by M. P. Shiel
XXXII
WONDER
Almost suddenly that noise of chiming hammers reached the general ear.
First in the German Admiralty was wonder when a spy, engaged as aworkman at Birkenhead, sent to his Government information that theBritish Government was up to something: something of a novelty soextraordinary, that as yet he could form no conception as to its object.That it was intended for the sea one must suppose: yet it wasevident that nothing of such odd draughtsmanship--of such mastodonproportions--had ever yet taken the water.
He had been clever: had penetrated even the model-office, peeredat detailed draughtsman's-plans, developed from the originalspecifications, as well as at orders for Krupp plates, frames, etc.; hadlistened in the yard to the talk of four naval men acting as a Boardof Inspection; was able to give details of the machining of enormousprocessed plates to sizes determined by templates, the length ofpan-headed rivets, the specific gravity of an average cubic foot, thescarfing of edges, the accumulation of prepared material. The woodenhalf-model, he said, was a one-ninety-sixth, instead of the usualone-forty-eighth; yet, even so, it was 5 ft. 7-1/2 ins. long, as muchbroad, and 1 ft. 3/4 in. high. This meant that the structure wouldmeasure 180 yards square--over one-tenth of a mile--with a depth of 34yards. Already the far-reaching chaos of scaffolding had run upeight yards, with stringers and frames to a like level. There were nokeel-blocks, for there was no keel--or rather, the keel was a circularplate a yard in diameter, resting on a single block, the shape ofthe structure to be a perfect square, along the sides of which fourbattleships might lie like toy-boats: the bottom, from circular keelto upward bend, having the same shape as a battleship's seen in midshipsection, only with four faces instead of two. From the knee-bend thesides ran up perpendicular; but at the level evidently intended to bethe water-line they struck inward, so that the flat roof was smallerthan the area below; the position of this water-line giving a definiteclue to the intended displacement; and this again showing that thewhole--roof, sides, bottom, and all--would be one wall of Simmonsarmour--steeling and backing--layer on layer--no less than 4ft. 9-1/4ins. thick.
Yet this stupendous ark, or citadel--so simple was its plan--would beturned out in less time than a second-class cruiser; and its cost, apartfrom yard-modifications and groundways, small in proportion.
This, and much else, the spy reported: but the new fact was obvious asthe sun; the British and French Intelligence Departments, too, were soonconning it; and a week later it was established that, not one, but atleast eleven, such structures were a-building in the world.
There went the rumour: "It is the Government of Ecuador's order...."
This was at the end of April; Hogarth, obeying some instinct whichcontinually drew him toward Asia, then loitering alone in Trebizondtea-gardens and bazaars, buying a braid-bag, mule-trapping, or silversword of the Khurdish cavaliers; while Trinity House gave the alarm thatif ever the steel monsters, whatever their object, were launched, "theywould constitute, in the absence of proper precautions, a serious dangerby night to the world's mercantile marine ", and while Lloyd's, theMaritime Exchanges, the Hydrographic Offices, lived in a speciesof amazement, and were already putting the steel islands into thegazetteers and manuals; the newspapers, too, inundated with the views ofthe public, took sides, maintaining, some of them, that it was the partof Governments to ascertain the objects of the new works, others thatany tampering with their progress at this late stage might even meanrevolution, so profound was their intimacy with industry. Hogarth,meanwhile, having come to El Khiff, the camp of the Bedouin pilgrims,there spent some days, and then, passing between Jerusalem and Jerichoin a caravan of Moabite sheiks, went visiting the holy places of Israel,everywhere examining the country, especially its agriculture, with greatminuteness. It was only on his return to Jerusalem that he heard of theagitation in Europe: and at once set off Westward from Joppa.
From his arrival at Paris toward the end of May the wildest legends,originated by him, began to be printed, the most persistent relatingto the diamond and banking House of Beech, which, it was given out, haddiscovered diamonds within the crust of a Pacific rock-island: the newstructures, ordered by them, being designed to blast the coast-wall withdynamite guns. Cavillers pointed out that diamonds never occur in naturein this fashion, and that, even so, it did not need a fort made ofarmour five feet thick to fire off dynamite guns; but so continuouslywas the thing repeated, explained, and puffed, that when the Londonmanager of Beech partially admitted it, the most incredulous acquiesced;though at the very same period it was proclaimed that the President ofthe Ecuador Republic, Hogarth's friend, had admitted to the Great Powersthat the forts were to his order (as, in fact, they nominally were);and anti-climax was reached when a naval expert, asked to do a hurriedarticle for the Times, made some error in calculation, and came out withthe statement that the fort-things would sink of their own weight.This article was headed "Beech's Folly"; and even when the error wasdetected, the roar of merriment retained its momentum and rolled: sothat, to the hour of the first launch, the enterprise was commonlyreferred to as "Beech's Folly", and scarf-pins, ink-stands, etc., in theshape of the forts, were sold with that superscription: "Beech's Folly".
