The Lord of the Sea by M. P. Shiel

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X

ISAAC

On the Tuesday was the inquest on the murdered Mephibosheth; ending
in a verdict of wilful murder against some person unknown.

The same night at nine Frankl had Hogarth's two guns from Margaret
on the towing-path, she now well inveigled into his net, and under
his commands.

"I want you", he said, "to meet me-here again on Thursday night, at
7.30".

"But you will tell one why, I suppose!"

"When you come you will hear. And don't let anything keep you away--
not _anything_, mind--if you take my hint".

She left him with her head hung, praying for deliverance, but
consenting.

The next (Wednesday) morning Frankl was in a high room of the Hall,
in a corner of which cowered the Arab, Isaac, and he said in his
strong bass in Arabic: "Well, Isaac, well".

A groan broke from the obese heap of grief; down each side of his
kefie streamed waves of trembling; on his square-cut beard of ritual
flecks of foam.

"Isaac, why did you kill Mephibosheth?"

Vigorously sputtered Isaac, spitting out the ill-omened words. He
said: "Your servant did not kill Mephibosheth".

"Well, there was an inquest to-day, the Court decided that you did,
and has sentenced you to be hanged by the neck like a dog".

The Arab sprang up, his thick bluish under-lip shivering.

"An eye for an eye", said Frankl solemnly: "it is written in the
Torah".

"_Mercy_ My father served your father--"

"I have remembered that: that is why I have saved you from hanging
like a dog at the hands of these _Goyim_ vermin: but, Isaac, you
must die--"

"God of--!"

"You dare raise your voice! Blood for blood--"

"_Mercy_!--I did not mean to kill--!"

"Blood for blood, you dog! Raise it, and I fell you! Raise it, and
the noose sinks into your fat swine's-throat! Can't you understand?--you
have been tracked by the avengers of blood! and you may swing lingeringly,
with a crowd of Christian boys and girls mocking round you, or you may
shoot yourself in one painless flash. Which shall it be?"

Isaac, again dropping a-heap, covered his face, without answer.

"Well", said Frankl, walking away, "I can't wait all day. The
detectives are at this moment downstairs--"

Now the Arab leapt up, and, in a movement of great dignity, with an
out-rush of both arms, rent his caftan from the top to its muslin
girdle.

"I will shoot myself", he said quietly.

Frankl took snuff.

The same night he took his secretary's typewriter, and spelled out
the following note:

"SIR,

"Permit me to ask you as an old friend of your father's if you are
aware that your sister Margaret is the lover of the lord of the
manor? Everybody seems to see it, but yourself. I have reason to
know that the very day you receive this she will be meeting him at
about 7.30 P.M. under the old elm in the beech-wood near the Hall-
park.

"ONE WHO SHALL BE NAMELESS".

Hogarth received it by post the next morning.

He had to think, as he worked, of something to say at the service
that night on the text: "God's way is in the Sea", but the glare of
forge and heated metal swam vaguely, a fog of red, about his
consciousness. And mixed with those recurring words: "the old elm",
"God's way", something with a voice shouted inside him--a name--
_Margaret!_ Anon his face flushed to a dusky turbulence, and he
hurled the sledge high to shatter the earth, like Thor.

Suddenly he had the thought that he would clean his rifle, and,
dropping a hot iron which vanished with a stifled cry into black
water, he tossed his tongs clattering, and almost ran toward the
cottage.

He had not, however, reached the back door when he heard his name
called from behind.

And now happened to him the most momentous event of his life--though
nothing could have seemed more commonplace.

It was an old fellow named Tom Bates who had called him--father to
that Fred arrested for the murder of his wife--a Yarmouth fisher and
herring-curer.

And when Hogarth twisted round, with that stare of his large and
bloodshot eye, "Here", said the old man, "take them"--holding out a
basket of herrings.

Hogarth seemed not to understand, but then said: "All those for me?"

