THE WAND OF THE MAGICIAN.
The City-Hall was a gigantic meeting-house in which for many years all
the public discussions of the Lauranian people had taken place. Its
stone façade was showy and pretentious, but the building itself
consisted merely of the great hall and of a few smaller rooms and
offices. The hall was capable of holding nearly seven thousand people;
with its white-washed roof sustained by iron girders, and well lit with
gas, it served its purpose well without any affectation of display.
Lucile was caught in the stream of those who were entering and carried
inside. She had expected to find a seat, but, in view of a great
crowd, all the chairs had been removed from the body of the hall, and
only standing room remained. In this solid mass of humanity she found
herself an atom. To move was difficult; to go back almost impossible.
It was a striking scene. The hall, which was hung with flags, was
crowded to overflowing; a long gallery, which ran round three sides,
was densely packed to the very ceiling; the flaring gas-jets threw
their yellow light on thousands of faces. The large majority of the
audience were men, but Lucile noticed with relief that there were
several women present. A platform at the far end of the hall displayed
the customary table and the inevitable glass of water. In front of the
platform were two long rows of reporters, getting their pads and
pencils ready,--a kind of orchestra. Behind and above were again rows
and rows of chairs filled by the numerous delegates, officials, and
secretaries of the various political clubs and organisations, each
distinguished by the badge and sash of his society. Moret had exerted
himself to whip up the utmost power of the Party, and had certainly
succeeded in organising the greatest demonstration Laurania had ever
seen. All the political forces arrayed against the Government were
represented.
There was a loud hum of conversation, broken at intervals by cheers and
the choruses of patriotic songs. Suddenly the clock in the tower of
the building chimed the hour. At the same instant, from a doorway on
the right of the platform, Savrola entered, followed by Godoy, Moret,
Renos, and several other prominent leaders of the movement. He made
his way along the row of chairs, until he reached that on the right of
the table, sat down and looked quietly about him. There was a storm of
discordant shouting, no two men seeming to hold the same opinion. At
one moment it sounded as if all were cheering; at another hoots and
groans obtained the supremacy. The meeting in fact was about equally
divided. The extreme sections of the Reform' Party, regarding
Savrola's attendance at the ball as an action of the grossest
treachery, howled with fury at him; the more moderate cheered him as
the safest man to cling to in times of civil disturbance. The
delegates and regular officials, who occupied the chairs on the
platform, were silent and sullen, like men who await an explanation
without belief in its sufficiency.
At length the shouting ceased. Godoy, who was in the chair, rose and
made a short speech, in which he studiously avoided any contentious
allusion to Savrola, confining himself only to the progress of the
movement. He spoke well and clearly, but nobody wanted to hear him,
and all were relieved when he concluded by calling upon "our leader,"
Savrola, to address the meeting. Savrola, who had been talking
unconcernedly with one of the delegates on his right, turned round
quickly towards the audience, and rose. As he did so, a man in a blue
suit, one of a little group similarly clad, shouted out, "Traitor and
toady!" Hundreds of voices took up the cry; there was an outburst of
hooting and groaning; others cheered half-heartedly. It was an
unpromising reception. Moret looked around him in blank despair.
In spite of the heat and the pressure, Lucile could not take her eyes
off Savrola. She could see that he was quivering with suppressed
excitement. His composure had merely been assumed; crowds stirred his
blood, and when he rose he could wear his mask no longer. He looked
almost terrible, as he waited there, facing the outburst with defiance
written in every line of his pale, earnest face and resolute figure.
Then he began to speak, but his words could not at first be
distinguished through the persistent shouts of the man in blue and his
friends. At length, after five minutes of intense disorder, the
curiosity of the audience triumphed over all other emotions, and they
generally sank into silence, to hear what their leader had to say.
Again Savrola began. Though he spoke very quietly and slowly, his
words reached the furthest ends of the hall. He showed, or perhaps he
feigned, some nervousness at first, and here and there in his sentences
he paused as if searching for a word. He was surprised, he said, at
his reception. He had not expected, now when the final result was so
nearly attained, that the people of Laurania would change their minds.
The man in blue began to howl his odious cry. There was another
outbreak of hooting; but the majority of the audience were now anxious
to listen, and silence was soon restored. Savrola continued. He
briefly reviewed the events of the last year: the struggle they had had
to form a party at all; the fierce opposition they had encountered and
sustained; the success that had attended their threat of taking arms;
the President's promise of a free Parliament; the trick that had been
played on them; the firing of the soldiery on the crowd. His earnest,
thoughtful words evoked a hum of approval. These were events in which
the audience had participated, and they liked having them recalled to
their memories.
