The Lord of the Sea Part 45

"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-ta.s.sel, 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sage 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 G.o.d 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_ pa.s.sage, 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 G.o.d; 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.