"Every bloomin' one!" answered Bates, with the dropped jaw of
pantomime, and a far-away look of blue astonishment which he had.

"It is extremely handsome of you. Can you spare all that--?"

"Spare, _ya'as!_ They're easy enough come by, for that matter. Why,
the day's work of a fisherman gives him enough fish to live on all
the week, and he could lie around idling the other six days, if he
chose, only anybody can't live on nothing but fish ".

These words, destined to produce a horror of great darkness, and a
cup of trembling of which all the nations should drink, hardly
affected Hogarth at the time. He _did_, indeed, shoot an interested
glance at the old man, but the next moment his mind, numb that
morning, was left dark.

"Here--take them--they are yours", said Bates. "But with regard to
that God-forsaken son of mine: you'll be givin' evidence agen him,
I'm told--"

When his sleeve wiped a tear, Hogarth promised to make his evidence
mild, and was left alone.

Now his purpose of cleaning the rifle was turned: he went back to
the forge, and worked till Margaret, at one o'clock, called: "The
dinner is on the table".

At that table, for a long time, silence reigned, Margaret's eyes
fixed on his face, his on his plate.

Toward the end he said: "Are you going to chapel to-night?"

Her bosom heaved; she cleared her throat: she had to meet Frankl by
the towing-path.

"I don't think I shall..."

_Margaret!_

"Why not?"

"I have something to do".

"_What?_"

Silence.

"_What?_"

"Something"--with a stubborn nod, and pallor--"if I tell you
_something_ that should be enough".

"You will go to chapel to-night".

"That I shan't".

"Yes"

Silence.

A little before seven they left the cottage together for the chapel,
Hogarth taking his hunting-crop--from habit; he had also a little
Bible; in his jacket, tight at the slight waist, unbuttoned at the
breast, lay the anonymous letter, and a little poetry-book, neither
moon nor star lighting the night, bleak winds swooping like the
typhoon among the year's dead leaves.

The chapel was a paltry place, though in the wall to the right of
the preacher was a slab bearing the inscription:

ON THIS STONE
JOHN WESLEY PREACHED
IN THE VILLAGE, ON THE
9TH JULY 1768

And they sang a hymn; Hogarth "prayed"; read a chapter; once more
the harmonium mourned; Hogarth gave the text: "God's way is in the
sea..."

Even as he uttered it, he happened to glance toward the "mission-
pew"--a square pew rather behind the pulpit: Margaret no longer
there.

A paleness as of very death--then a dreadful wrath reddened his dark
face.

He seized his hunting-crop; and, without a word, sped bent and
thievish down the steps--and was gone.

Upon which Loveday in a middle pew, perceiving here something
sinister, like a still wind flew to a back door, before ever the
amazement of the people had given place to a flutter like leafage;
and running fast, he came up with Hogarth by a stile twenty yards
behind the chapel, touched his shoulder.

"To the devil with you...!" shouted Hogarth, running still, and
there Loveday stood.

Margaret, meantime, was hurrying toward the towing-path, while
Richard, in a direction at right angles to hers, was pelting toward
that spot terrible to him--the elm.

At the moment when he entered the deep darkness of the beeches, he
heard what sounded like a pistol-shot, rain now falling drop by
drop, and through the forest with an uplifting whoop, like batsmen,
swooped the tomboy winds.

Now, approaching the elm, again he felt that thrill which the spot
had for him, and came peering, at slower pace: no sound but the
gibbering rout of the stiff-stark beech-leaves. Some steps more, and
now he was at the mound which surrounds the tree: stood, listened:
silence, sightlessness: Margaret not there.

One more forward step: and now his foot struck a body.

As he stooped, his hand touched a revolver--which was his own;
another moment, and he saw running lanterns borne by two park-
keepers, and by their light saw the body of Isaac, who but now had
shot himself with the weapon that was in Hogarth's hand.

