by M. P. Shiel
XLIX
THE DEBACLE
All the next day, till near 9 P.M., not one syllable was definitelyknown of this tremendous fact by anyone in Britain: for though, earlyastir, the Regent telegraphed the _Mahomet_, all day he waited withoutreply.
At eleven the Prime Minister said to him: "Things, my Lord King, wearat this moment an aspect so threatening, that I see no escape from civilwar, even if it be brief, except by the immediate forcing through of theBill, and I stand ready--now--to propose you as new peers--"
"Wait", answered the Regent: "pass to-night the Bill should, but I thinkI shall effect that by myself going to the Lords, and listening a littleto the talk".
A dark day, with an under-thought always, whatever the business, of onething--the Sea....
About 5.30, as was his custom, he went up a stair to pass along twocorridors to the little cream suite in which lived Margaret, for whomthe doctors now promised sanity, her forehead daily seeming to drink-inpeace from the contact of his palm, after which she would comb his hair,he lying on a sofa, or taking tea; and, "Well, dear", he said, this lastday of all, as her ladies retired to an inner salon, "how is the head?"
"I have seen you before", she replied: "what is your name?"
"Dick Hogarth. Come to me, and let me lay my heavy head on you. Theheart of your friend bodes to-day, bodes, bodes; but is not afraid: atough heart, Madge. Do you like me to press my hand upon your head likethat?"
Then, weary of his moaning heart that moaned that day like chorusesof haunted winds through desolate halls, he fell to sleep even as hemumbled to her, she, seated near his sofa, playing with his hair, hisarm around her, faint zephyrs from the window fanning his head, wavingdown the valenciennes.
But now she tossed the comb away, hummed, became restless, disengagedher shoulders, rose, strayed listlessly, with sighs, and on findingherself in the ante-chamber, opened the door, went out into a corridor,leant her back, eyeing the floor; and next with a great sigh set togazing upward, droning two notes, one _doh_, one _soh_. All was silent.But now a sound of voices that drew her, she moving into another longercorridor, with balusters which overlooked a hall below, and yonder atthe stair-foot were two men in altercation, one a guard, to whom theother was saying "But I tell you the lydy herself arst me to go to her;it's an appointment, just like any other appointment. Do let a fellowpass!" and with mouth at ear he added: "_It's an affair of the 'eart!'Ere's a sov--_"
"Couldn't, my friend, couldn't", the guardsman said.
But now Harris: "Why, there she is 'erself, so 'elp-! come out to meetme, as the Lord liveth!"--ran then toward where she looked over to sendup the hoarse whisper: "I sye--didn't you tell me yourself to come--?"
On which she nodded amiably, smiling, touching a rose in her bosom.
"There you are! What more do you want?" he said to the guard, who nowgave him passage: and like a dart he darted, like a freed lark, orunleashed hound, fleet on the feet, with lifted brow.
"I sye!" he whispered her, all active, brisk as a cat,ecstatic--"where's 'e?"
"Who?"--she still at her rose, a memory straying in her that here was afriend, whom the Terrible One had bid her obey.
"Mr.--the Regent", he whispered.
"I don't know him. What is your name? _My_ name is--"
"Oh, you muddle-headed cat! Don't you know the dark man with the blackmoles--quick!"
"_Sh-h-h_--he is sleeping".
"Gawd! is he though? Come, show me! I've got a old appointment--"
She led the way: the two corridors--the door--the room, he treading onair, brow up, eyes on fire, knife bright and ready; and eight feet fromthe couch she put out her forefinger, pointing, smiling, Hogarth's facetoward them, his mouth pouting in sleep, bosom breathing, a breeze inhis hair.
From the lips of Harris, in the faintest snake-hiss, proceeded, "Sleep,my little one-sleep, my pretty one--_sleep_--" and with a wrist asgraceful as the spring of a tigress he had the knife buried in Hogarth'sleft breast.
Some instinct must have pierced Hogarth's sleep an instant before theactual blow, for while the knife was yet in him he had Harris's wrist;and the assassin fled writhing, so brisk a trick had cracked his elbow.
And blanched and short-breathed sprang Hogarth, but at once tottered,Margaret, open-mouthed, regarding him, till he suddenly cried out"Ladies!", and before they came had hurried out, drawing his coat overthe place of blood.
In the second corridor he had to stop and lean, but then descended,striking all whom he passed with awe at his face, till he stumbled intohis own drawing-room, and, as he fell, was caught by Sir Francis Yeames,the Private Secretary.
The wound had passed along the outer front surface of the second ribtoward the scapula, injuring two of the branches of the axillary artery:so whispered the Resident Medical Attendant, while the council ofdoctors pronounced the condition "very grave", but not "dangerous"--acase for "judicious pressure"; and after a long swoon he opened hiseyes; in the deeply-recessed series of windows, narrow and round-topped,now dying the twilight; the insignificant bed lost in a chamber offrescoes and vast darksome oils of battles and loves. And, suddenlystarting, he asked: "What's the time?"
