The Lord of the Sea by M. P. Shiel

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Then they resumed their talk; and to and fro they walked, arm in
arm.

Till now one with sudden hiss: "But-good Christ-just look-why, the
roof's _leaning_--!"

At that moment an outcry and runners from below, shouts, a trumpet-
call, were borne on the winds to them: for the Admiral had rushed up
to the manned parts of the fort, all hell alight in his eyeballs,
bawling out, "The boats! The _Mahomet_ is sinking!"

In spite of which many perished, the survivors afterwards declaring
that the tragedy mesmerized their nerves with a certain awe not to
be compared with the terrors felt on sinking ships, the _Mahomet_
affecting them like a being of life, like behemoth slowly dying, or
some doomed moon. She gave them, indeed, plenty of time, though when
the steel portals on two of her sides were opened, the sea washed up
the steps, making the launching very delicate feats, and near the
last the leaning was so marked, that there was difficulty in
standing; and still in patient distress she waited while the waves
like multitudinous wolves, trooped to prey upon her.

As the Admiral ran to the outer Collector's Office to embark, he was
faced by the Treasurer, revolver in hand, and "Hand me over that
bag, Admiral", he said pretty coolly, "or I blow out your brains".

O'Hara's mouth worked: he could not speak.

"Will you?" said the Treasurer: "no doubt you mean to hand it over
to the proper authorities, but I prefer to do that myself. Be quick,
you old dog!"

Whereat O'Hara, having no weapon, dropped the bag, and trotted wide-
eyed forward to the thronged scene of the launchings.

There were more than enough boats, and though on the lowest side of
the fort nothing could long be done, all had gone off, when the
fort, having settled very low, looking for some time like a brawling
cauldron and area of breaking waves coloured by her hundred lights,
went down, and was not.

Whereupon the yacht, over a hundred yards away, was caught in the
traction of her strong enthralment, and, like a planet, started into
running round a region of sea which wheeled; while seven of the
boats, rowing for life, were grasped, and dragged back, with a
hundred and nine, into the deep.

"Toll for the brave...."

As to the other boats, they arrived at Tarifa the following evening,
with 583; but the Admiral ordered the _Mahomet II_. to Cadiz, where
soon after midnight he landed, and, by negotiation with a "_Jefe_",
in an hour had a train for Madrid. As he was about to step in, the
Treasurer touched his shoulder.

"What, Admiral, off by land?"

"Yes, sir, as you know", said O'Hara, "for you have been spying my
movements for the last hour. How childish to imagine that I have
anything to fear, or want to escape! Why, I am bound for England--my
only object in the land journey being quickness. I even invite you
to come with me"

"All right, Admiral, I will....If you be tempted to murder me _en
route_, remember these"--a pair of pistols; and they set out at
about the hour when the whole crescent of tragedies was over.

At six that evening a yacht, a copy of the _Mahomet II_., had come
to the Cattegat sea-fort to land 200 men who wore the Empire's blue-
jacket, the name "Mahomet" on their caps--nothing to show that they
were not genuine Mahomet men, though some looked rather sea-sick;
but in reality they were young lords, stock-brokers, Territorial
Officers, men-about-town, park-keepers, undergraduates, secretly
armed with knife and revolver, and knowing, too, where the armoury
of the sea-fort lay.

Meantime, three other yachts, all named _Mahomet II_., were a-ply in
the Atlantic, two containing 400 men each, one 600, each of the
first two to land 200 at a fort at six, and her remaining 200 at the
next fort by eight-thirty, serving four forts, the last to land 200
at each of three forts: so that by 10.30 P.M. each of eight forts,
including the Cattegat, contained 200 enemies disguised as fort-men.

