The Lord of the Sea Part 41

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 pa.s.sed 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, G.o.d knows it, my Lord King! I do a.s.sure 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 n.o.ble 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 h.e.l.l".

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 impa.s.sioned 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 pa.s.sing, 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed, and not a whisper from Hogarth, apprehension had turned into certainty in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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; pet.i.tions 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 ma.s.ses, 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 a.s.sent; 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 part.i.tion, 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.