This, translated into French, became that horrible gallicism: _la betiseBiche_.
Gradually, however, the Ecuador-Beech rage died down the hammers, heardfor nine days through the turmoil of the world, were again drowned init. The scarf-pins ceased to sell. The 'buses rolled, the Bank cashednotes, the long street roared--and all was as usual.
Only, in the valley of Westring there was drill and target-practice andbarrack-life routine, the Westring-eccentricity being associated withthe millionaire, Hogarth, the island-eccentricity with the House ofBeech: and in the popular mind Beech and Hogarth were two notions.Islands were building in Italy, France, Germany, Russia; in England,Scotland, Ireland; at Maine, Baltimore, Newport News: but theGovernments, lacking the machinery, and also the initiative, and judgingto-morrow by yesterday, gave no sign from their Olympus.
In June, John Loveday being then at Westring, one morning O'Haraarrived, he, too, having left mediaeval chasubles to grind at war, andthough he no longer taught Hogarth, a relation persisted between them;and always not far from O'Hara was to be found Harris, living now on thepinnacle of dandy bliss, twisting a dandy stick.
It was on the last night of this visit to Westring that O'Hara at a latehour went with stealth and hesitations along a corridor of the Hall, andfinally tapped at Loveday's door, who, detesting the priest, and readingin bed, disgustedly dashed off his cigarette ash, as he called: "Comein".
And a long time they spoke of things other than the real object ofO'Hara's visit, till O'Hara said: "But--may I ask you something?"
"Do".
"Well, now, you are a fellow more in the counsels of Hogarth thananother. I want to ask you right out frankly--is it a fact that Hogarthis choosing Admirals for the islands?"
"I believe it is", answered Loveday with his long-bow smile ofamusement: "I already know, for example, that Saltoun will admiralthe _Homer_ in the Indian Ocean, Vladimir the _Ruskin_ in the AtlanticCrescent, and the young Marquis of Erroll the _Justice_ in the YellowSea".
"Those all?"
"All I know of. I believe, however, that Hogarth is in the throes ofdecision as to the rest".
"I see".
There was a silence full of Loveday's smile.
"But", said O'Hara, "what I meant is this: you know what I have been toHogarth; without me, what could the poor fellow have done, after all?I have taught him to think, to dance, and to dine. Now, then, I ask youright out frankly--am _I_, my son, in the list of Admirals?"
Loveday, flushing, started upright, and sank back. "No, I don't fancythat your name is among those entertained, O'Hara".
"We will see about that. Woe to Hogarth, and to his advisers, if he dareslight O'Hara, my son! What! after preparing myself with toilsome zealfor this post? and after two promises from Hogarth's own lips--?"
"Oh, you! Hogarth looks upon you as a plaything. I do assure you, youare not taken seriously, Mr. Loveday. How should such as you know whatHogarth promises or designs? "--his cheeks trembling.
And, Loveday, smiling again, though pale: "Well, if we admit thepromises...but--have you accurately acquainted Hogarth with your past,sir?"
"Most decidedly, sir!"
"If you have not, I think he should know it".
"Your threats do not affect me, sir! In three days I shall be inPetersburg with Hogarth, and shall take a pleasure in writing you thename of the island to which I am appointed".
"In three days I also--!" He stopped: but O'Hara understood.
Now the door rushed open, and in looked Harris in under-vest anddrawers, beneath his arm a bundle of walkingsticks, which he had beencaring and telling.
And "'Ere", he drawled, "when are you coming to 'ave that bit of coldmutton? It's past twelve o'clock as it is".
"I am coming, boy", said O'Hara, rising with brisk obedience.
"Then, come, why don't you! There were shepherds watching their prettylittle flocks by night, but to leave a man watching the cold animal is abit out. Come along!"--and O'Hara went.
