STOBALT OF SALAVEIRA
To the majority of those who thronged Seaton Street the effect of Salt's
sudden--instantaneous, as it seemed--and unexpected appearance was to
endow it with a dramatic, almost an uncanny, value. The front rows,
especially those standing about the steps, fell back, and the further
rows pressed forward. And because an undisciplined mob stricken by acute
surprise must express its emotion outwardly--by silence if it has
hitherto been noisy, and by exclamation if it has been silent--the
shouts and turmoil in the street instantly dwindled away to nothing,
like a breath of vapour passing from a window pane.
Salt raised his hand, and he had the tribute of unstirring silence, the
silence for the moment of blank astonishment.
"My friends and enemies," he said, in a voice that had learned
self-possession from the same school that Demosthenes had practised in,
"you have been calling me for some time. In a few minutes I must listen
to whatever you have to say, but first there is another matter that we
must arrange. I take it for granted that when you began your spirited
demonstration here you had no idea that there was a lady in the
building. Not being accustomed to the sterner side of politics, so
formidable a display rather disconcerted her, and not knowing the
invariable chivalry of English working men, she hesitated to come out
before. Now, as it is dark, and the streets of London are not what they
once were, I want half a dozen good stout fellows to see the lady safely
to her home."
"Be damned!" growled a voice among the mass. "What do you take us for?"
"Men," retorted Salt incisively; "or there would be no use in asking
you."
"Yes, men, but famished, desperate, werewolf men," cried a poor, gaunt
creature clad in grotesque rags, who stood near. "Men who have seen
_our_ women starve and sink before our eyes; men who have watched _our_
children dying by a slower, crooler death than fire. An eye for an eye,
tyrant! Your League has struck at _our_ women folk through us."
"Then strike at ours through us!" cried Salt, stilling with the measured
passion of his voice the rising murmurs of assent. "I am here to offer
you a substitute. Do you think that no woman will mourn for me?" He sent
his voice ringing over their heads like a prophetic knell. "The cause
that must stoop to take the life of a defenceless woman is lost for
ever."
As long as he could offer them surprises he could hold the mere mob in
check, but there was among the crowd an element that was not of the
crowd, a chosen sprinkling who were superior to the swaying passions of
the moment.
"Not good enough," said a decently-dressed, comfortable-looking man, who
had little that was famished, desperate, or wolfish in his appearance.
"You're both there, and there you shall both stay, by God! Eh,
comrades?" He spoke decisively, and made a movement as though he would
head a rush towards the steps.
Salt dropped one hand upon the iron door with a laugh that sounded more
menacing than most men's threats.
"Not so fast, Rorke," he said contemptuously; "you grasp too much. Even
in your unpleasant business you can practise moderation. I am here, but
there is no reason on earth why I should stay. Scarcely more than half
an hour ago I was at Hanwood--where, by the way, your friends are being
rather badly crumpled up--and you are all quite helpless to prevent me
going again."
They guessed the means; they saw the unanswerable strength of his
position, and recognised their own impotence. "Who are you, any way?"
came a dozen voices.
"I am called George Salt: possibly you have heard the name before. Come,
men," he cried impatiently, "what have you to think twice about? Surely
it is worth while to let a harmless girl escape to make certain of that
terrible person Salt."
There was a strangled scream in the vestibule behind. Unable to bear the
suspense any longer, Irene had crept down the stairs in time to hear the
last few sentences. For a minute she had stood transfixed at the horror
of the position she realised; then, half-frenzied, she flung herself
against Salt's arm and tried to beat her way past to face the mob.
"You shall not!" she cried distractedly. "I will not be saved at that
price. I shall throw myself out of the window, into the fire, anywhere.
Yes, I'm desperate, but I know what I am saying. Come back, and let us
wait together; die together, if it is to be, but I don't go alone."
The crowd began to surge restlessly about in waves of excited motion.
The interruption, in effect, had been the worst thing that could have
happened. There were in the throng many who beneath their seething
passion could appreciate the nobility of Salt's self-sacrifice; many who
in the midst of their sullen enmity were wrung with admiration for
Irene's heroic spirit, but the contagion to press forward dominated all.
