with his excess of eyes, which, however, danced at the first news of the
morning--the arrival at Portsmouth of the _Boodah II_., which had raced
like a carrier-bird since 8.30 P.M. of the 29th, full of the news of the
vanished _Mahomet_: on her being 200 marines.
After that he spoke through the telephone with various
Government-offices, early astir that morning, till the Private Secretary
looked in with the announcement that his train would be ready in ten
minutes.
His last act in the Palace was the sending to the Treasurer at
Jerusalem, for Miss Frankl, the telegram:
“Be surprised, but believe: I am a Jew.”
“RICHARD”.
Of the Household some fifty, catching wind of what was toward, offered,
even begged, to go with him; but in general he refused, and set out with
a suite of only seven.
They reached Hastings at twenty minutes to ten, where, to the disgust
of all, the region of Central Station was found crowded; whereupon Sir
Francis Yeames held a consultation with a local rector, and a dash was
made to a private hotel near the pier.
There, looking from behind window curtains at eleven, Hogarth saw before
a paper-shop:
FLIGHT OF THE REGENT
A minute afterwards he started backward from the splintered window.
Everything was known:
LIFE-HISTORY OF THE CONVICT HOGARTH MARVELLOUS DETAILS
The street, to its two vanishing-points, was one scene of hats, mixed
with upturned faces: and it was an aggressive crowd that gave out a
sound.
Not till noon did the _Boodah II._ arrive; and then there was no setting
out--all the front windows of the house now broken, and in the town a
row like the feeding-time of lions, which uttered “coward”, “murderer”,
“convict”, “traitor”. Hogarth had been put to bed, the two ladies
were in a state of scare, Margaret anon crying on Loveday's shoulder,
declaring that “_He_” (meaning Frankl) was in the crowd, and coming,
coming, boring his way: she had seen him.
At last, near four P.M., a portion of the yard-wall at the back was
broken down by the party, Hogarth was raised and dressed, and through
the breach the party passed into another back-yard, then made beachward,
Hogarth leaning on the arm of Sir Martin Phipps; but they had no sooner
come to the Esplanade than they were surrounded, and when, on their
attaining the pier, the pier-turnstile was closed against the mob, it
was impossible to conceive whence so many missiles came. Once Hogarth
stopped, faced round, looked at them, but now a pebble bruised his left
temple, and he dropped, fainting.
Caught up by Sir Martin, Loveday, Sir Francis Yeames, and Colonel
Lord Hallett of the body-guard, he was hurried, a hanging concave with
abandoned head, to the long-waiting boat, and it was in a scurry of
escape, out of stroke, that the oarsmen rowed away.
Yonder lay the yacht with her fires banked, and was soon under weigh.
She had started, when a harbour-master's motor-boat was observed giving
chase, in her an officer from Scotland Yard who bore a bag, found by
means of the key in Frankl's pocket in the Adair Street safe; on its
clasp the name “Mahomet”, and it contained £850,000: so that the yacht
went wealthy on her way.
LI
THE MODEL
The voyage to Palestine was marked by two events: one the stoppage at
Tarifa, where the five hundred from the _Mahomet_ were, these, when
taken on board the _Boodah II._, making an armed force of 700; and then,
toward sunset of the fifth day, a steamer exchanged signals with the
_Boodah II._, enquired after the whereabouts of the Lord of the Sea,
received the reply “on board”, and when she stopped it turned out that
she had on board a Jewish Petition urging upon Spinoza to come and throw
in his lot with them. And here again was that name of Rebekah, spelled
now Ribkah.
For the news of his fall--the fact that he was a Jew--had created a
mighty stirring in Israel, of wonder, of the pride of race.
