King John of Jingalo Part 44

Max, left to his own surmisings, opened wide and wondering eyes. "Did he throw that bomb at himself?" he murmured in astonishment. "It looks very much as if he did."

II

Parliament opened again without any difficulty in the middle of December; and the enormous popularity of the King and Queen was greatly enhanced by the circ.u.mstance of their reappearance within so short a time for an occasion so closely similar. Only another bomb could have increased the favorable impression made upon the populace by their affable return to the charge--if a slow walking-pace may be so described--within three weeks of the attempted outrage.

As the Prime Minister had promised the police spared no pains to insure their safety, and behind the h.o.a.rdings of the new Government offices detectives were packed like herrings in a barrel, with special eye-holes bored through so that they might note the actual pa.s.sing of the royal carriage, and have it well under observation at the point of danger which was, presumably, that at which the last explosion had occurred.

Then the whole police force held its breath, and the coach got past without any difficulty; and immediately the waiting mult.i.tude in Regency Row became violently demonstrative as though some great acrobatic feat had been achieved. And the piebald ponies came stepping like rope-dancers each held by a groom; and everything--except the fresh bomb for which so many stage preparations had been made--went off with all the success imaginable.

The King did not read his own speech: he had a sore throat for the occasion, and only with his ears did he swallow the bitter pill of that foreshadowed scheme which he had so long and vainly resisted; for now he was bound by his own promise, and could no longer "stand in the way."

And so, by the mouth of the Lord High Commissioner, the Bishops heard under its smooth-sounding t.i.tle the plan for their approaching doom read out from the steps of the Throne, and as soon as the King and the Queen had retired, budding members on the ministerial side in both Houses rose up to congratulate the Cabinet and the country on those wise and statesmanlike proposals, and hardened veterans upon the other, the Archbishop included, rose up to condemn them. And after that, for three or four days a general wrangling--all leading to nothing--went on.

But while Parliament talked vacuously within, outside came rumblings of storm; the discontent of certain sections of the community with conditions unsettled or unattended to was gathering to a head. And on the third day after the session had opened, Charlotte said to her father with rather a tragic look, "Papa, do you know what is going to happen to-night?" And then she told him.

It was those Women Chartists again.

The King had been true to his word, he had made inquiries; in a way he had even "looked into the matter," and had received from the right and official quarter bland a.s.surances that there was nothing in it--merely a general obstreperousness and a wish to cause trouble to the police. But his conscience, which so often ran away with him, was still troubled; and so when the evening came he sent once again for the newly appointed Home Minister; and in reply to rather anxious questions was given confidently to understand that the police arrangements were quite adequate for the occasion, that everything would be done as quietly and as leniently as possible; and that no edge of the disturbance would in any case be allowed to overflow in the direction of the royal palace. As he listened to the c.o.c.ksure tone of this new minister, and the almost patronizing air with which he exposed his official fitness for the post so recently conferred on him, the King ceased to ask questions--let the man talk himself out,--and then, when silence seemed to give consent, got rid of him.

It was now time that he should go to dress for dinner, but the motive force was absent. He stood for a while considering, then went to the window, and opening it let in the distant hum of the city traffic.

All sounded as usual, pleasant, busy, peaceable. Yet if what his daughter told him was true, within half-an-hour those quietly-sounding streets would be thronged with thousands upon thousands waiting for the arrival of the women to claim their old historical right of pet.i.tion; and serried lines of police--thousands of them also--would be standing to bar their way, whatever direction they might go in quest of the governing authority. And in the hands of these women would be pet.i.tions personally addressed to himself; yet never had any minister put to him the question whether he would be willing to receive them and hear what they had to say; such an idea seemed not to have entered their heads--or was it the fear lest such a reception might give the cause too great an importance in the public eye? Here, once again, then, proof met him of the conspiracy of modern government constantly going on to bring about disconnection between the Crown and the real life-needs and aspirations of the people. Suffocating traditions closed him round making a cypher of him--to himself a scorn and a derision, and a monster unto many--just as much, by this denial of pet.i.tion, a breaker of his Crown oath as those who in the past had paid penalty for it with their lives!

There outside, in the nipping wintry air, he could hear the sounds of a liberty he no longer shared: the trotting of cab-horses, the cry of newsboys, the whiffle and hoot of motor-cars. Up through the bare trees of the park swam a soft radiance of light from the lamps below, and emergent like a full moon on a misty sky the face of the great Parliament clock dawned luminous to his gaze.

So long he stood, and listened, and waited, that before he closed the window again the clock had told the three-quarters to eight. Then he hesitated no more; pa.s.sing out of his study and down to a lower corridor he came presently to the cloak lobby, and selecting a rough full-length overcoat, a motor cap, and from a drawer a pair of clouded snow-gla.s.ses, arrayed himself in these, and with flaps drawn down and coat collar turned high, pa.s.sed out by a small side-entrance which led on to the terrace.

