Lord of the Sea

by M. P. Shiel

  XXXIV

  THE "KAISER"

  It was the habit of Hogarth, when in the _Boodah_, to rise very earlyand ascend in flannels to one of the four doors opening upon theledge--blocks five feet thick, moved by hydraulic motors--and sometimesLoveday would accompany these walks, they always seeing on the planeof the sea some sail, or by a spyglass the fading light-beam of the_Goethe_ north, of the _Solon_ south; or they watched how the _Boodah's_galaxy, too, waxed faint and garish as some drama of colour evolvedin the East; saw gulls hover and swing, fins wander: and marking thatsimple ampleness of the plan of sea and arch of heaven, their heartsfelt enlargement.

  One morning, the 3rd October, Loveday was up even before Hogarth, havingstarted awake from a gory nightmare, this altogether not being a daylike others: and when the two friends met on the ledge, they walked along time in silence.

  Only after the dayspring began definitely to dabble in its chromaticchemistries Loveday at last remarked: "Did you ever think why I tooksuch pains to get you to come down with me to Lord Woolacot's lastautumn two years?"

  "Yes", answered Hogarth: "you wanted me to see the model farms, and howthe young ladies fed the poor, and how the tenants loved their lord, andeveryone thought himself happy. Only, I didn't see what the pastimes ofLord Woolacot's daughters have to do with the process of the suns, andwith the woe of Oldham. Ah, Lord, it is a job, I tell you, pulling thisvile thing straight! Of course, the eagle doesn't blink: but I amonly one man, and the world, and its stupid sins, are a tidy burden.Ha!--never mind. Look at that big _Boodah_ of a sun how he blooms: isn'the launched and handled all right? Let us of this desert bend the kneeto him like the old Sabaeans. There is hope"....

  It was known that on that day, at half-past eleven A.M., the _KaiserWilhelm der Groesste_ would pass on her second voyage within somemiles of the _Boodah_, this ship being the greatest afloat, having acargo-carrying deadweight of 45,000 tons, and travelling the waters likea railway-train at 37 miles (32 knots).

  So toward noon Hogarth, in a peaked cap, jacket, and white boots, wasagain on the roof, a glass and book of Costonlights in his hand, whilenot far off a knot of five officers in frockcoats talked, and nearone light-house, where a number of men stood, a flagstaff flew theensign--blue letters "R. F." on a white ground, looking Russian; on thenorthern horizon two fox-tails of smoke; on the western three diminutivesails; between the two, quite real and big, a brig becalmed; and now the_Kaiser Wilhelm_: for that yonder could be only she, with so fervent agrowth, from the first moment of her upward climb, did she approach.It was twenty minutes to noon, and she was somehow a little late, thatpunctual strong wrestler with space.

  The officers on the _Boodah_ spoke of her in low and stealthy voices;looked at her with queer and stealthy glances.

  "'As a bird to the snare...'" muttered one.

  "She comes all right, but will never go", said another.

  "She will be always near us", said a third.

  "Life is an earnest thing, after all", said a fourth: "there are wrongs,it seems, which only blood can wash out: it comes to that at last".

  Now Loveday ran up, looking scared and busy, a quill behind his ear,Hogarth now having the glass at his face, while his eyes struggled withthe reek from his cigar-end.

  "Is that she?" Loveday asked him.

  "Yes, poor boat".

  She was nine miles away; in four minutes she was less than seven, andnow distinct:--her three staysails; her four funnels; the stretched-outspace between her raked masts; her host of cowls and boats; her highvictorious hull, silently running.

  And all along her lines were lines of faces thick as dahlia-rows inJune--globe-trotters; captains of industry; children; the Wall Streetoperator who plotted a stroke in Black-Sea wool, and to him time wasmoney--I guess; commercial travellers, all-modern, spinning, prone, towhom the sea was an insignificant and conquered thing; engineers; cappedenthusiastic Germans, going forth to conquer; publishers, ladies, lords,all the nondescript prosperous: and all ran there blithe, sublime,and long drawn-out; and they toyed with oranges, nuts; and theylooked abroad to see the _Boodah_--ship's-surgeons and officers withthem--jesting, as they munched or sucked.