The park-keepers had just been urged by their master to the spot, he
having, he told them, heard a pistol-shot; and before anyone could
speak Frankl himself was there, defiled with the presence of the
dead.

He looked from Hogarth to the corpse, and from the corpse to
Hogarth, then, snatching the weapon from Hogarth's hand, exclaimed:
"Why, bless my heart, you've _murdered_ the man...."

XI

WROXHAM BROAD

In a cottage in Thring Street, marked "E. Norfolk, E. 58,
Constabulary", Hogarth passed the night, having been arrested the
moment he returned home from the elm.

A few minutes afterwards Margaret, who had found no Frankl at the
towing-path, came home to the ghastliest amazement throughout
Thring, so that sleep overcame the village only toward morning.

At 7.30 A.M. Hogarth was marched to Beccles, then after an inquest-
verdict appeared before the magistrates' court, and was committed.

One of the witnesses in the summary-jurisdiction court had been
Loveday, who had deposed that Hogarth, on leaving the chapel, was,
beyond doubt, in a passion; and mixed with the crowd was Margaret,
who, standing thickly veiled, heard that evidence. And thought she:
"Is it possible that he can be giving evidence against Richard like
that? And smiling, the mean, false thing--"

She had disappeared on the morning after the arrest: and Loveday was
now racked by disquiet, wondering how she was living, though she and
he were in the same train, unconscious of each other, when he
followed Hogarth to Norwich; and, as Margaret stepped upon the
Thorpe platform there, a Jew, who was watching the arrival of every
train, spied and shadowed her to the old Maid's Head, this intricate
city being now crowded, the Assizes all in the air, mixed with the
Saturday cattle-market.

At ten the next morning Margaret learned at the Guildhall the
address of her brother's defending solicitor, and set out to find
him, the wretchedest woman on earth now.

But as she passed by the archway in the tower of St. Peter Mancroft,
Loveday stood before her; and she started like a shying horse.

"Good morning"--she went on past him.

He took two steps after her. "Are you in a hurry? Can I come with
you?"

"It is quite near. Thank you--I'd liefer go alone".

He, a delicate being, all nerves, was repelled; lifted the old cloth
hat; but then again stepped after her, saying: "But are you angry
with me for something?"

"Why should I be? I have no right to expect anything from you, Mr.
Loveday".

"No right? You _have_, a little, I fancy!"

He said it at her ear with such a lowering of the eyelids, that it
pierced to her fond heart, and she smiled with a "H'm!" uncertain,
half turned to him; but said: "I must be getting on--"

"But it is most important that I should talk to you about
everything. Where are you staying?"

"It is some distance from here", she answered, undecided whether or
not to give her address.

"Ah--in that case--but still--will you meet me? Say here--this
evening?"

"I will see if I can".

"At seven?"

"I will see".

So they parted, she to tread that intricacy of streets round the
Market, with stoppages for enquiries, till she found the office,
where she presently sat in an inner room, veil at nose-tip, and
before her at a grate stood Hogarth's solicitor.

What, till now, for shame, she had concealed, she revealed: showing
how Richard could not possibly have taken the revolver with him to
the elm, since she, two days previously, had secretly given it to--
someone.

Mr. Carr, the solicitor, frowned, elaborating his nails.

"This is very extraordinary", he said. "Whyever did you keep us in
the dark as to all this before? And to whom was it that you gave the
revolver? and why?"

"Am I bound to tell that?"

"No, but you may be sure that the truth will be got from you. Stay--
I must ask you to excuse me now. But tomorrow morning at this hour--
will you? As for your brother, have no fears at all: he is now
absolutely safe".

Margaret went rapidly away, not knowing whither, only returning
toward late afternoon to her inn. As she entered, a letter was
handed her from Frankl.

"Dear Miss Hogarth:

"It is only due to you that I should see you at once to explain the
mystery of this affair, so as to clear your brother, and as it would
not do for me to call upon you for obvious reasons, the only thing
for us to do is to meet to-night on Mousehold Heath at 7 P.M.
without fail..."

