Part 35 (2/2)

But the Foreign Office did not publish this telegram, not knowing what to make of it--unless Hogarth were vehemently the friend of England, while every British being regarded him not so much as the enemy of man, as the special Anti-Christ of England. And how came he to be in England, when he should be at the bottom of the Atlantic? The telegram was pa.s.sed through the agitated departments, but kept dark....

So the afternoon pa.s.sed without news: and tension grew to agony.

Hogarth spent the evening in his Berkeley Square house with the Manager of Beech's, examining office-books and specimens of some new Sea-coins, till near eleven, when, being alone, he put on a mackintosh, shaded his face well with hat and collar-flap, and went out into the drizzling night.

Even his Berkeley Square was peopled, and, as he strolled toward Pall Mall, he found it ever harder to advance, till he became jammed. Never had he seen such a crowd, all in the air a sound, vague and general, which was like a steam of thought-made-audible; till presently, while trying in vain to get away, he was startled by a tumult that travelled, a rumour of woe that noised and swelled, terrifying, the voice of the people, the voice of G.o.d: and though he did not know its meaning, it keenly afflicted him.

The fastest of the survivors from the battle with the _Boodah_ had wirelessed: on that commonplace bulletin at the War Office the news stood written...

But the rumour of that despair had not yet attained its culmination, when another rumour roared after and over it, roar upon roar, like tempest poured through the mult.i.tudinous forest, joyance now overtaking sorrow, and a noise of roistering overwhelming lamentation. And all at once a great magnetic hysteria seized them all, and the many became as one, and the bursting bosom burst: men weeping like infants, laughing foolishly, grasping each other's hand, and one cried ”Hurrah!”, and another, catching it, cried ”Hurrah!”

For the French, German, and Russian fleets, in attempting to pa.s.s the two narrows north and south of Europe, had been stopped by the two sea-forts there; and though they had been so eager to pa.s.s, that they had even offered to pay sea-rent, this, too, had been refused. They had then, at five and at five-thirty in the afternoon, offered battle to the islands: with the result that half their weight had been annihilated before they took to flight. So said the bulletin....

And Hogarth in the midst of the jubilee saw the man who jammed his left shoulder, a broker in spectacles, grip the hand of the man on his right, a ragam.u.f.fin, to cry out: ”That scoundrel Hogarth! Isn't there good in the d.a.m.ned thief, after all?”

And the other: ”Aye, he knows how to give it 'em 'ot, don't 'e, after all! Thank G.o.d for that!”

Three weeks later peace was proclaimed by a procession at Temple Bar between England, Austro-Germany, France, Russia, and the Sea.

x.x.xVIII

THE MANIFESTO

The last effort of Europe to resist the Sea was made on the afternoon of the 14th of October, when the British Prime Minister refused to conclude a treaty of peace.

”Your master is only a pirate--on a large scale”, he said to a Minister of the Sea.

That was on the 14th.

On the 15th there was a stoppage of British trade nearly all the world over.

On the 20th England was in a state of _emeute_ resembling revolution.

On the 28th the Treaty of Peace was signed.

Its princ.i.p.al conditions were: (1) The undertaking by the Sea not to raise sea-rent on British s.h.i.+ps without certain formalities of notice; and (2) The undertaking by Britain not to engage in the making of any railway or overland trade-route, or of any marine engine of war, without the consent of the Sea. And similar treaties were signed by the Sea with the other nations.

Then followed the rush of the Amba.s.sadors to the _Boodah_, and the frivolous round of Court-life revolved, _levee_, audience, dinner, drawing-room, invest.i.ture; the Lord of the Sea descended from the throne before the Court to pin a cross upon the humble breast of his best shot and give him the t.i.tle of Praeceps, gave fanciful honours to emperors, received them of them--wore when throned a brow-band of gold with only one stone, the biggest of the meteor octahedrons, that glanced about his brow like an icicle in whose gla.s.s gallivanted a fairy clad in rags of the rainbow.

Now the old gaieties recommenced, but more Olympian in tone, as befitted the ruler of rulers, terrible now being the lifting of Hogarth's brows at the least lapse in ritual; and only the chastest-nurtured of the earth ever now stalked through gavotte or pavane in those halls of the sea.

The world now lay at his feet. The dependence upon him of England, of France, of that part of Austro-Germany called Germany, was obvious: he could starve them. But over Austria proper, Russia, Italy, his sway was no less omnipotent: for the panic cheapness of scrip which followed the destruction of the _Kaiser_ had, of course, been foreseen, and used by him; Beech had bought up, easily ousting the Rothschilds from their old financial kings.h.i.+p: by tens of millions the process had gone on; and still it continued increasingly, for the wealth of Hogarth now, as compared with that of other rich men, was like a s.h.i.+p to a skiff. If he threw upon the market, the bankruptcy of several nations might follow: it was doubtful if the United States could survive; certainly, Austria, Russia, South America must go under.

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