Chill air and a bosom of darkness received him; through the thick barrier of trees skirting the walled precincts scarcely a light winked; only the large domed conservatory behind him threw a pale radiance before his feet as he crossed the terrace and moved off by a winding path in the direction of a small postern concealed in shrubbery.

As he quitted the gra.s.s, the sound of his own footfalls upon firm gravel made him guiltily afraid; and it was not without some moral effort that he, a king in his own domain, kept himself from stepping back secretively to the turfed edge. Suppressing the inclination, he proceeded at a smart pace, and coming presently to the door with a slip-latch on its inner side he opened it and pa.s.sed through.

At the sound of opening a policeman stationed outside turned and stood pa.s.sively regarding him; his m.u.f.fled appearance seemed sufficiently in keeping with the uses to which this particular exit was put by others to awaken neither suspicion nor surprise. With a half-waggish air of respect the man touched his helmet. "Good-evening, sir," said he, as though there subsisted between the habitues of that door and himself a sort of understanding.

To make a quicker escape from the man's scrutiny and the glare of the lamp commanding the entrance, the King crossed the road, and took up his course along the more dimly lighted footway on the further side. At this hour the park row in which he found himself was almost deserted; now and again single pedestrians went by, and as he received from none of these more than a cursory and inattentive glance, his sense of incognito increased, and he stepped out more confidently to the task that lay ahead.

Presently he was pa.s.sing along the palace front and under the eyes of sentries standing motionless at their posts; and again he had satisfaction in perceiving that as he went by there was no inclination on the part of any one of them to present arms. He glanced up at the palace facade, with its windows softly lighted through blinds. He could pick out his own sitting-room, and the Queen's, where probably she was now reading the note he had sent to inform her that urgent business called him away. There were the lights of the smaller dining-hall, within which a table richly adorned with gold and silver plate stood even now waiting its twenty accustomed guests--the minister-in-attendance and the higher permanent officials of the Court. No one else from outside was coming to-night except Prince Max. That was fortunate, Max would take his place.

As soon as he was outside the borders of the park the King quitted the main thoroughfare for narrow and dimly lit alleys, avoiding the streets of wide pavements and shops which had scarcely yet begun to close; and before long found that he had lost his way.

The fact was sufficiently absurd; here within a stone's throw of his own palace, and stretching almost to the doors of the House of Legislature whereto he went in so much state every year, lay an unknown territory which he had never thought to explore. The intricacy of back streets was quite unknown to him, and he seemed at almost every corner to be stepping into yards and cul-de-sacs, from which he had perforce to turn back again. In a short time all sense of the points of the compa.s.s was gone.

A small ragged urchin asked him the time, and that casual touch of communalism made him feel more at home. He took out his watch--it was already five minutes past eight: over those high narrow streets, with their thin strip of sky, the big clock of Parliament had boomed the hour and he had not heard it. Away scurried the urchin as though already late for something, excitedly calling on others to follow; and the King, with the presumption that these running feet would be sure to lead him in the direction where he wished to go, followed them round two corners. After that all trace of them was gone.

A sound of shrill singing now struck his ear. He was in a narrow asphalted way surrounded by workmen's tenements. Right in the middle, occupying the place of the non-existent traffic, ten or a dozen children were dancing a sort of figure, and singing the while. As he drew near he caught s.n.a.t.c.hes of the words.

Of an elder child, who stood looking on, he stopped and asked the way.

She told him, gesticulating as to which corners he was to pa.s.s, pointing all the time to the promised goal. Incautiously he dropped a coin into her hand; and, as kings do not carry coppers, immediately there was a cry. The singers stopped and surrounded him, stretching up clamorous palms; a whole dozen were now feverishly anxious to show him every step of the way.

"It's the 'Chartises' as you want to see, arn't it, mister?" inquired one. "I'll show you where they go; I know all of 'em."

The King pressed hurriedly on, hoping to get rid of them; but his fl.u.s.tered air appealed to the tormenting instincts of youth, and told them that here they had got some one capable of being worried into surrender. Still clamoring and thrusting up hands for backsheesh they kept pace with him. A few of them started singing again, and the rest joined in: perhaps singing was what the gentleman liked best--and so a better way for gaining their end. The shrill voices fell into chorus; and to a queer lilting tune the words rang clear.

"Come to me Quietlee, Do not do me an injuree!

Gently, Johnnie of Jingalo."

"What's that?" cried the King, stopping short in his amazement; "what's that you say?" A new bewilderment seized on him. It was impossible--quite impossible that the children should know who he really was, yet there were the words with their implied accusation, as though personally directed at him, and at him alone.

The small street singers, taking the inquiry for an encore, sang it again; and this time the words had a curious flirtatious meaning which made them even worse. What was he being charged with?

"Where did you get that from?" he inquired, hot of face.

