Beginning of an Age. Men will count this banquet I shall hold here the
sunrise moment of a new world. I am Sargon, Sargon the Great, Sargon
the Restorer, come to proclaim myself. This multitude of my followers
must be fed and instructed here, fed bodily and fed spiritually. See to
it that your share is done.”
He made a gesture behind him when he spoke of his followers, but indeed
there was no following behind him now save that one faithful but
deluded African, and that perplexed but persistent Oldham reporter. The
Eton boy had detached himself completely now. He was sitting at a table
afar off, where he had been joined by his friend, and they conversed
in undertones and watched. Even Mr. Godley with his microscope, and
the gentleman with the book about the Doukhobors, had faded out of
this story by this time, and were going along Holborn exchanging and
interrupting each other’s explanations and surmises about this singular
affair that had so unexpectedly deflected their high and reasonable
progress through life.
“I can only sus-sas-sas-suppose that-the-fellow-was-mad,” said Mr.
Godley.
While Sargon’s retinue had melted the manager’s had gathered. Behind
him now stood an array of waiters of every description, three dozen
perhaps of various and yet uniform waiters, tall waiters and short
ones, fat and thin, hairy and bald, young and old, waiters in aprons
and one in shirt sleeves.
“I’m afraid you’re creating a disturbance here,” said the manager. “I’m
afraid I must ask you to go, sir.”
Should he go? Never!
“Oh, generation of blind and deaf!” he cried, lifting his voice in an
attempt to reach the scattered diners beyond this lowering crowd of
waiting men, “do you not recognize me? Have you neither memories nor
vision? Do you not see the light that offers itself to you? Can you not
hear the call that thrills throughout the world? The hour for awakening
has come. It is to-day; it is now. You may cease to be things of habit
and servitude, and you may become masters of a world reborn. Now! This
moment. _Will_ the change with me and the change is upon you! Sargon
calls you, Sargon the Ancient and the Eternal, the Wise Ruler and the
Bold One, calls you to light, to nobility, to freedom----”
“’Fraid we can’t let you make speeches here,” said the manager with
hand extended.
“Let’s chuck ’im out _now_,” said a short, thick-set waiter.
“Chuck him out!” said the anti-Bolshevik business man, standing up and
speaking in a voice replete with indignation and gathering volume as
he went on. “And then bring us our Fricassee of Chicken. We have been
waiting Ten Minutes for THAT FRICASSEE OF CHICKEN!”
And then a voice could be heard saying: “Wot’s it all _about_?” and
suddenly a policeman stood beside Sargon and overshadowed him.
A wave of horror went through his soul, a wave of horror that was
entirely Preemby. Throughout his whole virtuous life he had never once
been in antagonism to the Police. “Oh, Lord! oh, Lord!” cried this
horror in his soul. “What have I done now? I’m going to be run in!”
The blue eyes grew rounder and he gasped for air, but no one there
perceived how close he came to ignominious collapse. Preemby shivered
and passed. Sargon choked and then spoke stoutly. “What is this,
Officer?” he said. “Would you lay hands on the Master of the World?”
“My duty, sir, if he makes a disturbance,” said the policeman. “Master
or no Master.”
Very rapidly did Sargon adjust himself to this new phase in his
affairs. He was defeated. He was to be led away. Yes, but he was still
Sargon. The Power that ruled him had thrust him into defeat, but that
could only be to try him. He had not expected this of the Power, but
since the Power willed it, so it had to be.
“You understand, Officer, what it is you are doing?” he said,
magnificently and gently.
“Quite, sir. I ’ope you don’t intend to give us any trouble.”
A captive! Not thus had he foreseen the revelation of the Master. He
gave one last look at the rich decorations of the great restaurant in
which the opening banquet was to have taken place. Not here then but
in some squalid police-court it was that the New Empire of Justice and
Brotherhood had to be proclaimed.
He turned in silence and went out at the policeman’s side quietly, deep
in thought.
§ 6
So ended Sargon’s first effort to enter into his Empire. Unless we
count the visit to Buckingham Palace as his first attempt.
But before we go on to tell of the unexpected and dreadful experience
that now came upon him, we must record one or two minor incidents of
his capture.
