King John of Jingalo Part 45

"Are you hurt?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"The police; are they treating you properly?"

"I have nothing to complain of," she said.

"Won't you go home? You must see it is no use."

She turned away as though she had not heard him, and threw herself once more against the barrier she was unable to overcome. Into the shock of it she went, with "nothing to complain of," forgetful of self, forgetful of all but her blind unreasoning determination to gain her end. Her pa.s.sive yet battling form was borne away from him in the huge eddies of the crowd.

"Hot work!" said a voice at his side; a little man, with keen, appetized face, ferreting this way and that, was hurriedly taking notes as though his life depended on it. The King looked at him in surprise, and wondered what it meant.

"Got any news?" inquired the man, still scribbling at his notebook.

"What kind of news?"

"I'm not particular; anything suits me. I'm the Press."

"The Press?"

"Yes, reporter." And, as one proud of his great connection, he named the King's favorite journal.

Never it is to be hoped to his dying day did that poor penny-a-liner know what a piece of news he allowed in that moment to slip by--news which to him would have meant almost a fortune; and here he was actually rubbing shoulders with it; and making no profit.

"How many arrested?" he inquired.

"I don't know."

"Any of the leaders yet?"

"I have not heard."

Unprofitable company; the man moved away. They were separated by a fresh movement of the crowd.

A royal mail-van drove through the square, the police with difficulty making way for it. And the crowd, mistaking it for something else, rushed off to gaze and cheer excitedly at the prisoners within. The postman who sat mounting guard over the netted window at the rear smiled wittily at the popular error which made him for a few brief moments so conspicuous a figure. No doubt the incident gave the newspaper-man some copy, and the van, having contributed its share to the general amus.e.m.e.nt, rolled on its way.

Again the crowd made a rush; on the other side of the square a woman had managed to get arrested, and a strong body of constables was escorting her across to the police-station. Captors and captive walked quickly, anxious to get the thing through. The woman had a scared yet triumphant look in her eyes: she had succeeded in making the police do what they did not want to do; and now for a fortnight, or a month, or for two months--according to what these men might swear to, or the magistrate think--she and a few score of others would find in a criminal cell that temporary goal at which they had aimed; and the press would quiet the public conscience by saying that they had done it "for notoriety."

Always friendliest when it saw a woman actually under arrest, the crowd broke into applause--dividing its cheers impartially between prisoner and police. For this was what it had come out to see: this was why it had paid tram-fares from distant slums, sacrificing its evening at the "pub" and its pot of beer. These men of hard toiling lives and dull imagination were there to see women of a cla.s.s and education superior to their own break the law and get "copped" for it, just like one of themselves.

"Quite right too! teach them to be'ave as they ought to," was the comment pa.s.sed here and there--though as a matter of fact it had already been abundantly proved that it taught them nothing of the kind. But that, after all, is "Government" as understood by the man in the street; he is still the intellectual equal of the rustic, or of the child, who, smiting the reptile upon the head, "learns him to be a toad"; and it is down to his imagination that modern government has to play. And so, to ambiguous cheers uttered by rival factions, the triumphal procession of prisoner and escort pa.s.sed on its way.

"Three cheers for the Women's Charter!" cried a voice somewhere in the crowd; and there went up in response a genial roar, half of derision, half of sympathy.

"Give 'em h.e.l.l!" cried a wild little man, his face contorted with rage and the l.u.s.t which finds satisfaction in a blow. He went fiercely on, b.u.t.ting his shoulder against every woman he met. n.o.body arrested him; n.o.body cried "shame." "Give 'em h.e.l.l!" he cried.

"They're getting it!" laughed a pale youth with an underhung jaw.

Wherever the eye turned h.e.l.l could be seen having its will, and deriving a curious satisfaction from its momentary power to do foul things under the public eye.

"Oh, save me! save me! save me!" whimpered a woman's voice. Down in the gulf below, buried under the shoulders of men, a small elderly figure was clinging to the King's arm.

"Oh, can't you do anything for me?" wailed the poor little Chartist, with nerve utterly gone.

"Why don't you go home?" inquired the King kindly.

"I want to go home!" she said. "Take me!"

"The first thing, then, is to get out of this crowd. Keep hold of my arm."

"No!" A perverse tag of conscience held her back. "I don't want to! I've got a pet.i.tion; it has to go to the King. Oh, if he only knew!"

"Give it to me! I will see that he gets it."

"You? You'd only throw it away when my back was turned."

"No; I promise you I would not. Give it me! It shall really go to him."

"You are not making fun of me?"

"Indeed I am not. Here, where is it? Give it to me, quick!"

She put the precious crumpled doc.u.ment into his hand. Poor nameless soul, unconscious of what she had achieved--"I hope I've done right,"

she said.

A fresh movement of the crowd drove them against the railings. The elderly little woman cried out like a frightened child.

"Oh, oh! They are killing me!"

The King lifted her up and put her over into free s.p.a.ce on the other side.

"Here! none of that!" cried a big voice beside him. A rough hand seized hold of him and wrenched him back; he turned round and found himself in a policeman's charge. Then another came and took hold of him on the other side.

Incredibly the thing had happened: he was arrested. Triumphantly, through a roaring, eddying crowd, the strong arm of the law bore him away.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE KING'S NIGHT OUT

I

The King sat in a large square chamber with barred windows, awaiting his turn to be attended to.