like the brain of the world _versus_ the brain of +Hogarth. "_Starve Him Out_", was a title in the _Contemporary:_ but +the reply was bitterly obvious. And into the midst of this racket +burst the news that the negotiations with Germany, Russia and France +were at a deadlock. + +These Powers had raised this question: "In case of the capture of +the islands--what shall be done with those most powerful engines?" + +Here was a riddle. For whichever nation took even one would score a +vast advantage. + +If, now, Britain had had the greatness of mind to declare for the +sinking, in any case, of all the islands, the difficulty was solved, +but the new-Government brooms would score a point and gain a trick, +and they proposed the division of surviving forts in the proportion +of fighting-power contributed. + +The Continent objected: Britain was "_firm_"; whereupon the French +Ambassador sent to Downing Street his withdrawal from the crusade. + +And so when--on the 22nd--the fleets assembled at Portland and +Milford Haven before _rendezvous_ at the Lizard, the whole original +proposal had fallen through: for here was neither tricolour nor +saltire, only three German ships, only five Italian; the +"probability", moreover, of the capture of a sea-fort by England was +imminent: and on the evening of the mobilisation of the squadrons +feverish activity was reported from Toulon; a British Legation +_attaché,_, seeing fit to stroll round the Caserne Pepinière, beheld +in the yard an extraordinary crowd of limbers: and, pitching into a +cab, from the nearest _postes et télégraphes_ wired to London the +word: "Angleterre". + +Too late: the British fleets were gone, leaving the Channel and +Western Mediterranean desert. + +Now the nation awoke to a consciousness of dark skies: cloud of the +west rushing to meet a yet lurider eastern--with probability of +lightning. + +The fleet could hardly return in less than five days--if it +returned! Would the hostile nations be good enough to await its +return? The lightning would be "near". + +A day of fear, in which flash tracked flash: till at 11.30 P.M. the +rumour pervaded the crowd round St. Stephen's that the new Ministry +had suffered defeat: and the drifting ship was captainless. + +And early the next morning a number of _Boodah_ boats, out running a +regatta, came tearing back, all fluttered; soon after which Quilter- +Beckett was hurrying into Hogarth's presence, who was at coffee, to +say: "Well, my Lord King, here they come at last--and enough of +them, I think". + + + + +XXXVI + +THE "BOODAH" AND THE BATTLESHIPS + + +The ships had gone forth in two lines ahead at ten knots, Admiral +Sir Henry Yerburgh, K.C.B., being in the flagship Queen Mary, with +the capital-ships being nearly all of the five mosquito flotillas, +and half the Home submarine; though what was the object of the +torpedo craft (unless they were to go within 2,000 yards of the +_Boodah's_ guns) was not very evident. + +At that news, Hogarth, putting on a wide-awake, and lighting a cigar +with rough perfunctory puffs, ran along a corridor to call Loveday, +whereupon the two went out to the ledge and up to the roof. + +There, at the south edge, stood a marine trumpeting something at +Hogarth's yacht; and, just landing at the _Boodah_ from his gig, a +fretful Yankee skipper, register in hand with a bag of £900 sea-rent +in gold, while twenty yards yonder rode his smoking ship loaded with +grain for Rouen; and on the eastern horizon the armada, in crescent +at present, moving with fires banked at two knots, a glare hiding +them from the naked eye, but the glass revealing them like toys in +the abstract, ethereally hazy. + +And now the yacht's cones shewed steam, three of her boats making +toward the _Boodah_; soon at the landing-place stood Wanda, some +interpreters, Mons. Roche (the chef), women, engineers, paymasters, +civil servants, waiters, etc.; and Hogarth, seeing them, approached, +questioned them, and, hearing that they had been ordered a day's +pleasure-trip round the _Solon_, with lifting hat shook hands all +round. + +By this time some fifty officers and blue-jackets were about the +roof and ledge, some discussing, others unfixing lanterns and +festoons, with shouted directions. Leaving which, Hogarth and +Loveday descended to an office of Loveday's, and Hogarth was just +saying: "Quilter-Beckett could destroy a quarter of those warships +yonder--_now_, if he chose--without firing a gun--" when in, with +flushed face and stretched stalk, hurried Quilter-Beckett, crying: +"My Lord King, I thought you would be here--just look--!" + +He held out a Sea telegraph-form-from O'Hara: + +"F. 39241. Begins. Almost certainty of war: Germany, France, Russia +against England. Three corps massing between Harfleur and Rouen, two +upon Petersburg, transports at Havre. England undefended on sea. +Ministry fallen. Toulon outfitting. Donald, Admiral. Ends. + +Hogarth, with an all-gone gesture, handed the telegram to Loveday. + +But with lightning energy he was at a desk, scribbling: + +"F. 39242. Begins. To Donald, Admiral, Mahomet. Be in half-hourly +communication with Beech's Bank, Paris and Petersburg branches. Send +hourly bulletins of news. War to be averted by every means. Let +Beech threaten. Warn Cattegat. Richard. Ends." + +And "Quick, Quilter-Beckett", he cried, "send that! What is the +speed of your quickest picket--?" + +"Fifteen knots--" + +"Then, go yourself to the British Admiral. _Make_ him fly back: he +has years to attack me in, tell him--I'll write a dispatch--" + +On which Quilter-Beckett telephoned up for a picket, took the +dispatch, and was soon away, while Hogarth watched his flight over +the Sea. + +An anxious hour passed, and by then a line of ships had been sighted +to the west--the Americans at last; ten minutes later, the picket, +too, was seen returning. + +"Well, now", said Hogarth, watching her, "I wonder. The ships seem +to be coming on just the same. You have no idea, John, how the mind +of people in office becomes fixed, like hardened putty in a hole: I +am sorry now I didn't go myself". + +Some minutes more and Quilter-Beckett was pelting up the steps, his +face pink as prickly-heat, blurting out: "My Lord King! I have been +grossly insulted...!" + +"Ha!" went Hogarth. + +"I met a dispatch-boat coming to make summons of surrender, and, in +spite of my white flag, they took me prisoner! How I restrained +myself--and these people in the hollow of my hand! When I got at +last to the Admiral--it is Yerburgh on the _Queen Mary_--he +'pirated' me--but I have no time Yonder, you see, are the Americans. +British won't go back: I doubt if they believe--'under orders', and +so on. By the way, you shouldn't stay there--no longer safe--" + +He was away: for the moment was near, the _Boodah_ now surrounded +with a series of floating squares hanging deep torpedo-nets against +submarines, on both horizons effusions of smoke, the ships no more +visions, but middle-sized sea-things, seeming fixed in the thick of +the sea, though steaming quickly. Hogarth watched them through a +hand-glass, while Loveday, ghastly pallid, whispered: "Come, +Richard, come", but still lingered a little, seeing them grow up-- +like the infant, the lad, the hairy man--toiling at the bigness of +the sea, looking stripped, prepared for tempest They were six miles +away--five. + +Mute lay the _Boodah_; and, surrounding her, perniciously moved the +ships at forty-eight revolutions a minute, hardly a cable's interval +between the host of them, they seeming no more the playthings of the +sea, but its masters, each a travelling throne of power; and as they +pared so taciturn, with baleful aspect they trained their cannon +upon the sea-fort in their midst: not a soul visible on fort or +ships. + +A long while it seems to last, that noonday stillness, a noonday +breezy and oceanic, the sea sharp-edged, hard-looking, dark-blue, +tossing spray along its ridges, not rough, but restless, shewing +against the ships white foams a moment, which silently glide away. + +But their Admiral is signalling: _Let her have it!_ and in some +moments more yonder to the far north the _Florida_ breaks into +quick-flashing ecstasy, like quick-winking Gorgon glances; and the +north-east catches it in a single boom; and in ten seconds more it +is as if Nature, with sudden yell, feels to her womb the birth-hour +come and rueful throes: and where ships had been appears in one +minute nothing but a ring of stagnant smoke, tugged into rays and +out-sticking clouds, flushed with glares and rouges. + +And no question of missing: the _Boodah_ stationary and huge; every +shell told. But, the deluge over, that thunder-marred visage again +looked grimly forth, a face new-risen from smallpox, an apparition, +roof-houses gone, lighthouse tops, one of her great 19.5 inchers in +fragments, in her casemates seventeen dead. + +But where now is the one-masted _Hercules_, which but a moment since +went trembling at the bale of her own bellowing barbettes? The +_Hercules_ is in a Nessus-shirt of flame. And whither the _Hercules_ +is going, thither is the _Idaho_ going, and the _Dante_ gone, and +gone the elongated length of the _Invincible_, and twenty +destroyers, and the bow-works of the old _Powerful_, which stoops +woefully there, screws in air, as the camel of the desert kneels and +waits, while into her beam comes crashing the ram of the poopless +_Deutschland_. + +Yet the _Boodah_ has not fired a gun! + +But now she fires: as the broadsides drench her anew, she fires, the +hulk--all round the horizon--lowing in travail: and as there is no +question of missing on the one side, so on the other is assurance, +the _Boodah's_ broad-sides of 19.5-inchers and 9.5-inchers, ninety- +two in all, being fired by the hand of Quilter-Beckett, who sits at +a table grim with knobs, buttons, dial-faces, in a cabinet near a +saloon where Hogarth, Loveday, and five lieutenants are lunching; +and where he sits he can hear the band in an alcove rendering for +the eaters Beethoven's Ninth Symphony: hear, not heed: for two +gunners in each casemate have sighted a ship through pivoted +glasses, whose fixing, disturbing an electrical circuit, prints the +ship's distance on an indicator before the Admiral: whereupon he +touches a button--many buttons--in intense succession: the _Boodah +bawls_: and the thrust-back of her resentment becomes intolerable, +the ships just like fawns under the paws of an old lion whose grisly +jaws drip gore; the sharks that infest her will fare well of her +hand. + +Of forty-three ships fixed, thirty-nine are hit, eleven founder: +wreckage so vast and swift, that the Admiral, still afloat in a +_Queen Mary_ pierced above-belt, is like a man stung by the +tarantulas of distraction: tries to signal flight--flags cannot be +seen; fires coloured pistol-lights: "Retire!"--and soon, all round, +the circle is in flight. + +But hapless flight: the _Boodah_ is an octopus whose feelers reach +far, and they, within her toils, cannot escape her omnipresence. She +sends after them no guns: yet they are blown to atoms; the sea +becomes a death-trap thick with pitfalls and shipwreck; one by one +they are caught, they fly aloft like startled fowl, or they succumb, +and lean, and stoop, and sink: the sea, for mile on mile, proving a +hell of torpedoes-dirigible, automobile, mine. + +For in the matter of mines the _Boodah_ had all the advantages of a +shore, and as to dirigible torpedoes more than all. + +Her mines, whose weight was adjusted to the specific gravity of salt +water, sank till the pressure at ten fathoms arrested them, they, +electrically connected with the forts, reaching out twenty miles; +and the whole network, charted to an inch, was coordinated with the +range-tables. + +The ordinary l8-inch Whiteheads, moreover, were replaced by a longer +design running 6,000 yards, the added length being occupied by the +flask, whose compressed air runs the engine, they not sinking on +finishing their course: so, if they missed, there they lay, a trap +of 380 pounds of gun-cotton in the course of the numerous moving +foe. + +With these three forms of the same plague the _Boodah_ hunted the +fleeing ships, and drove them stumbling through complicated +miseries, amazed and thunderstruck: so that seventy-three only, +several of them half-wrecks, reached her twenty-five mile limit; +and, there, over the mines of the _Solon_, reassembled. + +Amid the throng on his ruined roof Hogarth watched their flight and +the ever-coming boatloads of blue-jackets through a mist of smoke +and the after-smell of war, while under the sea wide eyes in hosts +were a-gaze at a windfall of 2,400 bodies. + +About half-past four captains and commanders of the survivors were +in the ward-room of the Second-in-Command on the _Orion_--the _Queen +Mary_ gone--when he, with splendid infatuation, proposed a return to +the attack, with a change of tactics to concentration upon one side +only of the _Boodah_; but the foreigners pointed out the obvious +added dangers; and in the midst of a wrangle a dispatch-boat from +the _Solon_, eleven miles south, arrived, demanding the usual sea- +rent, by draft, if not in gold; so out, at this unlooked-for +incident, broke a new quarrel, the British for a whole hour +resisting the inexorable; till the _Solon_ Lieutenant, his eyes +moist with pleading, explained their helplessness, adding that war +between the four Powers had been declared that day at noon from the +Stock Exchange steps: and only then the Vice-Admiral, breaking into +tears, yielded to destiny. + +Hogarth, meanwhile, was like a wild man, imprisoned, till his yacht +returned at dusk with her excursionists; and without delay he was on +her, and away for England. + + + + +XXXVII + +THE STRAITS + + +In England, meantime, was nothing but dismay. + +The Government, whose defeat was accidental, on being hurriedly +patched up, threw itself passionately into the work of defence, +calling up every enrolled man, while at regimental centres the +enlistment of volunteers went forward, Weedon alone turning out +7,000 rifles a day. + +But on the night of the Declaration the Under-secretary announced in +the House that the Russians were moving down the Baltic, the French +toward the Straits: and the next morning dawned with the dreariness +of last mornings and days. However, soon after 1 P.M., the Lord of +the Sea landed at Bristol, his yacht being one of the swiftest +things afloat; there heard the known facts; and thence wired to +Beech's London house, to the London Foreign Office, to Cadiz and to +Frederikshavn, where he had wireless for the _Mahomet_ at the +Straits, and for the _Truth_ in the Cattegat. + +His wire to the Foreign Office was as follows: + +"I have come to England hoping to avert European war by fiscal +means, not knowing that the passage of ships into open water was of +first importance. Since this is so, accept my assurance, there will +be no war, except on the part of Britain, which I should much +resent. British Government, I suggest, should forthwith allay +national anxiety. + +"RICHARD". + +But the Foreign Office did not publish this telegram, not knowing +what to make of it--unless Hogarth were vehemently the friend of +England, while every British being regarded him not so much as the +enemy of man, as the special Anti-Christ of England. And how came he +to be in England, when he should be at the bottom of the Atlantic? +The telegram was passed through the agitated departments, but kept +dark.... + +So the afternoon passed without news: and tension grew to agony. + +Hogarth spent the evening in his Berkeley Square house with the +Manager of Beech's, examining office-books and specimens of some new +Sea-coins, till near eleven, when, being alone, he put on a +mackintosh, shaded his face well with hat and collar-flap, and went +out into the drizzling night. + +Even his Berkeley Square was peopled, and, as he strolled toward +Pall Mall, he found it ever harder to advance, till he became +jammed. Never had he seen such a crowd, all in the air a sound, +vague and general, which was like a steam of thought-made-audible; +till presently, while trying in vain to get away, he was startled by +a tumult that travelled, a rumour of woe that noised and swelled, +terrifying, the voice of the people, the voice of God: and though he +did not know its meaning, it keenly afflicted him. + +The fastest of the survivors from the battle with the _Boodah_ had +wirelessed: on that commonplace bulletin at the War Office the news +stood written... + +But the rumour of that despair had not yet attained its culmination, +when another rumour roared after and over it, roar upon roar, like +tempest poured through the multitudinous forest, joyance now +overtaking sorrow, and a noise of roistering overwhelming +lamentation. And all at once a great magnetic hysteria seized them +all, and the many became as one, and the bursting bosom burst: men +weeping like infants, laughing foolishly, grasping each other's +hand, and one cried "Hurrah!", and another, catching it, cried +"Hurrah!" + +For the French, German, and Russian fleets, in attempting to pass +the two narrows north and south of Europe, had been stopped by the +two sea-forts there; and though they had been so eager to pass, that +they had even offered to pay sea-rent, this, too, had been refused. +They had then, at five and at five-thirty in the afternoon, offered +battle to the islands: with the result that half their weight had +been annihilated before they took to flight. So said the +bulletin.... + +And Hogarth in the midst of the jubilee saw the man who jammed his +left shoulder, a broker in spectacles, grip the hand of the man on +his right, a ragamuffin, to cry out: "That scoundrel Hogarth! Isn't +there good in the damned thief, after all?" + +And the other: "Aye, he knows how to give it 'em 'ot, don't 'e, +after all! Thank God for that!" + +Three weeks later peace was proclaimed by a procession at Temple Bar +between England, Austro-Germany, France, Russia, and the Sea. + + + + +XXXVIII + +THE MANIFESTO + + +The last effort of Europe to resist the Sea was made on the +afternoon of the 14th of October, when the British Prime Minister +refused to conclude a treaty of peace. + +"Your master is only a pirate--on a large scale", he said to a +Minister of the Sea. + +That was on the 14th. + +On the 15th there was a stoppage of British trade nearly all the +world over. + +On the 20th England was in a state of _émeute_ resembling +revolution. + +On the 28th the Treaty of Peace was signed. + +Its principal conditions were: (1) The undertaking by the Sea not to +raise sea-rent on British ships without certain formalities of +notice; and (2) The undertaking by Britain not to engage in the +making of any railway or overland trade-route, or of any marine +engine of war, without the consent of the Sea. And similar treaties +were signed by the Sea with the other nations. + +Then followed the rush of the Ambassadors to the _Boodah_, and the +frivolous round of Court-life revolved, _levée_, audience, dinner, +drawing-room, investiture; the Lord of the Sea descended from the +throne before the Court to pin a cross upon the humble breast of his +best shot and give him the title of Præceps, gave fanciful honours +to emperors, received them of them--wore when throned a brow-band of +gold with only one stone, the biggest of the meteor octahedrons, +that glanced about his brow like an icicle in whose glass +gallivanted a fairy clad in rags of the rainbow. + +Now the old gaieties recommenced, but more Olympian in tone, as +befitted the ruler of rulers, terrible now being the lifting of +Hogarth's brows at the least lapse in ritual; and only the chastest- +nurtured of the earth ever now stalked through gavotte or pavane in +those halls of the sea. + +The world now lay at his feet. The dependence upon him of England, +of France, of that part of Austro-Germany called Germany, was +obvious: he could starve them. But over Austria proper, Russia, +Italy, his sway was no less omnipotent: for the panic cheapness of +scrip which followed the destruction of the _Kaiser_ had, of course, +been foreseen, and used by him; Beech had bought up, easily ousting +the Rothschilds from their old financial kingship: by tens of +millions the process had gone on; and still it continued +increasingly, for the wealth of Hogarth now, as compared with that +of other rich men, was like a ship to a skiff. If he threw upon the +market, the bankruptcy of several nations might follow: it was +doubtful if the United States could survive; certainly, Austria, +Russia, South America must go under. + +Nor was the East less his slave: Japan a mercantile nation, China +and Turkey in his fiscal net. So, looking round the globe toward the +middle of November, he could observe scarcely a nation which he +could not, by scribbling a telegram, crush out of recognition. + +It was precisely then that Richard Hogarth revealed himself. + +On the 15th of November appeared his Manifesto. + +This Charter, which everlastingly must remain one of the Scriptures +of our planet, simple as a baby's syllables, yet large like the arch +of Heaven, has left its mark on the human soul. + +On the morning of the 16th its twenty clauses occupied in _pica_ a +page of every newspaper, and it was posted up big in the streets of +cities. + +The document ran: + +Richard, by the Will of God....I do hereby discern, declare, and +lay down: That: + +1. What is no good cannot be owned: only goods can be owned. + +2. "_Good_" is _well_, or pleasant; goods is _well_th (wealth) or +pleasures: thus, a coal-mine, being no pleasure, cannot be owned. + +3. Coal _becomes_ goods after being moved, or taken. Moving does not +make it good; its nature does not make it good: moving-_plus_-Nature +makes it good, ownable. At the pit-head, already, it is a pleasure, +fewer pains being now needed to move it to a fireplace. Thus, Nature +apart from motion cannot be owned, being no good, as a cave is no +good to a caveman outside it: rain is wetting him; if he takes it, +moves in, it is good. + +Animals and plants, by taking things from the planets presented to +them, by moving things, raise Nature into wealth, and own things. + +4. For Jack to _own_, have a thing for Jack's _own_, Jack must by +his _own_ force have subdued Nature, must have taken the thing by +moving the thing's atoms, or moving something relatively to the +thing, or, negatively, by not evading, but accepting, the thing in +motion--a wind, tide, light-wave; else Jack must have taken +something (by as much work) to purchase the thing from its (true) +owner, or accepted it as a favour from Nature in motion, or from its +(true) owner. To say "own" is to say "take"; to say "take" is to say +"motion", i.e., the doing of work: "work done" being FD, i.e., Force +used into Distance moved-over. I cannot own the air: it is no good; +I own the air in my lungs, having taken, moved, it, done FD on it: +it is very good; and I own the air which, doing FD, moving to my +face, I do not evade, but accept, take: it is very good. + +I say to Jack "take a cigar"; he loudly says "yes!", but does not +move it to his mouth, nor moves his mouth to it; instead, he moves a +pen to his mouth; this makes me laugh: he has not taken a cigar. + +Jack is catching fish in a boat; Tom owns the boat: so Jack gives +fish to Tom, until Jack's FD done on the fish is equivalent to Tom's +FD done on the boat; and now Jack owns the boat. If "the law" says +that Tom still owns the boat, this makes me laugh: for how can Tom +come to own two boats' good by the FD done on one only? + +Jack is ploughing the sea with a ship: just there he owns the sea, +has taken, is moving, it for his good. He does not own the sea +before, nor the sea behind, him: for the motions behind made by him +have ceased to do good. + +Jack is ploughing soil: he owns the soil ploughed, has taken it, and +will own it while the motions he has made do good: so that, if Tom +who has not moved it says "I own the soil, for 'the law' declares +that I have taken it by moving a pen two inches", this makes me +laugh. Or, if Jack says "I own it for ever", this makes me laugh. +Or, if anyone says "I own both the soil and the site" (relative +position), this makes me laugh: for what can one man move to make a +relative position good? He can neither move a field toward anything +nor move much toward a field. If many men move railways that way, or +move things to rear towns round the field, this makes the site good, +moving it from outside a community to inside a community; and the +many who make it good own it. + +5. The site is the field's chief good: so the plougher owes +something to those who, making it good, own it, This something is +named "rent". + +6. Suppose that the plougher, or dweller-on, is an Englishman: he +owes rent to the English. And, since the site of England is made +good by movements made in America, he owes rent to the Americans. + +7. This the mind readily descries to be true: it is a "truism", and +is necessarily the Fundamental Principle of Society throughout the +universe. So that, summing up, we may define: "Rent" is "right", +based on truth when paid to those by whose movements a site is made +good. + +8. One might readily guess (if there were no example of it) that any +violation of a Principle so fundamental would be avenged by Nature +upon the planet which violated it. + +9. Our planet is such an example: for here Two Separate Violations +of the Principle appear; each great in itself; but one small in +comparison. + +10. Accordingly, for the small violation Nature has not failed to +send upon Man a small penalty; and for the great violation great +penalties. + +11. The small violation consists in the claim by nations to have +taken, without having moved, sites called "countries". + +12. For this Nature has sent upon man the small penalty of War. + +13. To abolish War men must remove its cause. + +Therefore let the site-rental of England (i.e., the excess of +English goods over what English goods would be, if no other country +existed) be handed over to a World Council; and the site-rental of +America to the same; and the World Council shall disburse such funds +for the majesty and joy of Man: and War shall terminate. + +14. This way the Lord of the Sea indicates to the world, though with +its initiation he is not personally concerned. + +15. Beside the small violation of the Fundamental Principle of +Society, there is a great on the earth. + +16. The Great Violation consists in the claim by individuals to have +taken, without having moved, sites and soils called "estates", +"domains", "plots": for, as rent tends to rightness when paid to the +fifty millions of a nation, _fifty-millionfold_ is its wrongness +when paid to one; and as rent is right when paid to the thousand +million inhabitants of a planet, _a thousand-millionfold_ is its +wrongness when paid to one. + +17. For this Great Violation of the Fundamental Principle of Society +Nature has sent upon Man great penalties: poverties, frenzies, +depravities, horrors, sorrows, lowness, dulness. + +18. Lowness, dulness: for by far the greatest of these penalties is +a restraint on Man's development. Man is an animal, Man is a mind: +and since the wing of mind is Pride, Assurance, or Self-esteem, and +since the home of an animal is a Planet, and an animal without a +home is a thing without Assurance or Pride, so Man without Earth is +a mind without wing. Even so, a few, having Assurance, make what we +call "Progress", i.e., the discovering of truth--a crawling which +might become flight, had all minds but the wing of Pride to co- +operate in discovering truth. But Man lacks assurance and foothold, +founded home and domain: his sole heritage, though he is neither +fish nor fowl, being sea and air. + +19. This is a great violation. + +20. And with this great violation of the Fundamental Principle of +Society the Lord of the Sea is personally concerned. In the name of +Heaven and of Earth he urges upon the nations of men to amend it in +the month of the promulgation of this Manifesto: and this summons he +strengthens with a threat of his resentment. + +As the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth, I will see to it. + +RICHARD. + + + + +XXXIX + +THE "BOODAH'S" LOCK-UP + + +Three days after the Manifesto the marriage of Miss Stickney of New +York with Lord Alfred Cowern was to take place, this having been put +off owing to the _Kaiser_ tragedy; and so, on the day of the +Manifesto, Baruch Frankl, the Jew, was crossing to a wedding which, +even in the midst of great events, had stirred up a considerable +rumour and sensation, since the American guests were to consist of +the _coterie_ known as the "Thirty-four", all millionaires, while +"the cake" was to weigh three-quarters of a ton, each guest's grub +to cost $500, and for that breakfast the Neva had been ravished for +fish and Siamese crags for nests. + +Frankl, however, was never destined to taste those five hundred +dollar mouthfuls. It happened in this way: as the _Boodah's_ +searchlights, destroyed in the battle, were not yet repaired, in the +interval some lawless ships took the chance on dark nights to skulk +past with extinguished lights; now, the captain of Frankl's +chartered steamer had that bright idea (being of adventurous turn), +when night fell forty knots east of the _Boodah_, so he came to +Frankl, and broached the scheme. + +"Not for Joe", was Frankl's answer: "pay the Pirate his taxes and be +done". + +"It could be worked as sweet as a nut, sir!" persisted the skipper, +with a watering mind. + +"Well, so long us _you_ take the risk, perhaps--but no, sir, I'd +rather not". + +On which the skipper winked self-willed to himself, and, putting out +nine miles from the _Boodah_ his three lights, went dashing past. + +And the attempt would have succeeded, had it not been for the fact +that the night was pitch-dark, and that _another_ ship was trying +that very venture with extinguished lights. And these two ships met, +bow to bow, with such an energy of adventurous smartness, that both +sharply sank. + +The sea, however, being smooth, all hands were saved; and now, since +the boats lay forlorn on the vast, with nothing but the _Boodah's_ +swarm of moons to move to, for the _Boodah_ they started, while +Frankl cast twinkling fingers to the sky, and cursed that night, as +the oars with slow wash journeyed through turgid murk toward the +very den of the devil. + +When they reached the _Boodah_ they were conducted down to a police- +court, and there shivered an hour in a dreary light, till three +officials in peaked caps and frock-coats came, sat on a Bench, and, +after hearing evidence, pronounced sentence of seven months against +the captains, and one against Frankl. + +These were led away by police blue-jackets, and Frankl groaned +through the night in a box as cold as the cells of Colmoor. + +The next morning Quilter-Beckett, making a report in Hogarth's +_salon_, mentioned the incident, saying: "Here are the names, with +the sentences; I shall send the sailors home..." and Hogarth's eyes, +resting on the document, chanced to catch that name of Frankl. + +At once he turned pale, for his first thought was: "Frankl must have +been going to the wedding, in which case _Someone Else_ may be with +him". + +But her name was not there.... + +He rose and paced; and he said low: "No one else on either of the +ships?" + +"No, my Lord King". + +Then up lifted Hogarth's brow, alight with fun, and he muttered: +"All right, Caps-and-tassels". + +He said aloud: "Quilter-Beckett, this Frankl I know. Did you never +hear anything about Caps-and-tassels at Westring? _He_ is Caps-and- +tassels. Now tell me, which is your biggest blue-jacket?" + +"Man called Young, my Lord King". + +"Then, have a suit of Young's sea-clothes put upon this Frankl, and +let him be brought before me in the Throne Room this morning after +the Audience. He was fond of liveries...." + +Accordingly, by half-past eleven Frankl entered the Throne Room, +where, as soon as its rosy translucency broke upon his gaze, an +"Oh!" of admiration groaned from him, in spite of his weight of +misery, he not walking, but being lifted forward in successive +swings by his armpits--up the first steps to the outer circle of +balustrade, forward to the second steps and the inner balustrade, +within which shone the throne, and Hogarth, crowned and large in +robes, on it. + +The two warders, intent upon portering Frankl, and not noticing the +cap which still covered his eyebrows, one now in sudden scare +whispered: "Off with your cap, you...!" on which Frankl snatched it +off, grasping through superabundant sleeves, he at the same moment a +fury and a dazzled man, the throne before him incredible, like a +dream which one knows to be a dream, in structure not unlike the +Peacock Throne of Akbar, its length fourteen feet, seating thirteen +persons in recesses, standing on a gold platform with three concave +steps set with rings of sapphire, and consisting of a central part +and two wings, the wings being supported on twisted legs (one had +been broken), and made of fretted ivory mosaicked with cabochon +emerald, ruby, topaz, turquoise, chrysoberyl, diamond, opal, the +large central part, with its recesses, being also of ivory, gold- +arabesqued, its mosque-shape canopy (of Hindoo enamel-work on the +outside) being supported by eleven pillars of emerald; at the top of +each pillar a dolphin (hence the name "Dolphin Throne") made of +turquoise, jasper, pearl, sardius, and at the bottom of each pillar +a _guldusta_, or bouquet, of gems; the concave ceiling one mass of +stones, representing a sea in which sailed three Dutch galleons, and +seven dolphins sported. + +But all that Frankl saw of it was its opulence: for his terror lest +the warders should let him go occupied his mind. + +And precisely the thing which he feared came upon him, for Hogarth +said: "Warders, retire". + +And now Frankl, all unsupported, stood in unstable equilibrium, anon +stooping to his finger-tips, then straining doubtfully forward with +struggling arms from a too backward poise: for not only did the +trousers lie a twisted emptiness far below his feet, but the feet +themselves were lost in Young's boots, so he stood like Scaramouch, +a mere sack, a working of his chin wobbling down his beard, and +there was a blaze in his stare which Hogarth, unfortunately, did not +well estimate. + +They faced each other, alone, save for the body-guard at the +circumference of the room. + +"Was it _you_ that sent me to Colmoor?" Hogarth suddenly asked in a +low voice, stooping forward. + +"_Me_!" shrieked Baruch Frankl, pointing a hanging sleeve-end to his +breast: "as Jehovah is my witness--" + +"Were you about to _swear_? For ever the same?--tyrant and worm? It +_was_ you. Now tell it me right out: you have nothing to fear: for +you cannot be vain enough to imagine that I would harbour enmity +against you". + +"It wasn't me, I say again, my Lord King!"--Frankl trampled a little +backward, then stooped over-poised to his finger-tips: "with what +motive? Oh, that's hard--to be accused. They have already given me a +month--my God! a month! And only because I am a Jew. But it wasn't +me--that I'll swear to God--" + +Hogarth rose to his height, descended, put his hand upon Frankl's +shoulder. "Well, leave that. But--_my sister_!" + +His hand felt the shoulder beneath it start like fits. + +"Your sister!" Frankl screamed with a face of scare: "Why, what of +her now?" + +"Frankl, you are frightened: you know, Frankl, _where she is_!" + +"Me? O, my Good God, what is this! Me, poor sinner, know where your +sister is, my Lord King? Why, spare me! spare me, God of Hosts! Why, +you've only got to ask yourself the question--" + +"Listen to me, Frankl", said Hogarth, bending his blazing brow low +over the Jew: "I have searched for that woman through the world, and +have not found her. All the time, mind you, I felt convinced that +you know where she is; and you may wonder why--years ago--I did not +have you seized. I will tell you why: it was because I had a sort of +instinct that God, whom I serve continually with tears and prayers, +would not fail in His day to show me her face: and to-day you are +here. Do you suppose, Frankl, that you will go away without telling +me where she is? And in order to hurry you, listen to what I say to +your warders--" + +He touched a button in the balustrade, and to the warders said: "If +at any time this man should demand pencil and paper, supply them, +and take to your Admiral what he writes. To-day his food shall be +fare from your own table; to-morrow three loaves and water; from the +third day one loaf and water; till further orders". + +Up shot Frankl's shivering arms, while Hogarth, training his ermines +and purples, paced away. + +That was on the day following the Manifesto. + + + + +XL + +THE WEDDING + + +By the time Frankl's three loaves had become one, that amazement +with which men received the Manifesto had commenced to give place to +more coherent impressions. + +He was not a "Monster"! that was the first realization--no pirate, +nor lurid Anti-Christ, nor vainglorious Caesar! And in two days, the +first astonishment over, there arose a noise in the world: for the +Lord of the Sea had given to the nations one month only in which to +do that thing: and the peoples took passionately to meetings. + +In England Land Leagues, Chambers of Agriculture, Restoration +Leagues, Nationalization Leagues, many Leagues, were organizing +furiously, stretching the right arm of oratory; deputations, +petitions in wagons, demonstrations _en bloc_, party cannonades, +racket heaven-high. Sir Moses Cohen, the Jew-Liberal Leader, +appealing to the strongest prejudice in Englishmen, spoke one night +at Newcastle of "the interference of a foreign prince in the affairs +of Britain"; used the word: "_Never!_", and on this cry secured an +enormous following: so that, within a week, he was instrumental in +forming the formidable League of Resistance--destined to prove so +tragic for Hogarth, and for England. + +It was in the midst of this world-turmoil that--on the third day-- +the marriage-morning of Miss Cecil Stickney dawned; and that same +evening Rebekah Frankl, convalescent from influenza, was seated over +a bedroom fire in Hanover Square, a cashmire round her shoulders, +her sickness cured by herbs, her physician then hobbling with a +stick down the stairs--Estrella of Lisbon--her back almost +horizontal now with age. + +And as Rebekah mused there, two newsboys below, whose shouts pursued +each other, went proclaiming through November gloom as it were the +day of doom, crying, even in that uproar of Europe, a private event: + +MARRIAGE OF + +LORD ALFRED COWERN + +AND MISS CECIL STICKNEY + +APPALLING TRAGEDY + +And soon a girl ran in, gasping: "Miss Frankl!--this is too awful-- +your father--" + +The news, having been flashed to Paris by Mackay-Bennett cable, now +appeared in detail after the _New York Herald's_ French edition, and +Rebekah's eyes ran wildly over details as to the "bevy of beauty", +daughters of "the Thirty-four", and the church of waiting ladies, +the carpeted path between palms and exotics, and how the ticket- +holders heard the organ tell the Cantilenet Nuptiale and Bennett's +Minuet; and then the multitudinous stir: behold the bridegroom +cometh!--the little necessary bridegroom of no importance, and then +the white entry of bride and bridal train, while the choir knelt to +sing "O Perfect Love". + +Perfect love, however, was hardly the order of that day, but rather +perfect hate: for in Madison Square--the church being at the upper +end of Fifth Avenue--a mob was being harangued on the subject of +this very wedding: and when they heard and realized the thing that +was being done before their eyes they were swept as by a wind of +fire, and under its impulse set out like some swollen Rhone with a +rushing sound to pounce upon the church, full of perfect hate: and +the choir sang "O perfect love". + +What happened now was described as a nightmare. The same elemental +instincts of the Stone Age which had exhibited themselves in the +$5OO-worth of food wrought in another form, but with no less +savagery, in assassins as in victims: and a massacre ensued, bride +and bridegroom passing away like bubbles, of "the Thirty-four" five +only escaping. The report ended with the words: "The ringleaders +have been arrested; quiet reigns through the city"; then a list of +the guests, with asterisks indicating those killed. + +Rebekah searched for her father's name, and when she became certain +that it was not there, her lips moved in thanksgiving. + +But since Frankl was not at the wedding, where, then, was Frankl? +She counted the days on her fingers: he could not have been late. + +Unless there had been an accident to his ship.... + +Her brows knit a little; she peered into the fire: and thought of +the _Boodah_.... + +It was possible that when her father's steamer stopped to pay sea- +rent, Hogarth might have heard, and seized him. That notion occurred +to her. + +And at once it threw her into an extraordinary fever, her bosom +swelling like elastic in her heavings to catch breath, though she +did not realize the wild thought that was working up to birth within +her. She rose and paced, furiously fast. + +If he was in the hands of Hogarth? + +"He is a British subject", she muttered: "Hogarth has not the +right...Oh, he has not the right...!" + +She was fearfully agitated! something fighting up and up within her, +stifling her, working to burst into birth; she flung the cashmire +from her shoulders, her bosom rowing like two oarsmen. "Because we +are Jews...!" she went. + +"If he _dared_ do that--!" + +What then? Say! Rebekah! + +"I would go to him myself--" + +All at once that thought was born, and she stood shockingly naked to +her own eyes, her hands rushing to cover a face washed in shame. +"But, surely", she whispered, "I could never be so _bold_, good +Heavens? Why, Never! Never--!" + +However, an hour later, with flaming eyes, she was writing a letter +to Frankl's manager. + + + + +XLI + +THE VISIT + + +Frankl's Bank was scanning the agents' yacht-lists for her, when Sir +Moses Cohen, who was closely associated with Frankl, placed his own +three-master at her disposal; and she set out from Bristol, with her +being three Jewish ladies, Frankl's manager, and a snuffy Portuguese +rabbi who resembled a Rembrandt portrait. + +It was late at night, and Hogarth, who had lately acquired a passion +for those Mathematics which touch upon Mysticism, was bent over +Quaternions and the quirks of [Proofers note: checkmark symbol] (--i) +in an alcove of his _Boodah_ suite hardly fourteen feet square, cosy, +rosy, and homely: he sitting at a sofa-head, and, lying on the sofa, +Loveday, his head on Hogarth's thigh, escaped from office and frockcoat, +in happy shirt-sleeves, between sleeping and waking. + +Hogarth was interrupted by a telephone bell. + +"Well?" he answered. + +"My Lord King", from Quilter-Beckett, "Frankl has handed to his +warder something written: will your Lordship's Majesty see it now?" + +"Yes!" Then: "John! Frankl has yielded!" + +Up Loveday started with "Thank God!" while Hogarth: "When does my +yacht arrive?" + +"At midnight"--from Quilter-Beckett. + +"She starts back immediately for England with me and Mr. Loveday". + +Now an officer entered to present an envelope, and the two looked +together over these words: + +"Your Lordship's Majesty's sister, Margaret Hogarth, is at No. 11, +Market Street, Edgware Road, London. She goes under the name of +Rachel Oppenheimer, I don't know why. As God is my witness, I repent +in ashes. Won't your Lordship's Majesty have mercy on a worm of the +earth? I am an old man, getting on, and starved to madness. The ever +devoted slave, from this day forth, of my Lord King. + +"BARUGH FRANKL". + +Hogarth 'phoned up: "Give Frankl food now, and put him where it is +not cold...." and to Loveday he said, "Well, you see, she is there: +'No. 11, Market Street'. And under the name of--what? 'Rachel +Oppenheimer'...John Loveday, do you fathom the meaning of that?" + +"No--don't bother me about meanings, but shout, like her, 'O Happy +Day!' I say, Richard, you remember that singing? how we would hear +her from the forge? All day, washing, cooking--melodious soul! There +was 'O Happy Day', and there was--By God, how charmingly holy! how +English! And, Richard, you remember--?" + +Another telephone bell: Hogarth turned to hear. + +"Just arrived in the yacht, _Tyre_, my Lord King", said Quilter- +Beckett's voice, "four Jewish ladies, a Jewish gentleman, and a +rabbi, who request early audience to-morrow; they lie-to, and have +sent a boat--" + +"Rubbish! I shall not be here to-morrow, and even if I was--Who are +they? By the way, no sign of the yacht?" + +"Not yet. They are Miss Frankl--" + +"Who?" + +"Miss Rebekah Frankl--" + +"God", went Hogarth faintly, stabbed to the heart. + +"Miss Agnes Friedrich, Mrs.--" + +But the rest fell upon ears deaf as death, the teeth of Hogarth now +chattering as with cold, that haggard, gaunt yellow, which was his +pallor, overspreading his face. So long was he speechless, that +Quilter-Beckett asked: "Are you there, my Lord King?" + +"Quilter-Beckett!" + +"Yes, my Lord King?" + +"Will you go _yourself_--for me--to them? _Make_ them sleep here, +will you? This is most urgent, I assure you. And go quick, will +you?" + +That night did not the Lord of the Sea sleep: she under his roof... + +Nor did he go that night to find Margaret--nor the next day, nor the +next, though Loveday chafed: for, gyrating through the giddy air of +a galaxy where Margaret was not, he forgot her. + + + + +XLII + +REBEKAH TELLS + + +At that time Hogarth, personally, was in close relation with the +score of Embassies that inhabited the belly of the _Boodah_, these +intriguing incessantly for half-hours at his ear, and in +communication, meanwhile, with their Governments through O'Hara's +_Mahomet_: so that Hogarth had to get up early, and his mornings +sweated with audience and negotiation. + +The German and Russian Emperors, with the Prince of Wales (then +virtually Regent), had hurriedly met at Vienna--presumably for the +discussion of the Manifesto; and immediately after it, the Prince, +who had the reputation of being one of the most tactful of men-of- +the-world, took a step which hinted that the Royal House, as often +before, meant to come to the rescue of the country which loved it +however the politicians might bungle: Hogarth was invited to accept +the Garter. + +He accepted: and the ceremony in the _Boodah_ was witnessed, as it +were, by Europe, King-at-Arms in a new tabard, with his suite, going +to invest him, taking the Statute of the Chapter, with the Great +Seal of England, and a set of habiliments--white-silk stockings, +gold sword Spanish hat, stars, gloves. And the effect was speedy, +the other rulers, dumbfounded before, said now: "England will comply +with the Manifesto; and, if before us, the taxed sea opens to +her....Yield, moreover, we must: let us make haste!" + +But to consent was one thing: the _how_ another: the mere suspicion +of the willingness of Kaiser or Tsar shook their thrones. Whereupon +Russia said to Hogarth: "Recently dispossessed, they cling dyingly +now to their lands, so I will _buy_ the land from them, and _you_ +will lend me the money"; to which Hogarth virtually replied: "It is +too childish to talk of buying part of a heavenly body from a +Russian: have you no sense of humour? You may give the Russian +'nobles' some money, if that pleases you: but without my help. If +His Majesty the Tsar is more afraid of them than of me, my only way +will be to prove myself more truly terrible than they". + +But high words hurl down no hundred-headed hydra: in France--fast, +faster--with dizzy vertigo--millions were forming themselves into +secret societies, while in England was One only--but stronger than +the many of France. + +By the date of Rebekah's pilgrimage Hogarth had so far failed and +yielded, as almost to decide that from the _Boodah_ nothing could be +done, unless he went to the extent of ruining and starving. The +other alternative was the fixing upon one nation, becoming its +recognized ruler, and there furnishing an example both of _modus +operandi_, and of a subsequent state of happiness, which others +could not long refrain from imitating. + +But this modification was still in the air; and, meanwhile, he +listened, weighed, revolved: using men, impressing, convincing, +extracting for his use the wisdom of their experience, estimating +the exact pressure of the Time, the _timbre_ of its roar. + +So on the morning after Rebekah's arrival his Gold Stick became his +rack from the moment of the bow from the throne till noon: name +after name--cordons, orders, gold-lace, sashes, stars, tiaras; till +enter the four Jewesses, the bank-manager, the rabbi, Hogarth's +pallor showing up his three moles and nose-freckles, adding a glare +to his eyes, he suffering from the runaway drumming of his heart. + +The ladies stoop through curtseys; the men do reverence; Hogarth +bows. + +There like a Begum of Bhopal stood Rebekah, floridly reflected in +the glassy floor, sallow under the eyes, smiling at him, he at her; +and very quickly now, she once in his sight, he recovered +comparative calm, and the strength of his heart. + +"Your first visit to the _Boodah_, I think?"