What now was she to do? At "7 P.M." she had half promised Loveday to
meet him.

And what had her meetings with Baruch Frankl, innocent as they were,
brought upon her and hers!

Yet Frankl _must_ be kindly intentioned, she reasoned--since he had
sent them the L50; and she thought of that agony of humiliation when
she had asked Loveday for L2, and he had refused.

And he had given evidence against Richard with his down-turned
smile.

But he had said a word at her ear--and her crushed heart had leapt.
She did not know what to do, fell by her bedside and prayed to be
taught which of the two was Richard's best friend.

As she passed over the inn-threshold, she decided in favour of
Frankl: and a few minutes past seven was on Mousehold Heath.

Frankl hurried to meet her, and the hand which he held out was
rather cold; but she did not take it.

"No, Mr. Frankl", said she, "before I give my hand, it is only what
is due to me to hear how Richard's pistol, which I trusted to you,
was found where it was--"

"Well, that is only fair", answered Frankl; "that is only fair. But
I have a carriage there, let us get into it, and sit as we talk".

She could see no carriage in that dark, yet it stood only some yards
away--Frankl's own.

"I think I prefer to stand..." said she.

"As you like. But with regard to the gun, I should have thought that
you could have guessed how it was--but no, you always mistrust me
instead--the Jew. Don't you know that the dead man was a servant in
my house? Well, I left the two guns in my study, and he, wanting to
shoot himself, stole one, that's all".

"It was _he_ shot himself?"

"Why, who else? You don't suppose Richard shot him! You are as cool
as they make them".

"Well, that was how it was! But couldn't you say that at the police-
court--?"

"I am _going_ to at the big trial, of course. But I was ill, am ill
now, and here have I been running about all day on your brother's
behalf, and dead tired--and ill, and all--and you won't let me have
a rest in the carriage--"

"Well, as you put it in that way..." she said.

So they walked to a motor-brougham, sat within, and as they
commenced to talk again, the brougham moved.

"Tell me", said Frankl, "have you mentioned to anyone that you had
given the guns to me?"

"I told Richard's solicitor this morning--"

"That was horribly imprudent, without consulting me!"

"I think I have been silent long enough, don't you? I didn't mention
your name, but--"

"Oh, you didn't mention my name! That's all right, then! Look here,
do you know--?"

"Well?"

"I believe you love me in your heart. Can't help yourself".

"Oh, Mr. Frankl, do I look as if I was in the mood for that kind of
fun to-night, a poor wretch like me, steeped in misery, my God
knows".

"_I_ love _you_!"

He suddenly grasped her wrist, his eyes blazing.

"Stop--let me get out of this--" she said.

"Wait!--I give you your chance!--Listen: I am not a man whose mind
you can read right off like a book, I twist like an eel, I am deep,
I am tricky, and I never yet met the man that I didn't hoodwink.
Ninety-nine per cent of what I say is a lie; even when it is the
truth, it is a lie just the same. But at this particular moment I am
talking the God's truth: I want you! You shall be my little girl!
Chuck Richard!--chuck the swine's-flesh!--I'll take you right away--
to Paris--this very night--"

She had arisen, alarmed by his hissed fury. "But, you are stark,
staring, raving mad", she said proudly, "that is what you are".

Frankl struck the side of the brougham, it flew, and Margaret
tottered backward with an exclamation. The next moment she sent
forth a scream, the grip of Frankl on her wrist agonizing her bones.

"Where are we going?" she cried out.

"I gave you your chance!" was Frankl's fierce answer.

"Let me get out!--you must be a wretch--to take advantage--"

He put his mouth to her ear till it touched. "Your nice Richard
flogged me like a dog! I felt the cuts to the marrow of my damned
soul! Now I've got him in the hollow of this hand! Why, you helped
me! you helped me! That's good! And I've got you, too".

