IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE
The daring _coup de main_ of Marcus White had met with the most amazing
and complete success. With the exception of the Chancery judges, who,
for purposes of criminal law, were a negligible quantity, every judge
and magistrate entrusted with the maintenance of law and justice in
the capital of England had been swept into one net. There could be
no summons, warrant, or indictment, in the absence of these judicial
officers, anywhere outside the City boundary. Arrests would be idle,
for no magisterial hearing or trial could follow. The strong arm of the
law, already greatly weakened, now was wholly paralysed! One and all,
the judges and magistrates had disappeared, carried by a cockleshell
steamer into the mystery of the darkness and the sea.
People were full of their own affairs, “fear was in the way,” and
apprehension for themselves and their families left men but little
power or wish to think about the functionaries of State. Moreover, on
Christmas Eve the colossal outrage became known to only a very few, and
knowledge came too late for any attempt to arrest the steamer in her
reckless rush into the night.
Heads of departments had gone out of town--eager to escape the
depression of the looming Christmas holiday in London. The War Office,
the Admiralty, and the Home Office were in charge of messengers
and caretakers. These circumstances, carefully counted on by the
wire-pullers of Germany, had also played into the hands of Marcus White
in his long-cherished, revengeful war against the representatives of
the law of England.
The police were the first to learn what had happened. The startling
story of the capture at first was scoffed at; but when the truth was
made quite sure, the effect upon the Force was staggering. The police
had long felt that there was a power arrayed against them which could
not be subdued by ordinary means. They knew the extent to which the
normal machinery of the criminal law had broken down. And now it was
completely shattered! The men were powerless, and realising the fact,
they felt like straws borne on the waves of a tumultuous river towards
an unknown sea.
The general public were entirely ignorant of what had happened, and the
news that came from the naval ports late on the afternoon of Christmas
Day was too absorbing to permit of much inquiry about what was taking
place nearer home.
Whatever families of other judges and magistrates might be asking or
wondering, Aldwyth Westwood, as yet, knew of no reason for special
anxiety about her father. For the past few weeks he had scarcely
been at home. Weary of the police escort which had been told off to
accompany him daily from Hill Street to the Law Courts, he had taken
up his quarters at the Inns of Court Hotel, going not at all to his
chambers in the Temple, but traversing, as he thought unnoticed, the
short distance between Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Carey Street. There,
in the room allotted to him as one of the law officers of the Crown,
and burdened with his colleague’s official work as well as his own, the
Solicitor-General had passed the days, forcing his brain to work, and
haunted ever with the dread of a physical relapse.
The eager people who rushed to the news-agents’ shops on the morning
of Bank Holiday were not seeking news concerning his Majesty’s judges,
but were hoping to learn more of the movements of the hostile fleets
and the reported conflagration at Portsmouth dockyard. News there
was none. Not a single journal had been published. The great body
of compositors had followed the example of the gas-workers; and the
_Epoch_, which alone among London journals could have commanded the
services of the men, had published nothing since its special edition of
the previous day.
Baulked at the shuttered newspaper shops, hosts of people made for
the railway stations in the hope that the bookstalls might have been
supplied with special news. But here, too, everything was blank.
Nothing authentic was ascertainable; but rumours were going round of
interrupted communication with the provinces, of wires cut in all
directions, and, worse still, of mysterious explosions in several
tunnels, which blocked certain of the railways, and severed the links
between London and the coast. An air of awe and anxious expectancy
appeared on the faces of the bewildered people, and, too excited to
remain in their houses, as the day wore on they came in ever-increasing
numbers into the streets, until the snow on road and footway was
churned into black and penetrating slush.
Multitudes flew to drink, at once their heaven and hell. There was
no organised march or demonstration of the Leaguers, but everywhere
they were seen in knots and groups. The sign of the Spider was more in
evidence than ever, just at the moment when Kraken, monster-spider of
the deep, seemed to have risen to the surface of the sea to crush the
naval strength of England.
In the early afternoon, thousands of people assembled in Trafalgar
Square, and rabid speakers, raucous in voice, breathed fire and fury
into the frosty air.
Raggett, on the steps near the National Gallery, raved to a multitude
of hearers, and no one dared to say him nay.
Presently, above his screaming tones, there came the sound of many
voices chanting in the open air. Those who were standing on the steps
on the west side of the square then saw a strange procession advancing
slowly along Pall Mall East. A cornet-player, wearing a surplice,
walked at the head of the procession, and the clear, strong notes of
his instrument led the voices of a multitude of singers. A surpliced
choir of quite a hundred men and boys was followed by the Sisters of
the Kindly Life, and behind and around them came a mixed company of all
classes, all ages, and both sexes--young men and maidens, old men and
children. One and all rolled to the wintry skies a hymn of hope and
triumph that filled the people in the square with wonder and amaze.
At first there were some jeers and vulgar cries, and here and there a
burst of scornful laughter in the crowd. But the quaint hymn of the
ancient Church had such a lilt and cadence in its setting, that tender
chords were touched in the hearts of thousands, and scorn and blasphemy
were silenced. The people were irresistibly drawn into the flood of
the melody. They caught eagerly at the cards which every one in the
procession held out to those who wanted them.
“’Ere, let’s ’ave a card, lady,” said a husky voice at Aldwyth
Westwood’s elbow.
“Ain’t yer got a card for me, guv’nor?” came from every side.
Thus the volume of the song of triumph--discordant here and there,
but earnest and full-throated--grew and strengthened as the band of
singers advanced towards St Martin’s Church. Two banners floated in the
air; the banner of the day--St Stephen’s, emblematic of his martyrdom;
and the banner of the Holy Grail, emblazoned with the mystic Cup of
Sacrifice. A jewelled cross gleamed high over all heads, and behind it,
with clasped hands, walked Father Francis.