--looking at her. + +"Yes, my Lord King"--curtseying. + +"Do you like her?" + +"Why, yes: she is solid, and mighty, and rich. In my own, and the +name of my friends, I beg to thank your Lordship's Majesty for your +Lordship's Majesty's kind and good hospitality to us". + +"Humbugging little beggar", thought Hogarth, his mind slowly +gathering tone, but rushing meanwhile into a species of frivolous +assurance after those agitations, his hands still cold. + +"Well", he said, "but you have not seen her! I think I know her +fairly well, and I propose to be myself your guide, if that will +interest you--" + +The Rabbi spoke with trembling voice: "It is gracious, my Lord King. +We are here, however, humbly to present an urgent petition to your +Lordship's Majesty. Baruch Frankl, at present a prisoner in the +_Boodah_, a man no longer young, and habituated to comfort--" + +"Stay", interrupted Hogarth: "if you have a petition the day and +hour must be arranged by negotiation between yourself and my +Chamberlain. But surely, meantime, I may consider you my guest? Miss +Frankl and I--have met--in the world. Come, ladies--come, sirs--say +yes!" + +Rebekah, standing averted, flashed a look at him, reading his heart, +and Jews and Jewesses laid heads together, whispering a little, +until the Rabbi said, bowing: "We bend to your Lordship's Majesty's +most gracious will". + +"Agreed, then, sir. We might now see the _Boodah_, and if you will +luncheon with me--Mr. Chamberlain! direct Admiral Quilter-Beckett to +meet me at once in the north corridor". + +He rose, master of his limbs now, descended, unrobed in an alcove, +and in a corridor above the circular stair came upon Quilter- +Beckett, who, acting as guide, Rebekah's hand now resting on +Hogarth's arm, led them about the _Boodah_, now walking, now +slipping in little trains over eighty-foot rails, rolled in one +heat, laid down the vanishing length of dim-lit corridors floored +with white tiles, their frieze of majolica, with rows of ceramics; +and they saw the armouries, piles of rifles, cutlasses, pistols; +ferneries grown by electric light; great cold-storage rooms that +struck a chill, for preserving meats, butter, fruit; the doctors' +_environ_, the dispensary, and roomy hospital; watched from a +railing the working engines that fixed the _Boodah's_ position, +Hogarth here saying: "There you have a menagerie of gnome-land: +observe those two black beetles, sedately nodding; and there is +daddy-longlegs, working his legs gymnastically; and the three pairs +of gallant grey stallions, galloping grandly neck to neck; and those +two ridiculous beings, rubbing their palms together, round and +round: each preoccupied, comically solemn, busied about its own +quaint affairs--like a varied gnomeland". + +And Rebekah said in a meek tone, like the hen submitting: "Yes, I +see now you say it, my Lord King". + +Up stairs and down, round semicircles, up lifts, through nooks, +corridors: saw the guns, and how by hydraulics everything was done-- +the hoisting of ammunition, loading, training: guns intact, guns +wrecked by the Dreadnoughts; and shimmering kitchens, which reeked a +smell of heat, and the dairy-maids, and the line of kine, and the +row of prison-doors, and the mechanism of ventilation, fans and +blowers, the drainage-system, and the dynamos for lighting, for +supplying power to motors, for heating, and for shimmering forth +rich in the search-lights; and the central ballroom, the clothes +store, the original one-ninety-sixth model, the Ambassador-region, +the steaming laundry, and the roof, where Rebekah saw her initials +on the breeze, and the vertical pop-guns under shields for dealing +with aeroplane attack, and the cream theatre, and the paymaster's +suite, and the bunkers, the Government-offices, and the tax- +receiving rooms, the telephone system, and the lady-telegraphists-- +till all were tired, though half had not been seen. They luncheoned +together; in the early afternoon there was an Investiture, and she +was there; for "five-o'clock" there was a Gounod concert in the +theatre, and she sat in his box; at night the Bulgarian Ambassador +gave a ball, and she danced a gavotte with him. + +When they parted a dying wind sighed his name: "_Hogarth_..."; and +when Loveday before sleeping happened to ask: "When do we set out +for London, Richard?" Hogarth with a laugh turned upon him, +replying: "When do we set out for Arcturus and the Pleiades? Do give +one time to look round him!" + +The next morning Rebekah, led forward from a semicircle of courtiers +by a backing Silver Stick, approached within four feet of the +Throne, and after the protracted humiliation of her curtsey, said +ruefully: "Our party have failed, my Lord King, to obtain audience +for our humble petition till after four days". + +"Is that too long?" + +"We could not wait beyond to-night. Our good Rabbi, and my father's +Manager--both must hurry back, and we others with them. This being +so, _I_ appeal to Your Lordship's Majesty ". + +"A _personal_ appeal?" + +"Yes"--poutingly. + +"Then, I grant an audience". + +"Where?" + +"Here". + +"Who will be here?" + +"Why--you and I." + +"_No_"--very low, with pressed lips. + +"I am so sorry", says he: "it is the only chance I shall have; not +for long--a few minutes--I am so busy. Otherwise, you will have to +stay four days--and your poor father suffering--" + +She seemed unsure now, and his hands in the uncertainty of that +moment were moist like melting ice. + +"So, then, you accept", said he: "a little audience--you grant me? +Or rather, I grant you". + +"When, my Lord King?" + +"At three--No, what folly! At four. Will you? At four? And here? +Say at four". + +He spoke leaning keenly forward; and she, with a curtsey of +acquiescence, retired. + +They were near again, and yet far, in the _salle à manger_ at +luncheon, a function of a hundred guests at small tables, with more +of orchestra than of talk; and even as Hogarth and his train +entered, and the crowd rose, she saw his eyes, by some power, prowl +and find her. + +Afterwards there were two hours to wait. + +Such a heat of haste now possessed them both! Hogarth locked himself +from his attendants into his bed-chamber, and, tumbling a chaos of +clothes and uniforms upon the carpet, stumbled bitterly among them, +hunting for a cravat whose effect he remembered; wished at the +mirror that he had no moles and nose-freckles, or that his father +had turned him out rather less black; and anon a delicious chill +pang of mingled sugar and peppermint would gash his heart at the +thought: "_she consented!_" He broke glass, dropped his watch to +fragments, hissing "damn the thing!"; and about half-past three the +hands of Rebekah, too, in _her_ locked closet, were like the +scattering sirocco among powder-boxes brushes, jewel-cases, and +toilet-toys. What a hot haste was here! She too much blued her eyes, +and bruised the skin in wiping, intense the contest between poudre +blanche and poudre Rachel, violette and germandrée, she manoeuvring +among mirrors to catch each angle of view, but with a blind +impatience; and, if she wanted something, she tripped running, +breathless: such a disease of flurry, an eruption and conflagration +of haste--for nothing; yet, all the while, with a miserable sub- +feeling of the penal creeping of time. + +At four Hogarth in the Throne-room alone was now afraid that he +would not be able to utter a syllable, and wished that she would not +come; then, in a minute, began to fear that she would not, and +wondered whether he was not a deluded fool ever to have dreamed it, +he walking quick, or anon listening like a thief in that half-dark: +for few lights were shining, the hall like the after-flush of sunset +just before the dark. + +At four past four he was aware of a rustling train's rush down the +steps, and now was like a man with his neck on the block, awaiting +the axe. A moment afterwards she was before him, and two moments +afterwards he was collected and hot, and a man again. + +"_Dear_", he whispered at her ear, leading her by the hand to an +ottoman in a near alcove. + +She, in self-defence, was repellent, breathlessly saying with +galloping haste: "No--I will not sit: you sit, and I will stand +here: do as I say, Hogarth--or I repent and go: I know you, and you +know me--or you should. Our talk must be short. You say _dear_ to +me: that is very gentle, my friend; but it was not to bandy such +words that I am here--alone--with you and your strength--Hogarth. I +come as a suppliant, to implore you--firstly for the man who is my +father--and secondly for yourself, to warn you. You are said to be +about to become the sovereign of England--" + +"_I_ am?"--starting where he sat obediently before her, surprised +that she should utter the purpose then forming in his mind: "witch-- +of Endor!" + +"_I_ am not the witch, but an old lady in whose predictions many +Jews believe, who prophesies the return of the Jews to Palestine-- +through you. Be that as it may, if it is so that you are about to +meddle with the institutions of England, oh beware, the resistence +will be terrible!" + +"With respect to England I am omnipotent". + +"Yes, you can starve it, but _will_ you? You won't. And listen to +your friend: there is now in London a society, enormously powerful I +believe, sworn to your destruction". + +"What can they do--assassinate me?" + +"Ah! who knows?" + +"That would be too childish: I have sown my seed in Time, and it +will grow: two thousand little lords could hardly obliterate the +ploughing of my wrist. But you know this?" + +"Richard, my father is of them". + +"Ha!--I forgive him: his daughter seems to be on the other side--" + +"Richard, you would not touch my hand? Ah, my friend, I warn you--! +Now--you have agitated--I have been ill--my father is of them. And +who is one of the closest associates of my father--?" + +"Who?" + +"The person known as Admiral Donald, whom _I_ know very well to be +Monsignor O'Hara. I think you might have been more--recondite--in +your choice of an admiral, Richard!" + +"Ah?--you surprise me". + +"But why? You once sent that man to me as a notebearer: certainly, a +singular selection. You must have known that he had been a convict--" + +"I thought him innocent then!" + +"But you know now--?" + +"Yes". + +"And is it not extraordinary that your ensign bears my initials, +while this man is one of your commanders?" + +"I confess that I do not see the point--" + +"Then you cannot know, I suppose, that it was against _me_ that his +offence was directed". + +Hogarth's left lid lowered.... + +"But my complaint is of the present: are you not aware of the +scandal which the _Mahomet_ is now creating in the world?" + +"Scandal?" + +"Thrice lately whispers have reached me of unnameable iniquities +perpetrated there--Alexandria of the sixth century, Rome of the +second! I believe the rumour is widely spread in London--no woman of +the world now lands on the _Mahomet_". + +"It was _you_ whom he assaulted..." Hogarth laughed and was pale at +once. + +"Yes, but observe that I must go now, my friend. I have spoken of +the things which I had in my mind: there remains--my father". + +"He shall go with you". + +"I thank you, my Lord King; that must be in an hour: so I say, +Richard, good-bye". + +"I do not suppose you can dream how dark--" he went woefully. + +Of which she took no notice, but with rapid speech said: "How fair +this hall is--one supposes that the art of impressions was lost with +Solomon--like some chamber under a lake at set of sun, colour +without substance, suspended, flushed--I cannot express--" + +"Sad, say". + +"Ah, Richard". + +"Rebekah!" + +"Well, Richard, my poor friend?" + +"Have pity!" + +"Poor Richard!" + +"I can't help it, you are all mixed up with my blood, don't go from +me. If you think it a sin--the Gentile--God will forgive the +charity. Come for ever--" + +Now he sobbed once, and, as he sobbed, she was on her knees, in +pagan posture, at his knees. "Do not--" distractedly--"see, I kiss +your hand-do you doubt that I pity my love--as a mother has +compassion--?" + +Now were heaving breasts, a vehement fight for breaths, wild eyes, +and a live brand in the marrow. + +"You will not go! I have you! In God's name, what a mad thing--!" + +"My furious king--you kiss--" the short-winded _mélée_ of whispers +now suffocated in a passion of inarticulate breaths; but at that +moment one of Rebekah's chaperons, wandering out of time and place, +stood at the alcove entrance, and they, smitten into two, sprang +straight, awaked from trance, Rebekah with half a sob and half a +laugh. + +And two hours later Hogarth, from the roof, saw the Jewish yacht +disappear to the East, on board being the four--and Frankl. + +As he descended, he threw up his head with: "Ha!--O'Hara"; +announced his immediate departure with only a secretary and two +lords-in-waiting, left a mystical note for Loveday, saying that he +had decided to go alone in quest of Margaret, and went almost +secretly, only the salute informing the _Boodah_ as he steamed away. +In reality he was in haste to face O'Hara, and the yacht's bows +turned, not eastward, but southward, under forced draught, to arrive +at the _Mahomet_ in early afternoon. As her flags indicated the Lord +of the Sea absent, there was no salute, and, landing in a panama and +jacket, in the Collector's Office he gave the sign of mum, and, led +only by a blue-jacket, went spying the depths of the _Mahomet_. + +In many parts, noticing a singular odour, "What is it I smell?" he +asked. + +"Incense, my Lord King", the man answered. + +On the fourth floor he entered the loveliest _bijou_ chapel, the +coenaculum gold-plated, altar flower-piled, frescoed roof, +"stations" in oils, where a lonesome Moorish youth slothfully swung +and swung a thurible ruby-studded: but in vestments of no _enfant de +choeur_--of an ancient Phrygian. + +Another descent and Hogarth reached a region of laugh and harping: +whereupon, dismissing his guide, he tracked the music into a nook so +rare, that he stood amazed--a Court of Love, or Mahommedan Heaven, +or grot of Omar--anything old, lovely, and devil-sacred--the air +chokingly odorous, near a fountain some brazen demon--Moloch or +Baal--buried in roses, over everything roses, bounty of flowers, a +very harvest-home of Chloris, Flora in revel; and smooth youths +bearing cups for some twenty others, all garlanded, besides those on +the marble stage; and on the stage itself a scene of dancing girls, +Sevillian, Neapolitan, Algerian, mixed with masked Satyrs, which +made Hogarth pale, while at a Herod's-table buried under fruits, +wines, flowers and gold, reclined Pat O'Hara, tonsured now, crowned +with ivy and violets, gowned in a violet toga; while under a +pendulum whose swings left whiffs of incense behind lay Harris +insensible. + +As Hogarth descended into it, harp and dance ceased; some leapt to +their feet: but O'Hara sat still, gazing in a dead silence through +glairy eyes, while Hogarth, looking about, spied an electric button +in a couch, touched it, and soon a man in uniform stood at a door +above. + +"Who are you?" asked Hogarth. + +"John Souttar, head-telegraphist, may it please your Lordship's +Majesty". + +"Make haste: tell the First Lieutenant and the Chief Constable that +the Lord of the Sea is here". + +By now all the revellers were on their feet; no sound: only, the +clicking pendulum voyaged, landed an incense-whiff, and voyaged, +like traders. + +Then the Lieutenant appeared, mottled and panting, and immediately +the Constable. + +"Ah, Royds", said Hogarth: "is it practicable to flood this room +quickly with a hose?" + +"I--should think so, my Lord King". + +"See to it. First set guards at the exits". + +He turned to the other: "Mr. Chief Constable, I give all present, +except, of course, your Admiral, into custody, on a charge of +misdemeanour on the high seas. The General Prosecutor will, in due +course, forward the indictment to your Summary Court. Have your men +here with handcuffs". + +Again silence, till, in four minutes, two men appeared on the steps, +ball-nozzle in hand; upon which Hogarth said to O'Hara: "Follow me", +and as the two passed up, O'Hara tottery, care hanging on that +ponderous nether-lip, Hogarth whispered the hose-bearers: "Drown the +room well--man and woman--do not spare". + +To O'Hara he said: "Lead to your suite", and, descending, they +presently stood in a bed-temple, the bed surrounded with mirrors, +and at the other end of the apartment an altar--pyx, six +unflickering candles, and flowers, with rail and reredos, and maxims +of St. Theresa. + +Hogarth said: "Sleep two hours", and went out, turning the key. + +But in half an hour O'Hara had started awake, sober, and, clapping +his palms over his face, burst into tears. + +That Hogarth might be capable of impeachment before a Court of +Admirals, followed by death on the block, he feared; and he rolled, +groaning, tugging his tonsure-fringe, which, on the forehead, lay a +thin grey forelock, thinking: "Guilty wretch that I am! putrid, +unwholesome, hopeless, I have befouled the holiest: how richly do I +deserve to die!"; and even as he groaned and smote, his secret mind +weighed up the chances of Hogarth's action. + +He rose, listened, rushed to the door, found it locked, tossed up +despairing hands, and tottered to the altar, at which he knelt, all +sighs, and dying fish-eyes, and sideward-languishing face, and weary +woe. Ah! how great the mountain of his iniquity: if he might be but +once more spared, his evil remainder of days he would bury in some +Carmelite retreat, with fastings and prayers; but no--he had too +much tempted the Eternal patience, the sword was out against him. +Yet he implored, he implored with groans: with half an eye, +meanwhile, on the door; and, having with regard to Hogarth a piece +of secret knowledge which he guarded deep for some possible +emergency and use (the fact of Hogarth's Jewish birth), as he +prayed, his brain with complete detachment worked out the question +whether he might now reveal this with advantage. + +Hogarth found him kneeling, said "Get up", and O'Hara stood, leaning +upon the rail, too faint to stand unpropped, Hogarth contemplating +him, tapping the toes. + +"Well, sir! I know all: your whole past". + +"Red as crimson--!" went O'Hara faintly, with tossed hands. + +"Red enough, Admiral. You are a bad old man: merit death". + +"Ah, God knows it, my Lord King! I do assure you, I am a leprous +wretch: and I welcome death--I pray you, I pray Heaven, for it--" + +"You should have it, if you were a better, or a younger, man: but I +will not stain the Empire of which you were chosen to be a stay, and +are the shame, with the blood of such as you. You are beneath +judgment: and that clemency which is our scutcheon I extend to you. +Live, therefore, and repent, O'Hara. I, however, you understand, now +turn from you for ever. And I discharge you like a menial, sir. See +to it that within six months you have your affairs regulated, and +send in your resignation to the Government". + +He turned and went; and, as he disappeared, O'Hara straightened, +coolly went "H'm!", and took snuff. He lived, he lived: while there +is life there is fun. + +Fumbling about, searching for nothing, all relieved and rescued, yet +stunned, he suddenly exclaimed: "What a noble fellow is my son +Hogarth!", and knelt again. + +Hogarth in the same hour was away for England; and on the fourth +evening thence, the street-lamps just lit, stood before No. 11 +Market Street, Edgware Road, come for Margaret; his carriage waiting +at a corner forty yards away; and though within the last hour he had +realized vividly that his voyage to the _Mahomet_ had given Frankl +time to remove her, or accomplish any devilish device in his power +with respect to her, he was now all prospect and expectancy. + +The house was three-storied, mean, unlighted, with an "area"; from a +neighbouring window a woman screaming down to some playing children; +and under her a shop sending out that fishy fume which "drove +Asmodeus back to hell". + +He rapped, received no answer, rapped again without reply, then +stepped down and back, looking up: and suddenly, faintly, but +distinctly, he heard her voice, high up--_singing_. + + "O what a pretty place, + And what a graceful city, + Where the striplings are so gay, + And the ladies are so pretty ". + +It was she! He ran and banged at the door: no reply. + +Back again he stepped; and now a window on the top floor went up, +and she, putting out her head, twice beckoned him--listlessly, it +seemed, then drew in; and instantly--again--he heard her sing. + +As once more he ran to the door, he discovered now that it was open, +darted into darkness, up uncarpeted stairs, making for that upper +room, vague light through grimy stair-windows guiding his +impassioned dash; and on the third floor entered a room with two +doors, beyond one of which was the room he sought: but that door was +locked. + +At it he pushed, fumbled, called: "Margaret!" No reply. And suddenly +he heard her singing, not before, but behind him. + + "Happy day! Happy day! + When Jesus washed my sins away "... + +When he flew to the other door, and now found it, too, locked, +gradually in that gloom all colour faded from his face; and the +voice sang on: "Happy day! happy day".... + + + + +XLIII + +THE LAND BILL + + +The Manifesto's "month of grace" was passing, yet nothing had been +done, second-rate Powers awaiting the Great, while the Great, +appalled by the bigness of the demand, fussed and intrigued, +consulted, fermented and proposed: but did nothing. + +But at last, on the 3rd of December, the First Lord of the Treasury +laid a Bill on the table of our Commons--at the end of an Autumn- +session! + +On the 3rd: and on the 1st the Lord of the Sea had been captured +near Edgware Road, the probability being that this Bill was brought +forward with a knowledge of that capture. + +It consisted of three clauses and two schedules--called The Land +Purchase Bill; and it had only to be published to produce the +stormiest agitation ever known. + +The Opposition was the Jew-Liberal-Labour party; and when the Labour +Congress (met at Manchester) denounced the measure, there occurred a +"split", a Liberal-Labour cave, the whole body of Jews, numbering +87, retiring to the Government ranks. + +The Bill proposed the "purchase" of Britain from its "owners" by the +British, the price fixed being 27 times the annual value, to be paid +in settled annuities for entailed estates, and in consols for +unentailed. + +So, then, the Government would buy London alone for 1400 millions +and Britain for 8000 millions--a bad lookout for England. + +And the authors of the Bill chose a moment when Hogarth was living +on bread and poisoned water in Market Street. + +It rapidly passed to Committee, and then to the Lords. + +But on that night a terrifying rumour for the first time pervaded +England: that the Lord of the Sea, having come to London at the +beginning of the month, was missing, and that his person had been +claimed from our Government by the Sea under menaces. + +In fact, when a week, two weeks, had passed, and not a whisper from +Hogarth, apprehension had turned into certainty in the breasts of +Quilter-Beckett, Loveday, and all: and at a hurried Council called +in the _Boodah_ on the 19th, when the date of Hogarth's landing at +Southampton was determined, and his small train-in-waiting, his +coachman, re-examined for the twentieth time, one certainty emerged: +Frankl had had time to reach England before him; and the arrest of +Frankl was demanded. + +Now England in consternation almost forgot the Land Bill; Scotland +Yard ransacked Market Street: not a trace of Hogarth; it dissected +the country for Frankl: but Frankl was now in the _Mahomet_, safely +conferring with O'Hara. + +The popular tempest first directed itself against the League of +Resistance: and at an attack upon its Offices in Victoria Street +during the afternoon of the 21st Viscount Reid (the Secretary), and +a girl, were killed by missiles; petitions signed by the nation +raining meanwhile upon the Prince of Wales: for, apart from the +wreck which threatened, Hogarth's popularity was at present +considerable with the masses, whose instincts suspected those above +them of knowing more of his disappearance than appeared. + +On the night of the 22nd, when things had an air of revolution, +fifty-three men met in a house in Adair Street, W. (This runs +parallel to Market Street, the backs of the two house-rows facing.) + +These were the warders of Hogarth: and the object of that night's +meeting was to determine whether he should die, and when, and how; +the Land Bill now awaiting the Royal Assent; and on the morrow +British high-sea trade to be ruthlessly stopped, failing news of +Hogarth. + +The room was double, with an arch in the partition, through which +ran a rough-board table surrounded with velvet arm-chairs; the floor +richly carpeted, though paper peeled from the walls; down the table +a procession of silver candlesticks and typewritten notice-papers +and agenda; the windows boarded--a second floor; and in a room near, +Hogarth, shackled hand and foot, he having been borne through a +subterranean way, made for the purpose, from the cellar in Market +Street to this Adair Street. + +From eight o'clock men began to let themselves in at the two doors +in both streets, and continued to arrive till nine, when a marquis +at the table-head rose to speak, the others leaning back with +downcast eyes, nearly all pale. + +The point before them was plainly put by the speaker on the +Question: viz., whether they had more to fear from the life, or from +the death, of the Lord of the Sea. + +"By a strange Providence", he said, "this man is in our hands: and +we have the right to become his executioners. My Lords and +Gentlemen, the awful decision rests with you to-night". + +Then, one after another, they rose, they spoke: no two views +identical; till at ten it was voted that the question be put, voting +papers went round, and presently the ballot-result was announced +amid a momentous stillness. + +Twenty-eight had voted for the death, twenty-five against. + +But in that minute a key was heard in the room door, and in rushed +two flushed men: Frankl and O'Hara, just arrived in London from the +sea; and Frankl burst into speech: + +"I hope this is all right, my lords, my coming like this, and +bringing into your very midst a gentleman who is not one of us. When +I tell you that he is Admiral Donald of the _Mahomet_, turned away +like a servant, how does that make your lordships feel? A house +divided against itself can't stand; and this gentleman has a scheme +in his pocket--he will read it to your lordships--which will crack +up the Empire of the Sea like an egg-shell! So I do hope, my lords, +that you have not decided anything hasty about putting away Richard +Hogarth: for unless he is liberated this night, it means sure and +certain stoppage of everything tomorrow: and _that_ means my ruin, +and many another's beside--" + +Now the Master called him to order, and addressed himself to O'Hara, +who, in admiral's uniform and stars, all stately bows, grave smiles, +in ten minutes had given guarantees, was a member, and in thirty had +read a memorandum of a scheme of betrayal which everyone saw to be +feasible. + +Then the vote of death was annulled; and when the meeting broke up +Hogarth was being lifted with bandaged eyes through the subterranean +way to Market Street, where four men deposited him near the house- +door, undid his ropes, said to him "You are free", and there he +remained twenty minutes without motion, deadly sick, then rose, and, +on finding the door, went wildly with dragged feet, tottered into a +cab, and leant brow on hand. + +As he entered the porch of his Berkeley Square house, Loveday rushed +out to his knees with adoring eyes, having hardly hoped to see again +that face of Hogarth, while Hogarth patted the bowed head, saying: +"Do get me a meal, and let me hear what has been going on....Oh, I +am weary ". + +And during the meal he heard all: of the Land Bill, the turmoil. + +"Well, my God!" he exclaimed, "is there no drop of generous blood at +all among those people? Never again do I trust them to make their +own arrangements I When does this precious Bill have the Royal +Assent?" + +"To-morrow, it is supposed". + +"Really!"