He reached Petersburg twelve hours before Loveday, his reason forchoosing that time being his knowledge that Frankl was in Petersburg,and with him Rebekah, Frankl being in a deal with the new-regimeMinister of Finance.
For, as O'Hara had been asking himself the agonized question: "By whatabsolute _finesse_ can I, _just now_, win Hogarth?" the mere presence ofRebekah in the same city with Hogarth drew him thither.
But the next day, when Loveday came, nothing had been done--no chanceof _tete-a-tete_ with Hogarth: and that day was O'Hara an anxiousand tremulous man, living on the tip-toe and _qui vive_ of lynx-eyedkeenness.
The same night at a masque at the Palace of Peterhof Loveday got achance of dialogue with Hogarth, they seated amid greenery and colouredgleams, Hogarth groomed to the glittering glass of his shoes, his legsstretched, arm akimbo; and presently Loveday led the talk to thingsof the sea. "What an extraordinary activity! The British Governmentlaunches the _Peleus_ next Monday at Deptford--the first 28,000-tonwar-boat; and seven cruisers on the slips. Then the French,Austro-German, Russian--"
"Ha!--I know. They won't build long".
"Still the confidence?"
"You can only ask, my dear boy, because you do not yet see what a thingthe battleship really is--much more than half a sham. The march ofinvention is from the complex to the simple: for simplicity is strength;but to the moment when I began to construct, naval construction had notfollowed this law: for from the old smooth-bores, aimed with tackle andquoin, to the present regime of electric wires, you have had acontinual advance in complexity--always within the same little arc ofthought--till now the most complex of things is a battleship; and ifyou ask me which is the weaker, a battleship or a watch, I answer abattleship--_weak_ meaning liability to the injuries which they werebuilt to resist. In such a case as that of the _Maine_, sunk at Havana,one might fancy that the task of naval constructors is to turn outa thing to sink with a minimum of trouble; and you remember the_Camperdown_ and _Victoria_, how, playing about together, one happenedto touch the other, when down plunged that other. These ships area compromise between three _motifs_--speed, resisting attack, andattacking: and the first is so antagonistic to the second, and alsoto the third, that the net result is almost a Nonentity, or No-Thing.Nothing, in fact, could be more _queer_, unfounded, than these ships;and the future will look back upon them with pity. Hence the simpleislands, following the law: and don't think t hat their efficacy is athing riskier than arithmetic itself."
"Good", went Loveday. "But, Richard--captain your islands with decentmen".
"You have something on your mind: what is it?"
"It is--delicate. Have I your permission to speak?"
"Why, John, yes".
"Well then--is O'Hara to be an Admiral?"
"Old Pat? Hardly, I think. He may. But no--I don't think. Poorold talky-talky. He has worked hard for us, John: and his fund ofexperience, in one way and another, has been invaluable. Well, I don'tknow: I have had the idea, but I don't suppose that, in reality--Still,I am fond of him, John. Such a tongue, and such a versatile brain, ishe! He was my comfort for many a sombre day in prison--"
Listening near with rancid grin behind some greenery, O'Hara keptnodding emphatic assents of satisfaction to Hogarth's praise.
"But, stop", said Loveday: "do you know why he was in prison?"
"He was innocent".
"Of what?"
"Of stealing some diamonds entrusted him by the Pope".
"Bah! he lies. His trial was a _cause celebre_, and hence the false namehe gave me at first: the moment I heard you say 'O'Hara' I knew the man.He had committed an assault upon a lady in a train--"
"Beast that he is", went Hogarth, while O'Hara's eyes started from hishead: "and liar, too, it seems. Ha!--he gave me the most circumstantialstory. Why didn't you tell me this before?"
"It was delicate--"
"Beast that he is. Yet how complex is character! the man's tendernessfor his Church is so charming--"
"Fiddlesticks! Look here, Richard, I am come all the way from Westringto tell you this thing. Don't you give vast powers to that man: itisn't decent; and I have a feeling that it will be a baleful pieceof weakness. And don't get easy, and tolerant, and fat in the eyes,Hogarth. That is a very significant Bible-story--the implacable disastersent upon old Eli for no greater crime than a _bonhomme_ indolence.And in order to arouse your wrath against this O'Hara, I am going now,against my will, to tell you something: the name of that lady in thattrain".