One is the behaviour of Mr. Kama Mobamba. He watched the closing
incidents in the restaurant with a growing amazement upon his great
bronze face. Had this little blue-eyed man been, after all, leading him
wrong? When at last Sargon was led away, Mr. Mobamba moved at first as
though still half inclined to follow him. Then he stood still, frowned
reflectingly and fumbled at his ticket-pocket. With some effort he
produced the sheet of paper that seemed to be his one intelligible link
with London; it was now in a rather crumpled condition. Smoothing it
out with his great hands, he advanced upon the manager with it extended.
“What’s this?” said the manager.
The black gentleman bowed with infinite suavity, still tending his
paper. “Non spik English,” said the black gentleman. “Portugaish.
Lean-a-Kay. Lemonallstree.”
He was difficult to direct.
Meanwhile in the entrance hall Bobby tacitly denied all knowledge of
Sargon. He was still hovering there with Billy, held by a curious
half-maternal solicitude. The ex-soldiers had “mizzled,” to use the
expressive word of the man with the organ, at the appearance of
policemen; the man in mourning and his troubles had been cleared up;
but there were still quite a number of people hanging about in a state
of vague anticipation, and the young reporter was trying to find some
one who understood the rare and obscure language of Oldham in order to
verify his facts. And there were several policemen; one evidently a
superior officer, a very good-looking man in a peaked cap and a frogged
coat.
“Here he comes!” said Billy, and Sargon was led out.
There was a silence as he passed through the hall to the rotating door.
And upon Sargon, it seemed to Bobby, there rested a hitherto unnoted
dignity. He looked neither to the right nor the left, and his eyes were
exceedingly mournful.
“But what will they do with him?” asked Bobby.
“You don’t happen to know him, sir?” asked the superior officer
abruptly.
“Not a bit!” said Billy, taking the answer out of Bobby’s mouth. “Never
seen him before. We just came in here to see what was up.”
And by his silence Bobby acquiesced.
“I’ve got no power to move you on here,” said the police officer, and
smiled a suggestion of inopportuneness to Billy, and motioned to his
satellites that the business there was at an end.
“We’d better go home,” said Billy, interpreting the smile.
§ 7
The three friends sat round a fire in the white room with the purple
curtains, and Bobby poured out his regret that he had denied Sargon.
“They’ve taken him off, Tessy,” he said for the third time, “and I do
not know what they will do with him.”
“Discharge him with a caution,” said Billy with a drawing-board on his
knee. “He hadn’t committed very much of an offence that I can see.”
“And then?” said Bobby, and meditated on the fire.
“I shall go round to the police-court and try to pick him up again
afterwards if they let him go,” he said presently.
“Better leave it all alone,” said Billy.
But Tessy sat in her arm-chair between Billy and the fire and looked
at Bobby’s preoccupied profile rather sweetly out of the warm shadow.
And nobody in the world saw her.
“They’ll warn him and he’ll come back here of his own accord, Bobby,”
said Tessy comfortingly.
“Of course he’ll come back,” said Billy.
“Very likely, Tessy,” said Bobby. “But suppose they don’t.”
He got up and stood by the fire. “I suppose I ought to go upstairs and
do some work.”
“I suppose you had,” said Billy.
“How is the novel getting on?” asked Tessy.
“Not much done yet,” said Bobby. “The Prophet has disorganized the
actual writing. But I’ve learnt a lot of things that will tell some
day. And of course I have to do all my Aunt Suzannah stuff. Aunt
Suzannah gets more and more popular. You can’t imagine the things they
ask me. It’s all material in the long run. Still--it takes time....
I suppose they’ve locked him in a beastly little cell somewhere. And
he’s wondering why they don’t see that he’s truly the great Sargon,
come again to this world.... Billy, the world’s a dangerous place, a
dangerous, unkind place. Why couldn’t they let him rip a bit? And his
poor little map of the Whole World upstairs--he always called it the
Whole World--and his little paper star-machine, and his poor little
empty room and his poor little empty bed.”
“I protest,” said Billy, putting his drawing-board aside. “Bobby,
you are a case of morbid overgrowth of the sympathies. You are a new
disease. You are the type case of Bobbyism. It’s bad enough that you
should sympathize openly with that little devil Susan when I have
spanked her, and so undo all my teaching. It’s bad enough that you
should do about a third of Mrs. Richman’s work because she needs
light and air. I can even understand something of your emotional
relationships with various stray cats and pigeons. But when it comes
to your being sorry for a poor little empty lodging-house bed, I draw
the line. Absolutely, Bobby; I draw the line. Poor little empty bed!
It’s--it’s _morbid_, Bobby.”