--he started: "and whereabouts is the Prince of Wales?" + +"At Windsor to-night". + +"Order the motor quick. I'll go". + +He was soon off, and Loveday, listening to the dark story of +Margaret's appearing and singing, and vanishing, accompanied him +under a frosty moon, snow lying on village-street and hedge; but, +travelling hard, they arrived shortly after one upon a Prince who, a +wakeful man that night, sat conferring with Private Secretary and +Attorney-General, he having assented to the introduction of the Land +Bill, then been alarmed by the storm, and now was confronted with +the responsibility of either giving His Majesty's assent, and +earning execration, or refusing it, and taking a step unheard-of +since William III. + +In that state of embarrassment he was, when the Lord of the Sea was +announced, and "It is with heartiest pleasure that I offer to your +Lordship's Majesty my congratulations on this re-appearance", he +said, greatly and gladly surprised, without at all seeming so. + +And the two conferred till three, when a secretary, at Hogarth's +dictation, wrote a document and its duplicate: a contract between +Prince and King, giving pledges on each side, private, yet most +momentous; and each, having signed both copies, retained one. + +The next evening the Clerk in the Lords uttered those unusual words: +"_Le Roy s'avisera_," and the country was thrown into transport by +the news of the Royal rejection of the Land Bill, processions +singing the National Anthem, bells ringing: and for a month the +mention of a Royal name in any assembly brought the people to their +feet. + +Ministers, of course, resigned; and, as the Liberals refused office, +writs for a new House were made returnable for the end of January. + + + + +XLIV + +THE REGENCY + + +During the next month England was in a general-election turmoil; at +the same time a Land Bill in the French Chamber, and one in the +Reichstag, was thrown out: whereupon a _ukase_ from the _Boodah_ +announced the raising of sea-rent to 5s. on all ships over 2000 tons +after the 1st February, the month of grace over, the "screw +tightening". + +Already distress in England was great, coal being at three-and- +sixpence, bread at nine pence; a cry had arisen for the Union of +Britain with the Sea; and on the 27th of January a plebiscite among +the Trade Unions resulted in an affirmative vote of five millions +out of an electorate of nine. + +Now, at this time the bulletins respecting His Majesty were of a +settled depression: he lived, but languished; and it was understood +that the new Ministry's first act would be the appointment of a +Regency. + +Then appeared a rumour: alterations were going forward at Buckingham +Palace on a scale of splendour new to Western mansions; the Prince +of Wales had passed three days, from the 17th to the 19th, in the +_Boodah_: and the saying went that, on the night of the rejection of +the Land Bill, a compact had taken place between the Prince and the +Sea for a three years' Regency of the latter. + +Excitement ensued, the matter becoming an election test: and 180 +Labour Members, with 70 Liberals were returned pledged to support a +Regency of the Sea. + +A definite coalition, meantime, had been announced between the Jews +and the Conservatives. + +Never was election so rolled in dust and noise, in the result the +Jews having the casting vote: and if ever race was looked at +askance, it was they now by the British. + +The session having been opened by Commission, a resolution passed +Lords and Commons that the Prince of Wales be empowered to exercise +the Royal Authority; whereupon the Prince at the palace, having +heard the Address, read a reply, sufficiently startling to the +country, though well foreknown to those present: he laid stress upon +the new conditions of the world--that phlegmatic eye, which had seen +so much, lifting a moment in punctuation to dwell coldly upon his +hearers, then coldly reading again; the difficulties, he said, which +he was called upon to face on behalf of His Majesty were not lightly +to be undertaken, and his fuller answer would be contained in a +proposal which he would make in the Lords as a peer of the realm. + +The next night in a crowded House he read a speech distinguished by +extraordinary dignity and severity: "My lords", he said at one +point, slapping the table, though those eyes remained royally null: +"when will your lordships learn to recognize the facts of life?" +and, having proposed His Lordship's Majesty, the Lord of the Sea, to +be Regent during His Majesty's illness, such Regency not to exceed a +period of three years, he recommended a plebiscite. + +No plebiscite was taken: for within some days the sense of the +constituencies was revealed, and the Leader in the Lords received +stern hints from the Liberal Leader, which damped pride: so their +lordships abstained from Westminster, their Resolution being passed +by just a quorum. + +The country wondered at the ease with which the whole went off--not +knowing that those who might have led resistance had a thought, and +a prospect, inspired by one Pat O'Hara, which comforted them. + +And now a Deputation of Five took boat in the _Prince George_, to +wait upon the Lord of the Sea in the _Boodah_ Throne Room, where the +Lord President read the information that they were a Committee +appointed to attend His Lordship's Majesty with the Resolutions of +the Houses. + +"We are instructed", he read, "to express the hope which the Lords +Spiritual and Temporal, and the Commons, entertain, that His +Lordship's Majesty, from his regard to the interests of His Majesty +the King, will be ready to undertake the weighty and important trust +proposed to be invested in His Lordship's Majesty, as soon as an Act +of Parliament shall have been passed for carrying the same into +effect". + +He then read, and delivered, the Resolutions. + +Hogarth replied, reading: "My Lords and Gentlemen, I receive the +communication which your two Houses have instructed you to make to +me with those sentiments of regard which I ever entertain for your +two Houses. Deeply impressed with the necessity of tranquillizing +the public mind throughout the world, I do not hesitate to accept +the office and situation proposed to me". + +So the Deputation departs; five days later twelve British +battleships surround the _Boodah_, come to accompany the Lord of the +Sea to England; and at eleven on the morning of the 9th, his yacht, +borne in on the strong thunders of a royal salute, drops anchor in +Southampton Water. + +He had set so gorgeous a standard of luxury to Europe, that no one +dreamed of making his entry into London an ordinary _fête_; and, as +the procession traversed the triumphal arches of Piccadilly, he, +swept to the gods in the lap of gallant sublimities, plumes, sabres, +showering hoofs, squad-troops, outriders, showed to the Prince +beside him and to the Czarowitz before him a miniature of Rebecca +Frankl. + +Some streets cheered--not all much: but during the illuminated night +all London seemed to abandon itself to revelry. + +The next morning Hogarth went in state to the Chapel Royal for +certificate of Communion, attended by heralds, Sergeants-at-mace, +sword-of-state, the Duke of York; and after "the service" +communicated under a canopy at the hand of the Bishop of London. + +Then, on the 14th, Lords and Commons had a final conference over the +Regency Bill, when the Assistant of the Parliaments uttered the +worlds: "_Le Roy le Veult_"; and on the 15th, the swearing-in day, a +party of grenadiers with colours and fifes marched into the palace +grounds, continuously to play "God Save the King"; while yeomen and +ushers, together with servants-in-state of the Lord of the Sea, +lined the great hall and staircase, life-guardsmen lining a vista of +state-apartments ending in a Blue-velvet Room, recently decorated; +by 2.30 P.M. Privy Councillors commenced to arrive, till at 3.45 +P.M. the Lord of the Sea sent Admiral Quilter-Beckett to the +President of the Council, ordering his presence; and presently was +himself seen coming up the vista, accompanied by his own household- +officers, to the Blue-velvet Room where he sat at the table-head, +the Royal personages on each hand, his own officers ranged on each +side of the entrance-arch; and now one by one entered the full- +dressed Councillors, with bows which he returned, taking seat +according to precedence--Canterbury, then the Lord Chancellor, then +York; and last came and sat a certain Mr. Forrest, Keeper of the +Records. + +Hogarth then rose and said: + +"My Lords: I understand that by the Act passed by your Parliament +appointing me Regent of this Empire, I am required to take certain +oaths, as prescribed by the said Act: I am now ready to take these +oaths ". + +Whereupon rose the Lord Privy Seal, made a reverence, approached, +and read, while Hogarth pronounced after him: + +"I sincerely promise and swear that I will be faithful and bear true +allegiance to His Majesty King George. So help me, God. + +"I do solemnly promise and swear that I will truly and faithfully +execute the Office of Regent of the King's Empire according to an +Act of Parliament entitled 'an Act, etc.', and that I will, etc. So +help me, God". + +He then subscribed the two oaths, and after him the Privy +Councillors, the Lord President first, as witnesses. It was then +delivered to the Record Keeper, who deposited it in a box, while +Hogarth presented his Lord's-Supper certificate: whereupon the Lord +President bent the knee and kissed his hand, then the Royal +personages, then the Archbishops, advancing in order on both sides. + +It was a week of Hope, the turning over of a new leaf, so the spirit +of festival reigned, and was deepened when the evening papers that +day announced that a _ukase_ of the Sea had reduced rent on British +ships by 1s. 9d. per ton, and was heightened when during that and +the following nights Hogarth dispensed three millions in fêting +England: his illuminations having no resemblance to those sickly +twinklings, tremulous at their own cost, previously deemed good +enough for the jubilee-days of an empire; the people were +astonished: ample and planetary his mind, his hand right royal, and +London, bursting into light, flashed tidings of our earth to Mars. +It was incredible then that any had ever wept, or would weep again; +the bitterest foes of the Regent caught the contagion of world-gala; +Europe flocked to London; theatres were gratis; the illusion of the +comet of the final night was complete, her lurid rays sprawling 2000 +feet aloft in stiff portentousness, prophesying Change, the parks +all transfigured into universes of moons, crescents, stars, jerbs, +Roman-candles, _pots de brin_, girandoles of rockets, pagodas, +marquees, each tree a net of fireflies, while from five hundred and +thirty balloons, with silent burst, snowed diverse fires. + +The new reign opened with promise. + + + + +XLV + +ESTRELLA, THE PROPHETESS + + +For three weeks a Provisional Ministry carried on the Government, +confining itself to Supply; till, on the 3rd March, the Lord Regent +succeeded in forming a Cabinet; and at 9 on the evening of the 5th +for the first time addressed himself to the country in the House of +Lords. + +That night the world seemed hushed to listen, the peridom of Britain +packing the Gallery with rainbow, and the peerdom those benches and +cross-benches, red as massacre and the Scarlet Woman, where thronged +580, while to Charing Cross spread the crowd without. He, from the +Throne, addressed them, and they, startled by the revelation of a +caste chaster far than Vere de Vere, and a pride far more serenely +throned than Hohenzollern, acknowledged him high-born..."Your +lordships will not fail to perceive my will to invigorate some of +our ancient epithets: thus, the First Estate of the Realm shall, +during the present Regency, be veritably 'First', and in no case +last"; anon he blew his bugle: "Let us play the man!--easy to say, +hard to do: yet it was first said by an Englishman when the doing, I +think, was hard enough, his martyr's shroud already rapt aloft in +flame: _that_ was magnanimous, my lords, I declare! _there_ was the +British Lion".... + +That same night a new Land Bill was introduced by Sir Robert +Wortley, the Prime Minister--a bill drafted, criticized, and re- +altered during two years by the legal experts of the Sea, proposing +the "purchase" of Great Britain at a price of twice the annual value +for inherited land, and seven times for land held by purchase: this +to be paid in two and seven years respectively, without interest, +lands yielding no revenue to become crown-lands from the date of the +Bill, which was called: Land Department (Creation) Bill. + +It passed first reading; but the question was: would the Jews vote +for the second reading? Reluctant enough the Jewish members, but +there were rumours that the Jewish electorate were instructing their +representatives to repent and vote for. + +And now spread far the League of Resistance, so did the Adair Street +Society, its secret daughter, of which Admiral Donald (O'Hara) had +now been elected Honorary Vice-Master, and whose Roll contained the +names of an extraordinary number of Territorial officers. + +The Society was busy: had building four yachts, all models of the +Admiral's yacht attached to the _Mahomet_, which was called the +_Mahomet II_; every dusk companies of 25 to 40 men drilled darkly in +the back yard at Adair Street, some of them Territorial officers: in +rotation they came, they drilled, over 1000; a top room piled with +revolvers, swords, bowie-knives... + +For the land-magnates laughed at the notion of submitting to the +Bill: rather, said they, "rivers of blood". The mention by Hogarth +of Ridley and Latimer they considered irrelevant; their fathers' +heroic mood was a detail: not an entail. + +In secret they met. Anarchists of the reddest hue. + +One night when the Bill was approaching second-reading Frankl +introduced Harris as a member; and wide-eyed stood Harris, though +still cynical, with elegant walking-stick, hat cocked, and "I sye", +he whispered, "are all these real, living lords?" + +"Large as life", answered Frankl. + +"Strike me dotty! The Lord said unto my lord, sit thou at my right +hand"...the reason of this introduction of Harris being a relation +which had arisen between the Army and the Lord Regent, who had been +taking a startling interest in this branch of the services, had +visited Aldershot, and held five reviews, flattering the soldier by +private notice, shifting officers. By an Order in Council of the 3rd +March, a reorganization was effected in the Army Board and +Consultative Council, of the new men the Adjutant-General being +General Sir Merrick Parr, uncle of Admiral Parr of the sea-fort +_Shakespeare_, while the Commander-in-Chief and Inspector-General +were the direct creations of the Regent, and the whole Headquarters +Staff bound to follow him through thick and thin; and that "second +reading" was near, which, if the Jews would vote against, well and +good for Adair Street, but, if not, there remained either (1) the +prompt execution of O'Hara's scheme without waiting for the four +yachts, copies of the _Mahomet II_, which were slow in building; or +(2) the knife of Harris. + +But, as to (1), when three delegates from the Society had waited +upon O'Hara in the _Mahomet_ to urge immediate action, O'Hara had +replied: "No, my lords, I cannot enter into this undertaking until +preparations are complete, since the troops we send would never be +allowed to land on the forts, if they arrived in ships not +apparently our own. Your lordships cannot be more anxious than I to +rid the earth of a devouring lion like Richard Hogarth, I do assure +you; but, tut, is there nothing else meanwhile? Just let me +introduce to your lordships a little young man whom I know"--he had +summoned Harris. + +But when the three delegates had gone, he had struck his brow, +exclaiming: "Wretch that I am!--that great and good fellow, the +fairest of the sons of men!...what a black depravity must be in +this heart--" he had underlooked in the mirror, and cut a face; "but +ah, Hogarth! this heart is in your net; and I loved the mother, +too".... + +He had sought the altar, and that night had written piteously to +Hogarth, appealing for fresh friendship and reconsideration of his +sentence of dismissal. + +So, at any rate, was Harris introduced to Adair Street, became its +chief minister, and ten days before the second-reading debate had +won, by O'Hara's recommendation, an _entrée_ into the Palace as +servant to a gentleman-usher-daily-waiter: and now he made bright +the knife of the assassin, tending its edge as a gardener the tender +sprout, the knife being his _métier_ and forte, he despising the +noisy, mediate, uncertain pistol, nor could use it, his instincts +belonging to the Stone Age. But the days passed, and he could by no +means get near to Hogarth. + +One night he boldly penetrated to the royal antechamber with the +knife under his waist-band, having passed the stairs-guard by a +specious official envelope. As it was late, he thought it must be +about the Regent's bedtime, having the vaguest ideas as to royal +ways and bedtimes, Hogarth being then in a consultation with three +of the Cabinet destined to last till morning. And Harris: "Can I see +the Lord Regent?" with that lifted brow of perpetual surprise and +alertness. + +"You? Who are you?" asked a gentleman-in-waiting. + +"That's neither 'ere nor there, if it comes to that. I'm Captain +Macnaghten's man, then". + +"But what is it you want?" + +"He told me to give the Regent this 'ere"--showing the envelope. + +"Weally! then, give it to me". + +"He said I was to give it to the Regent's self". + +"Then, go to blazes quickly, will you? and let Captain Macnaghten +know fwom me that he has been dwinking". + +Harris could not penetrate the ten-fold barrier; but he lay in wait; +watched from some coign every Royal exit and entrance, careful that +Hogarth never saw his face; and he cherished the knife-edge. + +One night, four days before the debate, he stood by the Green Park +railings, listless, smoking, when--he started: saw a hurried figure +come out--face muffled--Hogarth!--alone. + +Hogarth walked a little, entered a cab; Harris, in another, shadowed +him. + +Down Piccadilly, the Hammersmith Road, into the Addison: Hogarth +alighted; Harris followed. + +Now, at this time Hogarth had a spy, who presented him reports of +the doings of Rebekah Frankl--a species of literature which the +Regent found agreeable; and, as for two days Rebekah had, for some +reason, been at a villa of Addison Road, this escapade of the Lord +Regent was motived by his hope of catching there some glimpse of +her, the house being small, he having seized his first chance of +secret escape from state-affairs near midnight: and behind him, like +the shadow of death, stole the assassin. + +Hogarth, going soft up to the house, leaned aside from the frontage +steps to peer; but Venetian blinds barred him from the least sight +of the interior, though he could hear sounds, strange sounds, as of +wailing; and, as the villa was in the midst of quite a spacious +ground, well grown with trees and shrubberies, he stole round to the +back, peered into an open door level with the garden, and within saw +a doorway of twilight in the midst of darkness; had hoped to see a +servant, who might talk gossip, or even contrive him sight of the +Sacred Body; had ready bribe in hand: but nobody there. So, after +some hesitation, he entered; and Harris, just then come to the +house-corner on tiptoe, discerned him go in, ran on hot bricks to +the door, and now distinctly saw Hogarth, who had passed through a +kitchen, standing on three wooden steps before a doorway which +framed a faint light in the room beyond. + +On which a shivering of eagerness, quick as winking sheet-lightning, +shook Harris' right knee. + +Hogarth, meantime, having seen the chamber before him empty, in his +headlong way had entered, and the guess now in Harris' mind was +this: "It's a girl: a night out".... + +He hesitated, Hogarth being once within the house and lost to him, +but after some minutes dared to follow. + +Hogarth, meantime, had seen that the light came from a death-taper, +with which was a vessel of water for ceremonial purification, and a +napkin, here being all the preparations for _tahara_ (washing); and +suddenly, in a near room, arose the clamorous dole of _shivah_ (the +seven mourning-days), Rachel weeping for her children, because they +are not: a Jew was dead: "shema, Yisrael...": and this explained +Rebekah's stay there, for the bereaved may not leave the house. A +peer at the bed--a covered face--pierced him with a compunction like +shame: here was _kodesh_, and he a desecrator with his earthy +passion: so he turned to beat a retreat by the way he had come--when +a faint sound that way, made by Harris; and, instead, he leapt +lightly through a window five feet above the garden. + +Some moments later Harris, entering on prowling all-fours, and +seeing the bed-clothes hang immediately near, stole under; waited: +no sound save the singsong lament; and "O Gawd", thought he, cynic +even in his palest agitation, "there shall be weeping and wailing +and gnashing of teeth"....But that Hogarth had not come to wail and +gnash he felt convinced: if he heard no sound above him, that might +be because of the sounds around; so he crawled barely out, and, +kneeling, put up a most cautious groping hand, the bed being in the +darkest part of the room; someone there: and swiftly as a dolphin +twists to dart and snap, his knife was in a breast and instantly +ready to strike its expected bedfellow. + +But the breast was alone, the breast of Estrella, the Prophetess, +four days dead. + +Harris snatched off the face-cloth, peered upon a noble old visage, +fixed now in trance, and said: "Well, I'm--" + +Now he ran, but in the kitchen stopped wild-eyed. It I might be +murder-he was not certain; at least it was out-rage, and he might be +traced: there was the cabman who had brought him--his absence from +the Palace---"Bah! it can't be proved...." But still, if he were +even arrested, and Hogarth got to hear of his presence about the +Court--that would spoil all. He listened: all that part of the house +a settled solitude, the servants themselves sitting _shivah_; and +back he ran, seized upon the little old body, not now stiff, _rigor +mortis_ having passed, saw that the sheet was unstained, and +snatched her away out to the bottom of the garden where shrubbery +and holly-hedge formed a jungle. + +Now he set to dig with hissing haste; and, even as he hissed and +digged, he talked without pause, envenomed, heaping her sanctity +with insult: "Old cat you...dust to dust and ashes to ashes, it +is....What you want to do that for? under you go in the cold, cold +sod....Who arst you to put your little finger in the pie? There's +another one for you, fair in the gullet! Now take her up tenderly, +lift her with care-and down she goes".... + +Such were Estrella's _kaddish_ and "House of Life"....As he had +only the knife, and the work was slow, and in the midst of it an +outcry from the house, the body missed, he stopped, listening, but +without acute fear, knowing it improbable that they could dream of +seeking in the grounds, and as a matter of fact their minds were a +mere paralysis of holy wonder; so presently he had the little body +in a two-foot grave, arranged surface and dead leaves to +naturalness, leapt a wall, and got away. + +Never did act of assassin have result so momentous: for though the +predictions of Estrella had lately spread far among upper-class +Jews, it was only on the day after her burial by Harris that her +fame reached to each Jew under the sun. + +It was given out that divine confirmation had been vouchsafed to her +prophecies by the snatching of her body, like Enoch's, into Heaven, +or by its burial, like Moses', by Jahvah: for when no explanation +but one is extant, the brain fastens upon that, and embraces it. + +And as Estrella, who, in life, had guarded her hard sayings for the +few, had left papers revealing for her whole race what she had +dreamed, like wildfire now ran her message among the Chosen. + +Now Temple and Synagogue were crowded: rabbi and pawnbroker and +_maggid,_ clothes-man and _takif,_ were infected; and there spread +the cry (for the most part meaningless): "To Zion!" + +It may be that the Jewish electorate were now too agitated with the +near probability of Shiloh to interest themselves in any mundane +question: at all events, it was during that rage that the +Government-whips announced the certainty that the Jewish members +would vote against the Land Bill. + +Hogarth first heard it pretty late at night from the Prime Minister; +and "Ha!