Chapter VII: Part 7

Therefore let the site-rental of England (i.e., the excess of English goods over what English goods would be, if no other country existed) be handed over to a World Council; and the site-rental of America to the same; and the World Council shall disburse such funds for the majesty and joy of Man: and War shall terminate.

14. This way the Lord of the Sea indicates to the world, though with its initiation he is not personally concerned.

15. Beside the small violation of the Fundamental Principle of Society, there is a great on the earth.

16. The Great Violation consists in the claim by individuals to have taken, without having moved, sites and soils called “estates”, “domains”, “plots”: for, as rent tends to rightness when paid to the fifty millions of a nation, _fifty-millionfold_ is its wrongness when paid to one; and as rent is right when paid to the thousand million inhabitants of a planet, _a thousand-millionfold_ is its wrongness when paid to one.

17. For this Great Violation of the Fundamental Principle of Society Nature has sent upon Man great penalties: poverties, frenzies, depravities, horrors, sorrows, lowness, dulness.

18. Lowness, dulness: for by far the greatest of these penalties is a restraint on Man's development. Man is an animal, Man is a mind: and since the wing of mind is Pride, Assurance, or Self-esteem, and since the home of an animal is a Planet, and an animal without a home is a thing without Assurance or Pride, so Man without Earth is a mind without wing. Even so, a few, having Assurance, make what we call “Progress”, i.e., the discovering of truth--a crawling which might become flight, had all minds but the wing of Pride to co-operate in discovering truth. But Man lacks assurance and foothold, founded home and domain: his sole heritage, though he is neither fish nor fowl, being sea and air.

19. This is a great violation.

20. And with this great violation of the Fundamental Principle of Society the Lord of the Sea is personally concerned. In the name of Heaven and of Earth he urges upon the nations of men to amend it in the month of the promulgation of this Manifesto: and this summons he strengthens with a threat of his resentment.

As the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth, I will see to it.

RICHARD.

XXXIX

THE “BOODAH'S” LOCK-UP

Three days after the Manifesto the marriage of Miss Stickney of New York with Lord Alfred Cowern was to take place, this having been put off owing to the _Kaiser_ tragedy; and so, on the day of the Manifesto, Baruch Frankl, the Jew, was crossing to a wedding which, even in the midst of great events, had stirred up a considerable rumour and sensation, since the American guests were to consist of the _coterie_ known as the “Thirty-four”, all millionaires, while “the cake” was to weigh three-quarters of a ton, each guest's grub to cost $500, and for that breakfast the Neva had been ravished for fish and Siamese crags for nests.

Frankl, however, was never destined to taste those five hundred dollar mouthfuls. It happened in this way: as the _Boodah's_ searchlights, destroyed in the battle, were not yet repaired, in the interval some lawless ships took the chance on dark nights to skulk past with extinguished lights; now, the captain of Frankl's chartered steamer had that bright idea (being of adventurous turn), when night fell forty knots east of the _Boodah_, so he came to Frankl, and broached the scheme.

“Not for Joe”, was Frankl's answer: “pay the Pirate his taxes and be done”.

“It could be worked as sweet as a nut, sir!” persisted the skipper, with a watering mind.

“Well, so long us _you_ take the risk, perhaps--but no, sir, I'd rather not”.

On which the skipper winked self-willed to himself, and, putting out nine miles from the _Boodah_ his three lights, went dashing past.

And the attempt would have succeeded, had it not been for the fact that the night was pitch-dark, and that _another_ ship was trying that very venture with extinguished lights. And these two ships met, bow to bow, with such an energy of adventurous smartness, that both sharply sank.

The sea, however, being smooth, all hands were saved; and now, since the boats lay forlorn on the vast, with nothing but the _Boodah's_ swarm of moons to move to, for the _Boodah_ they started, while Frankl cast twinkling fingers to the sky, and cursed that night, as the oars with slow wash journeyed through turgid murk toward the very den of the devil.

When they reached the _Boodah_ they were conducted down to a police-court, and there shivered an hour in a dreary light, till three officials in peaked caps and frock-coats came, sat on a Bench, and, after hearing evidence, pronounced sentence of seven months against the captains, and one against Frankl.

These were led away by police blue-jackets, and Frankl groaned through the night in a box as cold as the cells of Colmoor.

The next morning Quilter-Beckett, making a report in Hogarth's _salon_, mentioned the incident, saying: “Here are the names, with the sentences; I shall send the sailors home...” and Hogarth's eyes, resting on the document, chanced to catch that name of Frankl.

At once he turned pale, for his first thought was: “Frankl must have been going to the wedding, in which case _Someone Else_ may be with him”.

But her name was not there....

He rose and paced; and he said low: “No one else on either of the ships?”

“No, my Lord King”.

Then up lifted Hogarth's brow, alight with fun, and he muttered: “All right, Caps-and-tassels”.

He said aloud: “Quilter-Beckett, this Frankl I know. Did you never hear anything about Caps-and-tassels at Westring? _He_ is Caps-and-tassels. Now tell me, which is your biggest blue-jacket?”

“Man called Young, my Lord King”.