“But of course he was thinking of Sargon,” said Tessy. “You’ll go to
the police-court to-morrow, Bobby?”
“I’ll go--in spite of Billy. I don’t care if it is a disease. I’m
worried about that little man. I’m afraid. He’s too round-eyed for this
cruel world.”
And next morning Bobby went. He went to Lemon Square Court and sat
through a frowsty morning and waited for Sargon who never appeared. He
heard all the morning “drunks” and suchlike come up for judgment, a
case about stolen soda-water syphons, two matrimonial differences, and
all about the wilful smashing of a plate-glass window with intent to
rob, but nothing about Sargon. The magistrate vanished and the court
began to disperse. He asked questions of a policeman who had never
heard of Sargon and the little trouble at the Rubicon Restaurant. Had
he come to the right court? the policeman asked. Bobby hurried headlong
to Minton Street. Minton Street, too, it seemed, had never heard of
Sargon. It did not occur to Bobby to ask in either police station. He
retired baffled. He tried to find something about Sargon in the evening
newspapers; there was not a line about the Rubicon or him. Perhaps he
had not been charged! He hurried back and rushed upstairs full of a
vain surmise; the room was desolate, the window open, the map of the
world on the floor. Had Sargon been spirited out of existence?
Next day brought neither Sargon nor news of Sargon. Bobby lay awake of
nights.
After three full days Billy, who had been watching his friend
furtively, remarked in a casual manner: “Why don’t you go and see the
Head Panjandrum at the Lemon Square Police Station about it? He’d be
sure to know if anyone does.”
Shown in to Inspector Mullins, Bobby found himself confronted by the
same good-looking officer he had seen in the entrance hall of the
Rubicon Restaurant. “You’re the young man who didn’t happen to know
anything about him, three nights ago,” said Inspector Mullins, not
answering Bobby’s questions.
Bobby explained the situation candidly.
“Doesn’t help much now,” said the Inspector. “Still it’s all in order.
We took him, in the exercise of our discretion, to the Workhouse
Infirmary--for observation as to his mental state. Three clear days
they keep them there. Then they’re either certified or let go. Or
charged.”
“Certified?” asked Bobby.
“As a lunatic,” said Inspector Mullins.
“And what happened to him?”
“Usual thing, I suppose. He was a pretty clear case. By this time he’s
a certified lunatic, I suppose, and either at Cummerdown Hill or on his
way there. Or if that’s full--somewhere else.”
“Phew!” said Bobby. “Pretty quick.”
He sat disconcerted. “Can I go and see him at Cummerdown Hill?” he
asked.
“Probably not,” said Inspector Mullins. “Seeing you’re not a relation.”
“I’m interested in him.”
“It isn’t your business.”
“Exactly. But I like him. And I don’t think he’s exactly mad.... Seems
odd of his people--Do you know anything about his people? I might go
and talk to them about him.”
“That’s possible,” said the Inspector. “I don’t know who they are.
You might find out at the Workhouse Infirmary or they might tell you
from Cummerdown. I don’t know. Very likely _they_ don’t know who his
relations are. There’s all sorts of such stragglers in the world.
Possibly he hasn’t any relations--the sort of relations, I mean, who
would want to bother about him. My impression is that once a man or
woman is certified and put away it’s rather hard for an outsider to get
through. But, as you say, you can but try. Sorry I can’t tell you any
more. I never saw him myself at all--except as he went past me. Not my
affair.... Yes, our usual procedure in such a case.... Oh! no trouble.
Good morning.”
Left sitting squarely, an embodiment of implacable and indifferent law
and rule.
CHAPTER THE THIRD
_The Journey of Sargon Underneath the World_
§ 1
It has been said in an earlier chapter that Mr. Preemby, after his
wife’s death, was like some seed which germinates and thrusts out bold
and unexpected things. A new phase in that belated germination began as
he walked through the London streets beside his captor policeman. If
the thing had happened to Mr. Preemby while he was still Mr. Preemby,
it would have been merely a dreadful, shameful horror. It would have
been an insupportable experience, a thing to regret, a thing to get
through and conceal and if possible obliterate from record and memory.
If, again, it had happened in the early days of Sargon’s dreams it
would have been an occasion for an immense dramatic improvisation. He
would have thought of the effect upon the spectators and passers-by, he
would have posed and gesticulated and said profound, memorable words.
