by Anthology
"I am obliged to you for your advice, sir," said Max in a low, even tone, which seemed strangely loud in the breathless stillness of the court, "but at the same time I am quite prepared to take the risk of disregarding it. I care as little for your laws as I do for the assistance of a highly respectable lawyer; who would only want hiring to defend even such a criminal and enemy of society as I have no doubt these good people here think me.
"We are at war, I and the society you represent. The last turn of the game has been in your favour. I and my people spared the lives of these gentlemen who have given evidence against me - evidence which I suppose is quite enough to hang me if you only have the power to do it. That shows how unwise it is to be too merciful in warfare.
"Still, I must compliment them, if not upon their gratitude, at least upon their moderation and their accuracy. I have listened carefully to everything they've said, and I have the pleasure of saying that it is all true. And now, sir, you have given me well-meant advice; permit me to give you some in return. You say you intend to commit me for trial. That means, I suppose, that I shall be locked up in your cells till I make my next appearance at the Old Bailey. There the form of trial will be gone through, and I shall be condemned to death in the usual way.
"You will not hang me, because you can't, but you will try to do so at your peril. I am stronger than the law, and if the law tries to injure me, it will get the worst of it. I am alone here, but there is a power behind me which can and will exact such a penalty, even for the temporary inconvenience which you may put me to, that the wisest thing you could do would be to take steps to ensure my liberation and safety. You have heard something of what that power can do. It will do nothing till sentence of death has been passed upon me. I need say no more, and, therefore, sir, if you wish to send me for trial, do so."
As he finished his audacious speech, Max stared straight at the magistrate, and, without moving a muscle of his countenance, waited for his reply. It came, curt and sharp.
"You have outraged the laws of society and this country, and those laws will be vindicated without regard to any possible risk: You have been allowed to speak, and you have made a very foolish speech, in spite of its bravado, which in all human probability has finally sealed your fate. You are committed to take your trial at the assizes which will be opened on Monday next, on the double charge of piracy and murder on the high seas. Let the prisoner be removed."
Then the tension which had held the crowd silent broke, and as Max was marched from the dock between the two policemen, there was a rustle and a movement of feet and a low, hoarse murmur, through which angry exclamations broke, as everyone thronged forward to get the last glimpse of him as he disappeared through the prisoners' door. Then, as it closed behind him, the court slowly emptied of all save those whose duty kept them there. No one had any interest for the other cases that were coming on. There was only one topic for the public of London that day, and no one cared to talk or hear or read of anything else.
In less than an hour the newspaper offices were pouring out special editions containing fuller and fuller reports, until every word that had been spoken during the proceedings was set forth with the most minute accuracy. It was upon this that Max had counted when he made his speech to the magistrate. It was by no means so foolish as Sir John Bridge had honestly thought it to be.
Max knew that every word would be printed by the newspapers, and he deliberately used them for the purpose of conveying his instructions to Taxil and the crew of the Vengeur. Those instructions were simply that the Vengeur was to keep out of the way, and nothing was to be done until sentence of death had been passed upon him. Then, by some means, which he trusted to them to devise, he was to be rescued, and after that, or if the attempt failed, vengeance was to be taken for his arrest, or death, as the case might be.
Soon after nightfall that evening, Taxil dropped the Vengeur to the ground in a lonely glade in the centre of Epping Forest, and found Pierre waiting for him there by appointment, with a bundle of newspapers under his arm. That was Tuesday evening. On Thursday morning London woke up to find posted in a hundred different places - on the walls of the Law Courts, the Government offices, the base of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, the Bank of England, the gates of Buckingham Palace, the Marble Arch, and even the terrace of the House of Commons - a small, red placard about eighteen inches square, of which the following is a copy:-
TO THE GOVERNMENT OF ENGLAND
AND THE
PEOPLE OF LONDON.
You are hereby warned that if Max Renault, at present in prison awaiting your so-called trial for murder and piracy, is condemned to death, the sentence will be executed upon you and your property. If it is carried out on him, the vengeance exacted will be taken first on your Queen and Royal Family, and then upon the members of your Houses of Parliament your judges and your lawyers, and after them upon yourselves generally. If Max Renault is placed alone and free on the gallery of the north tower of the Crystal Palace at midnight on Saturday, London will be spared; if not, what is written here will be done at the proper time.
Signed, for the Anarchist Central Executive,
RAOUL TAXIL
In command of the air-ship Vengeur.
CHAPTER XX.
SENTENCE OF DEATH.