"Seven-thirty, my Lord King", answered Sir Martin Phipps.
"Ah, I remember: I was stabbed. Who did it?"
"It can only be assumed from the evidence of a guardsman that it was aservant in the Palace, called Harris".
"Aye, I think I saw his face. Does anyone know of the matter?"
"Very few persons so far....The police are after Harris".
Now the Regent started, understanding that the condemnation of Harriswould mean a revelation of the Colmoor-horror secret; and he said aftera minute, "John, is that you? Will you go and have the whole thingquashed?....And now, doctor, the wound."
"The wound is not what we call 'dangerous', my Lord King: ah, butbelieve me, it was a narrow shave".
"I dare say, Sir Martin: the outcomes of this particular world do arriveby narrow shaves; but they arrive, and life is an escape. At any rate,doctor, I shall be able to go, as arranged, to the Lords--"
The doctor smiled. "No, never that".
"I shall go".
And at once he leapt from bed, staggering headlong in the effort, tostrike his head against a window corner, while all ran, crying out, tocatch him, the doctor thinking: "Those whom the gods destroy they firstdrive mad".
So far not a whisper of the stab had reached even the Prime Minister orthe Prince; but since the news of moving troops, and the reluctance ofthe Lords to pass the Bill, agitated all, London came out to watch hisdescent upon the Lords.
He went in precisely the spirit of a professor who steps to the chair,smiles, and takes the class; but as he drove down Whitehall, thisthought pierced him with a keener point than the steel of Harris: "_TheSea...!_"
He did not know that at last a thousand transmitters, from Tarifa, fromFrederikshavn, from many a ship, were thrilling the ether with messagesas to the Sea.
Nor did he know that that day Frankl had whispered to some dozen people,with proofs and old newspapers, that convict past of the Regent.
And from his very first entering, when the Lord Chancellor rose, andthe Regent made the bow, he was shocked by the scene of open insolencespread before him.
Everywhere the boldest eyes regarded him; he saw smiles of scorn,snarling visages, as, with reclining head and lowered lids, hiseyes rested on the House: a hard gaze. Unfortunately, his pallor wasperfectly obvious, and its significance, the stab being unknown, wasmisunderstood.
And up rose a young lord, who stammered unprofundities just below theregion of lawn-sleeves to the right; and another with slow step, as ifto music, came up the gangway, and spoke at the table; and another afterhim: and it needed sustained effort to understand what they said; thebrain, as it were, would not close upon statement after statement soinsignificant. But Hogarth would have endured till midnight, orlonger, but for a growing doubt within him: "Am I bleeding? Shall I notcertainly faint?"
&
nbsp; And there was this other question: "To what greater daring of insolencewill these impossible speeches rise?"
Suddenly, at five minutes to ten, in the very midst of a duke's speech,the Regent, with dizzy brain, was on his feet: there was a few moments'gasp and breathlessness; and then--all at once--it was as though a windfrom hell swept through that House, whirling in its vehemence Regent,lords, Gallery, Black Rod, Clerk, Usher, and all; and every face wasmarble, and every eye a blaze.
The Regent cried: "Your lordships' eloquence--"
And as he said "eloquence", a voice that was a scream, aforward-straining form, a pointing finger: "Why, my lords, that man isonly a common convict!--reprieved for murder--escaped from Colmoor. Andall his forts are sunk!"
It happened that in the midst of this outcry, the Regent fell backafaint, the moles black, the face white.
Now, here seemed simple panic: and like a pack of dogs which rush tomangle a mongrel, they were at him pell-mell.
See now a shocking scrimmage, a rush and crush for precedence, surgeupon surge of men jostling each other in a struggle to get near him,sticks reaching awkwardly over heads to inflict far forceless blows, andon his face the fists; a hundred roaring "Order!", fighting against thetide; three hundred shrieking, "Kill him!" "Have him done with!" "Dashout his brains!", and pressing to that job. Sergeant-at-Arms, meanwhile,Clerk-attending-the-Table, and the physician, had run to give the alarm;but it was by one of those miracles of wild minutes, whenturbulent sprites appear to mix themselves in the business of men,worse--embroiling the embroiled, that through the throng in the streetrushed the word that the Regent was being killed: and quick, beforeany fatal blow had been struck, the rabble were there in that chamber,having brushed away every barrier.
They imagined themselves come to save: in reality they came tokill--were, in fact, too many for the area of the room, so that mensuccumbed fast as by plague-stroke under trampling feet, and even aftertwenty minutes when sixty-seven lay mangled the scene of horror couldnot be said to be ended.
Early upon the irruption the physician, three policemen, a ReadingClerk, and the Bishop of Durham, had managed to extricate and drag theRegent out; and through the shouting of the outside crowd he was drivenhome unconscious.