But some power of growth had taken possession of him now and he did
none of these things. He posed now neither to the world without nor to
himself within. For the first time in his life almost he was looking
directly at himself and at what he had done and what had befallen him,
and so full of wonder was he at this ultimate discovery of reality that
he forgot all the vast fabric of make-believe, imaginative response,
and deliberate self-delusion, up which he had clambered to this new
phase of vision. He walked so quietly through the lit streets that
only the most observant noted he was in charge and that the policeman
was on duty; to the rest he might have been any casual companion of a
home-going policeman.
One determination had been released in this renascent mind with an
extraordinary strength and clearness, that he was not, and never
would again be, that Albert Edward Preemby who had launched him into
existence. He was a being called, it mattered not what, in reality,
but for his present purposes, Sargon, Sargon the Magnificent King.
The first concrete visions of Sumeria and his ancient glories had
passed now into the background of his mind. He had not lost his belief
in them at all, but they were now ancient history to him, and even
the revelation at the boarding house seemed very far away. His ideas
had travelled long distances and gathered much in the past week. The
expectation of an immediate sensational splendour had been rudely
shattered. The Power that had called him had surprised him exceedingly,
but had not overwhelmed him. He knew quite clearly that he had to be
Sargon who lived not for himself but for the Whole World, and that to
relinquish or deny that was to perish utterly. It had not seemed to be
necessary to him that his own faith should be tried, but manifestly the
Power had determined that it should be tried. And manifestly he was to
be put through some austere process of preparation before he entered
into his Empire. He was to know what prison was and to stand a trial.
He would be asked to deny himself.
What should he say to them? I am not He--I am not Him--which was it? I
am not Him you suppose I am. He muttered it to himself.
“Whassay?” said the policeman.
“Nothing. Is it much further?” asked Sargon.
It was just round the corner. Sargon found himself in a little austere
room with half a dozen quite amiable but slightly disrespectful men in
uniform. He was asked his name and address by one who sat at a table.
“Sargon,” he said. “Sargon the First.”
“No Christian name?”
“Pre-Christian,” said Sargon.
“No given name, I mean,” said the questioner.
“No.”
“And the address?”
“None at present.”
“Just anywhere?”
Sargon did not answer.
“Case for Gifford Street,” said a voice behind him.
“Memory case or something,” said the man at the table. “Anyhow, it’s
Gifford Street.”
Sargon reflected. “What’s Gifford Street?” he asked.
“’Ospital. Where they’ll give you a bit of a rest and quiet.”
“But I want to meet a magistrate in open court. I have a message. I am
in no need of rest or quiet.”
“They’ll tell you all about that at Gifford Street. Buxton, will you
take ’im round?”
“But I am perfectly well! Why should I go to hospital?”
“Routine I suppose,” said the seated policeman and gave his mind to
other things.
§ 2
Queer! Why should it be a hospital? The way the Power was treating him
was a strange way. He had to submit to the Power; he had to maintain
himself Sargon. Still he could have wished for more explicitness.
He was so turned inward now that he went along beside Constable Buxton,
not noting the streets nor the traffic nor the passers-by. Presently
they were at a door in a high wall, within which there were buildings.
Then they were in a little office and a large, grey-faced porter
looked at him and exchanged muttered explanations with the constable.
Then they were going across a wide yard and through large doors into
a corridor where there was an unoccupied stretcher and two or three
nurses in uniform. They came to a little glazed-in office and Sargon
was asked to sit down on a bench against a wall while there was
telephoning. Constable Buxton hovered down the corridor as though the
task was nearly done.
A small bright-eyed man in a grey suit came and looked at Sargon. For
some moments they regarded each other in silence. “Well?” said the man
in the grey suit.
“My name is Sargon. I do not know why I have been brought here. Is this
a hospital? I understand it is. I am not ill.”
“You may be ill without knowing it.”
“No.”
“We just want to have you here for a bit to have a look at you.”
Sargon shrugged his shoulders.
A very big man with exaggerated shoulders and a large, clean-shaven,
intensely self-satisfied looking face appeared. He had a wide,
thin-lipped mouth, protruding grey eyes and highly oiled and entirely
subjugated sandy hair with an army “quif” on the forehead.
“Busy evening,” he said. “This is number three.”
“Pretty full then,” said the small man in grey.
“Too full,” said Mr. Jordan, “You don’t know where you are. This
_’im_?” he asked and indicated Sargon by creasing his thick neck and
depressing the corner of his mouth towards him.
“This,” said the little man in grey to Sargon, “is Mr. Jordan. He’s
going to show you just where you have to go and just what you have to
do.”
