II
Percy understood nothing except that he was afraid, as he sat in thecrowded car that whirled him up to London. He scarcely even heard thetalk round him, although it was loud and continuous; and what he heardmeant little to him. He understood only that there had been strangescenes, that London was said to have gone suddenly mad, that Felsenburghhad spoken that night in Paul's House.
He was afraid at the way in which he had been treated, and he askedhimself dully again and again what it was that had inspired thattreatment; it seemed that he had been in the presence of thesupernatural; he was conscious of shivering a little, and of thesymptoms of an intolerable sleepiness. It was scarcely strange to himthat he should be sitting in a crowded car at two o'clock of a summerdawn.
Thrice the car stopped, and he stared out at the signs of confusion thatwere everywhere; at the figures that ran in the twilight between thetracks, at a couple of wrecked carriages, a tumble of tarpaulins; helistened mechanically to the hoots and cries that sounded everywhere.
As he stepped out at last on to the platform, he found it very much ashe had left it two hours before. There was the same desperate rush asthe car discharged its load, the same dead body beneath the seat; andabove all, as he ran helplessly behind the crowd, scarcely knowingwhither he ran or why, above him burned the same stupendous messagebeneath the clock. Then he found himself in the lift, and a minute laterhe was out on the steps behind the station.
There, too, was an astonishing sight. The lamps still burned overhead,but beyond them lay the first pale streaks of the false dawn. The streetthat ran now straight to the old royal palace, uniting there, as at thecentre of a web, with those that came from Westminster, the Mall andHyde Park, was one solid pavement of heads. On this side and that roseup the hotels and "Houses of Joy," the windows all ablaze with light,solemn and triumphant as if to welcome a king; while far ahead againstthe sky stood the monstrous palace outlined in fire, and alight fromwithin like all other houses within view. The noise was bewildering. Itwas impossible to distinguish one sound from another. Voices, horns,drums, the tramp of a thousand footsteps on the rubber pavements, thesombre roll of wheels from the station behind--all united in oneoverwhelmingly solemn booming, overscored by shriller notes.
It was impossible to move.
He found himself standing in a position of extraordinary advantage, atthe very top of the broad flight of steps that led down into the oldstation yard, now a wide space that united, on the left the broad roadto the palace, and on the right Victoria Street, that showed like allelse one vivid perspective of lights and heads. Against the sky on hisright rose up the illuminated head of the Cathedral Campanile. Itappeared to him as if he had known that in some previous existence.
He edged himself mechanically a foot or two to his left, till he claspeda pillar; then he waited, trying not to analyse his emotions, but toabsorb them.
Gradually he became aware that this crowd was as no other that he hadever seen. To his psychical sense it seemed to him that it possessed aunity unlike any other. There was magnetism in the air. There was asensation as if a creative act were in process, whereby thousands ofindividual cells were being welded more and more perfectly every instantinto one huge sentient being with one will, one emotion, and one head.The crying of voices seemed significant only as the stirrings of thiscreative power which so expressed itself. Here rested this gianthumanity, stretching to his sight in living limbs so far as he could seeon every side, waiting, waiting for some consummation--stretching, too,as his tired brain began to guess, down every thoroughfare of the vastcity.
He did not even ask himself for what they waited. He knew, yet he didnot know. He knew it was for a revelation--for something that shouldcrown their aspirations, and fix them so for ever.
He had a sense that he had seen all this before; and, like a child, hebegan to ask himself where it could have happened, until he rememberedthat it was so that he had once dreamt of the Judgment Day--of humanitygathered to meet Jesus Christ--Jesus Christ! Ah! how tiny that Figureseemed to him now--how far away--real indeed, but insignificant tohimself--how hopelessly apart from this tremendous life! He glanced upat the Campanile. Yes; there was a piece of the True Cross there, wasthere not?--a little piece of the wood on which a Poor Man had diedtwenty centuries ago.... Well, well. It was a long way off....
He did not quite understand what was happening to him. "Sweet Jesus, beto me not a Judge but a Saviour," he whispered beneath his breath,gripping the granite of the pillar; and a moment later knew how futilewas that prayer. It was gone like a breath in this vast, vividatmosphere of man. He had said mass, had he not? this morning--in whitevestments.--Yes; he had believed it all then--desperately, but truly;and now....
To look into the future was as useless as to look into the past. Therewas no future, and no past: it was all one eternal instant, present andfinal....
Then he let go of effort, and again began to see with his bodily eyes.
* * * * *
The dawn was coming up the sky now, a steady soft brightening thatappeared in spite of its sovereignty to be as nothing compared with thebrilliant light of the streets. "We need no sun," he whispered, smilingpiteously; "no sun or light of a candle. We have our light on earth--thelight that lighteneth every man...."
The Campanile seemed further away than ever now, in that ghostly glimmerof dawn--more and more helpless every moment, compared with thebeautiful vivid shining of the streets.
Then he listened to the sounds, and it seemed to him as if somewhere,far down eastwards, there was a silence beginning. He jerked his headimpatiently, as a man behind him began to talk rapidly and confusedly.Why would he not be silent, and let silence be heard?... The man stoppedpresently, and out of the distance there swelled up a roar, as soft asthe roll of a summer tide; it passed up towards him from the right; itwas about him, dinning in his ears. There was no longer any individualvoice: it was the breathing of the giant that had been born; he wascrying out too; he did not know what he said, but he could not besilent. His veins and nerves seemed alight with wine; and as he stareddown the long street, hearing the huge cry ebb from him and move towardthe palace, he knew why he had cried, and why he was now silent.
A slender, fish-shaped thing, as white as milk, as ghostly as a shadow,and as beautiful as the dawn, slid into sight half-a-mile away, turnedand came towards him, floating, as it seemed, on the very wave ofsilence that it created, up, up the long curving street on outstretchedwings, not twenty feet above the heads of the crowd. There was one greatsigh, and then silence once more.
* * * * *
When Percy could think consciously again--for his will was only capableof efforts as a clock of ticks--the strange white thing was nearer. Hetold himself that he had seen a hundred such before; and at the sameinstant that this was different from all others.
Then it was nearer still, floating slowly, slowly, like a gull over thesea; he could make out its smooth nose, its low parapet beyond, thesteersman's head motionless; he could even hear now the soft winnowingof the screw--and then he saw that for which he had waited.
High on the central deck there stood a chair, draped, too, in white,with some insignia visible above its back; and in the chair sat thefigure of a man, motionless and lonely. He made no sign as he came; hisdark dress showed vividedly against the whiteness; his head was raised,and he turned it gently now and again from side to side.
It came nearer still, in the profound stillness; the head turned, andfor an instant the face was plainly visible in the soft, radiant light.
It was a pale face, strongly marked, as of a young man, with arched,black eyebrows, thin lips, and white hair.
Then the face turned once more, the steersman shifted his head, and thebeautiful shape, wheeling a little, passed the corner, and moved uptowards the palace.
There was an hysterical yelp somewhere, a cry, and again the tempestuousgroan broke out.
Lord of the World Page 14