  But the Captain who had often seen the _Boodah_, was log-writing in thechart-room...

  As her ensign of greeting ran up her main, her clocks struck twelve,the full noon--like an omen--come; she not then three miles from the_Boodah_.

  And simultaneously with the hoisting of that ensign, and the striking ofthose clocks, the old-worn wheels of Roman Civilization stopped dead.

  The _Boodah_ ran up the signal: "_Stop!_"

  Those who understood rubbed their eyes: it was like a vision at highnoon; they could not believe.

  At that news the Captain, a handsome fair-bearded man, rushed like amadman from pilot-house to bridge, and the startled passengers saw hislighted eyes. He had some moments of indecision; then down he, too, rangthat word: "_Stop_".

  The engines left off; the _Kaiser's_ speed, as from heart-failure, gavein, died away.

  By this time all the passengers knew, in a state of tremor saw confusedrunnings to and fro, and face caught from face dismay; the voyage wasspoiled, the record! What, then, had happened to the world? And nowagain the _Boodah_ is signalling: "_Let the Captain come_".

  The Captain's hands were shaking; he could not speak, could only gaspto the first-officer: "By God, no; O, by God, no". Then, as greatquantities of black-grey reek, wheeling all convolved, were nowenveloping the vessel, resting on the sea, reaching away in thinner fogeven to the _Boodah_, and as, the day being calm, there was a difficultyin reading the flags, the Captain gasped: "Take the trumpet--askthem--But don't they pay for this...?"

  So out brayed the trumpeted query, and back the inexorable trumpetedanswer: "_Let the Captain come_".

  So, then, the _Kaiser_ would never reach Sandy Hook? To put outboats!--to parley!--while the earth span with quick-panting throbs,every second worth seven thousand pounds!

  "But don't they _pay_ for it...?" so, with a painful face of care, theCaptain questioned space.

  But he would be mild and patient as a lamb that day! His orderwent forth: the ship forged ahead; a longboat, hurriedly lowered tostarboard, was manned for the first-officer to put off in her, whileevery heart of the passengers thumped, every face an ecstasy ofemotions.

  Then a wretched, long interval...

  The ship's-officers were received on the _Boodah_ in a deck-roomcontaining a number of boats with castored keels, capable of beingquickly launched down an incline, where Mr. F. Quilter-Beckett, theAdmiral, with some lieutenants, awaited them at a bureau on which laydocuments, while in the background stood Hogarth and Loveday, and,"Gentlemen, this is a most damned wild piece of madness!" broke outwrathfully the first-officer, as he dashed up wild-eyed to the level:"in consideration of the guns you have in this thing--"

  "But your Captain?" asked Quilter-Beckett, a courtly man, with adark-curling beard, a star on his breast.

  "The Captain won't come!" whined the officer in perfect English:"I suppose you realize the terrible consequences of this stoppage,gentlemen?"

  "But you are wasting time, sir. You represent your Captain?"

  "Of course, I represent--!"

  "Then just cast your eye over this"--that so slighted letter, sent yearsbefore by Hogarth to Foreign Offices, claiming the sea as his privatemanor.

  The officer read it half through with flurried closeness; then, "Well,but what is all this?" he broke out: "is it a piece of comedy, or what,gentlemen?"

  "It is serious; and the last clause comes into operation to-day: onlysuch ships being held authorized to pass on the sea as pay to thefirst-reached sea-fort on any voyage a tax, or sea-rent, of 4s. per tonon their registered tonnage, with an additional stamp-tax of 33s. 4d.for receipt, and a stamp-tax of L1 16s. 8d. for clearance. You willsee at a glance the clauses of the law, if you cast your eyes over thisschedule--"

  "Law!" the other broke in: "you talk of _Law_! But doesn't the sea,then,
belong by right to all men--?"

  "Not more than the land. Ask yourself: why should it? But I do hope youwon't argue: your time must be so precious".

  Out shrilled the _Kaiser Wilhelm's_ whistle of recall.