-the Jews", he went: "so they have dared, these men? I never +thought that they would! May God deliver me from His ill-chosen +people--!" + +"And ill-choosing, it seems, my Lord King". + +"Quite so! But, Sir Robert Wortley, is it supportable this thing?"--a +brand now on his brow--"an alien race in Britain opposing thus +daringly not _my_ will only, but the plain will of the people? And +have I the air of one who will support it? Rather, I assure you, +would I govern without a Parliament! But stop--perhaps I shall be +found capable of dealing with these mischievous children of Israel. +Give me a night: and to-morrow at noon come, and hear. Of course, +this second-reading business must be postponed ". + +And deep and wide, in lonely vigil, wrought the Regent's thought +that night, till morning: of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, of +tendencies, histories, soils, ports, railways, possibilities, race- +genius, analogies, destinies; of Rothschild and I Solomon; of Hirsch +and Y'hudah Hanassi; of the Jewish Board of Guardians, Rab Asa, and +the Targum on the Babylonish Talmud; of the Barbary Jews, the +Samaritans, and Y'hudah Halevi; of the Colonial Bank, and the +Karaite Jews.... + +When at dawn he threw himself dressed into bed, he had resolved upon +a very great thing: their expulsion from England, Pole and +Hungarian, Baron and coster, and the little child at the breast, ten +millions. + +His eyes had closed toward sleep when, with a start, he remembered a +prophecy uttered one evening in the _Boodah_ Throne-room, and these +words: "Richard, deal gently with my people...." + +Two nights later, with a retinue, he hurriedly left England-for +Constantinople. + + + + +XLVI + +THE ORDER IN COUNCIL + + +Three days before that setting-out, O'Hara's appeal for pardon had +come under the Regent's notice: and as he had read, his eyes--once +more--had softened, as he had thought: "It would be a great crime to +forgive him the long list; but never mind--we will see".... + +And he had meant to reply, but suddenly the Jews had swept O'Hara +quite out of his mind. + +He was away hardly two weeks: and when he returned, Palestine and +western Armenia were his, all his acts of this period bearing +resemblance in largeness and rage to the incredible forced-marches +of Napoleon. + +If one spreads apart the first two fingers, he sees exactly the +country ordained by Hogarth for modern Israel: the first finger +Palestine, looking upon the Mediterranean; between the fingers, the +Syrian Desert; the second (longer) finger that Mesopotamia, "the +cradle of our race" between the Euphrates and the Tigris, this +opening upon the Persian Gulf, and the trade of the East. + +The then population of this area was only 300,000 (Arabs, Turks, +Jews, Greeks) in the Palestine finger, omitting Russian pilgrims to +Jerusalem; while in the Mesopotamia finger--all that Hinterland of +Palestine called "Turkish Armenia"--not 320,000 Armenians had been +left by Khurdish rapine and Turkish atrocity: we may therefore say +that the whole was an uninhabited land waiting for inhabitants. + +The only things needed (according to modern notions) to make it +immediately colonizable were roads and railways, and the Regent had +not returned to Dover when both were making in Palestine, the +Sultan, left thunderstruck with a chronic eye of scare by that +visit, "lending his co-operation", consoled meanwhile by a +Conversion Loan of thirteen millions out of Sea-revenue; to which +add a grant-in-aid of fifteen millions to the emigrants, and the +remark of Hogarth's Chancellor about this time becomes intelligible: +"Your Lordship's Majesty's expenditure is exceeding revenue by 50 +per cent"; so that Beech's was soon realizing considerably in bonds +over Europe, and Hogarth temporarily poor--had stubbornly refused +any Parliament-grant for the Regent's personal establishment. + +And suddenly from the blue fell his bolt: at that same table of the +Regent's oath-of-office assembled eighty-seven Jewish lords and +gentlemen at noon of the 24th March, the first day of the month +Nisan in the Jewish year 5699, ordered, each by himself, to the +Royal presence; and the Regent, with the gravest eyes, both palms +pressed on the table, in an embarrassment of compunction, rose and +spoke with them--Rothschild and merchant-prince, Chief Rabbi, +Manchester Chief Minister, Heads of the Alliance Israélite, Anglo- +Jewish Association, Jewish Board, Jewish philanthropists, writers; +and they could not believe themselves awake. + +He began by speaking of himself, the fact of his power, with such +graciousness, that all were affected, not by the power, but by the +gentleness which wielded it: Providence had given him the disposal +of the earth, and it was for him to do his poor best--a lonesome, +sorrowful post; so that talking could never alter in anything the +main point; but it could modify details: and he had called them to +invoke their great administrative gift and expert counsel; he told +of the exodus which he designed, the home which he had prepared +them; recommended a Sanhedrim of Chief Jews to form the Provisional +Government of the new State, with the Chief Rabbi as its head under +the title of Shophet (Judge); would offer a contribution of +£ 15,000,000 from his Exchequer toward an emigration and colonizing +fund, and doubtless emigration bureaus would be at once established +at principal centres; he would also hand over a Deed of Gift of this +larger Judaea as between the Sea and the Jewish people to the +Central Authority as soon as established; also, duplicates of the +text of the Treaty as between the Sea and the Ottoman Empire. What +he gave he gave, he assured them, with a free heart, without +condition; except, of course, one: that no inch of the new land +should ever "belong" to any particular Jew: for he gave, as Nature +gave the earth, not to a hundred, but to all, living and to be born, +occupiers to pay rent, not to any adventurer calling himself +landlord, but to the Central Authority, representing all. This done, +he would invoke with confidence upon their able race the blessing of +Almighty God. + +In tones so mellow did he utter himself, that for many minutes +stillness reigned, every face pale. + +Until a baron stood up with ashen under-lip, to say that such a +scheme, it seemed to him, must remain for ever abortive, unless +enforced by Act of Parliament-- + +But Hogarth checked him quick. + +"No, my lord, not by Act of Parliament: the how your lordship may +leave to me. I dare say you will see it in this evening's papers". + +It was by an Order in Council! + + * * * * * * * + +"DECLARATION of the Court of Great Britain respecting the Order in +Council. + +"At the Court at Buckingham Palace, the 24th day of March, his +Lordship's Majesty, the Lord Regent, in Council. + +"WHEREAS His Lordship's Majesty was pleased to declare in the name +and on behalf of His Majesty the King on the 23rd day of March: THAT +if at any time, after the expiration of the three months following, +any of the hereinafter mentioned trades, occupations, pursuits, or +acts, shall be carried on or done within the United Kingdom of Great +Britain and Ireland by any person being a person coming within the +sense of the term "Jew" as hereinafter defined, THEN and thereafter +such person shall be liable to the pains and penalties hereinafter +specified". + + * * * * * * * + +No Jew might own or work land, or teach in any Cheder or school, or +be entered at any Public School or University, or sign any stamped +document, or carry on certain trades, or vote, or officiate at any +public service, and so on: parentage, not religion, constituting a +"Jew". Through Britain this piece of Russian despotism sent a wave +of quiet gladness, and an epidemic of jest broke out, in club, +factory, "Lane", and drawing-room: "You hurry up--to Jericho!" +became the workman's answer to a Jew; it was remarked that the +chimney of train and steamship would furnish a new pillar of cloud +by day, and pillar of fire by night, to go before the modern Exodus; +they were little to be pitied, for even Heaven was their mortgagor +in land, with promise to pay--the Promised Land; a syndicate would +be formed to "pool" milk and honey, and either Sharon or Salem would +become the new Get-O at any price; being a rather Peculiar People, +they would call the new Temple "the 'Ouse" (of Prey-ers), and make +contango-day coincide with Passover....But let him laugh that is of +a merry heart: as for Israel, with weary breast and hunted stare he +sandalled his foot for the final Exodus: yet not as them without +hope. Already--some days before the Order in Council--the +disappearance of Estrella's body, her daring prophecies, had led to +the embarkation of 700 Jews for Palestine; and when the Regent's +Edict gave startling confirmation of her prediction of "the Return", +in many a million hearts thrilled the certainty: "the Day of the +Lord is nigh!" + +And with that their stoicism and organizing strength, they mutely +turned to follow the finger of Destiny: their _takifs_ (rich men), +hard upon the unchosen, were, as usual, liberal to their own, the +fund swelled, and a Committee left England for the accumulation of +stores and implements; at the same time two Parliament Bills were +passed in two sittings, empowering the purchase by Government of +land "owned" by Jews on Land Bill terms, and quickening the +machinery for the collection of debts due to Jews. + +Whereupon, "You see", said the Chief Rabbi, "he drives us out: but +he makes us aprons--if only of fig-leaves--to cover us. Let us bow +to his rod, and thank him, and go: he is God's Minister". + +So they went: the world's mercantile marine having been summoned, +sea-ports were turned into caravansaries of gabardine and ear-lock: +the Exodus began. + +In the midst of which it came to the knowledge of the Regent that +the house of Frankl was making ready for departure. + +And now Hogarth rebelled against Heaven: self-forgetfully he did his +best, and it returned and struck him dead: for what good, he +thought, would his life do him, she always in Asia, he in Europe? + +He wrote to her, a passionate hotch-potch of command and grovelling +supplication: if she went, he would curse her; would go mad; would +blaspheme God; would throw up everything; would die. + +He had promised to go down to Oxford to receive a degree, and as up +to the time of his departure she had not replied, he went half- +unconscious of himself and those about him. + +Now, upon Adair Street the Expulsion had brought despair, the +second-reading now assured, the Jews' vote over, and new writs +issued; the second-reading debate was actually in progress at that +date of the Oxford visit; and though the four yachts, copies of the +_Mahomet II_, were being rapidly put together, the Bill, if at all +pressed, must get through before they could be ready; nor could the +House of Lords long delay its passage. + +There remained Harris, so far ineffectual, but not therefore +hopeless: so he, spurred, went down to Oxford. + +But what Harris could not do was to get near to Hogarth: his task +was, as it were, to pluck Venus from the firmament; but he mused, he +mused upon her, with musing astrologic eye, with grand patience, +fascinated by her very splendours, not without hope. When at 8 P.M. +a banquet was served to 250 guests in the Radcliffe Library, the +upper gallery being open to a crawling public to see the lions feed, +Harris, watching thence the unattainable under the blue of the +canopy--blue always in honour of the Sea--thought within himself: +"Ah, Mr. 76, you've got it all, ain't you?--for the time being. But +'ow'd you feel if I had a pistol now? Gawd! I can just see him +nicely curl and kick. Worse luck, I can't shoot a bloomin' 'ouse". + +But the opportunity was so exquisite, that he resolved to try--the +exit reached, would run, get a pistol, and return; but at the door +itself a hand touched his shoulder, and, with a twist of guilty +scare, he saw--O'Hara. + +"Good Gawd!" he whispered, "what you want to startle anybody like +that for? Don't you know that the wicked flea pursueth every man, +but the righteous shall escape his filthy snare?" + +"What are you doing here, boy?" asked O'Hara. + +"Thick-head! ain't I down 'ere after this precious Mr. 76?"--for +Hogarth, if Monarch of the Sun, would have remained for Harris only +a glorified 76, Colmoor being for him the reality of the universe, +all else mirage, such stuff as dreams are made of. + +"Well", said O'Hara, "come with me: want to talk to you"--he just +come from the _Mahomet_ through Spain and France, drawn to Hogarth +as moths to a candle, his petition for pardon not yet answered; and +he assumed that Hogarth's wrath still blazed, though, in fact, +answer was only delayed by competition of greater interests, Hogarth +having forgotten O'Hara; at any rate, O'Hara, with shrinking qualms, +had come to Oxford, thinking: "I will try and get at him for one +more talk--I am not afraid of your eyes, my son: tut! I've seen the +great brow in a prison-cap. And the haughty beast still loves old +Pat at bottom, I do declare. Be bold, be bold, but not _too_ +bold....Well, I will! And, if I perish, I perish, and he perishes, +too, so help me, God".... + +And to Harris, walking by the towing-path, he said: "No, boy, don't +you. Not now. Tut!--those lords: they are only making you their +tool. Don't you understand? Hogarth is robbing from them the land +which they have robbed from the British people, and they naturally +wish to murder him: but what have _you_, or I, to do with that? Let +the thieves fight it out between them, while we enjoy ourselves, if +we can. Weren't we happy in the _Mahomet_, boy--we two? Didn't you +roll whole weeks drunk? That was better than Colmoor, eh, Alfie? And +didn't I have my incense, my grapes, my little Circassian, and ten +thousand pounds in yellow gold a year? Wasn't that all right? Well, +we may have it again!--not in the _Mahomet_, perhaps, but somewhere. +Do nothing--not yet: till I give the word. If you _must_ kill, get a +dog, or a horse, or an obscure old man, not the Regent of England--" + +"Dirty old swine!" cried Harris, angry, "'aven't I forbid you again +and again from making game of me? You're doing it now! You just try +that on, and go up thou bald-head, it _is_!" + +"But is this understood between us?" + +"Old duffer! you are one thing to-day, and another thing to-morrow: +there's no knowing how to tyke you. You're such a sinful old +'ypocrite, that you play-act before yourself, I do believe. What is +it you do mean? You myke anyone sick of you; your incense and your +burnt sacrifices are an offence unto me. This Mr. 76 once put a +knife into me, and I mean to put another into him: 'ow's that?" + +"Not now!" + +"'Ow about your sweet friend, Frankl? I'm under contract with him, +ain't I?" + +"Better put the knife into Frankl". + +"Into the pair of you, it strikes me!" + +"Well, if you make the least attempt upon Hogarth now, you get not +another shilling--". + +"Bah! shut that--!" + +But the threat won sullen consent; and when after the Banquet the +Oxford guests had driven to see the illuminations, spoiled by +boisterous Spring-winds, and when the Regent returned to his +chambers, he caught sight of O'Hara amid the throng that lined the +stair; upon which, after stepping up past, he stopped, twisted +round, to say: "You, Admiral Donald?" + +"If I might speak ten minutes with your Lordship's Majesty--" + +"What about?" + +Those bold eyes of O'Hara dropped. + +"Well", said the Regent, "I will see. Come to-morrow--about five," +and went on up. + +The next morning the Degree was conferred in the theatre, Doctor of +Common Law--"an appropriate one", the Master of Balliol remarked, +"though 'Surgeon' would perhaps be the _mot juste_"; and thus at +last Hogarth donned cap-and-tassel, though not Frankl's--a livery +which drew from Harris the reflection: "Sweet beauty!--in his +mortarboard". The nip upon the brow of the college-cap peak +resembled the nip of the Scotch prison-cap, awaking memories: but +the symbolism was different. + +Meantime, the Regent's eye wandered, madness and folly in his heart, +and fear, till at four a letter came, he having left Loveday at +Buckingham Palace with instructions to open letters and send the +One. + +She had written: + +"What you can expect of me I am unable to conceive. Have you not +expelled me? Let us be worthy of our long friendship, and 'play the +man'....'My exaltation to afflictions high'....With prayers for +you, I say good-bye: and will remember. + +"REBEKAH FRANKL". + +Loveday had added: "She left London at noon for Southampton. Purchas +followed to spy. Machray's other detective waits in Palace for +instructions". + +As to the dinner in Christ Church Hall, and the Ball, which were to +end the program of this last day, at four-thirty the news spread +that the Regent had been taken ill. + +"Have you not expelled me?"...Was she angry? Did _she_ not know +that he meant well? Hogarth, breaking into a rage, leapt up, with, +"I swear to God that not one step does she move out of this country--!" +and rushed to a bell: a gentleman-usher came. + +"What about going?" + +"All will be ready in fifteen minutes, my Lord King". + +"I feel bad: say ten minutes; tell the Lord Chamberlain". + +"Yes. I might mention--did your Lordship's Majesty grant a ten +minutes' audience to Admiral Donald for this hour?" + +"_Who_? Yes, I think--Just kick him down the stairs! Or no--say I +may see him some day". + +This message, as the usher dashed through, was faithfully dropped at +O'Hara's consciousness; and O'Hara said: "Hoity-toity...!" + +Bent-backed he descended to the Quadrangle, with a sense of defeat, +rebuff, contumely, rage, but quite sprightly said to Harris, waiting +beyond the Gateway: "Well, boy, how can we make a night of it? I +feel that way". + +"Seen Mr. 76?" + +"Tut, no. Sharpen up that knife for his throat, boy!" + +And Harris exclaimed: "Another chynge! Strike me silly!--what did I +sye? Give me a new 'eart, O Lawd, it _is_--you grey-haired old +duffer. Chopping and chynging, always the syme--to your old wife +Jyne. I'd be ashamed of myself in your plyce. But sharpen up the +knife, it _is_". + + + + +XLVII + +THE EMIGRANTS + + +Late the same night the Regent received at the Palace a telegram +about Rebekah: She had travelled alone to Southampton, where a +landau at the station had awaited her, in which she had driven to a +country-house near the Itchen named "Silverfern", two miles from +Bitterne Manor, in which lived an elderly gentleman, Mr. Abrahams, +ark-opener and scroll-bearer in the Synagogue, with his wife and two +sons. The passage of these, and of Rebekah, was booked by the +_Calabria_, Jewish emigrant-ship, to sail in four days. + +Hogarth no sooner heard these tidings than he tumbled into crime: +resolved to kidnap Rebekah; to break his own law for his own behoof: +one of the basest acts of a King. + +He had four days: and by the end of the second four men lay in wait +round "Silverfern", one a sea-fort sub-lieutenant, one a detective, +and two others very rough customers: a cottage having been hired by +them for the reception of Rebekah in a dell a mile higher up the +Itchen. + +But something infects the world; and gravity badgers the bullet's +trajectory; and a magnetic "H" disturbs the needle; and "impossible" +roots turn up in the equation; and the finger of God is in every +pie. + +Hence, though the four ravishers lay in wait, and actually effected +a seizure, the Regent did not get his girl. + +None of the four had ever seen her: but as there was no young lady +except her at "Silverfern", that seemed of no importance, so she had +been only described to them as dark and pretty. + +But on the night after Rebekah's arrival, there came to "Silverfern" +a new inmate: Margaret Hogarth. + +_Her_ passage, too, was booked to Palestine. + +For Frankl had said: "In expelling the Jews, he shall expel his own +sister. Oh, that's sweet, after all!" + +At this time Frankl's interest in Land Bill and England was dead, +two interests only remaining to him: so to realize his share in the +Western world as to reach Jerusalem loaded with wealth; and also, +not less intense, to hurt Hogarth, to outwit him, to cry quits at +the last. + +It was hard--Hogarth being set so high; but he invoked the help of +the Holy One (blessed be He): and was not without resource. + +Why had Hogarth never had him seized, racked? What restrained the +Regent _now_? That was a question with Frankl. Hogarth might say, +even to himself, that Frankl was vermin too small to be crushed, +that he waited for his sister from God; but lately the real reason +had grown upon Frankl: it was because Hogarth _was afraid_ of him! +afraid that Frankl, if persecuted beyond measure, might blurt out +the Regent's convict past, and raise a sensation of horror through +the world not pleasant to face. Harris, O'Hara, Rebekah and Frankl +alone knew that past, and the motives for silence of the first three +were obvious; nor had Frankl whispered that secret even to his own +heart in his bed-chamber, conscious of his own guilt in the matter +of the Arab Jew's death, fearing that, if the wit and power of +Hogarth were given motive to move heaven and earth, the real facts +might not be undiscoverable: then would Frankl be ground to fine +powder by the grinders. But if he was going to Palestine, what +mattered? + +Also, there was Margaret: she should go out as a Jewess. + +She arrived at "Silverfern" in the charge of a Jewish clerk, and the +Abrahams received her as an afflicted orphan, committed to Frankl by +her father; she, like Rebekah, to go under their care. + +Well, the evening before the departure, Mr. and Mrs. Abrahams, their +two sons, Rebekah and Margaret, all go for a stroll--about nine +o'clock, that morning one of the four ravishers having been to the +house on some pretence, seen Margaret with Mrs. Abrahams under the +porch, and noted her well, her grey tailor-gown, her brooch, her +singing; and now, as all walked out under the moon, they were +watched, the watchers, surprised at the presence of _two_ young +ladies, concluding that the smaller--Rebekah--must have arrived +later: so upon the large and shapely form of Margaret their gaze +fastened, as the party passed near their hedge of concealment, +Margaret then remarking: "My name is Rachel Oppenheimer--" and Mrs. +Abrahams with gentle chiding answering her: "No, be good: your name +is Ruth Levi". + +For during two years at the Jewish Asylum at Wroxham they had tilled +into her shrieking brain, "Now, be good: your name is Rachel +Oppenheimer", and one day she had said: "My name _is_ Rachel +Oppenheimer", and had been saying it ever since. + +In fact, there was a real Rachel Oppenheimer, a dependent of +Frankl's, at Yarmouth, who was rather mad, and when it had been +necessary that Margaret should be out of the way in order to secure +Hogarth's conviction, two doctors had examined this Rachel +Oppenheimer, and given the legal certificates by means of which +Frankl had put away Margaret; and she during two years of sanity in +an atmosphere of lunacy had screamed for pity, till one morning she +had shewed the stare, the unworldly rapture, and had started to sing +her old songs. + +After which, Frankl, hearing of it, and touched by some awe, had got +her out, and kept her in one retreat or another. + +But in all her madness was mixed some memory of his devilish heart, +and every fresh sight of him inspired her with panic, she in his +presence hanging upon his eyes, instant to obey his slightest hint: +hence her beckoning down to Hogarth from that window in Market +Street. + +Now, on this last night of England the Abrahams party strolled far, +two days like Summer days having come, on hedge and tree now +tripping the shoots of Spring, the moon-haunted night of a mild +mood: so from "Silverfern" lawns they passed up a steep field +northward, down a path between village-houses, and idled within a +pine-wood by the river-side. + +The moon's glow was like one luminous ghost: and buttercup, daisy, +snowdrop, primrose gathered Margaret, vagrant, flighty, light to the +winds that wafted her as fluff, and tossed them suddenly aloft, and +back they came to be tangled in her bare hair; and now she was a +tipsy bacchante, singing: + + "Will you come to the wedding? + Will you come? + Bring you own bread and butter, + And your own tea and sugar, + And we'll all pay a penny for the Rum". + +"Poor Ruth!"--from Rebekah, an arm about her waist. + +"There is such a huge pool which is wheeling", said Margaret, gazing +at it with surprise, "and it goes hollow in the middle: my goodness, +it does wheel! and there is a little grey duck in it ranging round +and round with it, and this little grey duck is singing like an +angel". + +"Do you know where we are going to?" asked Rebekah: "to the land of +our fathers, Ruth, after all the exile in this ugly Western world; +and it is he who sends us, the fierce-willed master of men". + +"My name", said Margaret, "is Rachel Oppenheimer"; and immediately, +wafted like a half-inflated balloon which leaps to descend a +thousand feet away, she sang: + + "Happy day! Happy day! + When Jesus washed my sins away..." + +Then, woe-begone, she shook her head, and let fall her abandoned +hand; and Rebekah, speaking more to herself: "Did you never hear of +Hogarth, the King, Ruth? or see him in some dream in shining white, +with a face like the face in the bush which burned and was not +consumed?" + +But now Margaret laughed, crying out: "Oh, there's a man riding a +shorthorn bull that has wings; white it is: and up they fly, the +bull pawing and snorting, all among the stars. Oh, and now the man +is falling!