Immediately, instinctively, Sargon disliked Mr. Jordan. But he stood
up obediently because his idea of submission to the Power seemed in
some way to overlap and include this new coercion. Mr. Jordan produced
a voice of flat, oily, insincere amiability. “You come along, Old Chap,
with me,” he said. “We’ll make you comfortable all right ’fyou don’t
give no trouble.”
They went round a corner and up a cheerless stone staircase that
turned back on itself; they came to a landing and double doors with
glass panes in them that opened upon a very long, dark passage lit by
a single very remote light. And suddenly it appeared to Sargon that
behind him and already distant lay that outer world of freedom, the
streets and the lights, the coming and going of people and things, the
endless chance encounters, the events and the spectacle of life to
which the Power had sent him, and before him were dark and narrow and
dreadful experiences. Why should he turn his back thus voluntarily on
the great outer world he had come to save? Was this again only another
mistake he was making? He took a step or so away from Jordan and faced
him.
“No,” he said. “I do not want to go further into this place. I do not
wish it. Let me return. I have disciples to call and many things to do.”
The full moon of Jordan’s face displayed incredulous astonishment that
passed into fierceness. “_Wot?_” he said.
He left a tremendous pause after “Wot” and then spoke very rapidly.
“None of your tricks _’ere_, you thundering old Bastard.” With a swift
movement his huge, raw, red hand gripped Sargon by the upper arm. His
thin lips were retracted to show his teeth; his eyes seemed popping
out. He gripped not to hold but to pinch and compress and injure, and
he dug his fingers in between muscle and bone, so that Sargon stared at
him with dilated eyes and uttered a sharp, involuntary cry of pain.
The grip relaxed from the acutely painful to the merely uncomfortable,
and the big face came down close to Sargon’s. It was manifest that Mr.
Jordan had been regaling himself on cheese and cocoa. “Don’t you try it
on, you Old Fool! Don’t you blooming well try it on. Whatever it is,
don’t you try it on ’ere. You’re right enough to understand what I say.
See? You do exactly wot you’re told ’ere. You do exactly wot you’re
told. You do your best to avoid givin’ trouble and I’ll do my best
ditto. But if you start doin’ tricks--Gawd ’elp you! See?”
And he crushed the arm again.
“Understan’?”
The blue eyes seemed to assent.
“Down that passage, blast you!” said Mr. Jordan.
A distressed and wondering and yet not absolutely abject Sargon was
taken to a wet and untidy bathroom in which a broken chair, pools
of water, great splashings on the wall, and some crumpled towels in
the corner suggested a recent struggle. There he was made to undress
and take a tepid bath, dried with a towel that had already been in
action, put into a grey nightgown that was doubtfully clean, a grey
shoddy dressing-gown that certainly wasn’t, and a pair of down-at-heel
slippers two sizes too big, and so garbed, was led by Mr. Jordan, a
little propitiated now by alert obedience, into the ward in which he
was to pass the night.
A rufous man with very light eyelashes appeared.
“’Ere ’e is, Mr. ’Iggs,” said Mr. Jordan.
“I’ve got his bed ready,” said Mr. Higgs. “’Ow many more of ’em?”
“Perfec’ shower of ’em,” said Mr. Jordan.
“Three,” said Mr. Higgs.
“Well,” said Mr. Jordan. “So long.”
“So long,” said Mr. Higgs.
Neither of them addressed the Lord of the Whole World directly. He
might have been a parcel passed from hand to hand.
§ 3
When Sargon entered the Observation Ward of the Gifford Street
Infirmary his sense of having left life, ordinary current life,
far away behind him, beyond these grey passages and corridors and
staircases and glass offices and high walls and little doors, was
enormously reinforced. Never had he seen anything so emptily bleak and
cheerless as this place. A heartless great dingy room it was, with
green-grey distempered walls discoloured in patches, lit by a few bare
lights that gave neither high-lights nor shadows. Black night and a
greasily lit brick wall stared in through uncurtained windows. Half-way
down the length of the place projecting pieces of wall suggested that
two former rooms had been thrown into one. The floor was of polished
bare boards. Far off was a table set against the wall with two or
three torn and crumpled magazines thereon, and at the end an empty
fire-place. In the near half, on either side, there were iron bedsteads
in rows, twenty or thirty perhaps altogether. There was a foul smell
in the air, faint and yet indescribably offensive, a fæcal smell mixed
with a heavy soapy odour.