“Then, have a suit of Young's sea-clothes put upon this Frankl, and let him be brought before me in the Throne Room this morning after the Audience. He was fond of liveries....”

Accordingly, by half-past eleven Frankl entered the Throne Room, where, as soon as its rosy translucency broke upon his gaze, an “Oh!” of admiration groaned from him, in spite of his weight of misery, he not walking, but being lifted forward in successive swings by his armpits--up the first steps to the outer circle of balustrade, forward to the second steps and the inner balustrade, within which shone the throne, and Hogarth, crowned and large in robes, on it.

The two warders, intent upon portering Frankl, and not noticing the cap which still covered his eyebrows, one now in sudden scare whispered: “Off with your cap, you...!” on which Frankl snatched it off, grasping through superabundant sleeves, he at the same moment a fury and a dazzled man, the throne before him incredible, like a dream which one knows to be a dream, in structure not unlike the Peacock Throne of Akbar, its length fourteen feet, seating thirteen persons in recesses, standing on a gold platform with three concave steps set with rings of sapphire, and consisting of a central part and two wings, the wings being supported on twisted legs (one had been broken), and made of fretted ivory mosaicked with cabochon emerald, ruby, topaz, turquoise, chrysoberyl, diamond, opal, the large central part, with its recesses, being also of ivory, gold-arabesqued, its mosque-shape canopy (of Hindoo enamel-work on the outside) being supported by eleven pillars of emerald; at the top of each pillar a dolphin (hence the name “Dolphin Throne”) made of turquoise, jasper, pearl, sardius, and at the bottom of each pillar a _guldusta_, or bouquet, of gems; the concave ceiling one mass of stones, representing a sea in which sailed three Dutch galleons, and seven dolphins sported.

But all that Frankl saw of it was its opulence: for his terror lest the warders should let him go occupied his mind.

And precisely the thing which he feared came upon him, for Hogarth said: “Warders, retire”.

And now Frankl, all unsupported, stood in unstable equilibrium, anon stooping to his finger-tips, then straining doubtfully forward with struggling arms from a too backward poise: for not only did the trousers lie a twisted emptiness far below his feet, but the feet themselves were lost in Young's boots, so he stood like Scaramouch, a mere sack, a working of his chin wobbling down his beard, and there was a blaze in his stare which Hogarth, unfortunately, did not well estimate.

They faced each other, alone, save for the body-guard at the circumference of the room.

“Was it _you_ that sent me to Colmoor?” Hogarth suddenly asked in a low voice, stooping forward.

“_Me_!” shrieked Baruch Frankl, pointing a hanging sleeve-end to his breast: “as Jehovah is my witness--”

“Were you about to _swear_? For ever the same?--tyrant and worm? It _was_ you. Now tell it me right out: you have nothing to fear: for you cannot be vain enough to imagine that I would harbour enmity against you”.

“It wasn't me, I say again, my Lord King!”--Frankl trampled a little backward, then stooped over-poised to his finger-tips: “with what motive? Oh, that's hard--to be accused. They have already given me a month--my God! a month! And only because I am a Jew. But it wasn't me--that I'll swear to God--”

Hogarth rose to his height, descended, put his hand upon Frankl's shoulder. “Well, leave that. But--_my sister_!”

His hand felt the shoulder beneath it start like fits.

“Your sister!” Frankl screamed with a face of scare: “Why, what of her now?”

“Frankl, you are frightened: you know, Frankl, _where she is_!”

“Me? O, my Good God, what is this! Me, poor sinner, know where your sister is, my Lord King? Why, spare me! spare me, God of Hosts! Why, you've only got to ask yourself the question--”

“Listen to me, Frankl”, said Hogarth, bending his blazing brow low over the Jew: “I have searched for that woman through the world, and have not found her. All the time, mind you, I felt convinced that you know where she is; and you may wonder why--years ago--I did not have you seized. I will tell you why: it was because I had a sort of instinct that God, whom I serve continually with tears and prayers, would not fail in His day to show me her face: and to-day you are here. Do you suppose, Frankl, that you will go away without telling me where she is? And in order to hurry you, listen to what I say to your warders--”

He touched a button in the balustrade, and to the warders said: “If at any time this man should demand pencil and paper, supply them, and take to your Admiral what he writes. To-day his food shall be fare from your own table; to-morrow three loaves and water; from the third day one loaf and water; till further orders”.

Up shot Frankl's shivering arms, while Hogarth, training his ermines and purples, paced away.

That was on the day following the Manifesto.

XL

THE WEDDING

By the time Frankl's three loaves had become one, that amazement with which men received the Manifesto had commenced to give place to more coherent impressions.

He was not a “Monster”! that was the first realization--no pirate, nor lurid Anti-Christ, nor vainglorious Caesar! And in two days, the first astonishment over, there arose a noise in the world: for the Lord of the Sea had given to the nations one month only in which to do that thing: and the peoples took passionately to meetings.