Salt had irretrievably lost his hold upon their reason, and with that
hold he saw the last straw of his most forlorn hope floating away. In
another minute he must either retreat into the burning building where he
might at any time find the stairs impassable with smoke, or remain to be
overwhelmed by a savage rush and beaten to the ground.
"Men," cried Irene desperately, "listen before you do something that
will for ever make to-day shameful in the history of our country. Do you
know whom you wish to kill? He is the greatest Englishman----"
There were angry cries from firebrands scattered here and there among
the crowd, and a movement from behind, where the new contingents
hurrying down the side streets pressed most heavily, flung the nearest
rows upon the lower steps. Salt's revolver, which he had not shown
before, drove them back again and gave him a moment's grace.
"Quick!" he cried. "My offer still holds good."
One man shouldered his way through to the front, and, seeing him, Salt
allowed him to come on. He walked up the steps deliberately, with a face
sad rather than revengeful, and they spoke together hurriedly under the
shadow of the large-bore revolver.
"If it can be done yet, I'll be one of the posse to see to the young
lady," said the volunteer. "I have no mind to wait for the other job
that's coming."
"Take care of her; get her back into the hall," replied Salt. "Gently,
very gently, friend."
Two more volunteers had their feet upon the steps, one, a butcher,
reeking of the stalls, the other sleek and smug-faced, with the
appearance of a prosperous artisan.
"I'll pick my men," cried Salt sharply, and his steady weapon emphasised
his choice, one man passing on through the iron doorway, the other
turning sharp from the insistent barrel to push his way back into the
crowd with a bitter imprecation.
It was too much to hope that the position could be maintained. The
impatient mob had only been held off momentarily from its purpose as a
pack of wolves can be stayed by the fleeing traveller who throws from
his sleigh article after article to entice their curiosity. Salt had
nothing more to offer them. His life was already a hostage to the honour
of those whom he had allowed to pass. Others were pressing on to him
with vengeance-laden cries. The terrible irresistible forward surge of a
soulless mob, when individuality is merged into the dull brutishness of
a trampling herd, was launched.
"Capt'n Stobalt!" cried a lusty voice at his shoulder.
Salt turned instinctively. A man in sailor's dress, with the guns and
star of his grade upon his sleeve, had climbed along the arch of the
railings with a sailor's resourcefulness, and had reached his ear. Salt
remembered him quite well, but he did not speak a word.
"Ah, sir, I thought that warn't no other voice in the world, although
the smoke befogged my eyes a bit. Keep back, you gutter rats!" he roared
above every other sound, rising up in his commanding position and
balancing himself by a stanchion of the gate; "d'ye think you know who
you're standing up before, you toggle-chested galley-sharks! Salt? Aye,
he's _salt_ enough! 'Tis Capt'n Stobalt of the old _Ulysses_.
_Stobalt of Salaveira!_"
Three years before, the moment would have found Salt cold, as cold as
ice, and as unresponsive, but he had learned many things since then, and
sacrificed his pride and reticence on many altars.
He saw before him a phalanx of humanity startled into one common
expression of awe and incredulity; he saw the hostile wave that was to
overwhelm him spend itself in a sharp recoil. By a miracle the fierce
lust of triumphant savagery had died out of the starved, pathetic faces
now turned eagerly to him; by a miracle the gathering roar for vengeance
had sunk into an expectant hush, broken by nothing but the whispered
repetition of his name on ten thousand lips. He saw in a flash a hundred
details of the magic of that name; he knew that if ever in his life he
must throw restraint and moderation to the winds and paint his role in
broad and lurid colours, that moment had arrived, and at the call he
took his destiny between his hands.
They saw him toss his weapon through the railings into the space
beneath, marked him come to the edge of the step and stand with folded
arms defenceless there before them, and the very whispers died away in
breathless anticipation.