Then he went on to speak of the Deputation and of the contempt with
which the President had thought fit to treat the accredited
representatives of the citizens. "Traitor and toady!" shouted the man
in blue loudly; but there was no response. "And," said Savrola, "I
will invite your attention to this further matter. It has not been
sufficient to strangle the Press, to shoot down the people, and to
subvert the Constitution, but even when we are assembled here in
accordance with our unquestioned right to discuss matters of State and
decide upon our public policies, our deliberations are to be
interrupted by the paid agents of the Government,"--he looked towards
the man in blue, and there was an angry hum--"who insult by their
abusive cries not only myself, a free Lauranian, but you also, the
assembled citizens who have invited me to place my views before you."
Here the audience broke out into indignant applause and agreement;
cries of "Shame!" were heard, and fierce looks turned in the direction
of the interrupters, who had, however, dispersed themselves
unobtrusively among the crowd. "In spite of such tactics," Savrola
continued, "and in the face of all opposition, whether by bribes or
bullets, whether by hired bravos or a merciless and mercenary soldiery,
the great cause we are here to support has gone on, is going on, and is
going to go on, until at length our ancient liberties are regained, and
those who have robbed us of them punished." Loud cheers rose from all
parts of the hall. His voice was even and not loud, but his words
conveyed an impression of dauntless resolution.
And then, having got his audience in hand, he turned his powers of
ridicule upon the President and his colleagues. Every point he made
was received with cheers and laughter. He spoke of Louvet, of his
courage, and of his trust in the people. Perhaps, he said, it was not
inappropriate that the Ministry of the Interior should be filled by "a
glutton," the Home Office by a "stay-at-home" who was afraid to go out
among his countrymen at night. Louvet was indeed a good object for
abuse; he was hated by the people, who despised his cowardice and had
always jeered at him. Savrola continued. He described the President
as clinging to office at whatever cost to himself or others. In order
to draw the attention of the people from his tyrannical actions and
despotic government at home, he had tried to involve them in
complications abroad, and he had succeeded, more completely than he had
bargained for. They were embroiled now in a dispute with a great
Power, a dispute from which they had nothing to gain and everything to
lose. Their fleets and armies must be despatched, to the cost of the
State; their possessions were endangered; perhaps the lives of their
soldiers and sailors would be sacrificed. And all for what? In order
that Antonio Molara might do as he had declared he would, and die at
the head of the State. It was a bad joke. But he should be warned;
many a true word was spoken in jest. Again there was a fierce hum.
Lucile listened spell-bound. When he had risen, amid the groans and
hisses of that great crowd, she had sympathised with him, had feared
even for his life, had wondered at the strange courage which made him
attempt the seemingly impossible task of convincing such an audience.
As he had progressed and had begun to gain power and approval, she had
rejoiced; every cheer had given her pleasure. She had silently joined
in the indignation which the crowd had expressed against Sorrento's
police-agents. Now he was attacking her husband; and yet she hardly
seemed to feel an emotion of antagonism.
He left the subject of the Ministers with contemptuous scorn, amid the
earnest assent of the audience and on the full tide of public opinion.
They must now, he said, treat of higher matters. He invited them to
consider the ideals at which they aimed. Having roused their tempers,
he withheld from them the outburst of fury and enthusiasm they desired.
As he spoke of the hopes of happiness to which even the most miserable
of human beings had a right, silence reigned throughout the hall,
broken only by that grave melodious voice which appealed to everyone.
For more than three quarters of an hour he discussed social and
financial reforms. Sound practical common sense was expressed with
many a happy instance, many a witty analogy, many a lofty and luminous
thought.
"When I look at this beautiful country that is ours and was our fathers
before us, at its blue seas and snow-capped mountains, at its
comfortable hamlets and wealthy cities, at its silver streams and
golden corn-fields, I marvel at the irony of fate which has struck
across so fair a prospect the dark shadow of a military despotism."
The sound of momentous resolution rose again from the crowded hall. He
had held their enthusiasm back for an hour by the clock. The steam had
been rising all this time. All were searching in their minds for
something to relieve their feelings, to give expression to the
individual determination each man had made. There was only one mind
throughout the hall. His passions, his emotions, his very soul
appeared to be communicated to the seven thousand people who heard his
words; and they mutually inspired each other.
Then at last he let them go. For the first time he raised his voice,
and in a resonant, powerful, penetrating tone which thrilled the
listeners, began the peroration of his speech. The effect of his
change of manner was electrical. Each short sentence was followed by
wild cheering. The excitement of the audience became indescribable.
Everyone was carried away by it. Lucile was borne along, unresisting,
by that strong torrent of enthusiasm; her interests, her objects, her
ambitions, her husband, all were forgotten. His sentences grew longer,
more rolling and sonorous. At length he reached the last of those
cumulative periods which pile argument on argument as Pelion on Ossa.
