Lord of the Sea

by M. P. Shiel

  XXXV

  THE CUP OF TREMBLING

  It was by the merest chance that Baruch Frankl and his daughter werenot on the _Kaiser_: for Frankl was the half-nephew of Mrs. Charles P.Stickney, a New York Jewess, and as the marriage of Miss Stickneywith Lord Alfred Cowern was only fifteen days off, Frankl had madearrangements to accompany the bridegroom across, but had been detainedby stress of business; happily for him--for Lord Alfred, the bridegroom,was a dancing prisoner in the _Boodah_.

  Early, then, on the third morning thence, Charles P. Stickney, thebride's father, a natty little Yankee, hurried a-foot to the MaritimeExchange: for, to his infinite surprise, the _Kaiser's_ arrival hadnot been in the morning's paper: so the little arch-millionaire steppedtoward Beaver Street, sure that the _Kaiser_ had come in too late forthe press.

  Early as it was, he found the place as thickly a-buzz as though it wasthat feverish hour between eleven and twelve.

  He pushed his way to the bulletin-board, inscribed with the hours atwhich ships are sighted and entered into dock: the Kaiser was not there:and with prone outlook he went seeking an assistant superintendent; but,sighting a fellow-operator, come, as usual, to digest the world, frombarometer-reports to coffee-quotations at Rio, Charles P. Stickney criedto him: "Funny about the _Kaiser_! Know anything?"

  "It's the darndest thing..." mumbled the other, still star-gazing at ablackboard prices-current of American staples: "raise Hell this day, Iguess"....

  And on through the rooms Stickney shouldered: all in the air herean odour of the sea, and of them that go down to it in ships; pilot,captain, supercargo, purser; abstracts from logs, copies of manifestsand clearances, marks and numbers of merchandise, with quantities,shippers, consignees; here peaked caps, and the jaw that chewed once,and paused long, and, lo, it moved anew; Black Books, massive volumesenshrining ancient wrecks; vast newspaper-files in every tongue; recordsof changes in lightships, lights, buoys, and beacons, from Shanghaito Cape Horn; reports, charts, atlases, globes; the progress ofthe rebellion in Shantung, and the earthquake last night in Quito;directories, and high-curved reference-books, and storm-maps; everyminute the arrival of cipher cablegrams, breathless with the day'sAmsterdam exchange on London, or with the quantities of tea _intransitu_ via Suez or Pacific Railway; and the drift of ocean-currents,and the latest position of the _Jane Richardson_, derelict, andthe arrival of the _Ladybird_ at Bahia; and the probabilities ofwind-circulation, atmospheric moisture, aberrations of audibilityin fog; and in the middle of it the pulse of the sun, the thunderingengines and shooting shuttles of this Loom; a tiptop briskness andbustle of action; a scramble of wits; a _melee_ to the death; mixed withpea-jackets, and aromas of chewed pigtail, and a rolling in the gait.

  Into this roar of life that word _Kaiser_ stole: and it grew to achorus.

  Charles P. Stickney, butting upon a tearing clerk who was holding alofta bulletin of icebergs and derelicts, tried to stop him: upon whichthe clerk, who would not be stopped, cried with a back-looking face ofpassionate haste: "London message just received--_no intelligence ofKaiser_--"

  But he had hardly disappeared, when another man from an inner roomrushed, waving something: the Navesink Highlands lookout had wired the_Kaiser_ in sight! And while the Exchange rang with cheers, Stickney, acolour now in his sere cheeks, went boring his way outward.

  The lookout had said it--those blue eyes that never failed there on hiswatch-tower, he knowing the ships that sail the sea as the Cyclops hissheep, in his heart so knowing them all, that as that sea-glass detecteda speck on the horizon, those sea-wise nostrils sniffed its name: forbetween the _Mary Jane_ and the _Mary Anne_, both off-shore schooners,is all the world of difference: if you would not see it, _he_ knows. Andhe had wired the _Kaiser!_--so expectant his outlook: and that day weptlike a ruined man.

  Swift upon his first wire a second flashed: and one of those craped daysof the tragedies of commerce followed, the boding, the loss, flashedeverywhere, pervading Europe and America.

  The next morning the Exchange, all the exchanges, the Lloyds', thebourses, were crowded from an early hour, but subdued: no news, nota word; but still--there was certainty: for had the _Kaiser_ and herwireless been merely disabled, she would undoubtedly by now have beenreported: she had foundered.