By the seventh day the yacht was off the Palestine coast, and Joppa,
seated on her cliffs, appeared over a foaming roadstead. But when a
landing was effected, they were to hear that there had been a collision
on the Jerusalem-Joppa railway, the line blocked, travel suspended; so,
as the filthy town was congested, the Royal party took refuge in a great
restaurant-tent, set up by a Polish Jew in gaberdine and fur cap, who
vociferated invitation at the door. All was mud, beggary, narrowness,
chaos, picturesque woe. Yet work had commenced: between the upper and
the nether millstone a woman ground corn at a doorway; the camel passed
loaded; the dragoman went with quicker step. In the afternoon Spinoza,
wandering beyond the outskirts of the town, saw in an orange-grove,
sitting before a roofless hut, six diligent two-handed Jews exhaustively
drawing the cord of the cobbler; further still, and saw what could only
have been a Petticoat-Lane Jew ploughing with a little cow and a camel:
and he smiled, thanking God, and taking courage--had always loved this
land.
The next morning he procured a number of clumsy waggons, with horses,
asses, camels, and provisions; and his caravan set out, to travel all
day over a plain, a “goodly land,” the almond-tree in blossom, orange
and olive, everywhere lilies, the scarlet anemone, he considering
himself so familiar with the way, that he was their only guide, though
the morning was misty; and through the plain of Sharon they wended over
the worst roads in existence, until, passing into a country of rocks,
they made out afar the mountains of Judæa, whose patches of white stone
look like snow in sunshine, on the roads streams of wayfarers, tending
all eastward to Jerusalem, lines of camels and waggons, pedestrians
with wine-skins, mother and sucking child on the solitary ass, and the
Bedouin troop; but Spinoza was all solitary among fastnesses on the
third forenoon when he muttered nervously: “I must certainly have lost
the way”.
Thereupon he called halt, and the caravan turned back to re-find the
road, Spinoza prying on camel-back foremost, clad now in the caftan and
white robes of the Orient.
But all day the caravan wandered out of the track in a white sea of
mist: no farmstead, nor cot, but the wild vine, and the wild fig, and
twice a telegraph-tree, still with its bark on, and the abandoned hold
of a bandit-sheik. Finally, near six P.M., Spinoza, finding himself in
a valley-bottom, sent out the order to pitch camp: upon which the tents
were fixed near a brook, waggons grouped around, and animals picketed
to grass. Spinoza, the two ladies, and Loveday, then ate together at the
door of one tent; after which he rose and strolled away, thinking how
best to handle this crab of Israel.
He noticed that the mist was lifting a little; and suddenly, as he
strolled, he stood still, listening: for remote tones of singing or
mourning seemed to meet his ear--from the west: and in some moments more
he saw the Mount of Olives--to the west, not, as he believed that it
must be, to the east, he having, in fact, in losing his way from the
coast, passed by Jerusalem to the north; and on the other side of the
Mount of Olives, from its foot to the Brook Kedron, spread at that
moment over the Valley of Jehosophat an innumerable multitude, covered
in praying-shawls, many prostrate, many with the keen and stressful face
of supplication lifted in appeal to God, that He would visit His people,
and turn again in this latter day to His lost and helpless flock. Every
child of Israel who could contrive it, at whatever cost, was there,
since it was the prophesied day of--“the Coming”.
But a bold woman, summoning her fainting strength, bracing her trembling
knee, stepped a little up the hillside to fling high her hand as a
sign--Rebecca Frankl, celebrated now through Israel as the elect of the
sibyl Estrella; and at that signal the congregation, gazing keenly into
heaven, lifted up their voice in meek song, singing the sibyl's “Hymn to
the Messiah”:
“The oceans trudge and tire their soul, desiring Thee; and night-winds
homeless roam with dole, reproaching Thee; the clouds aspire, and find
no goal, and gush for Thee, reproaching Thee.”
“Thou scrawled'st 'I mean' in rocks and men, in trends and streams; the
prophets raved, to sages' ken Thou shewed'st dreams; Thou shrouded'st
dark the How and When in starry schemes, and trends and streams.”
“The jungles blare, the glebe-lands low and bleat for Thee; the
generations rage and go, agaze for Thee; creation travaileth in woe,
with groans for Thee, agaze for Thee.”
“Adonai, come! with crashing rote of chariots come; or moonlight-mild,
alone, afloat, Messussah, come; with floods of lutes, or thundering
throat, but come! O, come! Messussah come.”
