_Chapter VI_
A NIGHT IN NEW YORK
The _New York Daily Telegraph_ had already issued several regulareditions and a number of extras, without really having conveyed muchdefinite information, for the dispatches consisted for the most part ofrumors that arose like distant lightning on the western horizon, and itwas quite impossible to ascertain just where. A dark bank of clouds layover the Pacific States, completely shutting in the territory that hadbeen cut off from all communication, both by wire and rail. The naturalsupposition was, that the Japanese outposts were stationed at the pointsjust beyond which to the east telegraphic communication had not yet beeninterrupted, but the messages that were constantly pouring in fromplaces along this border-line revealed clearly that these outposts werecontinually pushing further eastwards. A serious battle didn't seem tohave occurred anywhere. The utter surprise caused by the suddenappearance of the Japanese troops, who seemed to spring up out of theground, had from the very beginning destroyed every chance of successfulresistance.
Shortly after the first vague rumors of battles said to have been foughtat San Francisco, Port Townsend, and Seattle, had arisen, even thesesources of information ran dry. The question from where all the hostiletroops had come, remained as much of a riddle as ever. That was a matterof indifference after all; the chief consideration was to adoptmeasures of defense as speedily as possible.
But the War Department worked slowly, and the news received fromheadquarters at Washington consisted only of the declaration that theregulars were going to be sent to the West immediately, that thePresident had already called out the reserves, and that Congress wouldmeet on May eleventh to discuss means for placing the militia on awar-footing and for creating an army of volunteers. The regular army!Three States with their regiments and their coast-defenses had to bededucted at the very start. What had become of them? Had they been ableto hold their own between the enemy and the coast? What had happened tothe Philippines and to Hawaii? Where was the fleet? None of thesequestions could be answered, simply because all telegraphic connectionwas cut off. The strength of the enemy was an absolutely unknownquantity, unless one cared to rely on the figures found in the ordinarymilitary statistics, which had probably been doctored by the Japanese.Was this the Japanese army at all? Was it an invading force? Could sucha force have pushed so far to the East in such a short space of timeafter landing? The press could find no satisfactory answer to thesequestions, and therefore contented itself with estimating the number ofAmerican soldiers available after subtracting the three coast States.The newspapers also indulged in rather awkward calculations as to whenand how the troops could best be dispatched to the invaded territory.But this optimism did not last long and it convinced nobody.
Another serious question was, how would the masses behave upon thebreaking-out of this sudden danger, and what attitude would be assumedby the foreign elements of the population. It was most important tohave some inkling as to how the Germans, the Irish, the Scandinavians,the Italians and the various people of Slavonic nationality would actwhen called upon to defend their new country. It was of courseabsolutely certain that the two great political parties--the Republicansand the Democrats--would work together harmoniously under the stress ofa common danger.
Francis Robertson, the well-known reporter of the _New York DailyTelegraph_--called the Flying Fish on account of his streamingcoat-tails--had been on the go all day. He had scarcely finisheddictating the shorthand notes made on his last tour of inspection, tothe typewriter, when he received orders--it was at seven o'clock in theevening--to make another trip through the streets and to visit theheadquarters of the various national and political societies. First hewent to a restaurant a few doors away, and in five minutes succeeded inmaking way with a steak that had apparently been manufactured out of thehide of a hippopotamus. Then he jumped into a taxicab and directed thechauffeur at the corner of Twenty-ninth Street to drive as quickly aspossible through the crowd down Broadway. But it was impossible for thechauffeur on account of the mob to move at more than a snail's pace, andthe cab finally came to a dead stop at Madison Square, which was packedwith excited people. Robertson left the cab and hurled himself boldlyinto the seething mass of humanity, but soon discovered that if hewished to make any progress at all he would have to allow himself to becarried forward by the slowly moving crowd. At the corner ofTwenty-second Street he managed to disentangle himself and hurriedthrough the block, only to find a new crowd on Fourth Avenue.