  _Foundered!_--in the serenest weather in which ship ever crossed thewater....

  But at eleven the truth came: for the brig which had lain becalmed nearthe _Boodah_ at the moment of the tragedy, and now was nearer England,had flashed the news: "many of the Kaiser's passengers mutilated, manydrowned".

  Death, then, was in the pottage of Life; the air tainted with specks ofblood....

  That day Man, as it were, rent his garments, sitting in ashes, and toHeaven sent up a howl of fear, of anguish, and of hissing hate.

  Those who lacked the intelligence to feel the fear, felt the hate: everygirl, the shirt-maker, the shopman, feeling himself robbed of his veryown; the Duke in the centre of his oak-lands felt it; the burglar, thejunk-dweller of the Yangtse, the pariah of the Hugli. Lamentation and avoice in Ramah, wail on wail. For God had given the sea to man, and ithad been seized by a devil.

  God had also given the shore; and it, too, had been seized: but, as thathad been before their birth, they had not observed it--in such a numbsomnambulism shambles humanity.

  But the theft of the sea was new and flagrant, it, and the air, beingall that had remained: and a roar for vengeance--sharp, and rolled inblood--rose from the throat of man.

  Accordingly, when Mr. C. P. Stickney during the afternoon wired forinformation to the White House, he received the reply: "Encourage calmon 'Change. Government in touch with Europe. Great naval activity. Awaitgood news, seven P.M."

  It was about seven P.M. that what the White House would have consideredspecially good news occurred: for the _Boodah_ then telegraphed throughto O'Hara's _Mahomet_ at the Straits:

  "B. 7651. Begins. After to-morrow (Monday) you begin taxation, as perOrder B., 7315, of 2nd inst. But if warships desire to pass out, (notin), permit, till further order. Richard. Ends".

  Which meant that if any Power, or Powers, desired to concentrateforce upon the attack of any island, the Lord of the Sea granted themfacilities.

  The _Kaiser_ passengers had now been sent off to New York, the_Boodah's_ halls seemed the home of desolation; and, as the nightadvanced, Hogarth and Loveday walked on the roof: for they could find norest, the sky without moon or star, the sea making of three sides of the_Boodah_ a roaring reef, the wind blowing cold, they two wrapped to thenose in oilskins with sou'-westers, lashed by rages of rain and spray.

  Yonder, to the north-west, appeared a ghost, a thing, a derelict brig,driving downhill on the billows, like a blind man gadding aimless witha crazy down-look, the rags of her one sail drumming on the gusts; andnear, nearer, within a stone's-throw of the _Boodah_, she swaggeredwearily, drab Arab, doomed despondent Ahasuerus of the deep, nomad onthe nomad sea; and on into the gloom of the south-west she roamed, to beagain and again re-created by the rolling light-drum, while Hogarth witha groan said: "If I were only dead! I feel to-night like a man abandonedby the Almighty".

  Loveday muttered those words so loved by Hogarth:

  "....this is my favoured lot, My exaltation to afflictions high"....

  And Hogarth: "Do you know what is burdening me tonight? It is the curseswhich the world is at this moment hurling upon me: as when one man,thinking evilly of another, sticks needles into wax, and needles of painpierce the other..." a sense of evil which was deepened the next dayby an ominous little accident, when one of his old gunpractice hulksarrived from Bombay, bearing the throne: for as this was being conveyedinto the _Boodah_ a front leg was broken.

  Meantime, the world's trade went on as before: only, night and day, itsships lay-to, to pay rent with threat and curse: in all only thirteenships being sunk ere sea and earth had learned the new conditions.

  And from the very first day of this taxing a deeper sense of pain andhardship pervaded the w
orld, the Lord of the Sea now taxing at 4s. perton a world's tonnage of 29 millions, 7 1/2 millions in sailing-ships,21 1/2 millions in steamships, once in a voyage--a little less than therevenue of Britain.

  So one night he received message from O'Hara that "British Mediterraneanfleet has passed through the Straits, homeward".

  It was not for nothing that the nations had allowed three weeks topass before avenging the Kaiser: soon enough the Cabinets had been inintercommunication; but in the "Concert" had occurred--a hitch.

