The Lord of the Sea by M. P. Shiel

M >> M. P. Shiel >> The Lord of the Sea

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

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 _fete_; 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 feting
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 _entree_ 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 _metier_ 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.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20