All pointed to an inevitable conclusion. The people saw it coming and
when the last words fell, they were greeted with thunders of assent.
Then he sat down, drank some water, and pressed his hands to his head.
The strain had been terrific. He was convulsed by his own emotions;
every pulse in his body was throbbing, every nerve quivering; he
streamed with perspiration and almost gasped for breath. For five
minutes everyone shouted wildly; the delegates on the platform mounted
their chairs and waved their arms. At his suggestion the great crowd
would have sallied into the streets and marched on the palace; and it
would have taken many bullets from the soldiers that Sorrento had so
carefully posted to bring them back to the realisation of the squalid
materialities of life.
The resolutions which Moret and Godoy proposed were carried by
acclamation. Savrola turned to the former. "Well, Louis, I was right.
How did it sound? I liked the last words. It is the best speech I
have ever made."
Moret looked at him as at a god. "Splendid!" he said. "You have saved
everything."
And now the meeting began to break up. Savrola walked to a side-door,
and in a small waiting-room received the congratulations of all his
principal supporters and friends. Lucile was hurried along in the
press. Presently there was a block. Two men, of foreign aspect, stood
in front of her, speaking in low tones.
"Brave words, Karl," said one.
"Ah," said the other, "we must have deeds. He is a good tool to work
with at present; the time will come when we shall need something
sharper."
"He has great power."
"Yes, but he is not of us. He has no sympathy with the cause. What
does he care about a community of goods?"
"For my part," said the first man with an ugly laugh, "I have always
been more attracted by the idea of a community of wives."
"Well, that too is part of the great scheme of society."
"When you deal them out, Karl, put me down as part proprietor of the
President's."
He chuckled coarsely. Lucile shuddered. Here were the influences
behind and beneath the great Democrat of which her husband had spoken.
The human stream began to flow on again. Lucile was carried by a
current down a side street which led to the doorway by which Savrola
would leave the hall. A bright gas-lamp made everything plainly
visible. At length he appeared at the top of the steps, at the foot of
which his carriage had already drawn up to receive him. The narrow
street was filled with the crowd; the pressure was severe.
"Louis, come with me," said Savrola to Moret; "you can drop me and take
the carriage on." Like many highly-wrought minds he yearned for
sympathy and praise at such a moment; and he knew he would get them
from Moret.
The throng, on seeing him, surged forward. Lucile, carried off her
feet, was pushed into a dark burly man in front of her. Chivalrous
gallantry is not among the peculiar characteristics of excited
democracy. Without looking round the man jobbed backwards with his
elbow and struck her in the breast. The pain was intense;
involuntarily she screamed.
"Gentlemen," cried Savrola, "a woman has been hurt; I heard her voice.
Give room there!" He ran down the steps. The crowd opened out. A
dozen eager and officious hands were extended to assist Lucile, who was
paralysed with terror. She would be recognised; the consequences were
too awful to be thought of.
"Bring her in here," said Savrola. "Moret, help me." He half carried,
half supported her up the steps into the small waiting-room. Godoy,
Renos, and half a dozen of the Democratic leaders, who had been
discussing the speech, grouped themselves around her curiously. He
placed her in a chair. "A glass of water," he said quickly. Somebody
handed him one, and he turned to offer it to her. Lucile, incapable of
speech or motion, saw no way of escape. He must recognise her. The
ridicule, the taunts, the danger, all were plain to her. As she made a
feeble effort with her hand to decline the water, Savrola looked hard
at her through her thick veil. Suddenly he started, spilling the water
he was holding out to her. He knew her then! Now it would come--a
terrible exposure!
"Why, Mirette," he cried, "my little niece! How could you come alone
to such a crowded place at night? To hear my speech? Godoy, Renos,
this is indeed a tribute! This means more to me than all the cheers of
the people. Here is my sister's daughter who has risked the crowd to
come and hear me speak. But your mother," he turned to Lucile, "should
never have allowed you; this is no place for a girl alone. I must take
you home. You are not hurt? If you had asked me, I could have ensured
a seat for you out of the crowd. Is my carriage there? Good, we had
better get home at once; your mother will be very anxious. Good-night,
gentlemen. Come, my dear." He offered her his arm and led her down
the steps. The people who filled the street, their upturned faces pale
in the gas-light, cheered wildly. He put her into his carriage.
"Drive on, coachman," he said, getting in himself.
"Where to, Sir?" asked the man.
Moret advanced to the carriage. "I will go on the box," he said. "I
can take the carriage on after dropping you," and before Savrola could
say a word he had climbed on to the seat beside the driver.
"Where to, Sir?" repeated the coachman.
"Home," said Savrola desperately.
The carriage started, passed through the cheering crowds, and out into
the less frequented parts of the city.