He intended to cross Fourth Avenue and then push on to Third Avenue, inorder to reach Tammany Hall by that route, but he was doomed todisappointment, for the human stream simply carried him down FourthAvenue as far as Union Square, where it ceased moving for a time.Presently it got under way again, proceeding even more slowly thanbefore, and Robertson soon found himself in the middle of the square,being suddenly pushed against the basin of the fountain upon which heclimbed for the double purpose of regaining his breath and of lookingaround to see if it were possible to make his way through to TammanyHall. In vain! His eyes were greeted by an interminable sea of heads andhats, which did not offer the slightest chance of his being able to slipthrough. The trees, the statues and the fountain in the square appearedto be buried to a height of two yards in a black flood. He lookedlongingly across Sixteenth Street over to Third Avenue, but nowherecould he find an opening.
He felt like a ship-wrecked mariner cast ashore on a desert island. Thesullen roar of the crowd echoed against the buildings enclosing thesquare like the dull boom of the surf. Over on Third Avenue the yellowlights of the elevated cars crossed the dark opening of Sixteenth Streetat regular intervals, and recalled to Robertson a piece of scenery at afair, where a lighted train ran continually between the mouths of twotunnels in the mountains. He pulled out his note-book and by the lightof the electric arc-lamp made a note of the observation.
Then he jumped down from the ledge where he had taken refuge and oncemore joined the human stream. The latter, as if animated by a commonpurpose, was moving downtown, and if Robertson's neighbors were properlyposted, it was headed for the Chinese quarter. It was evident that theyintended to vent their fury for the present on these allies of theJapanese. This longing for revenge, this elementary hatred of the yellowrace kept the crowd in Union Square in motion and shoved everyonewithout discrimination towards Broadway and Fourth Avenue. The squareresembled a huge machine, which by means of some hidden automatic powerforced tens of thousands of unresisting bodies into the narrow channels.The crowd rolled on unceasingly. Here and there a hat flew off into theair, came down again, bobbed up and down once or twice, and thencontinued its journey somewhere else on the surface. It was fortunatethat those who had become insensible from the dreadful noise and thefoul, dusty air were unable to fall down; they were simply held up bythe close pressure of their neighbors and were carried along until a fewblocks farther on they regained consciousness. Nevertheless a few felland disappeared in the stream without leaving a trace behind them. Nopen could describe their terrible fate; they must have been relentlesslyground to pieces like stones on the rocky bed of a glacier.
Above this roaring stream of human beings there swept unceasingly, inshort blasts like a tearing whirlwind, the hoarse cry of a people'spassion: "Down with the yellow race! Down with the Japanese! Threecheers for the Stars and Stripes!" The passionate cry of a crowdthirsting for revenge rose again and again, as if from a giant's lungs,until the cheers and yells of "down" turned into a wild, deafening,inarticulate howl which was echoed and re-echoed a thousand times by thetall buildings on both sides of the avenue. Now and then an electricstreet-car, to which clung hundreds of people, towered like a strandedvessel above the waving mass of heads and hats.
Robertson decided to give up the idea of reaching Tammany Hall and todrift with the crowd to the Chinese quarter. At Astor Place a branch ofthe human stream carried him to the Bowery, where he found himself onthe edge of the crowd and was scraped roughly along the fronts ofseveral houses. He stood this fo
r another block, but determined toescape at the next corner into a side street. Before he could reach it,however, he was crushed violently against the wall of a house and turnedround three or four times by the advancing throng; during this maneuverhis right coat-tail got caught on something and before he knew it, hehad left the coat-tail behind. At last he reached the corner and clungtightly to a railing with his right hand, but the next moment he flewlike a cork from a champagne-bottle into the quiet darkness of FifthStreet, bumping violently against several men who had been similarlyejected from the current and who pushed him roughly aside.
