Part 49 (2/2)

From the lips of Harris, in the faintest snake-hiss, proceeded, ”Sleep, my little one-sleep, my pretty one--_sleep_--” and with a wrist as graceful as the spring of a tigress he had the knife buried in Hogarth's left breast.

Some instinct must have pierced Hogarth's sleep an instant before the actual blow, for while the knife was yet in him he had Harris's wrist; and the a.s.sa.s.sin 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 over the place of blood.

In the second corridor he had to stop and lean, but then descended, striking all whom he pa.s.sed with awe at his face, till he stumbled into his own drawing-room, and, as he fell, was caught by Sir Francis Yeames, the Private Secretary.

The wound had pa.s.sed along the outer front surface of the second rib toward the scapula, injuring two of the branches of the axillary artery: so whispered the Resident Medical Attendant, while the council of doctors p.r.o.nounced the condition ”very grave”, but not ”dangerous”--a case for ”judicious pressure”; and after a long swoon he opened his eyes; in the deeply-recessed series of windows, narrow and round-topped, now dying the twilight; the insignificant bed lost in a chamber of frescoes and vast darksome oils of battles and loves. And, suddenly starting, 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 a.s.sumed from the evidence of a guardsman that it was a servant 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 Harris would mean a revelation of the Colmoor-horror secret; and he said after a minute, ”John, is that you? Will you go and have the whole thing quashed?....And now, doctor, the wound.”

”The wound is not what we call 'dangerous', my Lord King: ah, but believe me, it was a narrow shave”.

”I dare say, Sir Martin: the outcomes of this particular world do arrive by 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, to strike his head against a window corner, while all ran, crying out, to catch him, the doctor thinking: ”Those whom the G.o.ds destroy they first drive mad”.

So far not a whisper of the stab had reached even the Prime Minister or the Prince; but since the news of moving troops, and the reluctance of the Lords to pa.s.s the Bill, agitated all, London came out to watch his descent upon the Lords.

He went in precisely the spirit of a professor who steps to the chair, smiles, and takes the cla.s.s; but as he drove down Whitehall, this thought pierced him with a keener point than the steel of Harris: ”_The Sea...!_”

He did not know that at last a thousand transmitters, from Tarifa, from Frederikshavn, from many a s.h.i.+p, were thrilling the ether with messages as 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, and the Regent made the bow, he was shocked by the scene of open insolence spread before him.

Everywhere the boldest eyes regarded him; he saw smiles of scorn, snarling visages, as, with reclining head and lowered lids, his eyes rested on the House: a hard gaze. Unfortunately, his pallor was perfectly obvious, and its significance, the stab being unknown, was misunderstood.

And up rose a young lord, who stammered unprofundities just below the region of lawn-sleeves to the right; and another with slow step, as if to music, came up the gangway, and spoke at the table; and another after him: and it needed sustained effort to understand what they said; the brain, as it were, would not close upon statement after statement so insignificant. But Hogarth would have endured till midnight, or longer, but for a growing doubt within him: ”Am I bleeding? Shall I not certainly faint?”

And there was this other question: ”To what greater daring of insolence will these impossible speeches rise?”

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