In England Land Leagues, Chambers of Agriculture, Restoration Leagues, Nationalization Leagues, many Leagues, were organizing furiously, stretching the right arm of oratory; deputations, petitions in wagons, demonstrations _en bloc_, party cannonades, racket heaven-high. Sir Moses Cohen, the Jew-Liberal Leader, appealing to the strongest prejudice in Englishmen, spoke one night at Newcastle of “the interference of a foreign prince in the affairs of Britain”; used the word: “_Never!_”, and on this cry secured an enormous following: so that, within a week, he was instrumental in forming the formidable League of Resistance--destined to prove so tragic for Hogarth, and for England.

It was in the midst of this world-turmoil that--on the third day--the marriage-morning of Miss Cecil Stickney dawned; and that same evening Rebekah Frankl, convalescent from influenza, was seated over a bedroom fire in Hanover Square, a cashmire round her shoulders, her sickness cured by herbs, her physician then hobbling with a stick down the stairs--Estrella of Lisbon--her back almost horizontal now with age.

And as Rebekah mused there, two newsboys below, whose shouts pursued each other, went proclaiming through November gloom as it were the day of doom, crying, even in that uproar of Europe, a private event:

MARRIAGE OF

LORD ALFRED COWERN

AND MISS CECIL STICKNEY

APPALLING TRAGEDY

And soon a girl ran in, gasping: “Miss Frankl!--this is too awful--your father--”

The news, having been flashed to Paris by Mackay-Bennett cable, now appeared in detail after the _New York Herald's_ French edition, and Rebekah's eyes ran wildly over details as to the “bevy of beauty”, daughters of “the Thirty-four”, and the church of waiting ladies, the carpeted path between palms and exotics, and how the ticket-holders heard the organ tell the Cantilenet Nuptiale and Bennett's Minuet; and then the multitudinous stir: behold the bridegroom cometh!--the little necessary bridegroom of no importance, and then the white entry of bride and bridal train, while the choir knelt to sing “O Perfect Love”.

Perfect love, however, was hardly the order of that day, but rather perfect hate: for in Madison Square--the church being at the upper end of Fifth Avenue--a mob was being harangued on the subject of this very wedding: and when they heard and realized the thing that was being done before their eyes they were swept as by a wind of fire, and under its impulse set out like some swollen Rhone with a rushing sound to pounce upon the church, full of perfect hate: and the choir sang “O perfect love”.

What happened now was described as a nightmare. The same elemental instincts of the Stone Age which had exhibited themselves in the $500-worth of food wrought in another form, but with no less savagery, in assassins as in victims: and a massacre ensued, bride and bridegroom passing away like bubbles, of “the Thirty-four” five only escaping. The report ended with the words: “The ringleaders have been arrested; quiet reigns through the city”; then a list of the guests, with asterisks indicating those killed.

Rebekah searched for her father's name, and when she became certain that it was not there, her lips moved in thanksgiving.

But since Frankl was not at the wedding, where, then, was Frankl? She counted the days on her fingers: he could not have been late.

Unless there had been an accident to his ship....

Her brows knit a little; she peered into the fire: and thought of the _Boodah_....

It was possible that when her father's steamer stopped to pay sea-rent, Hogarth might have heard, and seized him. That notion occurred to her.

And at once it threw her into an extraordinary fever, her bosom swelling like elastic in her heavings to catch breath, though she did not realize the wild thought that was working up to birth within her. She rose and paced, furiously fast.

If he was in the hands of Hogarth?

“He is a British subject”, she muttered: “Hogarth has not the right...Oh, he has not the right...!”

She was fearfully agitated! something fighting up and up within her, stifling her, working to burst into birth; she flung the cashmire from her shoulders, her bosom rowing like two oarsmen. “Because we are Jews...!” she went.

“If he _dared_ do that--!”

What then? Say! Rebekah!

“I would go to him myself--”

All at once that thought was born, and she stood shockingly naked to her own eyes, her hands rushing to cover a face washed in shame. “But, surely”, she whispered, “I could never be so _bold_, good Heavens? Why, Never! Never--!”

However, an hour later, with flaming eyes, she was writing a letter to Frankl's manager.

XLI

THE VISIT

Frankl's Bank was scanning the agents' yacht-lists for her, when Sir Moses Cohen, who was closely associated with Frankl, placed his own three-master at her disposal; and she set out from Bristol, with her being three Jewish ladies, Frankl's manager, and a snuffy Portuguese rabbi who resembled a Rembrandt portrait.

It was late at night, and Hogarth, who had lately acquired a passion for those Mathematics which touch upon Mysticism, was bent over Quaternions and the quirks of [Proofers note: checkmark symbol] (--i) in an alcove of his _Boodah_ suite hardly fourteen feet square, cosy, rosy, and homely: he sitting at a sofa-head, and, lying on the sofa, Loveday, his head on Hogarth's thigh, escaped from office and frockcoat, in happy shirt-sleeves, between sleeping and waking.

Hogarth was interrupted by a telephone bell.

“Well?” he answered.

“My Lord King”, from Quilter-Beckett, “Frankl has handed to his warder something written: will your Lordship's Majesty see it now?”

“Yes!” Then: “John! Frankl has yielded!”

Up Loveday started with “Thank God!” while Hogarth: “When does my yacht arrive?”