Robertson was bursting with rage, for just before he had been propelledinto Fifth Street, he had caught a glimpse of the grinning face of BobTraddles, of the _Tribune_, his worst competitor, only a few feet away.The latter showed clearly how delighted he was at this involuntarydiscomfiture of his rival in the mad race for the latest sensationalnews. Robertson attempted for a while to get back into the current, butall of his efforts proved futile. Then he tried at least to find outwhat the people intended to do, and in spite of the contradictoryinformation he received, he was pretty well convinced that they werereally going to make an attack on the inhabitants of the Chinesequarter. Although hopelessly separated from Tammany Hall by thecountercurrent of the human stream, he at last succeeded in reaching theEighth Street station of the Second Avenue Elevated, where he took anuptown train to Forty-second Street. Then he walked over to Third Avenueand took a downtown train, which was crowded to suffocation, as far asGrand Street, for the purpose of reaching the Chinese quarter from theuptown side. The trip had consumed fully two hours. At the crossing ofGrand and Mott Streets he found the entrance to the latter barred by aline of policemen standing three deep. He showed his badge to a sergeantand received permission to pass.
The dead silence of Mott Street seemed almost uncanny after the noisyroar of the mob, the echoes of which still rang in his ears. Thebasements of the houses were all barricaded with shutters or boards, thedoors were locked, and there was scarcely a light to be seen in thewindows of the upper stories. A person paying his first visit to thisbusy, bustling ant-hill of yore would, if he had not been reminded bythe peculiar penetrating smell of the yellow race of their proximity,scarcely have believed that he was really in the notorious Chinesequarter of New York.
The policeman who acted as Robertson's guide told him that they hadknown all about the movements and intentions of the mob long before ithad reached the police headquarters, by way of the Bowery and ElmStreet, and begun to force its way from the Bowery through some of theside streets into the Chinese quarter. Fearing that the latter would beset on fire, the chief of police had given orders to protect it from theirresponsible mob by barricading the streets with all the availablemembers of the force. In this attempt, however, they had been onlypartially successful. It was out of the question for six hundred men tohold out against tens of thousands; the enormous pressure from the rearhad hurled the front rows like driftwood against the thin chain ofpolicemen, which, after a stubborn resistance, had simply been brokenthrough at several spots.
A hand-to-hand fight had ensued and shots were soon fired on both sides,so that the police had to content themselves with an effort to check theworst excesses. Then, too, the spirit of patriotism was just as rampantin the breasts of the police as it was in the breasts of those who urgedon the mob. As it was impossible to catch hold of the treacherousinvaders themselves, their natural allies should at least not escapeunscathed. The Chinese were of course prepared for such an attack. Thehowling, raging mob found barricaded doors and windows wherever theywent, and even when they did succeed, after considerable labor, inbreaking these down, it was usually only to find that the birds hadflown, that the occupants had made their escape in time. Whereverresistance had been offered by the Chinese, the mob had gone beyond allbounds in its frenzy.
"Several hundred Chinamen must have been killed," said the policeman,"and it would be best for the papers to hush up what went on inside thehouses." Robertson and his companion stopped near a lamp-post, and theformer hurriedly made some shorthand notes of all the information he hadreceived.
"Look," said the policeman, "Judge Lynch has done his work well," and hepointed with his club to a lamp-post on the other side of the streetfrom which two dark bodies were hanging. "Simply hanged 'em," he addedlaconically.
As the policeman would not allow him to enter any of the houses because,as he said, it meant certain death, Robertson decided to go to thenearest telephone pay-station in order to 'phone his story to the paper.The policeman went with him as far as the police-station. By theuncertain light of the street-lamps they stumbled along the pavement,which was often almost entirely hidden by heaps of rubbish and regularmountains of refuse. They saw several more bodies suspended fromlamp-posts, and the blood on the pavement before many of the mutilatedhouses testified eloquently to the manner in which the mob had wreakedits vengeance on the sons of the Celestial Kingdom. Ambulance officerswere carrying away the wounded and dead on stretchers, and afterRobertson had stayed a little while at the police-station and receivedinformation as to the number of people killed thus far, he walked in thedirection of Broadway, having found the entrance to the Subway closed.