And punctually at eleven, in each, began perhaps the darkest
massacre of history--no quarter given--and when the alarm went
forth, whichever of the unarmed fort-men rushed to the dark armoury
found the door fastened against him. Of two men in bed, talking
together through an open door, one arose at the stroke of a clock
and killed the other; some perished in sleep--all very quietly
accomplished: a few shots, a few lost echoes in the vast castles, a
few daubs of blood. And in no case did a single one, either
massacred or assassin, escape alive: for, in every case, some one or
other of the fort-officers--Admiral, Lieutenant, Commander--to
prevent capture, opened the inlet to the flood in the very thick of
the doom, went down with his muteness and his bubbling, and the sea,
a secret in its bosom, rolled over the Sea.

XLIX

THE DEBACLE

All the next day, till near 9 P.M., not one syllable was definitely
known of this tremendous fact by anyone in Britain: for though,
early astir, the Regent telegraphed the _Mahomet_, all day he waited
without reply.

At eleven the Prime Minister said to him: "Things, my Lord King,
wear at this moment an aspect so threatening, that I see no escape
from civil war, even if it be brief, except by the immediate forcing
through of the Bill, and I stand ready--now--to propose you as new
peers--"

"Wait", answered the Regent: "pass to-night the Bill should, but I
think I shall effect that by myself going to the Lords, and
listening a little to the talk".

A dark day, with an under-thought always, whatever the business, of
one thing--the Sea....

About 5.30, as was his custom, he went up a stair to pass along two
corridors to the little cream suite in which lived Margaret, for
whom the doctors now promised sanity, her forehead daily seeming to
drink-in peace from the contact of his palm, after which she would
comb his hair, he lying on a sofa, or taking tea; and, "Well, dear",
he said, this last day of all, as her ladies retired to an inner
salon, "how is the head?"

"I have seen you before", she replied: "what is your name?"

"Dick Hogarth. Come to me, and let me lay my heavy head on you. The
heart of your friend bodes to-day, bodes, bodes; but is not afraid:
a tough heart, Madge. Do you like me to press my hand upon your head
like that?"

Then, weary of his moaning heart that moaned that day like choruses
of haunted winds through desolate halls, he fell to sleep even as he
mumbled to her, she, seated near his sofa, playing with his hair,
his arm around her, faint zephyrs from the window fanning his head,
waving down the valenciennes.

But now she tossed the comb away, hummed, became restless,
disengaged her shoulders, rose, strayed listlessly, with sighs, and
on finding herself in the ante-chamber, opened the door, went out
into a corridor, leant her back, eyeing the floor; and next with a
great sigh set to gazing upward, droning two notes, one _doh_, one
_soh_. All was silent. But now a sound of voices that drew her, she
moving into another longer corridor, with balusters which overlooked
a hall below, and yonder at the stair-foot were two men in
altercation, one a guard, to whom the other was saying "But I tell
you the lydy herself arst me to go to her; it's an appointment, just
like any other appointment. Do let a fellow pass!" and with mouth at
ear he added: "_It's an affair of the 'eart! 'Ere's a sov--_"

"Couldn't, my friend, couldn't", the guardsman said.

But now Harris: "Why, there she is 'erself, so 'elp-! come out to
meet me, as the Lord liveth!"--ran then toward where she looked over
to send up the hoarse whisper: "I sye--didn't you tell me yourself
to come--?"

On which she nodded amiably, smiling, touching a rose in her bosom.

"There you are! What more do you want?" he said to the guard, who
now gave him passage: and like a dart he darted, like a freed lark,
or unleashed hound, fleet on the feet, with lifted brow.

"I sye!" he whispered her, all active, brisk as a cat, ecstatic--
"where's 'e?"

"Who?"--she still at her rose, a memory straying in her that here
was a friend, whom the Terrible One had bid her obey.

"Mr.--the Regent", he whispered.

"I don't know him. What is your name? _My_ name is--"

"Oh, you muddle-headed cat! Don't you know the dark man with the
black moles--quick!"

"_Sh-h-h_--he is sleeping".