"Someone whom I know?"
"Yes".
"Who?"
For a moment Loveday's answer hesitated: and in that moment, O'Hara,with lightning decision, had his mouth at Hogarth's ear: "Come with mequick--then fall down and worship me for a month! _Someone is in theMalachite Hall!_"
Like sudden death Hogarth's colour fled his face; in another instant hewas a blind, oblivious wight...had known that she was in Petersburg; butnot that she was at the masque.
In a moment shrubbery, lights, all life, rushed into transformationfor him: and with an excitement of the eyes, the bloodshot left lookingbloodier, he went after O'Hara, tossing back at Loveday that fatalsaying: "_To-morrow_...."
A little previously O'Hara, having got from Frankl details of Rebekah'sdress, had spotted her in primrose silk, black mask and domino, andsoon with Hogarth refound her in the crush: whereas Hogarth went aboutprospecting over the crowd, with that excitement of his red-veinedeyeballs, once even entered into talk with a group of four diplomatists,but all the time with eyeballs absent in hankering tracking, outprowling after one morbid form, as the stallion's prowls after hisSally.
After an hour she said in French over her shoulder: "Why follow me?"
And as he bowed compliance, she added: "Are you well?"
He said: "Yes", and bowed, and she nodded twice, smiling a little, asthey parted.
He, on the wings of exaltation, made haste to salute the Throne andleave the palace, rushing toward solitude to brood upon that smile,those familiar nods, and the gentle "Are you well?"--in his landau withhim O'Hara, who persecuted him even to his bedroom; and when, afteran hour, the priest at last reappeared in a corridor, the night-lightsthere shone upon an exultant visage, like a climber's who, after longclamberings, at last stamps on the Matterhorn, and looks abroad.
When he entered his own room, he stood with a hung head, till, sharplylooking up, he ejaculated with amazed, realization and opening arms:"Well, it's done!--I've got it!" Now he put forefinger to nose, and cuta beastly face at himself in the mirror-wall.
The next day Hogarth rather guiltily said to Loveday: "Well, I havepromised old O'Hara the _Mahomet_ for the Straits. Don't frown--I owehim something, and the clever beast got over me in crazy moment".
"Q
uite so", Loveday coldly said: and thenceforth, the thing being done,was mum as to the name of the lady connected with O'Hara's crime.
He returned immediately to England, having there many occupations, whichmultiplied as the islands everywhere neared completion, the first of thelaunches taking place at Spezzia on the 7th of February.
A fortnight before this event the Beech-fever had revived, the cominglaunch being no secret, and the doubt whether "Beech's Folly" mightbe no folly, and the question what, on the whole, Beech's Folly mightreally bode, filled once more the consciousness of the Western world. Bythe 1st of February a drop was recorded in many general securities, in"governments", rentes, and consols; in Berlin the bank-rate rose one percent.; it was stated that specie was accumulating in European vaults;while up leapt futures-cotton in the Liverpool market. At last theFirst Lord of the Treasury, in a speech at Manchester, gave sign of theGovernment's consciousness of the new fact, saying that he could onlyrepeat the answer given by the First Lord of the Admiralty to the recentDeputations of the Chamber of Shipping and of Merchant Shippers, thatBritain and the other maritime nations would know how to protect theseas from any nuisance. He anticipated no nuisance. The structurespopularly known as "Beech's Folly" (prolonged laughter) would beprovided with lighthouses: and until they proved a nuisance on theocean's fairways, the Governments must permit to private enterprisethat free hand which was the characteristic of our age; moreover, arecognized Government had avowed its association with these structures.
Nevertheless, the fever heightened. The light-system of the _Boodah_,now included in the usual alphabetical lists of derelicts, was connedby thousands of mariners, while in the crowded captains', underwriters',and committee rooms at Lloyd's discussion buzzed and speechified inevery tone of gravity. Suddenly in the F. G. and S. clause marineinsurance underwent a profound modification; and it was then that themillionaire, Schroeder, at that time a German clerk in the City,managed to borrow five thousand pounds, and quickly cleared his pile byunderwriting on larger F. C. and S. terms. And again raged the sale ofthe islands as penny salt-cellars, finger-basins, etc.; in broker'sand sub-editor's office the tape-machine clicked the hourly progress ofpreparations at Spezzia; while every by-street was dreadful with thatmusic-hall chorus:
"To Spezzia runs the Pullman train; The Follies soon their sense will teach; We've Beech, O dear, upon the brain, He brains upon the beach".
