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 theCalabria, 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.
Herpassage, 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 Regentnow? 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 Hogarthwas afraidof 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 oftwoyoung 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 nameisRachel 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 ourkaddish”.
“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 villageposte 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, alreadyen 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 youshallhave 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, itis. 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 routefor 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 fingerso, 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 werekosherfor 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 herso. “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 ità proposof 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....”
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 theMahomet 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 theBoodahQuilter-Beckett said: “Strange the fine weather here: at sea it is quite rough, theBoodahwell under foam, and that oldCampaniapitches so—”
“You have come, then, in theCampania?”—from Hogarth.
“Yes, my Lord King”.
“And what about the yacht?”
“Oh, the yacht: in her I have sent the two hundred men to theMahomet”.
“Whichtwo 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 theMahomet, 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 theMahomet?”
“They had not arrived when I left theBoodah”.
“So that you left only one hundred men in theBoodah, 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 theMahomet, 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 theMahomet. 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 theMahomettwo 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 hisbureaunear 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'sbureau, 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 theMahomet, 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 theMahometwere 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 theMahomet 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'sleaning—!”
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! TheMahometis 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, theMahometaffecting 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 theMahomet 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 meen 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 theMahomet 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 namedMahomet 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.
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 theMahomet, 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, onedoh, onesoh. 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?Myname 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.