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

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 God; 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. 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 of _two_ young
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 name _is_ Rachel
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
our _kaddish_".

"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
village _poste 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, already _en 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 you _shall_ have 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, it _is_. 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 route_ for 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 finger _so_,
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 were _kosher_ for 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 her _so_. "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 it _a propos_ of 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...."

XLVIII

THE SEA-FORTS

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
levee, 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 the _Mahomet 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
Maccabaeus, 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 entremets, 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 the _Boodah_ Quilter-Beckett said: "Strange
the fine weather here: at sea it is quite rough, the _Boodah_ well
under foam, and that old _Campania_ pitches so--"

"You have come, then, in the _Campania_?"--from Hogarth.

"Yes, my Lord King".

"And what about the yacht?"

"Oh, the yacht: in her I have sent the two hundred men to the
_Mahomet_".

"_Which_ two 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 the _Mahomet_, 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 the _Mahomet?_"

"They had not arrived when I left the _Boodah_".

"So that you left only one hundred men in the _Boodah_, 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 the _Mahomet_, 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 the _Mahomet_. 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 the _Mahomet_ two 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 his _bureau_
near 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 L 850,000, paper
and gold, which he deposited on the Admiral's _bureau_, 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 the _Mahomet_, 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 the _Mahomet_ were 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
the _Mahomet 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".

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