"Yes," he cried with a passionate vehemence that held their breath and
stirred their hearts, "I am Stobalt of Salaveira, the man who brought
you victory when you were trembling in despair. I saved England for you
then, but that was when men loved their country, and did not think it a
disgraceful thing to draw a sword and die for her. What is that to you
to-day, you who have been taught to forget what glory means; and what is
England to you to-day, you whose leaders have sold her splendour for a
higher wage?"
"No! No!" cried a thousand voices, frantic to appease the man for whose
blood they had been howling scarcely a minute before. "You shall be our
leader! We will follow you to death! Stobalt of Salaveira! Stobalt for
ever! Stobalt of Salaveira! Stobalt and England!"
The frenzied roar of welcome, the waving hands, the hats flung high, the
mingled cries caught from lip to lip went rolling up the street,
kindling by a name and an imperishable memory other streets and other
crowds into a tumult of mad enthusiasm. Along Pall Mall, through
Trafalgar Square, into the Strand and Whitehall, north by Regent Street
and the Haymarket to Piccadilly, running east and west, splitting north
and south, twisting and leaping from group to group and mouth to mouth,
ran the strange but stirring cry, carrying wonder and concern on its
wing, but always passing with a cheer.
Seven years had passed since the day of Salaveira, and the memory of it
was still enough to stir a crowd to madness. For there had been no
Salaveiras since to dim its splendour. Seven years ago the name of
Salaveira had brought pallor to the cheek, and the thought of what was
happening there stole like an icy cramp round the heart of every
Englishman. The nation had grown accustomed to accept defeat on land
with the comfortable assurance that nothing could avert a final victory.
Its pride was in its navy: invincible!...
The war that came had been of no one's seeking, but it came, and the
nation called upon its navy to sweep the presumptuous enemy from off the
seas. Then came a pause: a rumour, doubted, disbelieved, but growing
stronger every hour. The English fleets, not so well placed as they
might have been, "owing to political reasons that made mobilisation
inadvisable while there was still a chance of peace being maintained,"
were unable to effect a junction immediately, and were falling back
before the united power of the New Alliance. Hour after hour, day after
day, night after night, crowds stood hopefully, doubtfully,
incredulously, in front of the newspaper office windows, waiting for the
news that never came. The fleets had not yet combined. The truth first
leaked, then blazed: they were unable to combine! Desperately placed on
the outer line they were falling back, ever falling back into a more
appalling isolation. A coaling station had been abandoned just where its
presence proved to have been vital; a few battleships had been dropped
from the programme, and the loss of their weight in the chain just
proved fatal.
Men did not linger much at Fleet Street windows then; they slunk to and
fro singly a hundred times a day, read behind the empty bulletins with
poignant intuition, and turned silently away. In the mourning Capital
they led nightmare lives from which they could only awake to a more
definite despair, and the first word of the hurrying newsboy's raucous
shout sent a sickening wave of dread to every heart. There was
everything to fear, and nothing at all to hope. Could peace be made--not
a glorious, but a decent, living peace? Was--was even London safe? Kind
friends abroad threw back the answers in the fewest, crudest words.
England would have to sue for peace on bended knees and bringing heavy
tribute in her hands. London lay helpless at the mercy of the foe to
seize at any moment when it suited him.
All this time Commander Stobalt, in command of the _Ulysses_ by the
vicissitudes of unexpected war and separated from his squadron on
detached service, was supposed to be in Cura Bay, a thousand miles away
from Salaveira, flung there with the destroyers _Limpet_ and _Dabfish_
by the mere backwash of the triumphant allied fleet. According to the
rules of naval warfare he _ought_ to have been a thousand miles away;
according to the report of the allies' scouts he _was_ a thousand miles
away. But miraculously one foggy night the _Ulysses_ loomed spectrally
through the shifting mist that drifted uncertainly from off the land and
rammed the first leviathan that crossed her path, while the two
destroyers torpedoed her next neighbour. Then, before leviathans 3 and 4
had begun to learn from each other what the matter was, the _Ulysses_
was between them, sprinkling their decks and tops with small shell, and
perforating their water-line and vital parts with large shell from a
range closer than that at which any engagement had been fought out since
the day when the Treasury had begun to implore the Admiralty to impress
upon her admirals what a battleship really cost before they sent her
into action. For the _Ulysses_ had everything to gain and nothing but
herself to lose, and when morning broke over Salaveira's untidy bay, she
had gained everything, and lost so little that even the New Alliance
took no pride in mentioning it in the cross account.