Meantime, the question of the drawing-room was "Are you going toSpezzia?" and by the 7th so great a pilgrimage of tourists--experts,idlers, cinematographers, special correspondents, ministers of state,Yankees, officers, social stars--had flocked to the scene, thataccommodation failed in the town and surrounding hill-country, from LeGrazie on the west, to Lerici on the east of the Gulf.
The morning dawned bright--Italian sky, tranquil Italian sea--and bynine the harbour was alive with small-craft and Portovenere steamboats,all gala with flags; on the land side, too, over the hills, up the oldroad called Giro della Foce, and before the villages commanding thetown, spread a cloud of witnesses; while the multitude in possessionof _permessos_ for the dock-region stretched across a hundred and sixtyacres, perched on every coign, and murmuring like the sea.
And all in the air a fluttered consciousness of the to-come, the presentnothing, an hour hence everything--like the suspense of nature beforegales, and that greatness and novelty of marriage-mornings: for such abride that day would rush to the brine as it had never embraced.
There lay the hulk, all nuptial in colours, her roof looking like a_plaza_ of Lima or La Paz at Carnival, flags in mountain-ridgesround her edges, flags in festoons, in slanting clothes-lines, introphy-groups, on bandroled poles, bedecking her; some scaffolding stillround her; and three running derricks, capable of wielding guns andboilers of 140 tons, craned their shears about her. A temporary stairunder flags ran right up to a ledge above the waterline: from whichledge little steel steps led here and there to the roof; round the edgeof roof and ledge running two balustrades, surrounding the hulk; andover that upper portion, four times repeated in white letters ten feethigh, the name _BOODAH_ boomed itself.
By eleven some seven hundred people stood and sat on the roof--the_elite_ of Europe, invited to the luncheon after the launch, seeming tothe tract of on-lookers quite dainty and visionary there, like objectsmirrored in an eye. And they formed groups, of which some chatted, andwere elegant, and some spoke the gravest words uttered for centuries.
"What, really, is the _Boodah_?" asked a Servian Minister of a French:"is she a whim, a threat, or a tool?"
"She is too heavy for a whim", answered the French, "too dear for athreat, and too fantastic for a tool. Time will show".
But this was no answer at all: something more to the point came from amultitudinous tumult of sledges below--the workmen "wedging-up".
At last, soon after noon, Hogarth, with a considerable following, wasseen ascending the steps, on his arm the Queen of the Ceremony--alittle Bavarian Graefin, famous for her face: he, princely now withthat cosmopolitan polish picked up in Courts, bending above her withlaughter, making her laugh also, as they paced up. And at once theinvited, including the Board of Verification, entered the hull upon atour of sight-seeing, conducted by a manager of the contractors.
Already the set-up wedges had raised the _Boodah_ from her keel-block,and left her resting on the great braced ground-ways; and now down tothe sea's brink the greasers were busy, prodigals in tallow, while,within, the seven hundred trooped from spectacle to spectacle, like atourist group guided through the Louvre.
An hour, and they anew appeared on the roof, trooping toward thatbalustrade that faced the sea: upon which the throngs felt the impendingof the event, and intently watched. But there seemed no hurry, Hogarthall gay chatter, anon lowering the lids a moment, as he looked over thewater; till suddenly hundreds of glasses detected a champagne-bottlewith ribbons in the christener's hand; and the consciousness of themoment come moved the hosts when Hogarth, even as he chatted, disengageda flag, and let it fall: it was a signal; down it fluttered; andinstantly, down there, bustle broke loose, as the call "Saw-off!" wentforth, and the saws set flurriedly to fret through the timbers whichbind groundways to slidingways.
"_Now?_" whispered Hogarth at the christener's ear: and, even as hespoke, the voice of a noising arose and droned from Spezzia, its hills,its villages, and its sea; the _Boodah_, only half-liberated,strained in travail; crashed from her bands; slipped down the greasedgradient--plunged--and, gathering momentous way, went wading deep,deeper--like Behemoth run mad--amid a wrath of froths and a brawling ofwaters, into the sea.
There, deep-planted, she stretched: on the surface appeared a reef ofsteel; and the stirred-up water slapped vapidly upon those flanks, likewaters upon the Norway wall.