“At midnight”--from Quilter-Beckett.

“She starts back immediately for England with me and Mr. Loveday”.

Now an officer entered to present an envelope, and the two looked together over these words:

“Your Lordship's Majesty's sister, Margaret Hogarth, is at No. 11, Market Street, Edgware Road, London. She goes under the name of Rachel Oppenheimer, I don't know why. As God is my witness, I repent in ashes. Won't your Lordship's Majesty have mercy on a worm of the earth? I am an old man, getting on, and starved to madness. The ever devoted slave, from this day forth, of my Lord King.

“BARUGH FRANKL”.

Hogarth 'phoned up: “Give Frankl food now, and put him where it is not cold....” and to Loveday he said, “Well, you see, she is there: 'No. 11, Market Street'. And under the name of--what? 'Rachel Oppenheimer'...John Loveday, do you fathom the meaning of that?”

“No--don't bother me about meanings, but shout, like her, 'O Happy Day!' I say, Richard, you remember that singing? how we would hear her from the forge? All day, washing, cooking--melodious soul! There was 'O Happy Day', and there was--By God, how charmingly holy! how English! And, Richard, you remember--?”

Another telephone bell: Hogarth turned to hear.

“Just arrived in the yacht, _Tyre_, my Lord King”, said Quilter-Beckett's voice, “four Jewish ladies, a Jewish gentleman, and a rabbi, who request early audience to-morrow; they lie-to, and have sent a boat--”

“Rubbish! I shall not be here to-morrow, and even if I was--Who are they? By the way, no sign of the yacht?”

“Not yet. They are Miss Frankl--”

“Who?”

“Miss Rebekah Frankl--”

“God”, went Hogarth faintly, stabbed to the heart.

“Miss Agnes Friedrich, Mrs.--”

But the rest fell upon ears deaf as death, the teeth of Hogarth now chattering as with cold, that haggard, gaunt yellow, which was his pallor, overspreading his face. So long was he speechless, that Quilter-Beckett asked: “Are you there, my Lord King?”

“Quilter-Beckett!”

“Yes, my Lord King?”

“Will you go _yourself_--for me--to them? _Make_ them sleep here, will you? This is most urgent, I assure you. And go quick, will you?”

That night did not the Lord of the Sea sleep: she under his roof...

Nor did he go that night to find Margaret--nor the next day, nor the next, though Loveday chafed: for, gyrating through the giddy air of a galaxy where Margaret was not, he forgot her.

XLII

REBEKAH TELLS

At that time Hogarth, personally, was in close relation with the score of Embassies that inhabited the belly of the _Boodah_, these intriguing incessantly for half-hours at his ear, and in communication, meanwhile, with their Governments through O'Hara's _Mahomet_: so that Hogarth had to get up early, and his mornings sweated with audience and negotiation.

The German and Russian Emperors, with the Prince of Wales (then virtually Regent), had hurriedly met at Vienna--presumably for the discussion of the Manifesto; and immediately after it, the Prince, who had the reputation of being one of the most tactful of men-of-the-world, took a step which hinted that the Royal House, as often before, meant to come to the rescue of the country which loved it however the politicians might bungle: Hogarth was invited to accept the Garter.

He accepted: and the ceremony in the _Boodah_ was witnessed, as it were, by Europe, King-at-Arms in a new tabard, with his suite, going to invest him, taking the Statute of the Chapter, with the Great Seal of England, and a set of habiliments--white-silk stockings, gold sword Spanish hat, stars, gloves. And the effect was speedy, the other rulers, dumbfounded before, said now: “England will comply with the Manifesto; and, if before us, the taxed sea opens to her....Yield, moreover, we must: let us make haste!”

But to consent was one thing: the _how_ another: the mere suspicion of the willingness of Kaiser or Tsar shook their thrones. Whereupon Russia said to Hogarth: “Recently dispossessed, they cling dyingly now to their lands, so I will _buy_ the land from them, and _you_ will lend me the money”; to which Hogarth virtually replied: “It is too childish to talk of buying part of a heavenly body from a Russian: have you no sense of humour? You may give the Russian 'nobles' some money, if that pleases you: but without my help. If His Majesty the Tsar is more afraid of them than of me, my only way will be to prove myself more truly terrible than they”.

But high words hurl down no hundred-headed hydra: in France--fast, faster--with dizzy vertigo--millions were forming themselves into secret societies, while in England was One only--but stronger than the many of France.

By the date of Rebekah's pilgrimage Hogarth had so far failed and yielded, as almost to decide that from the _Boodah_ nothing could be done, unless he went to the extent of ruining and starving. The other alternative was the fixing upon one nation, becoming its recognized ruler, and there furnishing an example both of _modus operandi_, and of a subsequent state of happiness, which others could not long refrain from imitating.

But this modification was still in the air; and, meanwhile, he listened, weighed, revolved: using men, impressing, convincing, extracting for his use the wisdom of their experience, estimating the exact pressure of the Time, the _timbre_ of its roar.