Blackness and swiftness bound her; a dizziness overcame her. Soon
they were by a great pool of gloomy water--Wroxham Broad--where
hern, wild duck, and the mast of the darkling boat brooded among
bulrush; and now in three minutes more the brougham was sweeping
over the lawn of a lonely building, surrounded by walls.

She, peering, saw with joy both lights and a well-dressed man and
woman; and, as the carriage stopped, she sprang out with alacrity,
Frankl with her, still grasping her wrist.

"Sir", she blurted out at once, "you will help me, I know. I am a
poor unfortunate woman--my name is Margaret Hogarth--"

"We know!" said the gentleman, and, approaching Frankl's ear, asked
in Yiddish: "How long has she had her delusion?"

"Only about a week, I think. She may be violent at first, but--"

"Come in, Miss--Hogarth", said the gentleman.

Margaret passed the threshold; the doors closed upon her...

XII

THE ROSE

On the third morning of his confinement in Norwich, Hogarth was
hurried into the hall of justice and the witness-box--in the dock
Fred Bates.

Bates had denied--with sufficient impudence, it seemed: for his wife
had been found dead, battered and burned about the face, Bates' own
hand also burned by the poker with which, _red-hot_, he was presumed
to have beaten her.

The same afternoon Bates was sentenced to death: but, having had
sunstroke in Egypt, was afterwards reprieved.

And two mornings later Hogarth heard the bar of the prisoner's dock
clang behind himself.

The speech of leading counsel for the Crown was short: a letter,
found on the prisoner, would be produced, in which some busybody had
falsely informed the prisoner that Mr. Frankl would meet his sister
under a certain elm-tree: and the prisoner, in a crisis of passion,
had hurried from the pulpit to that tree, on observing that his
sister had left the chapel (to keep a real appointment with Mr.
Frankl elsewhere). Under that tree the prisoner had encountered the
murdered man, whose Oriental dress on a dark night would give him a
resemblance to Mr. Frankl, himself a Jew. The prisoner had then shot
the deceased, mistaking him for Mr. Frankl, and had been found
holding the smoking weapon, which he admitted to be his own. It was
a painful case; but the chain of inference was not assailable.

"Not assailable" found an echo in the minds of solicitor and counsel
for Hogarth, who with growing anxiety were awaiting the coming of
Margaret with her story of the weapons. Margaret was where her name
was changed to Rachel.

Now was the regime of examining counsel for the prosecution. The
usher called: "Baruch Frankl!"

A voice in the gallery shouted: "Caps and tassels!" while Frankl, in
the witness box, bowed largely to both bench and bar. He put his
palms on the red-hot rail, caught them up, put them again, caught
up, put them; and still he bowed, while a trembling of the chin gave
to his beard a downward waving.

"Now explain to the court the reasons for the state of the
prisoner's feelings toward you".

"For one thing I had turned him out, because he could not pay his
rent; for another, his sister was inclined, my lord, to be a little
bit weak on my account--"

"A little bit _what_?" asked his lordship.

"Just a little bit weak, my lord".

"A _reciprocal_ weakness?"

"Well, my lord, you know the world--so do the gentlemen of the jury--"

"And of the Jewry!" screamed his lordship, amid laughter from the
merry wigs.

As Frankl stepped down, a name was called at which Hogarth went cold
as a ghost: "Rebekah Frankl".

And in she stepped splendent, to stand like a Nubian woman, with
that retreat of the hips, her ears torn with their load of gold, her
throat and breast ablaze, she bringing into that English court the
gaudy heat of the Orient, Baal and Astarte, orgies of Hindoo women
in temples of Parvati, the pallid passion of Bacchantes. Though not
tall, she was lofty, and her ebon eyes had that very royalty of the
stare of the bent form in the dock, whose heart throbbed quick like
paddle-wheels that thrash the sea, she his wild divinity, wild wife
of his wild youth....

At her shocking beauty the Court stood hushed.