“The Arctics hawk-up their haunted heart, and raucous, spue; and
north-winds, wawling calls, outstart, to droop anew; the clouds like
scouts updart, depart, and truceless do, and droop anew.”
“How long! They breeds have waited fain what sibyls ween; Thou
scribbled'st in their secret brain 'I scheme; I mean'; the
constellations stray and strain: Break out! be seen what sibyls ween”.
“The pampas stamp and, nomad, low, reposeless, lone; raging the
generations trow, and drudge, and drown; a anguished glance this latter
woe throws to Thy Throne, reposeless, lone”...
Before them, above them, as they sang stood--a man.
Hard by a wall of that Moslem mosque, once a chapel which marked the
supposed spot of “the Ascension”, he stood, in an attitude of suspense,
astonishment, his body half-twisted--Spinoza.
An instant, and he was aware of Jerusalem lying “as a city that is
compact” before him--not to the east--to the west! Yet another instant,
and he realized that the whole tract of humanity--man, woman, child--was
on its face before him.
A faintness overcame him, shame, dismay; then, his blood now rushing to
his brow, his mouth sent out the passionate shout:
“Not to _me!_ Not to _me! I am the Lord of the Sea....!_”
But when the people heard this, saw him, knew him, they remained in
adoration....
By a special ship they had sent him a petition to come; here he was
weeks sooner than ship or airship could have conveyed him: and they took
him as the answer to their supplication, the answer which Heaven willed,
in the sure and certain faith that he would cure their ache, and the
ache of the world.
An acclamation like the voice of many waters arose and rolled below him,
and on the bosom of that tumult he moved among them into the Holy City,
as darkness covered all.
* * * * * * *
He took the title of Shophet, or Judge, and for sixty years ruled over
Israel.
It has been said that the initial “pull” over other nations possessed
by Israel (in respect of the sea-forts remaining in the Gulf of Aden,
Yellow Sea, Western Pacific) was the cause of his rise as of some
thrice-ardent Star of the Morning and asterisk dancing in the dawn's
dark: for the other nations, timorous of one another, made never an
attempt to build; but, for our share, we insist that anyway Judæa was
bound to become what she became--indeed, sea-rent after the Regency
collapse was decreased at the three forts, and suddenly in the twelfth
year of his judgeship Spinoza ordered its stoppage.
By which period the University of Jerusalem had become the chief
nerve-centre of the world's research and upward effort: for in creating
a “civilized State”--“proud and happy”--Spinoza did it with that
spinning rapidity of the modernization of Japan, so that in whatever
respects it was not a question of months, it was a question of not many
years.
For, as in the soul of the Jewish people abode as before that genius for
righteousness which wrote the Bible, and as the soul of righteousness
lies even in this; Thou shalt not steal, therefore Israel with some
little pain attained to this: whereupon with startling emphasis was
brought to pass that statement: “Righteousness exalteth a nation”.
For the promise says: “I will put a new spirit within them”; and
this--very rapidly--found fulfilment.
Whereupon others fast, faster, found fulfilment, so that a stale and
bitter word was in Pall Mall, saying: “The lot of them seem to have
formed themselves into a syndicate to run the prophecies”.
Again the promise has it: “I shall be with them”; and again: “They shall
be a cleansed nation”; and again: “They shall fear Him”.
The transformation was rapid for the reason that it was natural, seeing
that it had been Europe only that, like a Circe, had bewitched them into
beastial shapes, “sharks”, and “bulls”, and “bears”, mediæval Jews, for
example, having been debarred from every pursuit save commerce: so that
Shylock was obliged to turn into a Venetian; and, in ceasing to be a
Hebrew, became more Venetian than the Venetians, for the reason that he
had more brains, ready to beat them at any game they cared to mention;
but the genuine self of Shylock was a vine-dresser or sandal-maker, as
Hillel was a wood-chopper, David a shepherd, Amos a fig-gatherer, Saul
an ass-driver, Rabbi Ben Zakkai a sail-maker, Paul a tent-maker: so that
the return to simplicity and honesty was quickly accomplished.