THE impression produced on the collective mind of London by this audaciously worded poster may be safely left to the imagination of the reader. How in some quarters it excited derision and in others panic; how the timorous heard the news of it with dread, and how the secret enemies of society read it with a smile on their lips and potential murder in their hearts; how the penny newspapers published leading articles, ranging in tone from the alarmist speculations of the Daily News to the easy, if wholly insincere, banter of the Daily Telegraph; and how the halfpenny papers vied with each other in a contest of imagination and mendacity which stopped at nothing, from the publication of entirely fictitious correspondence with non-existent anarchists, to an interview with the captain of the air-ship and author of the placard.
The five days that elapsed between the proceedings at Bow Street and the trial of Max Renault for his life at the Old Bailey passed amidst ever-growing excitement and ever-spreading uneasiness, but the red placard had been the last sign made by the anarchists.
The demand for the release of Alex had, of course, been ignored - as his friends apparently expected it would be, since, as far as was known, they had not even come to the appointed place. Naturally, too, the newspapers informed them that this would be the case. Neither on land nor in the air had a trace of the Vengeur been seen, though millions of eyes were looking anxiously for her.
Max himself preserved an aspect of absolute indifference to the fate that appeared so certain. He declined all legal aid in the preparation for his defence, if he had any, and communicated with no one outside the walls of Holloway. Lea had reappeared in Paris two days after his arrest; and then, hearing that an outcry was being made against the English police for allowing her to go out of the country unquestioned, she at once returned to London, put up at the Metropole, and communicated with Scotland Yard, saying that if she could be of any service to the prosecution, she was ready to give what evidence she could.
This had led to an interview with one of the heads of the Criminal Investigation Department, in which she managed to befog and mislead the official so utterly that, on his report, it was decided not to call her, it being, doubtless rightly, considered that there was more than enough evidence to hang Renault several times over, had that been possible or desirable.
As for any connection between him and the wealthy and fascinating idol of half Paris which could be construed to her disadvantage, such an idea had never seemed to enter the heads of the authorities at all, and so Lea went back to the Rue Vernet before the trial, to receive the condolences of her large circle of acquaintances on the unpleasantness of the experience that she had passed through, an unpleasantness which some said was amply compensated for by what Paris
considered to be the piquant novelty of the adventure.
The trial at the Old Bailey, although it naturally excited an interest that was literally world-wide, was in itself almost devoid of sensational incident. As a matter of fact, there was no question to try, since the prisoner had already admitted that the fatal evidence against him was true. When he was asked whether he pleaded "Guilty" or "Not guilty," he replied in a low, clear tone-
"Not guilty."
"Then are we to understand," said the judge, "that you do not adhere to the statement you made before the magistrate, and that you have evidence to call in your own defence?"
"I have no evidence to offer," replied Max, "and what I said in the police court I am prepared to say here."
"But that contradicts your plea of `Not guilty,'" exclaimed the judge. "The same witnesses that appeared against you before the magistrate will be called here to-day, and will give the same evidence. In the police court you voluntarily admitted that that evidence was true, and yet you have just pleaded `Not guilty.'
"I can hardly think that a man of very considerable intelligence, as you appear to be, standing in the presence of a Court that is about to try him for his life, could find it possible to indulge in a mere play upon words. It is greatly to be regretted that you did not employ counsel, as I understand you could well afford to do, and, even if not, counsel would have been provided by the Crown. At any rate, you would have been spared the commission of an absurdity which, under the present circumstances, is something more than painful."
"My lord," replied Max, in a tone that took all respect out of the form of address, "I plead `Not guilty' because I am charged with what you call murder and piracy, and to that plea I shall adhere. I and my comrades have as much right to make war, if we can, upon this country as this country has to make war on Russia. I care nothing for the sophistry which calls it war in the case of the nation and murder or piracy in the case of the individual. The men and passengers who fell into my hands, I treated honourably. Their lives were in my hand, and I let them go. If I had killed them when I had them defenceless, I should have felt bound to plead guilty to the charge of murder - supposing it could have been brought against me."
Great and all as was the horror with which Renault's crimes had inspired the whole of civilised humanity, there was yet something in the spectacle of this solitary man, confronting the sternest, though the most impartial, tribunal in the world, disdaining all outside aid, and literally pronouncing his own condemnation beforehand rather than condescend to take advantage of a quibble or an untruth, which produced a marked impression on everyone in the crowded court.
The most stolid of the jurymen could not resist the suggestion of romance with which the whole situation was so pregnant, and even the judge's voice when he next spoke had something less in it of that tone of scornful toleration which is usually used from the Bench to those who are unable or unwilling to purchase the assistance of a professional advocate.
"It is no part of my duty to discuss such a question as that with you. I am here to interpret and enforce the laws of England as they stand, and, according to those laws, the offences for which you are about to be tried are capital offences, and there is an end of it. As a matter of form I will accept your plea of `Not guilty,' and therefore the trial will proceed. Mr. Maudesley, I believe you open for the Crown."