At Broadway he again came upon a chain of police, and learned that thetroops had been called out and that a battalion was marching upBroadway.
Robertson plunged once more into the seething human whirlpool, but madelittle progress. For about fifteen minutes he stood, unable to move,near a highly excited individual, who, with a bloody handkerchief tiedaround his head and with wild gesticulations was reciting hisexperiences during the storming of a Chinese house. This was his man. Amomentary lull in the roar around him gave him a chance of gettingcloser to him and screaming into his ear: "I'll give you two dollars ifyou'll step into the nearest hallway with me and tell me that story!"
The man stared at him in astonishment but when Robertson added, "It'sfor the _New York Daily Telegraph_," he was posted at once. They madetheir way with considerable difficulty to the edge of the crowd andmanaged to squeeze into a wide doorway full of people, whose attention,however, was not directed to the doings on Broadway, but rather to ameeting that was being held in a large rear room. Robertson managed tofind an unoccupied chair in a neighboring room, which was packed to thedoor, and sitting astride it, proceeded to use the back of the chair asa rest for his note-book. The story turned out to be somewhatdisjointed, for every time a push from the crowd sent the man flyingagainst the hard wall, he uttered a long series of oaths.
"For Heaven's sake," said Robertson, "quit your swearing! Make a hole inthe wall behind you and hustle with your story!"
"This'll mean at least a column in the _Telegraph_," mused Robertson asthe story neared its end. But he was already listening with one ear towhat was going on in the big room, whence the sharp, clear tones of aspeaker could be heard through the suffocating tobacco fumes. Over theheads of the attentive crowd hung a few gas-lamps, the globes of whichlooked like large oranges. Robertson gave his Mott Street hero thepromised two dollar bill and then made his way to the rear room.Standing in the doorway, he could clearly distinguish the words of thespeaker, who was apparently protesting in the name of some workmenagainst a large manufacturer who had at noon dismissed three thousand ofthem.
The orator, who was standing on a table in the rear of the room, lookedlike a swaying shadow through the smoke, but his loud appeal completelyfilled the room, and the soul-stirring pictures he drew of the misery ofthe workmen, who had been turned out on the streets at the word of themillionaire manufacturer, caused his hearers' cheeks to burn withexcitement.
"--and therefore," concluded the speaker, "we will not submit to theabsolutely selfish action of Mr. Hanbury. As leader of our Union I askyou all to return to work at the factory to-morrow at the usual hour,and we will then assert our right to employment by simply continuing ourwork and ignoring our dismissal. Of course the simplest and mostconvenient thing for Mr. Hanbury is to shu
t down his plant and skip withhis millions to the other side. But we demand that the factory be keptrunning, and if our wages aren't paid, we'll find means for gettingthem. Our country cannot fight the enemy even with a thousandmillionaires. When the American people take the field to fight for themaintenance of American society and the American state, they have aright to demand that the families they are compelled to leave at homeshall at least be suitably cared for. Again I say: We'll keep Mr.Hanbury's factory open."
The air shook with thunderous applause, and a firm determination lightedup hundreds of faces, wrinkled and scarred from work and worry. And whowould have dared oppose these men when animated by a single thought anda common purpose? Again and again enthusiastic shouts filled the room,and the speaker was assured that not a man present would fail to be onhand the next morning.
Leaning against the door-post, Robertson made notes of this occurrencealso and then looked round in a vain endeavor to find a means of escapefrom the suffocating atmosphere. While doing so his glance fell on thespot where only a few moments before he had observed the swaying shadowof the speaker. The latter's place had been taken by another, who wasmaking a frantic but vain effort to secure quiet and attention. With hisarms waving in the air he looked through the murky atmosphere for allthe world like a quickly turning wind-mill.