"Gawd! is he though? Come, show me! I've got a old appointment--"

She led the way: the two corridors--the door--the room, he treading
on air, brow up, eyes on fire, knife bright and ready; and eight
feet from the couch she put out her forefinger, pointing, smiling,
Hogarth's face toward them, his mouth pouting in sleep, bosom
breathing, a breeze in his hair.

From the lips of Harris, in the faintest snake-hiss, proceeded,
"Sleep, my little one-sleep, my pretty one--_sleep_--" and with a
wrist as graceful as the spring of a tigress he had the knife buried
in Hogarth's left breast.

Some instinct must have pierced Hogarth's sleep an instant before
the actual blow, for while the knife was yet in him he had Harris's
wrist; and the assassin fled writhing, so brisk a trick had cracked
his elbow.

And blanched and short-breathed sprang Hogarth, but at once
tottered, Margaret, open-mouthed, regarding him, till he suddenly
cried out "Ladies!", and before they came had hurried out, drawing
his coat over the place of blood.

In the second corridor he had to stop and lean, but then descended,
striking all whom he passed with awe at his face, till he stumbled
into his own drawing-room, and, as he fell, was caught by Sir
Francis Yeames, the Private Secretary.

The wound had passed along the outer front surface of the second rib
toward the scapula, injuring two of the branches of the axillary
artery: so whispered the Resident Medical Attendant, while the
council of doctors pronounced the condition "very grave", but not
"dangerous"--a case for "judicious pressure"; and after a long swoon
he opened his eyes; in the deeply-recessed series of windows, narrow
and round-topped, now dying the twilight; the insignificant bed lost
in a chamber of frescoes and vast darksome oils of battles and
loves. And, suddenly starting, he asked: "What's the time?"

"Seven-thirty, my Lord King", answered Sir Martin Phipps.

"Ah, I remember: I was stabbed. Who did it?"

"It can only be assumed from the evidence of a guardsman that it was
a servant in the Palace, called Harris".

"Aye, I think I saw his face. Does anyone know of the matter?"

"Very few persons so far....The police are after Harris".

Now the Regent started, understanding that the condemnation of
Harris would mean a revelation of the Colmoor-horror secret; and he
said after a minute, "John, is that you? Will you go and have the
whole thing quashed?....And now, doctor, the wound".

"The wound is not what we call 'dangerous', my Lord King: ah, but
believe me, it was a narrow shave".

"I dare say, Sir Martin: the outcomes of this particular world do
arrive by narrow shaves; but they arrive, and life is an escape. At
any rate, doctor, I shall be able to go, as arranged, to the Lords--"

The doctor smiled. "No, never that".

"I shall go".

And at once he leapt from bed, staggering headlong in the effort, to
strike his head against a window corner, while all ran, crying out,
to catch him, the doctor thinking: "Those whom the gods destroy they
first drive mad".

So far not a whisper of the stab had reached even the Prime Minister
or the Prince; but since the news of moving troops, and the
reluctance of the Lords to pass the Bill, agitated all, London came
out to watch his descent upon the Lords.

He went in precisely the spirit of a professor who steps to the
chair, smiles, and takes the class; but as he drove down Whitehall,
this thought pierced him with a keener point than the steel of
Harris: "_The Sea...!_"

He did not know that at last a thousand transmitters, from Tarifa,
from Frederikshavn, from many a ship, were thrilling the ether with
messages as to the Sea.

Nor did he know that that day Frankl had whispered to some dozen
people, with proofs and old newspapers, that convict past of the
Regent.

And from his very first entering, when the Lord Chancellor rose, and
the Regent made the bow, he was shocked by the scene of open
insolence spread before him.

Everywhere the boldest eyes regarded him; he saw smiles of scorn,
snarling visages, as, with reclining head and lowered lids, his eyes
rested on the House: a hard gaze. Unfortunately, his pallor was
perfectly obvious, and its significance, the stab being unknown, was
misunderstood.