  Britain had proposed the destruction of the islands in detail, thePowers to contribute weights of metal proportionate to their mercantilemarines: as a basis for calculation she had offered her force in Homeand Mediterranean waters; and, this having been accepted, by the 5thships were under the pennant, and outfitting.

  Now, all this time, things had been in a pretty whirl: oratory frompulpit, platform, stump, eyes on fire, mobs that went in haste, shrieksof newspaper passion, organized burglary, and a strange epidemic offires: for the modern nations lived by the sea, and it was seized.Moreover, on the 6th, after a meeting at the Albert Hall, organized bythe Associated Chambers of Commerce, our Government--"Liberal", underSir Moses Cohen--suffered a defeat of thirty-four votes on a division.

  And it was during the turmoil that ensued upon this that the GermanForeign Office (on the 9th) sent to the new Russian the wireless"_Bion_"-meaning--"Let us meet to discuss the subject of-England".

  That meeting took place at Konigsberg.

  It was now that a fort-man--formerly a Nottingham shoemaker--landedfrom the Truth's yacht at Frederikshavn, and thence wrote to the DailyChronicle, to say, briefly, this: That, supposing the European naviesjoined to batter away with l5-inch guns and torpedoes at five feet ofsteel, they might finally succeed in mining a hole in it; but if thethick steel happened to have still bigger guns, "_and other things_",with which, meantime, to batter back at the thin ships, then it would bethe ships, probably, which would get holes in them: it was a question ofTime. Also he said that the islands were defended by devoted men, everyone of intelligence and high principle, who knew what they wanted, andmeant to have it--their shooting average being 97 per 100. He advisedhis country not to try it, especially in view of certain politicalrumours which he had picked up in the Cattegat.

  This letter, although badly spelled, aroused a sensation The "highprinciple" of the fort-men, indeed, met with bitter laughter; but itshearty patriotism, simplicity, technical knowledge, were so remarkable,that now a doubt as to the battleship arose--and with it a gnashingof teeth. The service-clubs, the "experts", wrote this and that; thepublics poured forth letters, schemes, plots, inventions--like the brainof the world _versus_ the brain of Hogarth. "_Starve Him Out_", was atitle in the _Contemporary:_ but the reply was bitterly obvious. Andinto the midst of this racket burst the news that the negotiations withGermany, Russia and France were at a deadlock.

  These Powers had raised this question: "In case of the capture of theislands--what shall be done with those most powerful engines?"

  Here was a riddle. For whichever nation took even one would score a vastadvantage.

  If, now, Britain had had the greatness of mind to declare for thesinking, in any case, of all the islands, the difficulty was solved, butthe new-Government brooms would score a point and gain a trick, andthey proposed the division of surviving forts in the proportion offighting-power contributed.

  The Continent objected: Britain was "_firm_"; whereupon the FrenchAmbassador sent to Downing Street his withdrawal from the crusade.

  And so when--on the 22nd--the fleets assembled at Portland and MilfordHaven before _rendezvous_ at the Lizard, the whole original proposal hadfallen through: for here was neither tricolour nor saltire, only threeGerman ships, only five Italian; the "probability", moreover, of thecapture of a sea-fort by England was imminent: and on the evening ofthe mobilisation of the squadrons feverish activity was reported fromToulon; a British Legation _attache,_, seeing fit to stroll round theCaserne Pepiniere, beheld in the yard an extraordinary crowd of limbers:and, pitching into a cab, from the nearest _postes et telegraphes_ wiredto London the word: "Angleterre".

  Too late: the British fleets were gone, leaving the Channel and WesternMediterranean desert.

  Now the nation awoke to a consciousness of dark skies: cloud of the westrushing to meet a yet lurider eastern--with probability of lightning.

  The fleet could hardly return in less than five days--if it returned!Would the hostile nations be good enough to await its return? Thelightning would be "near".

  A day of fear, in which flash tracked flash: till at 11.30 P.M. therumour pervaded the crowd round St. Stephen's that the new Ministry hadsuffered defeat: and the drifting ship was captainless.

  And early the next morning a number of _Boodah_ boats, out runninga regatta, came tearing back, all fluttered; soon after whichQuilter-Beckett was hurrying into Hogarth's presence, who was at coffee,to say: "Well, my Lord King, here they come at last--and enough of them,I think".