  "I must go!" said the officer with a worried hand-toss: "I must go. Ifyou give me those documents, I will show them to the Captain--but heis not the sort of man--this is mere piracy, after all! But, good God,gentlemen, if you only dare touch that ship, I shouldn't put myself inyour place this day week for all--"

  He snatched the papers, dashed, and his men, in a passion of haste, layto the oars, the _Kaiser_ only four hundred yards from the _Boodah_;and the officer, shaking aloft the documents, pitched up the stair, thecentre of five hundred pairs of scared eyes, while the captain bored hisway to him.

  Two minutes of intense low speech, crowded with gestures: and suddenlythe Captain's face, till now haggard, reddened; out went his shakenfist; with eyes blazing like lunacy, up he flew to the bridge; and nowhe is bending down with howling throat: "Passengers to their berths!"

  Simultaneously, above the engine-room stair a bell jangled; round swungthe pointer to "_Full Ahead_"; and ere the decks were cleared of theirbustle the _Kaiser_, like a back-kicking hen, scratched up under herpoop a spreading pool of spume, which tossed spasmodic spray-showers andspoutings: and she stirred, stretched like a street, churned the sea,and, wheeling to reveal her receding stern, was away.

  By which time Hogarth was standing at a cubical cabin of steel on theroof, with him Loveday and Quilter-Beckett, his brow puckered withwrinkles, the sun troubling his eyes.

  "I suppose the _chef_ is warned?"--he threw away his cigar.

  "Oh, yes, my Lord King", Quilter-Beckett answered.

  And Loveday: "She sweats like a thoroughbred"--haggard, but assumingcalm: "few things could be more profusely expeditious".

  "Ah, make phrases, John," murmured Hogarth...."Well, but hadn't youbetter be getting out the boats?"

  Upon which Quilter-Beckett stepped into the little erection, touched abutton, and in a minute the water round the southern side was swarmingwith twenty-three boats whose blue-jackets began to row toward the_Kaiser_.

  And presently, "It's no use waiting", said Hogarth, looking in uponQuilter-Beckett: "I should mine and shell her at the same moment, if Iwere you; tell them to get it in well amidships".

  Now a few seconds, full of expectation, passed, the _Kaiser Wilhelm_already two miles away: till suddenly space opened its throat in a gulfto bay gruff and hollow like hell-gate dogs; and, almost at the samemoment, close by the _Kaiser_ a column of water hopped with one humph ofvenom two hundred feet on high: when this dropped back broad-showeringwith it came showering a rain of wreckage; and instantly a shriek oflamentation floated over the sea, mixed with another shriek of steam.

  For the moment the ship, enveloped in vapours, could not be seen; butin two minutes glimpses of her hull appeared, shewing the bluff bulgeof her starboard bottom: for she leaned steeply to port with a forwardcrank, her two starboard screws, now free, spinning asleep likehumming-tops. A six-inch shell, beautifully aimed, had shattered herengines, killing two stokers, and a torpedo-mine had knocked a hole ninefeet across in her port beam.

  But as the _Boodah's_ boats, meanwhile, had been racing toward her, andas her own port boats were quickly out, all were got off; in fact, shefloated so long, that her ship's papers with L270,000 in specie, anda few hundred-weight of mailbags were saved, and even after the boatsreached the _Boodah_ she still stretched there motionless, until, with asudden flurry, she determined to plunge.

  Soon afterwards Hogarth had the Captain in his suite, to tell him thathe did not wish any intelligence of the event to reach the world forfour days, during which passengers and crew would be his guests, andthen be sent on to America, his object, he said, being to impressthe loss of the _Kaiser_ upon the consciousness of all, by making allanxious as to her fate.

  So that night her passengers danced till late, for there was noresisting the hospitality of Hogarth, or the witchery of those vistasand arcades, grand hall and lost grot, _salons_ and conservatories,there in the dark of the ocean, or such an enchantment of music, andfabulousness of table; the host, too, pleaded prettily for himself;and now they pardoned, and now they pouted, but always they banqueted,kissed, lost themselves in visions, were charmed, and danced.