--my goodness--" + +She stood still, gazing at that thing in heaven. + +"Well, what has become of the man, dear?" asked Rebekah. + +"I can't make out....But I should like to marry that man". + +"Ah, if wishes were fathers, we should all have babies, Ruth, to say +our _kaddish_". + +"Oh, look--!" cried Margaret. + +A rabbit had rushed across a path ahead, and she ran that way beyond +a bend....When Rebekah followed she had disappeared. + +On Rebekah's outcry all set to search wood, path, river--she was +gone; but after five minutes a voice a long way off in the wood, +singing: + + "O what a pretty place, + And what a graceful city...." + +on which the two youths flew toward the sound, and presently the +rest, following, heard a shout, a cry, then silence, till one of the +young men came running back, his face washed in blood: he had seen +some forms, and, as he had approached, been struck on the brow, his +brother felled. When all came to where the brother lay insensible, +no sign of Margaret; nor could villagers and police, searching +through the night, find her. + +She had gone without surprise with her four captors, who had carried +her to a cottage of boarded-up windows: and the same hour Hogarth +had the news. + +The next morning the four received detailed instructions at the +village _poste restante_: the lady-attendant at the cottage was to +ask the prisoner if she would go to London, try to persuade her, +and, if she consented, make her sign pledge of honour (enclosed) to +go without any attempt at escape during three days. + +The men were surprised: for that Margaret was deranged they had seen +at once, and supposed that the Regent must know it: what, then, +could her pledge do? Their business, however, was to obey: and when +Margaret was asked: "Will you go quietly to the Palace in London +with us?" she answered: "Yes!" and sang: + + "Here we go to London-town: + Tri-de-laddie! Tri-de-laddie! + See the King with his golden crown, + Tri-de-laddie, O!" + +By noon the Abrahams and Rebekah were being tugged out of harbour, +to the hand-wavings and god-speeds of seven emigrant-boats by the +quay; but it was not till five that the Regent's emissaries could +obtain a special train on the thronged lines; and not till after +seven did they arrive with Margaret at the Palace-gates. + +Now, that night the Lord Regent and the Prince of Wales were +attending a banquet at the Guildhall, given in honour of sea-rent +reduction on British ships, and at the moment when Margaret arrived +Hogarth, already _en route_, thinking of Rebekah, muttered: "By now +she is here!" + +But since Frankl, on getting news of the disappearance of Margaret, +had at once conjectured the hand of Hogarth, as Margaret was being +handed from the cab at the Palace-gates, she saw two terrible eyes, +and, snatching her hand free, flew screaming down the street--eyes +of Frankl, who, conjecturing that hither she would be brought, had +taken stand there half the afternoon, knowing precisely the effect +upon her of the sight of his face; and said he: "You see, you +haven't got her yet--though you _shall_ have her to your heart's +content...." + +As she could only run southward or northward, he had posted two +motor-cars, one containing a clerk to south, the other Harris, to +north, so that, as she ran, one or other should catch her, hustle +her in, and dash away. + +In fact, she ran north, right into the arms of Harris, her surprised +guardians still ten yards behind; and "Quick!" hissed Harris, "come +with me, or 'e'll 'ave you!" and was off with her. + +Upon which Frankl drove to the Market Street house, where he found +Harris and Margaret; and again, with screams, she sought to fly, +though her first terrors gave place to a quiet subservience after +some minutes of his presence. + +"Oh Lawd!" said Harris, "she started singing in the car, you know. +Sing me songs of Araby, it _is_. Enough to give anybody the sicks". + +"You see this gentleman here?" said Frankl to Margaret. + +"Yes", she whispered: "oh my!" + +"Well, it so happens that very likely you are going to live in the +same house as him--a big Palace with all gold and silver, where the +King with his crown lives, and all. So while you are there, I want +you to be his friend as if it was myself, and do everything he tells +you, same as myself, in fact. Do you see?" + +"Yes", she whispered, her large form towering above Frankl's, yet +awe of him widening her eyes. + +"What's your name?" said he. + +"My name is Rachel Oppenheimer", said she. + +"All right: come up and dress". + +She followed him up to a back room, where was a lamp, a glass, etc., +and on an old settee evening-dress complete, shoes, roses, head- +wrap. + +"Now", said Frankl, leaving her, he, too, in evening-dress, "I give +you ten minutes to rig yourself out in that lot: a second more, and +you catch it". + +And in fifteen minutes they two were in a cab, _en route_ for the +Guildhall, Frankl, who had invitations for himself and daughter, +saying: "You understand? you keep your eye fixed upon me the whole +time--never mind about eating--and when I hold up my finger _so_, +you rise and give them a little song...." + +It was a function intended to be memorable, the Lord Regent going in +state, attended by 150 Yeomen, King-at-Arms, six heralds and all +Heralds' College, to be met at Temple Bar by my Lord Mayor, that day +made a baronet, with his Sheriffs and Aldermen on horseback; the +Guildhall in blue velvet, the platform at the east end bearing rows +of squat gold chairs, while a canopy of deep-blue velvet, lined with +light-blue sarcenet, dropped ponderous draperies, tied back with +gold ropes, over the floor; on the canopy-front being Sword and +Sceptre, the Royal Crown of Britain, and the Diadem of the Sea; the +canopy table and the other looking like a short and a long wine- +banquet of the Magi in Ophir: present being members of the British +Royal House, Ambassadors to Britain and the Sea, the two +Archbishops, Ministers, the Speaker, Officers, Fort-Admirals, the +Regent's Household, the chief Nobility, the City personages. + +Farthest from the short royal table, near the foot of the long, +where the dishes were _kosher_ for a Jewish colony, sat Frankl, and +opposite him Margaret; and that face of Frankl was pinched and worn. + +He prayed continually: "May God be my Rock and my High Tower; may +the Almighty be my Shield this night...." while in two minutes +Margaret had begun to be a wonder to her neighbours--heaved sighs, +threw herself, beat plate with knife, hummed a little, yet conscious +of wrong-doing, her eyes fixed upon Frankl. + +"Oh, my!" her sigh heaved mortally, head tumbling dead on shoulder. + +"Are you--unwell?" asked a startled neighbour, all shirt-front, eye- +glass and delicacy. + +"I see a long table with gold plates", she whined pitifully, "on +every plate an eyeball dying...." + +Frankl controlled her with a glance of anger. + +And in the second course after turtle, with a fainting prayer to +Jehovah, the Jew clandestinely held up a forefinger; upon which she, +after some hesitation, remembered the signal, and like a dart shot +to her feet. + +Now every eye fastened upon her, from Regent's and Prince's to the +bottom, those near her, who knew her now, feeling a miserable heart- +shrinking of shame. + +With sideward head she stood some seconds, smiling; and she sighed: +"My name is Rachel--" + +But soon, her mood now rushing into sprightliness, she stamped, and +with an active alacrity of eye, sang: + + "Will you come to the wedding? + Will you come? + Bring your own bread-and-butter, + And your own tea-and-sugar, + And we'll all pay a penny for the Rum, + Rum, Rum, + We'll all pay a penny for the Rum". + +The Regent had risen, while Frankl, calm now in reaction, gazed +sweetly upon his face: the vengeance of a Jew--nor was he half done +with vengeance. Certainly, Hogarth was pale: he had sought her long, +and found her _so_. "Why it is my own heart", he thought, "and they +have made her mad". + +One moment a stab of shame pierced him at the reflection: "_Here!_" +but in the next his heart yearned upon her, and he rose nimbly and +naturally far beyond Lord Mayor and Prince, and the rut of the +world. After a perfectly deliberate bow, he left his place, and +walked down the length of the hall to her, amid the gaping gods, +Loveday, too, and three others, when he was half-way, following. + +He had her hand, touched her temple lightly, yet compellingly, +healingly.... + +"Dear, don't you know me?--Richard?--_Dick?_" + +No, but at sight of Loveday some kind of recognition seemed to +light, and die, in her eyes. + +"Will you come, dear, and sit up yonder with me?" Hogarth asked, his +face a mask of emotion. + +Wearily she shook her head; and "John", said Hogarth, "take her +home"; whereupon Loveday led her out, the Regent returning to the +canopy. + +Half an hour later he found it _à propos_ of something to say to the +Prince: "That lady who sang is my sister, Your Royal Highness--seems +to have been subjected to gross cruelties, and has gone crazy". + +The next morning everyone knew that she was the Regent's sister; and +a man said to a man: "There is madness in the family, then...." + + + + +XLVIII + +THE SEA-FORTS + + +The second-reading of the Land Bill had passed by a 59 majority: and +it would now have been easy work to hurry through its remaining +stages in a couple of weeks; but the Regent had awaited the nation's +verdict in the return of the 120 to fill the Jewish seats, sure of +the result. + +So the 23rd was a great night--the third-reading--the majority 115 +at 8 P.M.; and the next day, which was marked by a very brilliant +levée, the Bill was before the Lords. + +This stage it might easily have reached four weeks before, but had +been shelved for the election of the 120: and in those weeks the +four copies of the _Mahomet II_. had been launched. + +And suddenly--bad news from Palestine: news that there, too, after +all the safeguards, the greed of a few was working to plant the old +European wrong: for, the Sanhedrim being short of funds for a +railway, a syndicate of five merchant-princes had offered to buy +from it an estate between Jerusalem and the Jordan, and when the +Chief Rabbi had pointed out that the offer was monstrous, in view of +the terms of the Sea's Deed of Gift, a fierce discussion had ensued, +a schism; and although the syndicate's offer had been rejected by +27, at the next session the defeated leader, like some warlike +Maccabæus, had surged with his faction and a hundred Arabs into the +Mosque of Omar where the Sanhedrim met, to cast those who did not +escape by flight into prison in the Pasha's Palace. In the hands of +his clique the Government remained. + +Such was the news.... + +It was followed in three days by a Representation to the Regent, +signed by 90,000 Jews in Palestine, the fourth name being Rebekah +Frankl's, they imploring him for their sinking ship just launched, +calling him "Father". + +For though the Jews had been content to see that Europe which they +contemned parcelled out among a few, while the mass of men hovered +countryless--from this had arisen their lucre--their mental quality +was too rich in business shrewdness to tolerate in their own case +any such Bedlam: yet they stood helpless before the disaster, and +only in the Regent was hope. + +On that night of the arrival of their Petition, the Prime Minister +and the Commander-in-Chief dined in the Palace, placid men at the +moment when soup began, the Regent's sky quite clear, for, though a +rumour whispered that the Lords were designedly lengthening +discussion of the Bill, this gave no one any concern. + +During entremêts, however, a scribbled card was passed into the hand +of the Commander-in-Chief, and, as he read, his eyebrows lifted. +Craving permission, he hurried out, had some talk with his Director +of Military Intelligence, and returned pale. + +Afterwards, as they three sat on a balcony overlooking the lake, +with cigars, the Regent said: "I have thought, Sir Robert Wortley, +of sending out at once two thousand Tommies under, say, General Sir +John Clough, to the help of those poor Jews...." + +Here the Commander-in-Chief cleared his throat, and in a strained +voice interfered: "That is, my Lord King, if we ourselves have not +need of every soldier of the line within the next week". + +The Regent deposited his ash with peering eyes, puzzled. + +"What does your Lordship mean?" + +"Your Lordship's Majesty, I was summoned from dinner just now to +talk with Major-General Sir Maurice Coppleston, who reports +movements of armed men, just come to his knowledge, and now going +forward on a considerable scale, all northward. He gathers that +these can only consist of Territorials and Yeomanry Cavalry, of whom +not less than twelve battalions of rifles and three batteries of +artillery, officers and men, are now on the way to, or massed upon, +York. How widely the movement may actually extend--God knows". + +Silence now: Sir Robert Wortley suddenly whitening to the lips. Then +Hogarth, in a very low voice, said: "They do not know me". + +"If I may crave leave to retire at once--" from the Commander-in- +Chief; and Hogarth gave consent. + +Queer things, omens, doubtings, weird clouds, gathered about Hogarth +that night. When at eleven he gave audience to Admiral Quilter- +Beckett, arrived from the _Boodah_ Quilter-Beckett said: "Strange +the fine weather here: at sea it is quite rough, the _Boodah_ well +under foam, and that old _Campania_ pitches so--" + +"You have come, then, in the _Campania_?"--from Hogarth. + +"Yes, my Lord King". + +"And what about the yacht?" + +"Oh, the yacht: in her I have sent the two hundred men to the +_Mahomet_". + +"_Which_ two hundred men, Admiral?" + +Quilter-Beckett stared. + +"Your Lordship's Majesty has forgotten: I had instructions that you +desired some interchanges among the garrisons, and had ordered the +sending of two hundred of my men to the _Mahomet_, I to receive in +return two hundred from her". + +"And you have sent your two hundred?" "Yes, my Lord King". + +"Have you received the two hundred from the _Mahomet?_" + +"They had not arrived when I left the _Boodah_". + +"So that you left only one hundred men in the _Boodah_, with +instructions to receive two hundred others?" + +"That is so, my Lord King". + +There was silence. + +"But suppose I tell you that I have given no such instructions: will +your heart--_leap?_" + +Hogarth clapped a sudden hand of horror upon Quilter-Beckett's +shoulder. + +"My God--!" Quilter-Beckett started like a gun's recoil. + +"Be calm, Admiral: it may be only some mistake....From whence had +you this order?" + +"From--from the _Mahomet_, in the usual course--" + +"Good night, Admiral; I would be alone". + +At that very hour a world-tragedy was being enacted over the dark +and turbulent ocean, and the immensest of Empires was sinking into +the sea. + +Darkly, quietly, with no mighty and multitudinous tumult of man. + +That midnight the night-glass of many a mystified merchantman +searched the murk for those coruscations with which the crescent of +forts had constellated the Atlantic, the mariner's sea-rent waiting +ready, with his ship's-papers, in his cash box: but no galaxy of +lights glanced that night. + +To some, before this, they had appeared, but, as the ship +approached, had vanished, and it was as though the swarm of the +Pleiades had been caught from the skies before their eyes. Long +before dawn ships separated by three thousand miles had gained the +assurance that this or that sea-fort no longer rode the familiar +spot-had been rapt to the stars, had sunk, had somehow passed from +being. Before this monstrous marvel the mariner stood dumb, and it +was afterwards said that that wild night the terminals of heaven and +earth were lost, that the storm-winds were haunted, in all the air +lamentation, sobbings as for swallowed orbs, and the whisper: "It is +finished". + +Two days previously a telegram from Admiral O'Hara had gone to all +the forts in European waters, commanding an interchange of 200 of +their men with men of his own fort; and each officer in command, +ignorant that the same instructions had gone to others, had +complied: so that by the next morning, the 29th April, 1600 men from +eight forts were converging in yachts upon the _Mahomet_. As the +fort garrisons, originally numbering 500, had recently been reduced +to 300, the others having been mostly drafted into the 2nd Division +of the British Royal Marines, compliance with Admiral O'Hara's order +left a garrison of 100 only at each of eight forts. + +Toward five in the afternoon of that day, the 29th, 700 men, to the +bewilderment of her officers, were in the _Mahomet_ two of the +fort-yachts having arrived upon a troubled First Lieutenant who was +in command, all attempts to see the Admiral since the morning having +failed. + +But near seven the Admiral summoned the Treasurer to his _bureau_ +near the bottom, he being in dressing-gown and slippers, very +slovenly, seeming either drunk or sick, his mouth gaping to his +pantings, and anon his languishing eye shot dyingly to heaven. + +"Well, you see how I am, Mr. Treasurer", he went, "seedy. Pain in +this temple, trouble with the respiration, and a foul breath. Poor +Admiral Donald, Mr. Treasurer, poor Admiral Donald. The fashion of +this world passeth away, sir, and the Will of God be done! +Sometimes, I pledge you my word, I almost wish that I was dead. +There are things, sir, in this world--Ah, well, God help me; I feel +very chippy. I wanted to ask you, sir, to let me see the books, and +hand me over at once all unaudited and unsettled funds in your +counting-house, though I'm not fit for affairs to-day, sir, God +knows--" + +"Sir!" cried the Treasurer, a hard-browed, bald-headed man with a +fan-beard, savouring of banks and ledgers. + +"Just pass them over, sir". + +"Well, this is the most singular order I ever heard of!" + +"Obey me promptly, sir, or, by God, I cashier you!" roared O'Hara, +his raised lids laying nude the debauchery of those jaundiced juicy +balls. + +"Be it so, Admiral Donald"--the Treasurer bowed: "but on the +understanding that I formally protest against the irregularity, and +report it to the High Chancellor". + +He retired, and in half an hour returned with two clerks who bore +books, himself a carpet-bag containing in cash-boxes £ 850,000, paper +and gold, which he deposited on the Admiral's _bureau_, and, after +again protesting before the clerks, went away. + +Not far off by now were some of the other six fort-yachts, +converging with their 200 upon the _Mahomet_, and as the Admiral had +no intention of being put into irons as a lunatic in his own fort, +at eight o'clock he stole from his apartments, dressed now, not in +uniform, but in priest's robes and a voluminous cloak, bearing in +one hand the bag, in the other a key. + +Those lower depths of the _Mahomet_ were an utter solitude, lit with +rare rays; yet the Admiral journeyed through and up peering, +skulking, pausing, hurrying, and, if by chance a light caught his +face, it showed a horror of convulsive flesh, his body a mass of +trembling, like jelly. + +Now, the forts had been built to fight; and (since nothing is +impossible), if they fought, they might fall into an enemy's hand: +to obviate which, there was in a little room on the third floor a +handle which opened by hydraulics a door in the fort's side on the +fifth floor below, the existence of this room being unknown save to +each Admiral and to four of his lieutenants, and its key kept in a +spot known to these. This key O'Hara now had in hand; and as he +pushed it into the lock, his jaw jabbered like a baboon's. + +Night was now come; the sea rough; Spain lost to sight; the two +emptied yachts on the way back to their forts; yonder the lights of +the _Mahomet II_. lying-to; two officers in oilskins walking arm in +arm, to and fro, on the roof; and said one: "Look at those waves +there all of a sudden: they rather seem to be breaking on the wrong +side of us". + +Then they resumed their talk; and to and fro they walked, arm in +arm. + +Till now one with sudden hiss: "But-good Christ-just look-why, the +roof's _leaning_--!" + +At that moment an outcry and runners from below, shouts, a trumpet- +call, were borne on the winds to them: for the Admiral had rushed up +to the manned parts of the fort, all hell alight in his eyeballs, +bawling out, "The boats! The _Mahomet_ is sinking!" + +In spite of which many perished, the survivors afterwards declaring +that the tragedy mesmerized their nerves with a certain awe not to +be compared with the terrors felt on sinking ships, the _Mahomet_ +affecting them like a being of life, like behemoth slowly dying, or +some doomed moon. She gave them, indeed, plenty of time, though when +the steel portals on two of her sides were opened, the sea washed up +the steps, making the launching very delicate feats, and near the +last the leaning was so marked, that there was difficulty in +standing; and still in patient distress she waited while the waves +like multitudinous wolves, trooped to prey upon her. + +As the Admiral ran to the outer Collector's Office to embark, he was +faced by the Treasurer, revolver in hand, and "Hand me over that +bag, Admiral", he said pretty coolly, "or I blow out your brains". + +O'Hara's mouth worked: he could not speak. + +"Will you?" said the Treasurer: "no doubt you mean to hand it over +to the proper authorities, but I prefer to do that myself. Be quick, +you old dog!" + +Whereat O'Hara, having no weapon, dropped the bag, and trotted wide- +eyed forward to the thronged scene of the launchings. + +There were more than enough boats, and though on the lowest side of +the fort nothing could long be done, all had gone off, when the +fort, having settled very low, looking for some time like a brawling +cauldron and area of breaking waves coloured by her hundred lights, +went down, and was not. + +Whereupon the yacht, over a hundred yards away, was caught in the +traction of her strong enthralment, and, like a planet, started into +running round a region of sea which wheeled; while seven of the +boats, rowing for life, were grasped, and dragged back, with a +hundred and nine, into the deep. + +"Toll for the brave...." + +As to the other boats, they arrived at Tarifa the following evening, +with 583; but the Admiral ordered the _Mahomet II_. to Cadiz, where +soon after midnight he landed, and, by negotiation with a "_Jefe_", +in an hour had a train for Madrid. As he was about to step in, the +Treasurer touched his shoulder. + +"What, Admiral, off by land?" + +"Yes, sir, as you know", said O'Hara, "for you have been spying my +movements for the last hour. How childish to imagine that I have +anything to fear, or want to escape! Why, I am bound for England--my +only object in the land journey being quickness. I even invite you +to come with me" + +"All right, Admiral, I will....If you be tempted to murder me _en +route_, remember these"--a pair of pistols; and they set out at +about the hour when the whole crescent of tragedies was over. + +At six that evening a yacht, a copy of the _Mahomet II_., had come +to the Cattegat sea-fort to land 200 men who wore the Empire's blue- +jacket, the name "Mahomet" on their caps--nothing to show that they +were not genuine Mahomet men, though some looked rather sea-sick; +but in reality they were young lords, stock-brokers, Territorial +Officers, men-about-town, park-keepers, undergraduates, secretly +armed with knife and revolver, and knowing, too, where the armoury +of the sea-fort lay. + +Meantime, three other yachts, all named _Mahomet II_., were a-ply in +the Atlantic, two containing 400 men each, one 600, each of the +first two to land 200 at a fort at six, and her remaining 200 at the +next fort by eight-thirty, serving four forts, the last to land 200 +at each of three forts: so that by 10.30 P.M. each of eight forts, +including the Cattegat, contained 200 enemies disguised as fort-men. + +And punctually at eleven, in each, began perhaps the darkest +massacre of history--no quarter given--and when the alarm went +forth, whichever of the unarmed fort-men rushed to the dark armoury +found the door fastened against him. Of two men in bed, talking +together through an open door, one arose at the stroke of a clock +and killed the other; some perished in sleep--all very quietly +accomplished: a few shots, a few lost echoes in the vast castles, a +few daubs of blood. And in no case did a single one, either +massacred or assassin, escape alive: for, in every case, some one or +other of the fort-officers--Admiral, Lieutenant, Commander--to +prevent capture, opened the inlet to the flood in the very thick of +the doom, went down with his muteness and his bubbling, and the sea, +a secret in its bosom, rolled over the Sea. + + + + +XLIX + +THE DÉBÂCLE + + +All the next day, till near 9 P.M., not one syllable was definitely +known of this tremendous fact by anyone in Britain: for though, +early astir, the Regent telegraphed the _Mahomet_, all day he waited +without reply. + +At eleven the Prime Minister said to him: "Things, my Lord King, +wear at this moment an aspect so threatening, that I see no escape +from civil war, even if it be brief, except by the immediate forcing +through of the Bill, and I stand ready--now--to propose you as new +peers--" + +"Wait", answered the Regent: "pass to-night the Bill should, but I +think I shall effect that by myself going to the Lords, and +listening a little to the talk". + +A dark day, with an under-thought always, whatever the business, of +one thing--the Sea.... + +About 5.30, as was his custom, he went up a stair to pass along two +corridors to the little cream suite in which lived Margaret, for +whom the doctors now promised sanity, her forehead daily seeming to +drink-in peace from the contact of his palm, after which she would +comb his hair, he lying on a sofa, or taking tea; and, "Well, dear", +he said, this last day of all, as her ladies retired to an inner +salon, "how is the head?" + +"I have seen you before", she replied: "what is your name?" + +"Dick Hogarth. Come to me, and let me lay my heavy head on you. The +heart of your friend bodes to-day, bodes, bodes; but is not afraid: +a tough heart, Madge. Do you like me to press my hand upon your head +like that?" + +Then, weary of his moaning heart that moaned that day like choruses +of haunted winds through desolate halls, he fell to sleep even as he +mumbled to her, she, seated near his sofa, playing with his hair, +his arm around her, faint zephyrs from the window fanning his head, +waving down the valenciennes. + +But now she tossed the comb away, hummed, became restless, +disengaged her shoulders, rose, strayed listlessly, with sighs, and +on finding herself in the ante-chamber, opened the door, went out +into a corridor, leant her back, eyeing the floor; and next with a +great sigh set to gazing upward, droning two notes, one _doh_, one +_soh_. All was silent. But now a sound of voices that drew her, she +moving into another longer corridor, with balusters which overlooked +a hall below, and yonder at the stair-foot were two men in +altercation, one a guard, to whom the other was saying "But I tell +you the lydy herself arst me to go to her; it's an appointment, just +like any other appointment. Do let a fellow pass!" and with mouth at +ear he added: "_It's an affair of the 'eart! 