It was, of course, as every naval expert could have demonstrated on the
war-game board, an impossible thing to do. Steam, searchlights, wireless
telegraphy, quick-firing guns, and a hundred other innovations had
effaced the man; and the spirit of the Elizabethan age was at a
discount. What Drake would have done, or Hawkins, what would have been a
sweet and pleasing adventure to Sir Richard Grenville, or another Santa
Cruz to Blake, would have been in their heirs unmitigated suicide by the
verdict of any orthodox court martial. Largely imbued with the
Elizabethan spirit--the genius of ensuring everything that was possible,
and then throwing into the scale a splendid belief in much that seemed
impossible--Stobalt succeeded in doing what perhaps no one else would
have succeeded in doing, merely because perhaps no one else would have
tried.
"Stobalt of Salaveira! Come down and lead us!" The wild enthusiasm, the
strange unusual cries, went echoing to the sky and reverberating down
every street and byway. Behind barred doors men listened to the shout,
and wondered; crouching in alleys, tramping the road with no further
hope in life, beggars and out-casts heard the name and dimly associated
it with something pleasant in the past. It met the force of special
constables hastening from the west; it fell on the ears of Mr Strummery,
driving by unfrequented ways towards the House. "Stobalt and England!
Stobalt for us! Stobalt and the Navy!" It was like another Salaveira
night with Stobalt there among them--the man who was too modest to be
feted, the man whose very features were unknown at home, Stobalt of
Salaveira!
Imagine it. Measure by the fading but not yet quite forgotten memory of
another time of direful humiliation and despair what Salaveira must have
been. They had passed a week of fervent exaltation, a week of calm
assurance, a week of rather tremulous hope, and for the last quarter a
long dumb misery that conveyed no other sense of time in later years
than that of formless night. They were waiting for the stroke of doom.
Then at midnight came the sudden tumult from afar, sounding to those who
listened in painful silence strangely unlike the note of defeat, the
frantic, mingled shouts, the tearing feet in the road beneath, the wild
bells pealing out, the guns and rockets to add to the delirium of the
night, and the incredible burden of the intoxicating news: "Great
Victory! Salaveira Relieved!! Utter Annihilation of the Blockading
Fleet!!!"
The Philosopher might withdraw to solitude and moralise; the Friend of
Humanity stand aside, pained that his countrymen should possess so much
human nature, but to the great primitive emotional heart of the
community the choice lay between going out and shouting and staying in
and going mad. Never before in history had there been a victory that so
irresistibly carried the nation off its feet. To the populace it had
seemed from beginning to end to contain just those qualities of
daredevilry and fortuitous ease that appeal to the imagination. They
were quite mistaken; the conception had been desperate, but beyond that
the details of the relief of Salaveira had been as methodical, as
painstaking, and as far-seeing as those which had marked the civil
campaign now drawing to a close.
That was why a famished, starving mob remembered Salaveira. They would
have stoned a duke or burned a bishop with very little compunction, but
Stobalt ranked among their immortals. They did not even seem to question
the mystery of Salt's identity. As the flames began to lap out of the
lower windows of Trafalgar Chambers, and it became evident that their
work there was done, a stalwart bodyguard ranged themselves about his
person and headed the procession. Hurriedly committing Irene to the
loyal sailor's charge, Stobalt resigned himself good-humouredly to his
position until he could seize an opportunity discreetly to withdraw.
Not without some form of orderliness the great concourse marched into
the broader streets. Stobalt had no idea of their destination; possibly
there was no preconcerted plan, but--as such things happen--a single
voice raised in a pause gave the note. It did not fall on barren ground,
and the next minute the countless trampling feet moved to a brisker
step, and the new cry went rolling ominously ahead to add another terror
to the shadowy phantasmagoria of the ill-lit streets.
"To Westminster! Down with the Government! To Westminster!"