So on the morning after Rebekah's arrival his Gold Stick became his rack from the moment of the bow from the throne till noon: name after name--cordons, orders, gold-lace, sashes, stars, tiaras; till enter the four Jewesses, the bank-manager, the rabbi, Hogarth's pallor showing up his three moles and nose-freckles, adding a glare to his eyes, he suffering from the runaway drumming of his heart.

The ladies stoop through curtseys; the men do reverence; Hogarth bows.

There like a Begum of Bhopal stood Rebekah, floridly reflected in the glassy floor, sallow under the eyes, smiling at him, he at her; and very quickly now, she once in his sight, he recovered comparative calm, and the strength of his heart.

“Your first visit to the _Boodah_, I think?”--looking at her.

“Yes, my Lord King”--curtseying.

“Do you like her?”

“Why, yes: she is solid, and mighty, and rich. In my own, and the name of my friends, I beg to thank your Lordship's Majesty for your Lordship's Majesty's kind and good hospitality to us”.

“Humbugging little beggar”, thought Hogarth, his mind slowly gathering tone, but rushing meanwhile into a species of frivolous assurance after those agitations, his hands still cold.

“Well”, he said, “but you have not seen her! I think I know her fairly well, and I propose to be myself your guide, if that will interest you--”

The Rabbi spoke with trembling voice: “It is gracious, my Lord King. We are here, however, humbly to present an urgent petition to your Lordship's Majesty. Baruch Frankl, at present a prisoner in the _Boodah_, a man no longer young, and habituated to comfort--”

“Stay”, interrupted Hogarth: “if you have a petition the day and hour must be arranged by negotiation between yourself and my Chamberlain. But surely, meantime, I may consider you my guest? Miss Frankl and I--have met--in the world. Come, ladies--come, sirs--say yes!”

Rebekah, standing averted, flashed a look at him, reading his heart, and Jews and Jewesses laid heads together, whispering a little, until the Rabbi said, bowing: “We bend to your Lordship's Majesty's most gracious will”.

“Agreed, then, sir. We might now see the _Boodah_, and if you will luncheon with me--Mr. Chamberlain! direct Admiral Quilter-Beckett to meet me at once in the north corridor”.

He rose, master of his limbs now, descended, unrobed in an alcove, and in a corridor above the circular stair came upon Quilter-Beckett, who, acting as guide, Rebekah's hand now resting on Hogarth's arm, led them about the _Boodah_, now walking, now slipping in little trains over eighty-foot rails, rolled in one heat, laid down the vanishing length of dim-lit corridors floored with white tiles, their frieze of majolica, with rows of ceramics; and they saw the armouries, piles of rifles, cutlasses, pistols; ferneries grown by electric light; great cold-storage rooms that struck a chill, for preserving meats, butter, fruit; the doctors' _environ_, the dispensary, and roomy hospital; watched from a railing the working engines that fixed the _Boodah's_ position, Hogarth here saying: “There you have a menagerie of gnome-land: observe those two black beetles, sedately nodding; and there is daddy-longlegs, working his legs gymnastically; and the three pairs of gallant grey stallions, galloping grandly neck to neck; and those two ridiculous beings, rubbing their palms together, round and round: each preoccupied, comically solemn, busied about its own quaint affairs--like a varied gnomeland”.

And Rebekah said in a meek tone, like the hen submitting: “Yes, I see now you say it, my Lord King”.

Up stairs and down, round semicircles, up lifts, through nooks, corridors: saw the guns, and how by hydraulics everything was done--the hoisting of ammunition, loading, training: guns intact, guns wrecked by the Dreadnoughts; and shimmering kitchens, which reeked a smell of heat, and the dairy-maids, and the line of kine, and the row of prison-doors, and the mechanism of ventilation, fans and blowers, the drainage-system, and the dynamos for lighting, for supplying power to motors, for heating, and for shimmering forth rich in the search-lights; and the central ballroom, the clothes store, the original one-ninety-sixth model, the Ambassador-region, the steaming laundry, and the roof, where Rebekah saw her initials on the breeze, and the vertical pop-guns under shields for dealing with aeroplane attack, and the cream theatre, and the paymaster's suite, and the bunkers, the Government-offices, and the tax-receiving rooms, the telephone system, and the lady-telegraphists--till all were tired, though half had not been seen. They luncheoned together; in the early afternoon there was an Investiture, and she was there; for “five-o'clock” there was a Gounod concert in the theatre, and she sat in his box; at night the Bulgarian Ambassador gave a ball, and she danced a gavotte with him.

When they parted a dying wind sighed his name: “_Hogarth_...”; and when Loveday before sleeping happened to ask: “When do we set out for London, Richard?” Hogarth with a laugh turned upon him, replying: “When do we set out for Arcturus and the Pleiades? Do give one time to look round him!”

The next morning Rebekah, led forward from a semicircle of courtiers by a backing Silver Stick, approached within four feet of the Throne, and after the protracted humiliation of her curtsey, said ruefully: “Our party have failed, my Lord King, to obtain audience for our humble petition till after four days”.

“Is that too long?”

“We could not wait beyond to-night. Our good Rabbi, and my father's Manager--both must hurry back, and we others with them. This being so, _I_ appeal to Your Lordship's Majesty “.