'Ere's a sov--_" + +"Couldn't, my friend, couldn't", the guardsman said. + +But now Harris: "Why, there she is 'erself, so 'elp-! come out to +meet me, as the Lord liveth!"--ran then toward where she looked over +to send up the hoarse whisper: "I sye--didn't you tell me yourself +to come--?" + +On which she nodded amiably, smiling, touching a rose in her bosom. + +"There you are! What more do you want?" he said to the guard, who +now gave him passage: and like a dart he darted, like a freed lark, +or unleashed hound, fleet on the feet, with lifted brow. + +"I sye!" he whispered her, all active, brisk as a cat, ecstatic-- +"where's 'e?" + +"Who?"--she still at her rose, a memory straying in her that here +was a friend, whom the Terrible One had bid her obey. + +"Mr.--the Regent", he whispered. + +"I don't know him. What is your name? _My_ name is--" + +"Oh, you muddle-headed cat! Don't you know the dark man with the +black moles--quick!" + +"_Sh-h-h_--he is sleeping". + +"Gawd! is he though? Come, show me! I've got a old appointment--" + +She led the way: the two corridors--the door--the room, he treading +on air, brow up, eyes on fire, knife bright and ready; and eight +feet from the couch she put out her forefinger, pointing, smiling, +Hogarth's face toward them, his mouth pouting in sleep, bosom +breathing, a breeze in his hair. + +From the lips of Harris, in the faintest snake-hiss, proceeded, +"Sleep, my little one-sleep, my pretty one--_sleep_--" and with a +wrist as graceful as the spring of a tigress he had the knife buried +in Hogarth's left breast. + +Some instinct must have pierced Hogarth's sleep an instant before +the actual blow, for while the knife was yet in him he had Harris's +wrist; and the assassin fled writhing, so brisk a trick had cracked +his elbow. + +And blanched and short-breathed sprang Hogarth, but at once +tottered, Margaret, open-mouthed, regarding him, till he suddenly +cried out "Ladies!", and before they came had hurried out, drawing +his coat over the place of blood. + +In the second corridor he had to stop and lean, but then descended, +striking all whom he passed with awe at his face, till he stumbled +into his own drawing-room, and, as he fell, was caught by Sir +Francis Yeames, the Private Secretary. + +The wound had passed along the outer front surface of the second rib +toward the scapula, injuring two of the branches of the axillary +artery: so whispered the Resident Medical Attendant, while the +council of doctors pronounced the condition "very grave", but not +"dangerous"--a case for "judicious pressure"; and after a long swoon +he opened his eyes; in the deeply-recessed series of windows, narrow +and round-topped, now dying the twilight; the insignificant bed lost +in a chamber of frescoes and vast darksome oils of battles and +loves. And, suddenly starting, he asked: "What's the time?" + +"Seven-thirty, my Lord King", answered Sir Martin Phipps. + +"Ah, I remember: I was stabbed. Who did it?" + +"It can only be assumed from the evidence of a guardsman that it was +a servant in the Palace, called Harris". + +"Aye, I think I saw his face. Does anyone know of the matter?" + +"Very few persons so far....The police are after Harris". + +Now the Regent started, understanding that the condemnation of +Harris would mean a revelation of the Colmoor-horror secret; and he +said after a minute, "John, is that you? Will you go and have the +whole thing quashed?....And now, doctor, the wound". + +"The wound is not what we call 'dangerous', my Lord King: ah, but +believe me, it was a narrow shave". + +"I dare say, Sir Martin: the outcomes of this particular world do +arrive by narrow shaves; but they arrive, and life is an escape. At +any rate, doctor, I shall be able to go, as arranged, to the Lords--" + +The doctor smiled. "No, never that". + +"I shall go". + +And at once he leapt from bed, staggering headlong in the effort, to +strike his head against a window corner, while all ran, crying out, +to catch him, the doctor thinking: "Those whom the gods destroy they +first drive mad". + +So far not a whisper of the stab had reached even the Prime Minister +or the Prince; but since the news of moving troops, and the +reluctance of the Lords to pass the Bill, agitated all, London came +out to watch his descent upon the Lords. + +He went in precisely the spirit of a professor who steps to the +chair, smiles, and takes the class; but as he drove down Whitehall, +this thought pierced him with a keener point than the steel of +Harris: "_The Sea...!_" + +He did not know that at last a thousand transmitters, from Tarifa, +from Frederikshavn, from many a ship, were thrilling the ether with +messages as to the Sea. + +Nor did he know that that day Frankl had whispered to some dozen +people, with proofs and old newspapers, that convict past of the +Regent. + +And from his very first entering, when the Lord Chancellor rose, and +the Regent made the bow, he was shocked by the scene of open +insolence spread before him. + +Everywhere the boldest eyes regarded him; he saw smiles of scorn, +snarling visages, as, with reclining head and lowered lids, his eyes +rested on the House: a hard gaze. Unfortunately, his pallor was +perfectly obvious, and its significance, the stab being unknown, was +misunderstood. + +And up rose a young lord, who stammered unprofundities just below +the region of lawn-sleeves to the right; and another with slow step, +as if to music, came up the gangway, and spoke at the table; and +another after him: and it needed sustained effort to understand what +they said; the brain, as it were, would not close upon statement +after statement so insignificant. But Hogarth would have endured +till midnight, or longer, but for a growing doubt within him: "Am I +bleeding? Shall I not certainly faint?" + +And there was this other question: "To what greater daring of +insolence will these impossible speeches rise?" + +Suddenly, at five minutes to ten, in the very midst of a duke's +speech, the Regent, with dizzy brain, was on his feet: there was a +few moments' gasp and breathlessness; and then--all at once--it was +as though a wind from hell swept through that House, whirling in its +vehemence Regent, lords, Gallery, Black Rod, Clerk, Usher, and all; +and every face was marble, and every eye a blaze. + +The Regent cried: "Your lordships' eloquence--" + +And as he said "eloquence", a voice that was a scream, a forward- +straining form, a pointing finger: "Why, my lords, that man is only +a common convict!--reprieved for murder--escaped from Colmoor. And +all his forts are sunk!" + +It happened that in the midst of this outcry, the Regent fell back +afaint, the moles black, the face white. + +Now, here seemed simple panic: and like a pack of dogs which rush to +mangle a mongrel, they were at him pell-mell. + +See now a shocking scrimmage, a rush and crush for precedence, surge +upon surge of men jostling each other in a struggle to get near him, +sticks reaching awkwardly over heads to inflict far forceless blows, +and on his face the fists; a hundred roaring "Order!", fighting +against the tide; three hundred shrieking, "Kill him!" "Have him +done with!" "Dash out his brains!", and pressing to that job. +Sergeant-at-Arms, meanwhile, Clerk-attending-the-Table, and the +physician, had run to give the alarm; but it was by one of those +miracles of wild minutes, when turbulent sprites appear to mix +themselves in the business of men, worse--embroiling the embroiled, +that through the throng in the street rushed the word that the +Regent was being killed: and quick, before any fatal blow had been +struck, the rabble were there in that chamber, having brushed away +every barrier. + +They imagined themselves come to save: in reality they came to kill--were, +in fact, too many for the area of the room, so that men succumbed fast +as by plague-stroke under trampling feet, and even after twenty minutes +when sixty-seven lay mangled the scene of horror could not be said to +be ended. + +Early upon the irruption the physician, three policemen, a Reading +Clerk, and the Bishop of Durham, had managed to extricate and drag +the Regent out; and through the shouting of the outside crowd he was +driven home unconscious. + + + + +L + +THE DECISION + + +Somewhat before this hour Admiral O'Hara had arrived at Croydon, a +lust, a morbid curiosity, now working in this man--having committed +the ineffable sin, to enjoy its fruit by hearing what Richard +Hogarth now said, in what precise way he groaned, or raved, smiled, +or wept, or stormed; for he was cruelly in love with Hogarth. + +All the way had come with him the _Mahomet's_ treasurer, with his +bag of wealth--and two pistols. + +So at Dieppe O'Harra had wired to Harris: + +"Meet me at Croydon to-night, the 9.45 from Newhaven, as you love +life. Most important. Shall expect wire from you at the London and +Paris Hotel, Newhaven, not later than six, saying yes". + +But at Newhaven he had found no answer--Harris, in fact, not having +received the telegram, having already inflicted his stab, and fled +the Palace. + +Whereupon O'Hara, in an agony of doubt, had telegraphed Frankl from +Newhaven: + +"For God's sake find Harris. Make him meet me at Croydon to-night in +the 9.45 from Newhaven. Do not fail". + +Now, Frankl knew exactly where Harris was--hiding in the Market +Street house. And he said to himself: "All right: it's got something +to do with money, and a lot of it, too, with all this 'God's sake'. +Suppose we _both_ go to Croydon?" + +Hence Frankl missed the joy of seeing the Regent mobbed: for at 9.30 +he was waiting with Harris on the Croydon up-platform. + +And as the train stopped, they two hurried into the compartment +where O'Hara sat alone. + +"You, my friend?" said O'Hara to Frankl. + +"Large as life", replied Frankl: "I and the boy have already made it +up between us for a third each: you a third, I a third, Alfie a +third: that's fair; I keep the police off the backs of the pair of +you, and you pay me a third. What's the figure?" + +In one moment of silence O'Hara plotted; then his tongue yielded to +the temptation of the great words: "Eight-hundred-and-fifty +thousand, sir". + +So after three minutes' talk Harris got out, and, as the train +started, sprang into a first-class compartment in which was one +other occupant. + +Now, it was natural that the treasurer, carrying such a sum, should +scrutinize any stranger, but Harris disarmed suspicion: his right +arm, twisted by Hogarth, was in a sling, and he threw himself aside, +and seemed to sleep, between the peak of his cap and his muffler +hardly an inch of interval: so the treasurer, too, worn with travel, +settled into a half-drowse. + +Harris, however, like many of his type, was perfectly ambidextrous, +often using the left hand by preference; and as the train passed +Bromley, he darted, plunged his knife, streaked with the Regent's +blood, into the treasurer's heart, and huddled the body under the +seat. + +No stoppage till London Bridge, where, with the bag, Harris left the +train, Frankl and O'Hara trotting after his burdened haste; and, +after two changes of cabs, the three arrived at the Market Street +house. + +There Harris laid the bag on the floor of an empty back room, where +through a broken window came a little light, and the three stood +looking down upon the bag, solemnly as upon a body. + +Then suddenly Harris: "Come, gentlemen of the jury, let's have my +share of the dead meat: and 'ere's off out of it for this child-- +only this blooming arm of mine! it's going to get me nabbed as sure +as sticks. Never mind--trot it out, Captain! and don't cheat an +innocent orphan, lest the ravens of the valley pick out the yellow +galls of some o' you". + +Neither of the other two, however, seemed anxious for the division; +and after a minute's silence Frankl said: "The third of 850, I +_believe_, is 2, 8, 3; how are we going to carry away 283 thousand +without something to put it in? I vote, Pat, that we leave the bag +here, and come and divide at midnight sharp. How would that do?" + +"Yes", said Harris, "I think I see old Pat leaving the lot with me-- +what O! You know 'ow I'd fondle it for you, and keep it out of the +cold, cold world, till you came back, don't you, you bald-headed +priest?" + +"Shut your mouth, boy. We can't take it away without something, as +Mr. Frankl very justly observes. Aren't there some safes, Frankl, in +Adair Street?" + +"Right you are: and one, as I happen to know, empty. Who'll keep the +key?" + +"You, if you like, my friend. I'll keep the keys of the room-doors. +And Harris will stand guard". + +"The very thing", remarked Frankl. + +So it was agreed. Harris took the bag; they descended to the cellar; +then, striking matches, down three marl steps to the subterranean +way made for Hogarth; and along it, forty feet, they stumbled bent, +Harris gripped by each sleeve. + +Then in the Adair Street Board Room they lit a candle, and in the +room next it found the safes, the largest of which admitting the +bag, Frankl locked its door, took the key; O'Hara then locked the +room door, took the key; and at the stair-bottom locked another +door, took the key; so that Frankl could not now get at the bag +without him, nor he without Frankl, nor Harris without both. + +Two then went away, while Harris, sprawling cynically on a solitary +chair down in the parlour with straight open legs, awaited the +_rendezvous_ at twelve. + +He had not, however, sat very long, when the taper at his feet +glared on a face of terror at a sound of ghosts in the tomb that the +house was, and he started to his feet, prone, snatching his knife-- +thinking, as always, of the Only Reality, the police. But he had not +prowled three ecstatic steps when O'Hara stood before him. + +"Oh, damned fool!" he went with infinite contempt and reproach, "to +frighten anybody like that! What's it you are after now? Frighten +anybody like that...." + +"_Alfie_!"--O'Hara whispered it breathfully as the hoarse sirocco, +stepping daintily like the peacock. Tell it not in Gath! If Alfie +rammed the knife into the marrow of Frankl's back at the moment when +the safe was opened, then Alfie would have, not a third, but a half; +and the thing was desirable for this reason: that a half is greater +than a third... + +Harris saw that: but he seemed reluctant, meditating upon the +ground; then walking, hands in pockets. + +"Why, boy, he is only an interloper", said O'Hara: "I meant the +money to be divided fairly between you and me. Why should this Jew +come in?" + +"All right", said Harris: "I don't mind". + +"And I know a little castle in Granada, Alfie, which we'll buy--" + +"All right: you go away. It's agreed". + +And O'Hara hurried away, took a cab, drove for the Palace; while +Harris, left alone, sat serious, with sprawling straight legs, and +presently muttered: "Blind me, I must be going dotty or something! +p'raps it's this arm...." + +He had not thought of killing Frankl, until it had been suggested!-- +some class-habit, or instinct, of honour among thieves (which, +however, his reason despised)...But five minutes after O'Hara had +gone he started alert, staring, with tight fist, and, "All right, +you two", said he, "blood it is!" + +He sat again: and again, after twenty minutes, the house gave a +sound--Frankl, who had let himself in by the front door, each member +possessing a key to that. + +"Well, Alf", said he, "all alone? Then, we two can have a little +chat between us little two". + +And he stood and talked, while Harris sprawled and listened, +Frankl's road to his end being more circuitous than O'Hara's, more +hedged, too, with reasons, scruples, sanctions: but he reached it, +pointing out that a half is greater than a third; also that O'Hara +would be a continual witness against Harris' past, whereas he, +Frankl, left England for Asia the next morning. + +Alfie pretended aversion to bloodshed, but finally consented; upon +which Frankl went away, and took cab for Scotland Yard: his idea +being to have Harris arrested red-handed in the murder of O'Hara. + +The streets through which he drove wore a singular aspect--of +commotion, hurry, unrest, two dragoon-orderlies galloping past him +at the Marble Arch, in Whitehall the tramp of some line-regiment +battalion, and he said to himself: "He is going to fight it out with +them, I suppose--Satan take the lot!" + +At Scotland Yard he said to the Inspector in Charge, having given +his card, that if two officers were placed at his disposition, he +might be able to lead them to the arrest of a man long "wanted", who +now premeditated another murder. + +Meantime, O'Hara was in conversation with Loveday in the Regent's +library, nearer the centre of which stood a group of four with their +heads together--Prime Minister, First Lord, War Office Secretary, a +Naval Lord; further still, a spurred General, cloaked over his out- +stuck sword, writing, with a wet white brow; and, "I suppose he will +want to see you", said Loveday, "if you have anything to say. But +the doctors have first to be reckoned with: I suppose you know that +he has been stabbed and beaten". + +"Stabbed! by whom?" + +"By Harris". + +"No! When?" + +"This afternoon". + +"Ah! I did not know". + +"It was by your recommendation, it appears, that Harris became +Captain Macnaghten's servant", said Loveday with his smile, looking +very gaunt and bent-down. + +"Tut, sir!"--from O'Hara--"you are not my judge: I am here to see +the Lord of the Sea, my King". + +"Ah!--you still give him the title". + +And now O'Hara, drawing his chair nearer to ask: "_How did he take +it?_" stretching back the waiting mouth to hear that thing. + +"The Lord Regent? Well, at eight-thirty he went to the House of +Lords, where they beat him nearly to death on the throne, the gentle +hearts, and the doctors forbade me to speak to him of the Sea; but +his eyes seemed to question me, so I leant over, and told him". + +"Yes--and whatever did he say?" + +He said: "'What, old Pat?'" + +O'Hara rose to stand by a hearth, black-robed to the heels and +tonsured, and at the angle of his jaw some sinews ribbed and moved: +not a syllable now from him. + +"I am going in now to him", said Loveday: "if you care to wait here, +I will see"--and passing through a palace pretty busy that night +with feet and a thousand working purposes, went to sit at the sick +bed, the doctors retiring. + +"How is the pain?" + +"The pain", said the Regent very weakly, "is nonsense: I am not +going to be bullied by doctors, but shall do exactly as I like". + +"And what is that, Richard?" + +"There is a Normandy village, John, called Valée-les-Noisettes-- +white houses with an extraordinary sound of forest about, one of +Poussin's landscapes, with a smithy under a chestnut precisely as in +the poem; and the blacksmith is a charming man. I dare say someone +will find me money enough to purchase a share of his smithy: and +with him I shall work, starting for him before sunrise, with my +sister". + +Loveday, wondering if he was delirious, said irrelevantly: "I have +to tell you that by five A.M. there will be 15,000 additional +infantry in London, with--" + +"Ah, I wish they'd lend them me to send out to those poor Jews, +John. But, for myself--I was mad when I gave that order. It won't +do! the world is addicted to its orbit, and relapses. I don't say +that it will be always so, but it is now. As against the Empire of +the Sea arises--Pat O'Hara; as against the brushing aside of these +rebels arise--Germany, Russia, the hostile world. Consider the +rancour of the nations at Britain's late advantages in sea-rent, try +to conceive the scream of jubilation that rings to the sky to-night +against her, and against me. Do you think I could _now_ start a +civil war in England? for the satisfaction of my own pride? I call +God to witness that never for my own pride have I done aught, but +that the Kingdom of God might come. I know that bitter tears will +flow at the fall of the righteous man--many calling me 'traitor' for +abandoning those ready to die for me. Yet it shall be. I never +thought to fail, to fly, John Loveday, chased by such little +fellows: but God has done it. Well, then, the smithy. You and all, +therefore, will find enough to do to-night". + +Loveday lifted a face streaming with tears to say: "The man, O'Hara, +waits to see you". + +"Really? Well, come, we will see him...." and in some minutes O'Hara +was there by the bedside, the eyes of the two fixed together, over +Hogarth's face five oblongs of sticking-plaster, his head bandaged, +and at a corner of O'Hara's mouth a twitching. + +"Pat, did you betray me?" asked Hogarth. + +O'Hara nodded: "Yes". + +"Well, you may sit and tell me, and ease your poor heart". + +And a long time O'Hara sat, going into the mighty crime, torturing +details, revelling in the vastness of the horror, the sickness of +the self-inflicted filth, and pangs of the self-inflicted scalpel. + +"And why did you do it, my friend?" + +"Because I worship you...." + +"Well, perhaps I understand you, crooked soul. But what will you do +now?" + +"We shall see. What will you?" + +"I am going to France to live as a private person". + +"Tut, you remain as simple as a child: the earth's not large enough +to contain you, you couldn't now remain a private person for three +weeks. Come, I have discrowned you: I will give you another crown, +though I shall never see you wear it. Why not go to your own +people?" + +"Which people?" + +"The Jews". + +"Don't talk that same madness". + +"My time with you is short, Raphael Spinoza"--O'Hara glanced at his +watch--"in five minutes we part, never, I do assure you, to meet +again. Listen, then, to me: you are a Jew. I knew your mother--the +most intellectual woman, I suppose, who ever drew breath, the only +one whom I have loved; and I should have known you merely from your +resemblance to her at my first glance at you in Colmoor, though I +had more precise data: the three moles, the bloodshot eye, for +didn't I baptize you? haven't I rocked you in my arms? You know St. +Hilda on the hill over Westring, which you found me examining that +morning after our escape from the prison? I was priest there, three +years, and twice I have confessed her--ah! and remember it! for when +your foster-father wanted her to turn Methodist, she wouldn't stand +that, and since she must needs be a _meshumad_ (apostate), became a +Catholic. Well, now, I once saw at Thring, and once in the _Boodah_, +an old goat-hair trunk of yours: what is become of it?" + +"I have it--" Hogarth was shivering, his eyes wide, and in his +memory a strange singsong crooning of _t'hillim_, heard ages before +in some other world over a cradle. + +"Did you know that that trunk has a false bottom?" asked O'Hara. + +"Yes". + +"Oh, you knew...And have you never seen a bundle of papers under +it?" + +"Yes--I assumed them to be old farm-accounts...." + +"They are all the proofs you need concerning your birth; it is _my_ +trunk by the way--Ah, I must go!" + +At the door he fastened upon Hogarth a last reluctant gaze to say +good-bye, but Hogarth, staring wildly afar, did not turn his eyes, +and O'Hara, with a sigh, was gone. + +He drove to Adair Street, and, as he passed by a mews, Frankl, +waiting there with two detectives, saw him by a street-light, but +made no remark. + +When O'Hara entered the house, he looked about for Harris, but +Harris had gone to the lodging of a woman in James Street near, to +arrange a hiding-place for the bag, passing out through the Market +Street house; and O'Hara, opening the two locked doors, entered the +safe-room, where he stood waiting, his forehead low, resting on the +steel top; and now a sob throbbed through his frame, and his lips +let out "..._so lovely...so great_...." + +Count a minute's stillness: and now the man's soul and being +foundered in a storm of sorrow, and half-words borne on shivering +puffs of breath, and choking groans, broke the stillness: "My Liege! +Richard! my King!" + +This died to silence; and now he roamed the room with furious steps, +and lowering brow, and an out-pushed under-lip, until, deciding, he +drew from his pocket a penknife, opened it, leant now one elbow on +the safe-top, blade in hand, considered, considered, hesitating, +then with lifted chin and the thinnest whimpering like a puppy, +pretty pitiful, cut from under his left ear to the chin. + +Certainly a hurt so shallow could never have killed, for the hand +had been cherishingly restrained, and the thing was no sooner done +than the priest, seeing that he did not die, ran horror-eyed, +streaming with blood, shouting a hoarse whisper: "Help! help! help!" + +But at that cry he sighed, fell back, and effectually died, his +heart pierced by the knife of Harris. + +And some moments later the face of Frankl, who bore a candle, looked +in at the door. + +"Is that all right, Alfie?"