As the leading counsel for the prosecution rose to his feet, amidst a faint rustle of garments and a low, half-repressed murmur of anticipation, Max made an expressive gesture with his hands, and said in a slightly higher tone than he had used before-
"One word more, if you please, my lord. After what I said in the police court, and after what you have just said here, this trial can only be a formality which will be very nearly a farce. I am in no humour to assist at an entertainment for these people here."
As he said this, he jerked his thumb contemptuously towards those parts of the court which were packed with fashionably dressed men and women, who had used the most strenuous endeavours to get places for the grim drama that they expected to see.
"Nor," he continued, with an added note of contempt in his voice, "do I wish to be bored with the ready-made sentiment of this learned gentleman, whom I could have hired to defend me if I had chosen. To save time and trouble, therefore, I will anticipate the foregone conclusion, and withdraw my plea of `Not guilty.'
"I did everything that your witnesses would swear I did. I am guilty of what you call murder and piracy, and what I call war. Now, my lord, I hope I have simplified your task; but before you pass sentence of death, as I presume you will now proceed to do, let me repeat the warning-"
"Silence, sir!" exclaimed the judge in quick, stern tones which made the words ring like pistol-shots through the crowded court. "You have been permitted to trifle with the law, whose dignity I am here to uphold, because you are undefended by counsel, and English justice condemns no man, however vile a criminal he may be, unheard, but I shall not permit you to insult it by the threats which you call warnings.
"You have pleaded guilty to a series of crimes and outrages which have caused the sacrifice of hundreds of lives. Your own life is therefore forfeit to the law, and the law will take its due, no matter what the consequences may be. Even if it were in the power of you and your followers to lay London in ruins before sunrise to-morrow, it would still be my duty to do that which I am about to do, and I shall do it.
"Gentlemen," he continued, turning to the jury. "You have heard the prisoner withdraw his plea of `Not guilty,' and, with a bravado and callousness utterly shocking and disgusting alike to our sense of propriety and our feelings of humanity, glory in the commission of crimes which excel all similar crimes, perpetrated by the abandoned wretches among whom he seems proud to number himself. Under such circumstances, happily unparalleled in an English court of justice, there can, I conclude, be no doubt as to your verdict. Do you find the prisoner, on his own confession, guilty or not guilty of the crimes of murder and piracy on the high seas with which he stands charged in the indictment?"
For a moment there was silence so intense that the throng in the court could hear their own hearts beating and their own breath going and coming. The foreman of the jury glanced inquiringly at his colleagues. Every head was bowed in unanimous assent, and then he rose to his feet and said, in a voice that he did his best to keep steady under the excitement of the moment-
"We find him guilty, my lord."
"Prisoner at the bar!" said the judge, turning to Max and taking up the fatal square of black cloth in his right band, "you have been found guilty, on your own confession, of the crimes of murder and piracy on the high seas. It is my duty to ask you now whether you have any reason to give why sentence of death should not be passed upon you."
Max leant his folded arms on the rail of the dock, and, after one quick, searching glance, first at the jury and then at the throng that packed the court, looked the judge full in the face, and said, with a sneer that he made no attempt to disguise-
"Since that will also be sentence of death on those who are my enemies, I have neither reason nor objection. Say on, my lord!"
Then he stood and, still with unshrinking eyes and smiling lips, watched the judge put on the black cap and heard him say the solemn words which, unless some miracle should be interposed to save him, consigned him to a shameful death and a felon's grave.
"-- and may the Lord have mercy on your soul!"
The last of the fatal words had scarcely died away in the hush that had fallen on the now breathless throng, when Max suddenly straightened himself up, and, before the warders could stop him, cried in a loud, clearly-ringing voice-
"That is the death sentence of London! That for your law and your justice. Fichtre!" And with that he snapped his fingers in the faces of judge and jury, and the next moment was hurried from the dock by the two warders.
CHAPTER XXI.
A CALM BEFORE A STORM.
ACCORDING to the merciful practice of the English c
riminal law, three Sundays are allowed to elapse between the passing of sentence of death and its execution, the execution as a rule taking place on the Tuesday following the third Sunday. Sentence had been passed on Max Renault on Monday the 5th of April, and therefore, as the newspapers speedily informed the general public and the thousands of anarchists, scattered all over the Continent and America, who had gloated over his exploits with fiendish delight, and had already given him the first place in their evil hierarchy, the execution was fixed for Tuesday the 27th.
"This gave an interval of about five weeks from his arrest, which, added to the two months which had passed since the arrival of the Nautilus in British waters, made a period of over three months during which every effort had been strained both by the anarchists and the Utopians to push on the construction of their respective aerial fleets, which another month or so would now probably see equipped and afloat.