“A _personal_ appeal?”

“Yes”--poutingly.

“Then, I grant an audience”.

“Where?”

“Here”.

“Who will be here?”

“Why--you and I.”

“_No_”--very low, with pressed lips.

“I am so sorry”, says he: “it is the only chance I shall have; not for long--a few minutes--I am so busy. Otherwise, you will have to stay four days--and your poor father suffering--”

She seemed unsure now, and his hands in the uncertainty of that moment were moist like melting ice.

“So, then, you accept”, said he: “a little audience--you grant me? Or rather, I grant you”.

“When, my Lord King?”

“At three--No, what folly! At four. Will you? At four? And here? Say at four”.

He spoke leaning keenly forward; and she, with a curtsey of acquiescence, retired.

They were near again, and yet far, in the _salle à manger_ at luncheon, a function of a hundred guests at small tables, with more of orchestra than of talk; and even as Hogarth and his train entered, and the crowd rose, she saw his eyes, by some power, prowl and find her.

Afterwards there were two hours to wait.

Such a heat of haste now possessed them both! Hogarth locked himself from his attendants into his bed-chamber, and, tumbling a chaos of clothes and uniforms upon the carpet, stumbled bitterly among them, hunting for a cravat whose effect he remembered; wished at the mirror that he had no moles and nose-freckles, or that his father had turned him out rather less black; and anon a delicious chill pang of mingled sugar and peppermint would gash his heart at the thought: “_she consented!_” He broke glass, dropped his watch to fragments, hissing “damn the thing!”; and about half-past three the hands of Rebekah, too, in _her_ locked closet, were like the scattering sirocco among powder-boxes brushes, jewel-cases, and toilet-toys. What a hot haste was here! She too much blued her eyes, and bruised the skin in wiping, intense the contest between poudre blanche and poudre Rachel, violette and germandrée, she manoeuvring among mirrors to catch each angle of view, but with a blind impatience; and, if she wanted something, she tripped running, breathless: such a disease of flurry, an eruption and conflagration of haste--for nothing; yet, all the while, with a miserable sub-feeling of the penal creeping of time.

At four Hogarth in the Throne-room alone was now afraid that he would not be able to utter a syllable, and wished that she would not come; then, in a minute, began to fear that she would not, and wondered whether he was not a deluded fool ever to have dreamed it, he walking quick, or anon listening like a thief in that half-dark: for few lights were shining, the hall like the after-flush of sunset just before the dark.

At four past four he was aware of a rustling train's rush down the steps, and now was like a man with his neck on the block, awaiting the axe. A moment afterwards she was before him, and two moments afterwards he was collected and hot, and a man again.

“_Dear_”, he whispered at her ear, leading her by the hand to an ottoman in a near alcove.

She, in self-defence, was repellent, breathlessly saying with galloping haste: “No--I will not sit: you sit, and I will stand here: do as I say, Hogarth--or I repent and go: I know you, and you know me--or you should. Our talk must be short. You say _dear_ to me: that is very gentle, my friend; but it was not to bandy such words that I am here--alone--with you and your strength--Hogarth. I come as a suppliant, to implore you--firstly for the man who is my father--and secondly for yourself, to warn you. You are said to be about to become the sovereign of England--”

“_I_ am?”--starting where he sat obediently before her, surprised that she should utter the purpose then forming in his mind: “witch--of Endor!”

“_I_ am not the witch, but an old lady in whose predictions many Jews believe, who prophesies the return of the Jews to Palestine--through you. Be that as it may, if it is so that you are about to meddle with the institutions of England, oh beware, the resistence will be terrible!”

“With respect to England I am omnipotent”.

“Yes, you can starve it, but _will_ you? You won't. And listen to your friend: there is now in London a society, enormously powerful I believe, sworn to your destruction”.

“What can they do--assassinate me?”

“Ah! who knows?”

“That would be too childish: I have sown my seed in Time, and it will grow: two thousand little lords could hardly obliterate the ploughing of my wrist. But you know this?”

“Richard, my father is of them”.

“Ha!--I forgive him: his daughter seems to be on the other side--”

“Richard, you would not touch my hand? Ah, my friend, I warn you--! Now--you have agitated--I have been ill--my father is of them. And who is one of the closest associates of my father--?”

“Who?”

“The person known as Admiral Donald, whom _I_ know very well to be Monsignor O'Hara. I think you might have been more--recondite--in your choice of an admiral, Richard!”

“Ah?--you surprise me”.

“But why? You once sent that man to me as a notebearer: certainly, a singular selection. You must have known that he had been a convict--”

“I thought him innocent then!”

“But you know now--?”

“Yes”.

“And is it not extraordinary that your ensign bears my initials, while this man is one of your commanders?”

“I confess that I do not see the point--”

“Then you cannot know, I suppose, that it was against _me_ that his offence was directed”.

Hogarth's left lid lowered....

“But my complaint is of the present: are you not aware of the scandal which the _Mahomet_ is now creating in the world?”

“Scandal?”

“Thrice lately whispers have reached me of unnameable iniquities perpetrated there--Alexandria of the sixth century, Rome of the second! I believe the rumour is widely spread in London--no woman of the world now lands on the _Mahomet_”.

