The Lord of the Sea Part 51

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 cla.s.s-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 t.i.tle".

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.

"I am going in now to him", said Loveday: "if you care to wait here, I will see"--and pa.s.sing through a palace pretty busy that night with feet and a thousand working purposes, went to sit at the sick bed, the doctors retiring.

"How is the pain?"

"The pain", said the Regent very weakly, "is nonsense: I am not going to be bullied by doctors, but shall do exactly as I like".

"And what is that, Richard?"

"There is a Normandy village, John, called Valee-les-Noisettes--white houses with an extraordinary sound of forest about, one of Poussin's landscapes, with a smithy under a chestnut precisely as in the poem; and the blacksmith is a charming man. I dare say someone will find me money enough to purchase a share of his smithy: and with him I shall work, starting for him before sunrise, with my sister".

Loveday, wondering if he was delirious, said irrelevantly: "I have to tell you that by five A.M. there will be 15,000 additional infantry in London, with--"

"Ah, I wish they'd lend them me to send out to those poor Jews, John.

But, for myself--I was mad when I gave that order. It won't do! the world is addicted to its...o...b..t, and relapses. I don't say that it will be always so, but it is now. As against the Empire of the Sea arises--Pat O'Hara; as against the brus.h.i.+ng aside of these rebels arise--Germany, Russia, the hostile world. Consider the rancour of the nations at Britain's late advantages in sea-rent, try to conceive the scream of jubilation that rings to the sky to-night against her, and against me. Do you think I could _now_ start a civil war in England? for the satisfaction of my own pride? I call G.o.d to witness that never for my own pride have I done aught, but that the Kingdom of G.o.d might come. I know that bitter tears will flow at the fall of the righteous man--many calling me 'traitor' for abandoning those ready to die for me.

Yet it shall be. I never thought to fail, to fly, John Loveday, chased by such little fellows: but G.o.d has done it. Well, then, the smithy. You and all, therefore, will find enough to do to-night".

Loveday lifted a face streaming with tears to say: "The man, O'Hara, waits to see you".

"Really? Well, come, we will see him...." and in some minutes O'Hara was there by the bedside, the eyes of the two fixed together, over Hogarth's face five oblongs of sticking-plaster, his head bandaged, and at a corner of O'Hara's mouth a twitching.

"Pat, did you betray me?" asked Hogarth.

O'Hara nodded: "Yes".

"Well, you may sit and tell me, and ease your poor heart".

And a long time O'Hara sat, going into the mighty crime, torturing details, revelling in the vastness of the horror, the sickness of the self-inflicted filth, and pangs of the self-inflicted scalpel.

"And why did you do it, my friend?"

"Because I wors.h.i.+p you...."

"Well, perhaps I understand you, crooked soul. But what will you do now?"

"We shall see. What will you?"

"I am going to France to live as a private person".

"Tut, you remain as simple as a child: the earth's not large enough to contain you, you couldn't now remain a private person for three weeks.

Come, I have discrowned you: I will give you another crown, though I shall never see you wear it. Why not go to your own people?"

"Which people?"

"The Jews".

"Don't talk that same madness".

"My time with you is short, Raphael Spinoza"--O'Hara glanced at his watch--"in five minutes we part, never, I do a.s.sure you, to meet again. Listen, then, to me: you are a Jew. I knew your mother--the most intellectual woman, I suppose, who ever drew breath, the only one whom I have loved; and I should have known you merely from your resemblance to her at my first glance at you in Colmoor, though I had more precise data: the three moles, the bloodshot eye, for didn't I baptize you?

haven't I rocked you in my arms? You know St. Hilda on the hill over Westring, which you found me examining that morning after our escape from the prison? I was priest there, three years, and twice I have confessed her--ah! and remember it! for when your foster-father wanted her to turn Methodist, she wouldn't stand that, and since she must needs be a _meshumad_ (apostate), became a Catholic. Well, now, I once saw at Thring, and once in the _Boodah_, an old goat-hair trunk of yours: what is become of it?"

"I have it--" Hogarth was s.h.i.+vering, his eyes wide, and in his memory a strange singsong crooning of _t'hillim_, heard ages before in some other world over a cradle.

"Did you know that that trunk has a false bottom?" asked O'Hara.

"Yes".