And up rose a young lord, who stammered unprofundities just below
the region of lawn-sleeves to the right; and another with slow step,
as if to music, came up the gangway, and spoke at the table; and
another after him: and it needed sustained effort to understand what
they said; the brain, as it were, would not close upon statement
after statement so insignificant. But Hogarth would have endured
till midnight, or longer, but for a growing doubt within him: "Am I
bleeding? Shall I not certainly faint?"

And there was this other question: "To what greater daring of
insolence will these impossible speeches rise?"

Suddenly, at five minutes to ten, in the very midst of a duke's
speech, the Regent, with dizzy brain, was on his feet: there was a
few moments' gasp and breathlessness; and then--all at once--it was
as though a wind from hell swept through that House, whirling in its
vehemence Regent, lords, Gallery, Black Rod, Clerk, Usher, and all;
and every face was marble, and every eye a blaze.

The Regent cried: "Your lordships' eloquence--"

And as he said "eloquence", a voice that was a scream, a forward-
straining form, a pointing finger: "Why, my lords, that man is only
a common convict!--reprieved for murder--escaped from Colmoor. And
all his forts are sunk!"

It happened that in the midst of this outcry, the Regent fell back
afaint, the moles black, the face white.

Now, here seemed simple panic: and like a pack of dogs which rush to
mangle a mongrel, they were at him pell-mell.

See now a shocking scrimmage, a rush and crush for precedence, surge
upon surge of men jostling each other in a struggle to get near him,
sticks reaching awkwardly over heads to inflict far forceless blows,
and on his face the fists; a hundred roaring "Order!", fighting
against the tide; three hundred shrieking, "Kill him!" "Have him
done with!" "Dash out his brains!", and pressing to that job.
Sergeant-at-Arms, meanwhile, Clerk-attending-the-Table, and the
physician, had run to give the alarm; but it was by one of those
miracles of wild minutes, when turbulent sprites appear to mix
themselves in the business of men, worse--embroiling the embroiled,
that through the throng in the street rushed the word that the
Regent was being killed: and quick, before any fatal blow had been
struck, the rabble were there in that chamber, having brushed away
every barrier.

They imagined themselves come to save: in reality they came to kill--were,
in fact, too many for the area of the room, so that men succumbed fast
as by plague-stroke under trampling feet, and even after twenty minutes
when sixty-seven lay mangled the scene of horror could not be said to
be ended.

Early upon the irruption the physician, three policemen, a Reading
Clerk, and the Bishop of Durham, had managed to extricate and drag
the Regent out; and through the shouting of the outside crowd he was
driven home unconscious.

L

THE DECISION

Somewhat before this hour Admiral O'Hara had arrived at Croydon, a
lust, a morbid curiosity, now working in this man--having committed
the ineffable sin, to enjoy its fruit by hearing what Richard
Hogarth now said, in what precise way he groaned, or raved, smiled,
or wept, or stormed; for he was cruelly in love with Hogarth.

All the way had come with him the _Mahomet's_ treasurer, with his
bag of wealth--and two pistols.

So at Dieppe O'Harra had wired to Harris:

"Meet me at Croydon to-night, the 9.45 from Newhaven, as you love
life. Most important. Shall expect wire from you at the London and
Paris Hotel, Newhaven, not later than six, saying yes".

But at Newhaven he had found no answer--Harris, in fact, not having
received the telegram, having already inflicted his stab, and fled
the Palace.

Whereupon O'Hara, in an agony of doubt, had telegraphed Frankl from
Newhaven:

"For God's sake find Harris. Make him meet me at Croydon to-night in
the 9.45 from Newhaven. Do not fail".

Now, Frankl knew exactly where Harris was--hiding in the Market
Street house. And he said to himself: "All right: it's got something
to do with money, and a lot of it, too, with all this 'God's sake'.
Suppose we _both_ go to Croydon?"

Hence Frankl missed the joy of seeing the Regent mobbed: for at 9.30
he was waiting with Harris on the Croydon up-platform.