“It was _you_ whom he assaulted...” Hogarth laughed and was pale at once.

“Yes, but observe that I must go now, my friend. I have spoken of the things which I had in my mind: there remains--my father”.

“He shall go with you”.

“I thank you, my Lord King; that must be in an hour: so I say, Richard, good-bye”.

“I do not suppose you can dream how dark--” he went woefully.

Of which she took no notice, but with rapid speech said: “How fair this hall is--one supposes that the art of impressions was lost with Solomon--like some chamber under a lake at set of sun, colour without substance, suspended, flushed--I cannot express--”

“Sad, say”.

“Ah, Richard”.

“Rebekah!”

“Well, Richard, my poor friend?”

“Have pity!”

“Poor Richard!”

“I can't help it, you are all mixed up with my blood, don't go from me. If you think it a sin--the Gentile--God will forgive the charity. Come for ever--”

Now he sobbed once, and, as he sobbed, she was on her knees, in pagan posture, at his knees. “Do not--” distractedly--“see, I kiss your hand-do you doubt that I pity my love--as a mother has compassion--?”

Now were heaving breasts, a vehement fight for breaths, wild eyes, and a live brand in the marrow.

“You will not go! I have you! In God's name, what a mad thing--!”

“My furious king--you kiss--” the short-winded _mélée_ of whispers now suffocated in a passion of inarticulate breaths; but at that moment one of Rebekah's chaperons, wandering out of time and place, stood at the alcove entrance, and they, smitten into two, sprang straight, awaked from trance, Rebekah with half a sob and half a laugh.

And two hours later Hogarth, from the roof, saw the Jewish yacht disappear to the East, on board being the four--and Frankl.

As he descended, he threw up his head with: “Ha!--O'Hara”; announced his immediate departure with only a secretary and two lords-in-waiting, left a mystical note for Loveday, saying that he had decided to go alone in quest of Margaret, and went almost secretly, only the salute informing the _Boodah_ as he steamed away. In reality he was in haste to face O'Hara, and the yacht's bows turned, not eastward, but southward, under forced draught, to arrive at the _Mahomet_ in early afternoon. As her flags indicated the Lord of the Sea absent, there was no salute, and, landing in a panama and jacket, in the Collector's Office he gave the sign of mum, and, led only by a blue-jacket, went spying the depths of the _Mahomet_.

In many parts, noticing a singular odour, “What is it I smell?” he asked.

“Incense, my Lord King”, the man answered.

On the fourth floor he entered the loveliest _bijou_ chapel, the coenaculum gold-plated, altar flower-piled, frescoed roof, “stations” in oils, where a lonesome Moorish youth slothfully swung and swung a thurible ruby-studded: but in vestments of no _enfant de choeur_--of an ancient Phrygian.

Another descent and Hogarth reached a region of laugh and harping: whereupon, dismissing his guide, he tracked the music into a nook so rare, that he stood amazed--a Court of Love, or Mahommedan Heaven, or grot of Omar--anything old, lovely, and devil-sacred--the air chokingly odorous, near a fountain some brazen demon--Moloch or Baal--buried in roses, over everything roses, bounty of flowers, a very harvest-home of Chloris, Flora in revel; and smooth youths bearing cups for some twenty others, all garlanded, besides those on the marble stage; and on the stage itself a scene of dancing girls, Sevillian, Neapolitan, Algerian, mixed with masked Satyrs, which made Hogarth pale, while at a Herod's-table buried under fruits, wines, flowers and gold, reclined Pat O'Hara, tonsured now, crowned with ivy and violets, gowned in a violet toga; while under a pendulum whose swings left whiffs of incense behind lay Harris insensible.

As Hogarth descended into it, harp and dance ceased; some leapt to their feet: but O'Hara sat still, gazing in a dead silence through glairy eyes, while Hogarth, looking about, spied an electric button in a couch, touched it, and soon a man in uniform stood at a door above.

“Who are you?” asked Hogarth.

“John Souttar, head-telegraphist, may it please your Lordship's Majesty”.

“Make haste: tell the First Lieutenant and the Chief Constable that the Lord of the Sea is here”.

By now all the revellers were on their feet; no sound: only, the clicking pendulum voyaged, landed an incense-whiff, and voyaged, like traders.

Then the Lieutenant appeared, mottled and panting, and immediately the Constable.

“Ah, Royds”, said Hogarth: “is it practicable to flood this room quickly with a hose?”

“I--should think so, my Lord King”.

“See to it. First set guards at the exits”.

He turned to the other: “Mr. Chief Constable, I give all present, except, of course, your Admiral, into custody, on a charge of misdemeanour on the high seas. The General Prosecutor will, in due course, forward the indictment to your Summary Court. Have your men here with handcuffs”.

Again silence, till, in four minutes, two men appeared on the steps, ball-nozzle in hand; upon which Hogarth said to O'Hara: “Follow me”, and as the two passed up, O'Hara tottery, care hanging on that ponderous nether-lip, Hogarth whispered the hose-bearers: “Drown the room well--man and woman--do not spare”.