--in the weakest whisper. + +"Come on in, and don't ask any questions", said Harris. + +Frankl entered, peered upon the dead visage of the priest; then, the +detectives being now behind the parlour-door below, with handcuffs, +rose to run to summon them: but, to his horror, Harris was now +before the door; he saw in the candlelight those eyes of Alfie fixed +upon him: and he knew: before the least threat or movement by +Harris, the Jew sent to Heaven a piercing shriek, his hour come.... + +"...dirty-livered Jew..." striking in the breast, and, as Frankl +fell, he gave him one other in the temple, with "Down, down to hell, +and sye _I_ sent thee thither"; and to dead O'Hara near he gave one +in the cheek, with "Go up, thou bald-head, it _is_": all in two +seconds' space; and he was now about to turn anew to hack at Frankl, +when his keen ear heard a creak; and he sprang up a spinning +motionlessness--the Reality before him. + +And instantly on the realization of that fact, he was submissive, +reverent, as before the very Helmet of Pallas, goddess of Blue; and +said he with sullen dejection, reverent of the Helmet, but easy with +the man: "All right: you've beat me...I suppose it's that Regent- +stabbing affair brought you: it was I did it all right". + +When they went down, almost from the door a crowd gathered, pressing +close, Harris' hands and front all red from O'Hara's throat; and +when one policeman, big with the fact, whispered a gentleman: "You +may have heard, sir, that the Regent was stabbed to-day--it's been +kept precious dark, but the fact's so: this is the beauty as done +it", like loosened effluvia that news flew--but distorted, largened-- +the stains were Regent's blood!--and beyond measure had the crowd +spread ere it reached the Edgware Road. + +There at the corner, as the officers looked about for a cab, and one +blew a whistle, a man reached out and fiercely struck Harris on the +face, while another shouted: "Lynch the beggar!"; and now arose a +hustling, huddled impulses, and now in full vogue that grave noising +of congregations when the voice of God jogs them; while Harris, +excessively pallid, handcuffed, began to whistle; a number of other +police now seeking the crowd's centre, but with difficulty; a cab, +too, slowly making a way which closed like water round it: and when +this had nearly reached him, Harris, in his eagerness to get in, +sprang far toward it--and slipped. He never rose again: the crowd +rolled over his last howl, and in the midst of a great row as of +hounds, trampled him to a paste. + +About that very time that better man whom he had stabbed, in tying +up in bed a bundle of old papers, was saying: "Yes, I will go to my +people".... + +And by six A.M. he was up, in his study, dressed, looking quite +owlish with his excess of eyes, which, however, danced at the first +news of the morning--the arrival at Portsmouth of the _Boodah II_., +which had raced like a carrier-bird since 8.30 P.M. of the 29th, +full of the news of the vanished _Mahomet_: on her being 200 +marines. + +After that he spoke through the telephone with various Government- +offices, early astir that morning, till the Private Secretary looked +in with the announcement that his train would be ready in ten +minutes. + +His last act in the Palace was the sending to the Treasurer at +Jerusalem, for Miss Frankl, the telegram: + + "Be surprised, but believe: I am a Jew." + "RICHARD". + +Of the Household some fifty, catching wind of what was toward, +offered, even begged, to go with him; but in general he refused, and +set out with a suite of only seven. + +They reached Hastings at twenty minutes to ten, where, to the +disgust of all, the region of Central Station was found crowded; +whereupon Sir Francis Yeames held a consultation with a local +rector, and a dash was made to a private hotel near the pier. + +There, looking from behind window curtains at eleven, Hogarth saw +before a paper-shop: + +FLIGHT OF THE REGENT + +A minute afterwards he started backward from the splintered window. + +Everything was known: + +LIFE-HISTORY OF THE CONVICT HOGARTH MARVELLOUS DETAILS + +The street, to its two vanishing-points, was one scene of hats, +mixed with upturned faces: and it was an aggressive crowd that gave +out a sound. + +Not till noon did the _Boodah II._ arrive; and then there was no +setting out--all the front windows of the house now broken, and in +the town a row like the feeding-time of lions, which uttered +"coward", "murderer", "convict", "traitor". Hogarth had been put to +bed, the two ladies were in a state of scare, Margaret anon crying +on Loveday's shoulder, declaring that "_He_" (meaning Frankl) was in +the crowd, and coming, coming, boring his way: she had seen him. + +At last, near four P.M., a portion of the yard-wall at the back was +broken down by the party, Hogarth was raised and dressed, and +through the breach the party passed into another back-yard, then +made beachward, Hogarth leaning on the arm of Sir Martin Phipps; but +they had no sooner come to the Esplanade than they were surrounded, +and when, on their attaining the pier, the pier-turnstile was closed +against the mob, it was impossible to conceive whence so many +missiles came. Once Hogarth stopped, faced round, looked at them, +but now a pebble bruised his left temple, and he dropped, fainting. + +Caught up by Sir Martin, Loveday, Sir Francis Yeames, and Colonel +Lord Hallett of the body-guard, he was hurried, a hanging concave +with abandoned head, to the long-waiting boat, and it was in a +scurry of escape, out of stroke, that the oarsmen rowed away. + +Yonder lay the yacht with her fires banked, and was soon under +weigh. + +She had started, when a harbour-master's motor-boat was observed +giving chase, in her an officer from Scotland Yard who bore a bag, +found by means of the key in Frankl's pocket in the Adair Street +safe; on its clasp the name "Mahomet", and it contained £850,000: so +that the yacht went wealthy on her way. + + + + +LI + +THE MODEL + + +The voyage to Palestine was marked by two events: one the stoppage +at Tarifa, where the five hundred from the _Mahomet_ were, these, +when taken on board the _Boodah II._, making an armed force of 700; +and then, toward sunset of the fifth day, a steamer exchanged +signals with the _Boodah II._, enquired after the whereabouts of the +Lord of the Sea, received the reply "on board", and when she stopped +it turned out that she had on board a Jewish Petition urging upon +Spinoza to come and throw in his lot with them. And here again was +that name of Rebekah, spelled now Ribkah. + +For the news of his fall--the fact that he was a Jew--had created a +mighty stirring in Israel, of wonder, of the pride of race. + +By the seventh day the yacht was off the Palestine coast, and Joppa, +seated on her cliffs, appeared over a foaming roadstead. But when a +landing was effected, they were to hear that there had been a +collision on the Jerusalem-Joppa railway, the line blocked, travel +suspended; so, as the filthy town was congested, the Royal party +took refuge in a great restaurant-tent, set up by a Polish Jew in +gaberdine and fur cap, who vociferated invitation at the door. All +was mud, beggary, narrowness, chaos, picturesque woe. Yet work had +commenced: between the upper and the nether millstone a woman ground +corn at a doorway; the camel passed loaded; the dragoman went with +quicker step. In the afternoon Spinoza, wandering beyond the +outskirts of the town, saw in an orange-grove, sitting before a +roofless hut, six diligent two-handed Jews exhaustively drawing the +cord of the cobbler; further still, and saw what could only have +been a Petticoat-Lane Jew ploughing with a little cow and a camel: +and he smiled, thanking God, and taking courage--had always loved +this land. + +The next morning he procured a number of clumsy waggons, with +horses, asses, camels, and provisions; and his caravan set out, to +travel all day over a plain, a "goodly land," the almond-tree in +blossom, orange and olive, everywhere lilies, the scarlet anemone, +he considering himself so familiar with the way, that he was their +only guide, though the morning was misty; and through the plain of +Sharon they wended over the worst roads in existence, until, passing +into a country of rocks, they made out afar the mountains of Judæa, +whose patches of white stone look like snow in sunshine, on the +roads streams of wayfarers, tending all eastward to Jerusalem, lines +of camels and waggons, pedestrians with wine-skins, mother and +sucking child on the solitary ass, and the Bedouin troop; but +Spinoza was all solitary among fastnesses on the third forenoon when +he muttered nervously: "I must certainly have lost the way". + +Thereupon he called halt, and the caravan turned back to re-find the +road, Spinoza prying on camel-back foremost, clad now in the caftan +and white robes of the Orient. + +But all day the caravan wandered out of the track in a white sea of +mist: no farmstead, nor cot, but the wild vine, and the wild fig, +and twice a telegraph-tree, still with its bark on, and the +abandoned hold of a bandit-sheik. Finally, near six P.M., Spinoza, +finding himself in a valley-bottom, sent out the order to pitch +camp: upon which the tents were fixed near a brook, waggons grouped +around, and animals picketed to grass. Spinoza, the two ladies, and +Loveday, then ate together at the door of one tent; after which he +rose and strolled away, thinking how best to handle this crab of +Israel. + +He noticed that the mist was lifting a little; and suddenly, as he +strolled, he stood still, listening: for remote tones of singing or +mourning seemed to meet his ear--from the west: and in some moments +more he saw the Mount of Olives--to the west, not, as he believed +that it must be, to the east, he having, in fact, in losing his way +from the coast, passed by Jerusalem to the north; and on the other +side of the Mount of Olives, from its foot to the Brook Kedron, +spread at that moment over the Valley of Jehosophat an innumerable +multitude, covered in praying-shawls, many prostrate, many with the +keen and stressful face of supplication lifted in appeal to God, +that He would visit His people, and turn again in this latter day to +His lost and helpless flock. Every child of Israel who could +contrive it, at whatever cost, was there, since it was the +prophesied day of--"the Coming". + +But a bold woman, summoning her fainting strength, bracing her +trembling knee, stepped a little up the hillside to fling high her +hand as a sign--Rebecca Frankl, celebrated now through Israel as the +elect of the sibyl Estrella; and at that signal the congregation, +gazing keenly into heaven, lifted up their voice in meek song, +singing the sibyl's "Hymn to the Messiah": + +"The oceans trudge and tire their soul, desiring Thee; and night- +winds homeless roam with dole, reproaching Thee; the clouds aspire, +and find no goal, and gush for Thee, reproaching Thee." + +"Thou scrawled'st 'I mean' in rocks and men, in trends and streams; +the prophets raved, to sages' ken Thou shewed'st dreams; Thou +shrouded'st dark the How and When in starry schemes, and trends and +streams." + +"The jungles blare, the glebe-lands low and bleat for Thee; the +generations rage and go, agaze for Thee; creation travaileth in woe, +with groans for Thee, agaze for Thee." + +"Adonai, come! with crashing rote of chariots come; or moonlight- +mild, alone, afloat, Messussah, come; with floods of lutes, or +thundering throat, but come! O, come! Messussah come." + +"The Arctics hawk-up their haunted heart, and raucous, spue; and +north-winds, wawling calls, outstart, to droop anew; the clouds like +scouts updart, depart, and truceless do, and droop anew." + +"How long! They breeds have waited fain what sibyls ween; Thou +scribbled'st in their secret brain 'I scheme; I mean'; the +constellations stray and strain: Break out! be seen what sibyls +ween". + +"The pampas stamp and, nomad, low, reposeless, lone; raging the +generations trow, and drudge, and drown; a anguished glance this +latter woe throws to Thy Throne, reposeless, lone"... + +Before them, above them, as they sang stood--a man. + +Hard by a wall of that Moslem mosque, once a chapel which marked the +supposed spot of "the Ascension", he stood, in an attitude of +suspense, astonishment, his body half-twisted--Spinoza. + +An instant, and he was aware of Jerusalem lying "as a city that is +compact" before him--not to the east--to the west! Yet another +instant, and he realized that the whole tract of humanity--man, +woman, child--was on its face before him. + +A faintness overcame him, shame, dismay; then, his blood now rushing +to his brow, his mouth sent out the passionate shout: + +"Not to _me!_ Not to _me! I am the Lord of the Sea....!_" + +But when the people heard this, saw him, knew him, they remained in +adoration.... + +By a special ship they had sent him a petition to come; here he was +weeks sooner than ship or airship could have conveyed him: and they +took him as the answer to their supplication, the answer which +Heaven willed, in the sure and certain faith that he would cure +their ache, and the ache of the world. + +An acclamation like the voice of many waters arose and rolled below +him, and on the bosom of that tumult he moved among them into the +Holy City, as darkness covered all. + + * * * * * * * + +He took the title of Shophet, or Judge, and for sixty years ruled +over Israel. + +It has been said that the initial "pull" over other nations +possessed by Israel (in respect of the sea-forts remaining in the +Gulf of Aden, Yellow Sea, Western Pacific) was the cause of his rise +as of some thrice-ardent Star of the Morning and asterisk dancing in +the dawn's dark: for the other nations, timorous of one another, +made never an attempt to build; but, for our share, we insist that +anyway Judæa was bound to become what she became--indeed, sea-rent +after the Regency collapse was decreased at the three forts, and +suddenly in the twelfth year of his judgeship Spinoza ordered its +stoppage. + +By which period the University of Jerusalem had become the chief +nerve-centre of the world's research and upward effort: for in +creating a "civilized State"--"proud and happy"--Spinoza did it with +that spinning rapidity of the modernization of Japan, so that in +whatever respects it was not a question of months, it was a question +of not many years. + +For, as in the soul of the Jewish people abode as before that genius +for righteousness which wrote the Bible, and as the soul of +righteousness lies even in this; Thou shalt not steal, therefore +Israel with some little pain attained to this: whereupon with +startling emphasis was brought to pass that statement: +"Righteousness exalteth a nation". + +For the promise says: "I will put a new spirit within them"; and +this--very rapidly--found fulfilment. + +Whereupon others fast, faster, found fulfilment, so that a stale and +bitter word was in Pall Mall, saying: "The lot of them seem to have +formed themselves into a syndicate to run the prophecies". + +Again the promise has it: "I shall be with them"; and again: "They +shall be a cleansed nation"; and again: "They shall fear Him". + +The transformation was rapid for the reason that it was natural, +seeing that it had been Europe only that, like a Circe, had +bewitched them into beastial shapes, "sharks", and "bulls", and +"bears", mediæval Jews, for example, having been debarred from every +pursuit save commerce: so that Shylock was obliged to turn into a +Venetian; and, in ceasing to be a Hebrew, became more Venetian than +the Venetians, for the reason that he had more brains, ready to beat +them at any game they cared to mention; but the genuine self of +Shylock was a vine-dresser or sandal-maker, as Hillel was a wood- +chopper, David a shepherd, Amos a fig-gatherer, Saul an ass-driver, +Rabbi Ben Zakkai a sail-maker, Paul a tent-maker: so that the return +to simplicity and honesty was quickly accomplished. + +And now, that done, behold a wonder: at the whirling of a wand the +swine of Circe converted back to biped man; whereupon without fail +whatsoever he does it shall astonishingly prosper: that succession +of wits, seers, savants, Heines, Einsteins, inspired mouths, pens of +iridium, brushes from the archangel's plumage, discoveries, new +Americas, elations, sensations--in therapeutics--in aero-nautics- +beyond-the-atmosphere--in the powers involved in sub-atoms--in the +powers, latent till now, involved in soul...for now each of +millions was free to think, free to manifest his own particular luck +and knack in discovery, having a country, foothold, not hovering +like Noah's dove, urging still the purposeless wing not to pitch +into nowhere: for the promise says: "Ye shall not sow and another +reap, ye shall not plant and another garner", but in a land of +gentlemen ye shall live, as it were to swellings of music, while a +noble height grows upon your smooth foreheads, and the sum-total of +the blending movements of your bodies and brains shall, as seen from +heaven, appear the minuet of a people. + +Within forty years mighty works had been done: forts, irrigation of +deserts, reclamation of the Dead Sea, passionate temples clapped to +the lower clouds about the perpetual lamp, and that baroque Art of +the Orient which at the Judges progresses in Summer through the +country would draw multitudes of foreigners to gape at so great +pomp, at Corinthian cities full of grace and riches which had arisen +to crown with many crowns that plain of Mesopotamia, and where +desolate Tyre had mourned her purples, and old Tadmor in the +Wilderness (Palmyra) had sat in dirt; to gape, too, at a Jerusalem +which in twenty years had crossed the Valley of Jehosophat, and +might really then be called "the Golden", a purged Babylon, a London +burnt to ashes and rebuilt somewhere else: for the Shophet proved +true Duke and Leader, born mountaineer, climbing from pinnacle to +wild pinnacle, becking his people after him with many a meaningful +gesture skyward and suggesting smile; and Israel followed his +thrilling way, hearing always the Excelsior of his calling as it +were the voice direct of Heaven. What no merits of his could give, +the land which he had chosen gave, Mesopotamia pretty soon proving +herself a treasury of mineral riches: here is bdellium and the onyx- +stone; and where the streaming Pison, dawdling, draws his twine of +waters over that happy valley of Havilah, there is gold--hoard +stored from before the Eozoic, as misers bury for their heirs, in +mine and friable quarry, rollick rain: "and the gold of _that_ land +is good". + +Here was not merely progress, but progress at increasing speed-- +acceleration--finally resembling flight, as of eagle or phoenix, eye +fixed on the sun: Tyre by the fiftieth year having grown into the +biggest of ports, her quays unloading 6,700,000 tons a year, mart of +tangled masts, felucca, galiot, junk, cargoes of Tarshish and the +Isles, Levantine stuffs, spice from the Southern Sea; while +Jerusalem had grown into the recognized school of the wealthier +youth of Europe, Asia and America. + +For it says: "The Kings of the earth shall bring their honour and +glory unto her"; and again: "She shall reign gloriously". + +And not Israel alone reaped the fruits of his own fine weather, but +his dews fell wide. For it says: "They shall be as dew from the +Lord"; and again: "They shall fill the face of the earth with +fruit"; and again: "All nations shall call them blessed". + +And so it was: for the example of Israel, his suasive charm, proved +compelling as sunshine to shoots, so that that heart of Spinoza +lived to see the spectacle of a whole world deserting the gory path +of Rome to go up into those uplands of mildness and gleefulness +whither invites the smile of that lily Galilean. + +The mission of "unbelieving" Israel was to convert Christendom to +Christianity: and this he did. + +We watch the Judge coming down the Mount of Olives in the midst of a +jubilant throng all involved in a noise of timbrels and instruments +of music: for his life was simple and one with the life of his +people. It is evening, all the west yonder a bewitched Kingdom +charm-embathed, wherein a barge of Venus bethronged with loves and +roses voyages on a sea of dalliance en route for the last Beatific-- +the last, the seventh, Heaven--whitherward gads all a pilgrim-swarm +of enraptured spirits, all, all thitherward, Paul caught up with +clothes aflaunt, and soaring eagle, Enoch transfigured, green +hippogriff, hop of squatted frog; and thitherward trots with +blinkings, bleating, the Ram of the Golden Fleece, the flagrant +flamingos flap and go. + +The Judge, hoary-headed now, in a robe of cloth-of-silver which +rippled, had but now got home from a Pilgrimage; and the time was +Simcath Torah, the Rejoicing of the Law, and the carrying of +Candles, in the month. Tishri: silver his robe and silver his hair +that hung round a brown and puckered skin, but silvery, too, his +every tooth still, and his vigour good; and, as down the Mount of +Olives he stepped, he saw Mount Sion and that Temple that he had +piled, across whose roughened frontispiece of gold glowed in a bow, +bold like the rainbow's, in characters of blazing sapphire and +chrysoprase, that inscription: + +"Y'HOVAH B'KOKMAR YSAD ARETS, CONEN SHAMAIM B'THBUNAH" + +and, as he saw it, lo, buoyancy caught the old man's feet: for the +cymballing and music had grown very fiercely hot, so that all the +congregation reeled in dance; and as the lasso drops round the +astonished prairie-horse and draws asprawl, so dancing caught and +drew his foot, and he danced. + +And his wife Rebecca, mother of many sons, prying from a window- +lattice, writhed odd the eyebrows of the cynic, one beyond the +other: for not with foot alone he danced, but his wrung belly +laboured in that travail of Orient dancing; and she turned and +smiled to Margaret Loveday a turned-down smile, implying shrug, +implying girding, her eyelids lowered, yet indulgent of his nature's +rage. + +And not with foot and abdomen alone he danced, but his two balancing +palms danced to the beat of the heat of the music's heart; and with +heel and toe he danced. And as he danced, he sang, all apant, +filling up with nonsense-sounds when the rhythm's imperative tramp +outran his improvisation; and singing he danced, and dancing sang: +with abdomen and arms he danced, and with toe and heel he danced. + +And dancing he sang: + + My hands, + be dancing to God, + your Guide, + And peal my pipes, + and riot my feet, + and writhe to His Heat, + my tripes. + So fair! + With Rum-te-te-Tum + te Tum, + And Rum and Tum, + and Rum-te-te-Tum, + and Rum-te-te-Tum, + te Tum. + So fair! + This freehold for seraphs free! + That flame! those skies! + and Blest is Her Name, + and blest are my eyes, + that see. + + + I'll dance, + I'll dance like a ram, + for fun, + I'll smack the sun, + I'll dance at the breeze + I'll dance till I breed + a son. + For Thou! + Thou bringest Thine ends + to pass: + This hump so high, + this lump and her sigh, + Thou lead'st through the Nee- + dle's Eye. + 'Tis well + the saurians sprawled, + and roared! + 'Tis well Thou art! + and well that Thou wast, + and well when at last + they soared! + And well, + O well that Thou art + to be + When seraph hearts + will laugh by this brook, + and break for the love + of Thee. + Thy years + shall still by increase + te Tum, + And dance and dance, + With Rum-te-te-Tum.... + +so, singing, he danced, and, dancing, sang; and their sounds grew +faint; and they entered into the City of Glory, and their sounds +failed.... + +They took him for the Sent of Heaven, nor did the results of his +glorious reign gainsay such a notion: the good Loveday, indeed, had +the agreeable fancy that our greatest are really One, who eternally +runs the circle of incarnation after incarnation from hoary old ages +till now--the Ancient of Days, his hair white like wool, quietly +turning up anew when the time yearns, and men are near to yield to +the enemy: Proteus his name, and ever the shape he takes is strange, +unexpected, yet ever sharing the same three traits of vision, rage +and generousness--the Slayer of the Giant--Arthur come back--the +Messenger of the Covenant--the genius of our species--Jesus the Oft- +Born. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE LORD OF THE SEA *** + +This file should be named 8lrds10.txt or 8lrds10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8lrds11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8lrds10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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