She suggested the East: but in her speech was the energy of the
West--sharp--a bass almost like her father's.

"You recognize the prisoner?"

"Yes". She smiled.

"You were present on the day of the 11th November when the prisoner
entered your father's house, and attempted to strike him?"

"Did strike him".

"He did?"

"Yes".

"Did he seem in a passion?"

"Seemed severe".

"Severe! But was he not highly excited?"

"He did not seem so. Frowned and flogged".

"By whom was he ejected?"

"Went of his own accord".

"But--try to remember. What made him go?"

"He suddenly saw _me_, and fled".

Laughter droned through the court, in which she naively joined,
while Hogarth's eyes and hers met one instant, blazed outrageously,
and dropped....

That was all. Counsel bowed.

The day grew toward evening, and still the stuffy Court sat.

But Margaret Hogarth did not come; a defending counsel finished
examination, counsel on the other side again addressed the Court,
and again defending counsel. The judge then held the scales, the
jury trooped away, the crowd buzzed.

The light in the room seemed to brood to a denser yellow, and anon
to grow dim; the stuffed court festered; voices spoke, but low. The
King of Terrors was here.

When the jury came, the judge was called, Hogarth stood up, and the
clerk of arraigns put a question to the foreman.

The foreman said: "We find the prisoner guilty: but beg to recommend
him to the mercy of the Crown".

"On what grounds?" asked his lordship.

"On the grounds of past good conduct and strong provocation".

The judge then placed on his head a square of velvet and passed the
sentence of the Court.

During the reign of stillness that followed, while the court clock's
ticking was still loud, something which was thrown struck Hogarth on
the arm, a red rose, black at heart, that had lain on the breast of
Rebekah, who, when Hogarth looked round at her, was calmly drawing
her mass of cloak about her throat.

XIII

OUT OF THE WORLD

A week later a governor and a chaplain together entered Hogarth's
cell with news of his reprieve.

Eight months later he was being trundled in "Black Maria" to
Paddington Station amid a Babel of escaped tongues, when, sitting in
his pigeonhole, he heard the unknown voice before him cry: "Well,
Jim, we're away to the mountain's brow!"

Jim, nothing but a voice, was heard: "Worse luck! I knows Colmoor,
and I knows the Scrubs, and I knows Portland; and of the five I say--give
me Jedwood. Who's the guy in front o' you?"

"Hi, you in front there, who _are_ yer?" cried the first, pounding.

He was answered by a deep voice, which said:

"I AM WHO I AM".

"All right, keep yer 'air on, if you've any left! It's the Lawd
Chief Justice, mate! 'E says 'e's 'oo 'e are!"

"'Old on! _I_ knows who it is: it's that new-comer, 33. They say he
was once a priest--"

But now speech was swallowed up in hubbub, as the van ran battering
down a rough street near the station.

Then again Hogarth was whirled into night and space, and, toward
morning, after the bumping climb of a van, was bidden to alight on
moorland, where he spied, far off, set on a hill, a mighty palace of
Romance, all grim, aloof, which was Colmoor.

The next morning while the outdoor gangs were being searched on
parade before the exit, Hogarth saw a face which he knew; and "You,
Bates", he said, "I thought you were in Eternity!"

But no: there stood Bates, all capped and arrowed, cropped and neat,
not wearing the filthy old scarf of liberty any more.

The neighbor of Hogarth now was a stout man, with black hair, and
grey eyes.

He it was who had been--a priest: and in "Black Maria" had given
that answer: "I am who I am".

XIV

THE PRIEST

A year passed, during which John Loveday exhausted the resources of
civilization, (1)in seeking Margaret, and (2)in investigating the
innocence of Richard.

He had, however, a sprightly, adventurous nerve in the mind, and
would pull his velvet sleeves busily up--such was his little way. He
began to plot.

About the same time the ex-priest, in that far-off world of Colmoor,
said one day to Hogarth: "_You_ won't be here long!"

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