To O'Hara he said: “Lead to your suite”, and, descending, they presently stood in a bed-temple, the bed surrounded with mirrors, and at the other end of the apartment an altar--pyx, six unflickering candles, and flowers, with rail and reredos, and maxims of St. Theresa.

Hogarth said: “Sleep two hours”, and went out, turning the key.

But in half an hour O'Hara had started awake, sober, and, clapping his palms over his face, burst into tears.

That Hogarth might be capable of impeachment before a Court of Admirals, followed by death on the block, he feared; and he rolled, groaning, tugging his tonsure-fringe, which, on the forehead, lay a thin grey forelock, thinking: “Guilty wretch that I am! putrid, unwholesome, hopeless, I have befouled the holiest: how richly do I deserve to die!”; and even as he groaned and smote, his secret mind weighed up the chances of Hogarth's action.

He rose, listened, rushed to the door, found it locked, tossed up despairing hands, and tottered to the altar, at which he knelt, all sighs, and dying fish-eyes, and sideward-languishing face, and weary woe. Ah! how great the mountain of his iniquity: if he might be but once more spared, his evil remainder of days he would bury in some Carmelite retreat, with fastings and prayers; but no--he had too much tempted the Eternal patience, the sword was out against him. Yet he implored, he implored with groans: with half an eye, meanwhile, on the door; and, having with regard to Hogarth a piece of secret knowledge which he guarded deep for some possible emergency and use (the fact of Hogarth's Jewish birth), as he prayed, his brain with complete detachment worked out the question whether he might now reveal this with advantage.

Hogarth found him kneeling, said “Get up”, and O'Hara stood, leaning upon the rail, too faint to stand unpropped, Hogarth contemplating him, tapping the toes.

“Well, sir! I know all: your whole past”.

“Red as crimson--!” went O'Hara faintly, with tossed hands.

“Red enough, Admiral. You are a bad old man: merit death”.

“Ah, God knows it, my Lord King! I do assure you, I am a leprous wretch: and I welcome death--I pray you, I pray Heaven, for it--”

“You should have it, if you were a better, or a younger, man: but I will not stain the Empire of which you were chosen to be a stay, and are the shame, with the blood of such as you. You are beneath judgment: and that clemency which is our scutcheon I extend to you. Live, therefore, and repent, O'Hara. I, however, you understand, now turn from you for ever. And I discharge you like a menial, sir. See to it that within six months you have your affairs regulated, and send in your resignation to the Government”.

He turned and went; and, as he disappeared, O'Hara straightened, coolly went “H'm!”, and took snuff. He lived, he lived: while there is life there is fun.

Fumbling about, searching for nothing, all relieved and rescued, yet stunned, he suddenly exclaimed: “What a noble fellow is my son Hogarth!”, and knelt again.

Hogarth in the same hour was away for England; and on the fourth evening thence, the street-lamps just lit, stood before No. 11 Market Street, Edgware Road, come for Margaret; his carriage waiting at a corner forty yards away; and though within the last hour he had realized vividly that his voyage to the _Mahomet_ had given Frankl time to remove her, or accomplish any devilish device in his power with respect to her, he was now all prospect and expectancy.

The house was three-storied, mean, unlighted, with an “area”; from a neighbouring window a woman screaming down to some playing children; and under her a shop sending out that fishy fume which “drove Asmodeus back to hell”.

He rapped, received no answer, rapped again without reply, then stepped down and back, looking up: and suddenly, faintly, but distinctly, he heard her voice, high up--_singing_.

“O what a pretty place,
And what a graceful city,
Where the striplings are so gay,
And the ladies are so pretty “.

It was she! He ran and banged at the door: no reply.

Back again he stepped; and now a window on the top floor went up, and she, putting out her head, twice beckoned him--listlessly, it seemed, then drew in; and instantly--again--he heard her sing.

As once more he ran to the door, he discovered now that it was open, darted into darkness, up uncarpeted stairs, making for that upper room, vague light through grimy stair-windows guiding his impassioned dash; and on the third floor entered a room with two doors, beyond one of which was the room he sought: but that door was locked.

At it he pushed, fumbled, called: “Margaret!” No reply. And suddenly he heard her singing, not before, but behind him.

“Happy day! Happy day!
When Jesus washed my sins away “...

When he flew to the other door, and now found it, too, locked, gradually in that gloom all colour faded from his face; and the voice sang on: “Happy day! happy day”....

XLIII

THE LAND BILL

The Manifesto's “month of grace” was passing, yet nothing had been done, second-rate Powers awaiting the Great, while the Great, appalled by the bigness of the demand, fussed and intrigued, consulted, fermented and proposed: but did nothing.

But at last, on the 3rd of December, the First Lord of the Treasury laid a Bill on the table of our Commons--at the end of an Autumn-session!

On the 3rd: and on the 1st the Lord of the Sea had been captured near Edgware Road, the probability being that this Bill was brought forward with a knowledge of that capture.

It consisted of three clauses and two schedules--called The Land Purchase Bill; and it had only to be published to produce the stormiest agitation ever known.

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”.