Gradually the applause ceased, while everybody in the room, Robertsonincluded, was startled by the announcement of the chairman that Mr.Hanbury was most anxious to address the assemblage. A moment ofastonished silence and then Bedlam broke loose. "What, Mr. Hanbury wantsto speak?" "Not the old one, the young one!" "He must be mad. What doeshe want here?" "Three cheers for Mr. Hanbury!" "Down with him! We don'twant him here, we can manage our own affairs!" "Let him speak!" "Threecheers for Mr. Hanbury!" "Be quiet, damn you, why don't you shut up?"These and other similarly emphatic shouts reached Robertson's ears. Hehunted for his last pencil in his vest-pocket, and when he looked upagain, he saw through the cloud of smoke a tall, refined person standingon the table.
"We don't want to be discharged! Don't let our wives starve!" the voicesbegan again, and it was some time before it became possible for thespeaker to make himself heard.
"Is that really Mr. Hanbury?" Robertson asked one of his neighbors.
"Yes, the son."
"It seems incredible! He's taking his life in his hands."
Gerald Hanbury's first words were lost in the uproar, but gradually thecrowd began to listen. He spoke only a few sentences, and theseRobertson took down in shorthand:
"--The demand just made by your speaker, and supported by all present,that my father's factory should not be shut down in these turbulenttimes, was made by myself this very morning, the moment I heard the newsof the base attack on our country. I don't want any credit for havingpresented the matter to my father in most vigorous fashion, and I regretto say I have accomplished nothing thus far. But the same reasons whichyou have just heard from the lips of Mr. Bright have guided me. I, too,should consider it a crime against the free American people, if wemanufacturers were to desert them in this hour of national danger. I amnot going to make a long speech; I have come here simply to tell youthat I shall go straight to my father from here and offer him the wholeof my fortune from which to pay you your wages so long as the war lasts,and not only those employed in the factory, but also the families ofthose who may enter the army to defend their homes and their country."
Such an outburst of passionate enthusiasm, such wild expressions of joyas greeted this speech Robertson had never witnessed. The crowd screamedand yelled itself hoarse, hats were thrown into the air, and pandemoniumreigned supreme. Mr. Hanbury was seized by dozens of strong arms as hejumped down from the table and was carried through the room over theheads of the crowd. After he had made the rounds of the hall severaltimes and shaken hundreds of rough hands, the group of workmensurrounding the foreman on whose shoulders young Hanbury was enthronedmarched to the entrance, while the whole assembly joined in a marchingsong.
By pure chance Robertson found himself near this group as they came to ahalt before the door, just in time to save Mr. Hanbury from having hisskull smashed against the top. So they let him slide down to the ground,and then the whole crowd made a rush for the Broadway entrance. Such ajam ensued here, that another meeting was held on the spot, which,however, consisted chiefly in cheers for Mr. Hanbury.
Suddenly some one shouted: "We'll go with Mr. Hanbury to his father!"Inch by inch they moved towards Broadway, whence a terrific roar andwild shouts greeted the ears of the closely packed mass at the entrance.
Robertson was standing close to Mr. Hanbury, whose face shone with happyexcitement. Just as they reached the entrance to the street, the crowdoutside suddenly started to run north in mad haste.
"This is the proudest day of my life as an American citizen!" saidRobertson to Hanbury. Hardly had he finished the sentence, when acrashing sound like thunder rent the air and resounded down the wholelength of Broadway, as if the latter were a canon surrounded byprecipitous walls of rock.
"They're firing on the people," burst from thousands of lips in thewildest indignation.
Some one shouted: "Pull out your revolvers!" and in response red sparksflashed here and there in the crowd and the rattle of shots greeted thetroops marching up Broadway. The mob seemed to be made up largely ofRussians.
Just in front of Robertson and Gerald Hanbury a young woman, who hadbeen wounded by a stray shot, lay on the pavement screaming with painand tossing her arms wildly about.