And as the train stopped, they two hurried into the compartment
where O'Hara sat alone.

"You, my friend?" said O'Hara to Frankl.

"Large as life", replied Frankl: "I and the boy have already made it
up between us for a third each: you a third, I a third, Alfie a
third: that's fair; I keep the police off the backs of the pair of
you, and you pay me a third. What's the figure?"

In one moment of silence O'Hara plotted; then his tongue yielded to
the temptation of the great words: "Eight-hundred-and-fifty
thousand, sir".

So after three minutes' talk Harris got out, and, as the train
started, sprang into a first-class compartment in which was one
other occupant.

Now, it was natural that the treasurer, carrying such a sum, should
scrutinize any stranger, but Harris disarmed suspicion: his right
arm, twisted by Hogarth, was in a sling, and he threw himself aside,
and seemed to sleep, between the peak of his cap and his muffler
hardly an inch of interval: so the treasurer, too, worn with travel,
settled into a half-drowse.

Harris, however, like many of his type, was perfectly ambidextrous,
often using the left hand by preference; and as the train passed
Bromley, he darted, plunged his knife, streaked with the Regent's
blood, into the treasurer's heart, and huddled the body under the
seat.

No stoppage till London Bridge, where, with the bag, Harris left the
train, Frankl and O'Hara trotting after his burdened haste; and,
after two changes of cabs, the three arrived at the Market Street
house.

There Harris laid the bag on the floor of an empty back room, where
through a broken window came a little light, and the three stood
looking down upon the bag, solemnly as upon a body.

Then suddenly Harris: "Come, gentlemen of the jury, let's have my
share of the dead meat: and 'ere's off out of it for this child--
only this blooming arm of mine! it's going to get me nabbed as sure
as sticks. Never mind--trot it out, Captain! and don't cheat an
innocent orphan, lest the ravens of the valley pick out the yellow
galls of some o' you".

Neither of the other two, however, seemed anxious for the division;
and after a minute's silence Frankl said: "The third of 850, I
_believe_, is 2, 8, 3; how are we going to carry away 283 thousand
without something to put it in? I vote, Pat, that we leave the bag
here, and come and divide at midnight sharp. How would that do?"

"Yes", said Harris, "I think I see old Pat leaving the lot with me--
what O! You know 'ow I'd fondle it for you, and keep it out of the
cold, cold world, till you came back, don't you, you bald-headed
priest?"

"Shut your mouth, boy. We can't take it away without something, as
Mr. Frankl very justly observes. Aren't there some safes, Frankl, in
Adair Street?"

"Right you are: and one, as I happen to know, empty. Who'll keep the
key?"

"You, if you like, my friend. I'll keep the keys of the room-doors.
And Harris will stand guard".

"The very thing", remarked Frankl.

So it was agreed. Harris took the bag; they descended to the cellar;
then, striking matches, down three marl steps to the subterranean
way made for Hogarth; and along it, forty feet, they stumbled bent,
Harris gripped by each sleeve.

Then in the Adair Street Board Room they lit a candle, and in the
room next it found the safes, the largest of which admitting the
bag, Frankl locked its door, took the key; O'Hara then locked the
room door, took the key; and at the stair-bottom locked another
door, took the key; so that Frankl could not now get at the bag
without him, nor he without Frankl, nor Harris without both.

Two then went away, while Harris, sprawling cynically on a solitary
chair down in the parlour with straight open legs, awaited the
_rendezvous_ at twelve.

He had not, however, sat very long, when the taper at his feet
glared on a face of terror at a sound of ghosts in the tomb that the
house was, and he started to his feet, prone, snatching his knife--
thinking, as always, of the Only Reality, the police. But he had not
prowled three ecstatic steps when O'Hara stood before him.

"Oh, damned fool!" he went with infinite contempt and reproach, "to
frighten anybody like that! What's it you are after now? Frighten
anybody like that...."