"One of the Chartises taught it us," said a child more ready of speech than the rest. "They all sings it now. It's one of their songs, that is!" So with reduplicating speech she conveyed intelligence to his mind.

Never before had any word of poetry struck him a blow like this. He had said that he did not understand poetry, but here was meaning only too clear; in this song--so gentle, pleading, and pathetic in character, he, John of Jingalo, stood publicly accused of all the injuries that were being done to women in that necessary defense of law and order against which, pet.i.tion in hand, they were so obstinately setting themselves.

What was all his popularity worth, if by the mouths of little children his name was to be thus cried in the streets? It was scandalous, indecent; and yet--was it altogether without justification?

To be rid of his small tormentors and free for his own meditations, he took the most practical means that suggested itself.

"There, there!" he cried. "Run away, run away, all of you!" and throwing a random coin into their midst moved hastily away. Behind him as he went he heard battle royal being waged; liberal though the donation, and sufficient to distribute sustenance to all, each was now claiming it as her own perquisite.

And so at his back the shrill sounds of wrath and contention went on till they became merged in a louder roar, the origin of which was presently made apparent.

He turned a corner and saw before him a huge crowd, and Regency Row packed with seething humanity from end to end.

III

For the first time in his life the King formed part of a crowd, and knew what it was like to feel his body and limbs packed in by the bodies and limbs of others and to have the breath squeezed out of him. In this crowd the proportion of men to women was as ten to one; from the physical point of view, therefore, the chances for these conflicting women were nil. All the same they were there in large numbers, and not for the first time; many of them were already sufficiently well known to the police.

A curiously corporate movement possessed this crowd; when it s.h.i.+fted at all it s.h.i.+fted in large sections--three or four hundred at once; a whole street-width of men driving forward at a lunge, before which the strongest barrier of police momentarily gave way. And wherever this kind of movement went on a few women formed the center of it.

Small bundles of humanity, they shot by in the grip of that huge force, mischievous and uncontrolled; tossed, tousled, and squeezed, shedding as they went small fragments of their outer raiment, lost momentarily to view in the surging ma.s.s of men, cornered, crushed back, held down as within a vise--emerging again like popped corks followed by a foaming rush of shouting youths, jeering or cheering them on; and still through all that pressure obstinately retaining their human form, and enduring with a strange silence what was being done to them by this great roaring mob which had come out "for fun."

Some went their way wide-eyed, with terror in their looks, yet still set to their end; some with rigid faces and eyes shut fast, as though scarcely conscious--their souls elsewhere, submitting pa.s.sively to the buffetings of fate; and a few--strangest sight of all--smiling to themselves, almost with a look of peace, as though in the very violence by which they were a.s.sailed they discerned a triumph for their cause.

And with all the s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g, pus.h.i.+ng, and wrenching, the driving forward and the hurling back, scarcely one woman's arm was raised, except now and again to protect her breast from the lewd or wanton a.s.saults of the crowd. Some held, tight clasped in their hands, crumpled bits of paper--the pet.i.tion, presumably, over which all this trouble arose--stained, torn, almost illegible now, useless, yet still a symbol of the fight that was being waged. Now and then above the turmoil, in the dimness that lay between the lighted streets and the crowning darkness of night, went sudden flashes like sheet-lightning in storm; and at the stroke horses plunged, and youths screamed, facetiously imitating the voice of women. It was the work of photographers, securing, from some point of vantage overhead, flashlight records for the delectation of the music halls. Again and again, with pistol-like report, the monstrous dose was administered, the night took it at a gulp, and the rabble responded with noise and shoutings.

The genial voice of a mounted policeman working his way through the crowd sounded humanly above the din.

"I'm coming! I'm coming! I'm coming! I'm coming!" There was a touch of humor in the cry; for it was like the voice of a showman advertising his wares to a pack of holiday-makers anxious to buy; and wherever he went pleasantness reigned, and an element of good temper and considerateness mingled itself with the crowd.

"Oh! I'm coming! I'm coming! I'm coming!" Away he went on his disciplined errand of mercy, a man of kindliness, good counsel, and understanding, carrying out his orders in as human a way as was possible.

"Now then! Now then! Now then! I'm coming. Oh, I'm coming!"

The roaring mult.i.tude swallowed him; his cry grew faint, merged in the general din.

By the gradual compression and movement of the mult.i.tude toward some fancied center the King had been borne a good many hundred yards from his original point. Presently he found himself in a large open s.p.a.ce, with its low-railed inclosure guarded by police. Here the crowd was denser than ever and its sway harder to withstand. A woman's form was driven sharply against him. To avoid elbowing her off he offered the shelter of his arm; and she, finding herself up against something not immediately repellent, stayed to breathe. He saw the sweat pour from her skin, and as she panted in his arms she had the rank scent of a creature when it is hunted. Yet in her face there was no fear at all, only the white strain of physical exhaustion nearing its last point.