And now, that done, behold a wonder: at the whirling of a wand the swine
of Circe converted back to biped man; whereupon without fail whatsoever
he does it shall astonishingly prosper: that succession of wits, seers,
savants, Heines, Einsteins, inspired mouths, pens of iridium, brushes
from the archangel's plumage, discoveries, new Americas, elations,
sensations--in therapeutics--in aero-nautics-beyond-the-atmosphere--in
the powers involved in sub-atoms--in the powers, latent till now,
involved in soul...for now each of millions was free to think, free
to manifest his own particular luck and knack in discovery, having
a country, foothold, not hovering like Noah's dove, urging still the
purposeless wing not to pitch into nowhere: for the promise says: “Ye
shall not sow and another reap, ye shall not plant and another garner”,
but in a land of gentlemen ye shall live, as it were to swellings of
music, while a noble height grows upon your smooth foreheads, and the
sum-total of the blending movements of your bodies and brains shall, as
seen from heaven, appear the minuet of a people.
Within forty years mighty works had been done: forts, irrigation of
deserts, reclamation of the Dead Sea, passionate temples clapped to
the lower clouds about the perpetual lamp, and that baroque Art of the
Orient which at the Judges progresses in Summer through the country
would draw multitudes of foreigners to gape at so great pomp, at
Corinthian cities full of grace and riches which had arisen to crown
with many crowns that plain of Mesopotamia, and where desolate Tyre had
mourned her purples, and old Tadmor in the Wilderness (Palmyra) had sat
in dirt; to gape, too, at a Jerusalem which in twenty years had crossed
the Valley of Jehosophat, and might really then be called “the Golden”,
a purged Babylon, a London burnt to ashes and rebuilt somewhere else:
for the Shophet proved true Duke and Leader, born mountaineer, climbing
from pinnacle to wild pinnacle, becking his people after him with many a
meaningful gesture skyward and suggesting smile; and Israel followed his
thrilling way, hearing always the Excelsior of his calling as it were
the voice direct of Heaven. What no merits of his could give, the land
which he had chosen gave, Mesopotamia pretty soon proving herself a
treasury of mineral riches: here is bdellium and the onyx-stone; and
where the streaming Pison, dawdling, draws his twine of waters over that
happy valley of Havilah, there is gold--hoard stored from before the
Eozoic, as misers bury for their heirs, in mine and friable quarry,
rollick rain: “and the gold of _that_ land is good”.
Here was not merely progress, but progress at increasing
speed--acceleration--finally resembling flight, as of eagle or phoenix,
eye fixed on the sun: Tyre by the fiftieth year having grown into the
biggest of ports, her quays unloading 6,700,000 tons a year, mart of
tangled masts, felucca, galiot, junk, cargoes of Tarshish and the Isles,
Levantine stuffs, spice from the Southern Sea; while Jerusalem had grown
into the recognized school of the wealthier youth of Europe, Asia and
America.
For it says: “The Kings of the earth shall bring their honour and glory
unto her”; and again: “She shall reign gloriously”.
And not Israel alone reaped the fruits of his own fine weather, but his
dews fell wide. For it says: “They shall be as dew from the Lord”; and
again: “They shall fill the face of the earth with fruit”; and again:
“All nations shall call them blessed”.
And so it was: for the example of Israel, his suasive charm, proved
compelling as sunshine to shoots, so that that heart of Spinoza lived to
see the spectacle of a whole world deserting the gory path of Rome to
go up into those uplands of mildness and gleefulness whither invites the
smile of that lily Galilean.
The mission of “unbelieving” Israel was to convert Christendom to
Christianity: and this he did.
We watch the Judge coming down the Mount of Olives in the midst of a
jubilant throng all involved in a noise of timbrels and instruments of
music: for his life was simple and one with the life of his people.