"_Alfie_!"--O'Hara whispered it breathfully as the hoarse sirocco,
stepping daintily like the peacock. Tell it not in Gath! If Alfie
rammed the knife into the marrow of Frankl's back at the moment when
the safe was opened, then Alfie would have, not a third, but a half;
and the thing was desirable for this reason: that a half is greater
than a third...

Harris saw that: but he seemed reluctant, meditating upon the
ground; then walking, hands in pockets.

"Why, boy, he is only an interloper", said O'Hara: "I meant the
money to be divided fairly between you and me. Why should this Jew
come in?"

"All right", said Harris: "I don't mind".

"And I know a little castle in Granada, Alfie, which we'll buy--"

"All right: you go away. It's agreed".

And O'Hara hurried away, took a cab, drove for the Palace; while
Harris, left alone, sat serious, with sprawling straight legs, and
presently muttered: "Blind me, I must be going dotty or something!
p'raps it's this arm...."

He had not thought of killing Frankl, until it had been suggested!--
some class-habit, or instinct, of honour among thieves (which,
however, his reason despised)...But five minutes after O'Hara had
gone he started alert, staring, with tight fist, and, "All right,
you two", said he, "blood it is!"

He sat again: and again, after twenty minutes, the house gave a
sound--Frankl, who had let himself in by the front door, each member
possessing a key to that.

"Well, Alf", said he, "all alone? Then, we two can have a little
chat between us little two".

And he stood and talked, while Harris sprawled and listened,
Frankl's road to his end being more circuitous than O'Hara's, more
hedged, too, with reasons, scruples, sanctions: but he reached it,
pointing out that a half is greater than a third; also that O'Hara
would be a continual witness against Harris' past, whereas he,
Frankl, left England for Asia the next morning.

Alfie pretended aversion to bloodshed, but finally consented; upon
which Frankl went away, and took cab for Scotland Yard: his idea
being to have Harris arrested red-handed in the murder of O'Hara.

The streets through which he drove wore a singular aspect--of
commotion, hurry, unrest, two dragoon-orderlies galloping past him
at the Marble Arch, in Whitehall the tramp of some line-regiment
battalion, and he said to himself: "He is going to fight it out with
them, I suppose--Satan take the lot!"

At Scotland Yard he said to the Inspector in Charge, having given
his card, that if two officers were placed at his disposition, he
might be able to lead them to the arrest of a man long "wanted", who
now premeditated another murder.

Meantime, O'Hara was in conversation with Loveday in the Regent's
library, nearer the centre of which stood a group of four with their
heads together--Prime Minister, First Lord, War Office Secretary, a
Naval Lord; further still, a spurred General, cloaked over his out-
stuck sword, writing, with a wet white brow; and, "I suppose he will
want to see you", said Loveday, "if you have anything to say. But
the doctors have first to be reckoned with: I suppose you know that
he has been stabbed and beaten".

"Stabbed! by whom?"

"By Harris".

"No! When?"

"This afternoon".

"Ah! I did not know".

"It was by your recommendation, it appears, that Harris became
Captain Macnaghten's servant", said Loveday with his smile, looking
very gaunt and bent-down.

"Tut, sir!"--from O'Hara--"you are not my judge: I am here to see
the Lord of the Sea, my King".

"Ah!--you still give him the title".

And now O'Hara, drawing his chair nearer to ask: "_How did he take
it?_" stretching back the waiting mouth to hear that thing.

"The Lord Regent? Well, at eight-thirty he went to the House of
Lords, where they beat him nearly to death on the throne, the gentle
hearts, and the doctors forbade me to speak to him of the Sea; but
his eyes seemed to question me, so I leant over, and told him".

"Yes--and whatever did he say?"

He said: "'What, old Pat?'"

O'Hara rose to stand by a hearth, black-robed to the heels and
tonsured, and at the angle of his jaw some sinews ribbed and moved:
not a syllable now from him.

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