"Three cheers for Mr. Hanbury!" came the loud cry once more from theentrance. At this instant a big workman, apparently drunk, and dressedonly in shirt and trousers, stepped in front of the door, and swingingthe spoke of a large wheel in his right hand shouted: "Where's Mr.Hanbury?" And some one shouted as in reply: "The blackguard has turnedthree thousand workmen out on the streets to-day so that he can gotraveling with his millions." The workman yelled once more: "Where isMr. Hanbury?" Gerald moved forward a step and, looking the questionerstraight in the eye, said: "I'm Mr. Hanbury, what do you want?"
The workman glared at him with wild, bloodshot eyes and cried in afierce rage: "That's what I want," and quick as a flash the heavy spokedescended on Hanbury's head. The terrific blow felled Gerald to theground, and he sank without uttering a sound beside the body of thewounded woman lying at his feet.
Robertson flew at the drunken brute as he prepared for a second blow,but some of the other laborers had already torn his weapon out of hishand, and, as if in answer to this base murder, the troops discharged afresh volley only a hundred yards away, which was again received withshots from dozens of revolvers.
Robertson felt a stinging pain in his left arm and, in a sudden accessof weakness, he leaned for support against the doorway. His senses lefthim for a moment, and when he came to, he saw a company of soldierspassing the spot where he stood. The next instant the butt-end of amusket pushed him backwards into the doorway.
"This is madness!" he cried. "You're firing on the people."
"Because the people are murdering and plundering downtown!" answered anofficer. Gradually the tumult calmed down. Another company passed byRobertson, who had sat down on the step before the door. He examined hisarm and found that he was uninjured; a stone splinter must have struckhis left elbow, for the violent pain soon disappeared. The mob wasquickly lost to view up Broadway, while some ambulance surgeons appearedon the other side of the street. Robertson called over to them and toldthem Mr. Hanbury had been murdered, whereupon they crossed the street atonce.
Gerald Hanbury's corpse was lifted on a stretcher.
"How terrible, they've broken in his skull," said one of the surgeons,and taking a gray shawl from the shoulders of the charwoman who waswrithing with agony, he threw it over the upper part of Gerald's body.
"Where shall we take it?" asked one of the surgeons.
"To Mr. Hanbury's house, two blocks north," directed Robertson, andgoing up to one of the surgeons he added: "I'll take y
our place at thestretcher, for you can make yourself useful elsewhere."
"How about her?" asked one of the ambulance attendants, pointing to thewoman on the ground.
"I'm afraid we can't do much for her," replied one of the surgeons, "sheseems to be near death's door."
Then the men lifted their burden and slowly the sad procession walked upBroadway, which was now almost deserted.
A few shots could still be heard from the direction of Union Square; tothe left the sky was fiery red while clouds of smoke traveled over thehigh buildings on Broadway, shutting out the light of the stars.Robertson looked back. The street lay dark and still. Suddenly far awayin the middle of the street two glaring white lights appeared and abovethem flared and waved the smoky flames of the petroleum torches, whilegongs and sirens announced the approach of the fire-engines. And nowthey thundered past, the glaring lights from the acetylene lamps infront of the fire-engines lighting up the whole pavement. Streams oflight and rushing black shadows played up and down the walls of thebuildings. Next came the rattling hook and ladder wagons and thehosecarts, the light from the torches dancing in red and yellow stripeson the helmets of the firemen. And then another puffing, snortingengine, with hundreds of sparks and thick smoke pouring out of its widefunnel, hiding the vehicle behind it in dark clouds. They're here onemoment, and gone the next, only to make way for another hook and ladder,which sways and rattles past. The clanging of the gongs and the yells ofthe sirens grow fainter and fainter, and finally, through the clouds ofsparks and smoke the whole weird cavalcade was seen to disappear into aside-street. Little bits of smoldering wood and pieces of red-hot coalremained lying on the street and burned with quivering, quick littleflames.