It is evening, all the west yonder a bewitched Kingdom charm-embathed,
wherein a barge of Venus bethronged with loves and roses voyages on a
sea of dalliance en route for the last Beatific--the last, the seventh,
Heaven--whitherward gads all a pilgrim-swarm of enraptured spirits, all,
all thitherward, Paul caught up with clothes aflaunt, and soaring
eagle, Enoch transfigured, green hippogriff, hop of squatted frog;
and thitherward trots with blinkings, bleating, the Ram of the Golden
Fleece, the flagrant flamingos flap and go.
The Judge, hoary-headed now, in a robe of cloth-of-silver which rippled,
had but now got home from a Pilgrimage; and the time was Simcath Torah,
the Rejoicing of the Law, and the carrying of Candles, in the month.
Tishri: silver his robe and silver his hair that hung round a brown and
puckered skin, but silvery, too, his every tooth still, and his vigour
good; and, as down the Mount of Olives he stepped, he saw Mount Sion and
that Temple that he had piled, across whose roughened frontispiece of
gold glowed in a bow, bold like the rainbow's, in characters of blazing
sapphire and chrysoprase, that inscription:
“Y'HOVAH B'KOKMAR YSAD ARETS, CONEN SHAMAIM B'THBUNAH”
and, as he saw it, lo, buoyancy caught the old man's feet: for the
cymballing and music had grown very fiercely hot, so that all the
congregation reeled in dance; and as the lasso drops round the
astonished prairie-horse and draws asprawl, so dancing caught and drew
his foot, and he danced.
And his wife Rebecca, mother of many sons, prying from a window-lattice,
writhed odd the eyebrows of the cynic, one beyond the other: for not
with foot alone he danced, but his wrung belly laboured in that travail
of Orient dancing; and she turned and smiled to Margaret Loveday
a turned-down smile, implying shrug, implying girding, her eyelids
lowered, yet indulgent of his nature's rage.
And not with foot and abdomen alone he danced, but his two balancing
palms danced to the beat of the heat of the music's heart; and with heel
and toe he danced. And as he danced, he sang, all apant, filling up
with nonsense-sounds when the rhythm's imperative tramp outran his
improvisation; and singing he danced, and dancing sang: with abdomen and
arms he danced, and with toe and heel he danced.
And dancing he sang:
My hands,
be dancing to God,
your Guide,
And peal my pipes,
and riot my feet,
and writhe to His Heat,
my tripes.
So fair!
With Rum-te-te-Tum
te Tum,
And Rum and Tum,
and Rum-te-te-Tum,
and Rum-te-te-Tum,
te Tum.
So fair!
This freehold for seraphs free!
That flame! those skies!
and Blest is Her Name,
and blest are my eyes,
that see.
I'll dance,
I'll dance like a ram,
for fun,
I'll smack the sun,
I'll dance at the breeze
I'll dance till I breed
a son.
For Thou!
Thou bringest Thine ends
to pass:
This hump so high,
this lump and her sigh,
Thou lead'st through the Nee-
dle's Eye.
'Tis well
the saurians sprawled,
and roared!
'Tis well Thou art!
and well that Thou wast,
and well when at last
they soared!
And well,
O well that Thou art
to be
When seraph hearts
will laugh by this brook,
and break for the love
of Thee.
Thy years
shall still by increase
te Tum,
And dance and dance,
With Rum-te-te-Tum....
so, singing, he danced, and, dancing, sang; and their sounds grew faint;
and they entered into the City of Glory, and their sounds failed....
They took him for the Sent of Heaven, nor did the results of his
glorious reign gainsay such a notion: the good Loveday, indeed, had the
agreeable fancy that our greatest are really One, who eternally runs
the circle of incarnation after incarnation from hoary old ages till
now--the Ancient of Days, his hair white like wool, quietly turning
up anew when the time yearns, and men are near to yield to the enemy:
Proteus his name, and ever the shape he takes is strange, unexpected,
yet ever sharing the same three traits of vision, rage and
generousness--the Slayer of the Giant--Arthur come back--the Messenger
of the Covenant--the genius of our species--Jesus the Oft-Born.