As they walked on the man next to Robertson told him why the troops hadbeen compelled to interfere. The excited mob which had tasted blood, asit were, in the Chinese quarter and become more and more frantic, hadcontinued plundering in some of the downtown streets without anydiscrimination--simply yielding to an uncontrollable desire fordestruction. As a result a regular battle ensued between this mob, whichconsisted chiefly of Russian and Italian rabble, on one hand, and Irishworkingmen who were defending their homes, on the other. The Russiancontingent seemed to consist largely of the riff-raff which had foundsuch a ready refuge in New York during the Russian Revolution, and someof these undesirable citizens now had recourse to dynamite. Some of thebombs caused great loss of life among the Irish people living in thatpart of town, and several policemen had also been killed in theperformance of their duty. It was at this point that the authoritiesdeemed it advisable to call out the troops, with whose arrival affairsimmediately began to take on a different turn.
The soldiers did not hesitate to use their bayonets against the rabble.At several corners they encountered barricades, but they hesitatedresorting to their firearms until several bombs were thrown among thetroops while they were storming a barricade defended by RussianTerrorists. That was the last straw. With several volleys the soldiersdrove the gang of foreign looters up Broadway, where a volley dischargednear the spot where Gerald Hanbury had been murdered, dispersed the lastcompact mass of plunderers.
In the meantime the men had reached Mr. Hanbury's house and Robertsonrang the bell. Not until they had rung loudly several times did thebutler appear, and then only to announce gruffly that there was no oneat home. A policeman ordered him to open the door at once, so that Mr.Hanbury's dead body might be brought in.
"But Mr. Hanbury is at home, you can't possibly have his dead bodythere!"
"Tell Mr. Hanbury right away!" interrupted the policeman. "It's youngMr. Hanbury, and he's been murdered. Open the door, do you hear!"
Silently the heavy bronze door turned on its hinges and, with thepoliceman in the lead, the men were ushered into the high marbleentrance-hall of the Hanbury palace. They carried the stretcher on whichlay the murdered body of the son of the house up the broad staircase,the thick carpets deadening the sound of their steps. At the top of thestairs they lowered their burden and waited in silence. Doors opened andshut in the distance; from one of them a bright stream of light fell onthe shining onyx pillars and on the gilt frames of the paintings, whichin the light from strange swinging lamps looked like huge black patches.Then the light from the door disappeared, a bell rang somewhere andfigures hurried to and fro. A fantastically dressed East Indian nextappeared and made signs to the ambulance-men to carry the stretcher intoa room which, in its fabulous, Oriental splendor represented one of themost beautiful of the Indian mosques. The men carried their burdencarefully into the middle of the room and then set it down and looked atone another in embarrassment. The policeman assumed a dignified postureand cleared his throat. Suddenly the heavy gold-embroidered curtainbefore one of the doors was pushed aside by a brown hand and fell backin heavy folds; an old white-haired man stood for a moment in thedoorway and then advanced towards the officer with a firm step.
The latter cleared his throat again and then began in a dry andbusiness-like tone to give his report of Gerald Hanbury's murder,ending with the words "--and these gentlemen picked him up and broughthim here."
"I thank you, gentlemen," said the old man, and taking out hispocket-book he handed each of them, including Robertson, a twenty-dollarbill. Then he sat down wearily on the edge of the stretcher and restedhis head in his hands. He seemed to be oblivious of his surroundings.The men stood round for a few moments not knowing what to do, untilfinally the policeman led the ambulance-men and Robertson to the door,which opened automatically.
As the Indian closed the door behind them the officer said to Robertson:"This is like the last act in a Third Avenue melodrama."
"Life has a liking for such plays," answered Robertson. As they left theHanbury mansion the clock of Grace Church struck midnight. Robertsonglanced down Broadway once more and saw that the long thoroughfare wasalmost deserted; only here and there the bluish-white light from theelectric lamps shone on the bayonets of the sentinels patrolling up anddown at long intervals. Then he repaired to the _Daily Telegraph_offices to dictate his notes, so that the huge rolls of printed papermight announce to the world to-morrow that the first victims of theterrible war had fallen on the streets of New York.
The factory of Horace Hanbury & Son was not shut down.
Banzai! by Parabellum Page 8