CHAPTER XIII

THE STRANGE OUTBREAK AT QUEEN’S HALL

The recrudescence of the Dancing Mania first took notable form on a certain Sunday evening. At Queen’s Hall the Sunday League--which is in no way to be associated with the Leaguers of London--had organised one of those frequent and excellent concerts which, presumably, are intended to provide a suitable substitute for religious worship in our churches. A famous conductor, whose brilliant services to the cause of the higher music had brought him a world-wide reputation, was there to sway with his bâton the finest orchestral band ever known to the music-lovers of London.

The great hall and the vast galleries were densely packed, and as the programme proceeded, the heat, generated by hundreds upon hundreds of listening humans, became intense and overpowering. There was a marked sense of overstrain during the wonderful rendering of Tchaikovsky’s lengthy Symphony (No. 6 in B minor). The music itself was full of subtle emotion. Deep melancholy alternated with swelling excitement. The passionate pessimism of the Russian character communicated itself through the medium of the score to those among the great audience who were predisposed to share it. The tragic gloom and fatalism of the movement hung like a thunder-cloud in the stifling atmosphere, and the wailing sadness of the subdued finale was succeeded by a tense silence. Then, as the audience was about to burst into the accustomed applause, a woman rose in the body of the hall, and gave a piercing shriek. The effect was electrical. Hundreds of people started to their feet. Another shriek, still more weird and piercing, drew a like response from scores of throats. In an instant confusion reigned throughout the hall and corridors, and in the balconies. Attempts to restore silence and order were drowned in the general tumult. Here and there, men and women, unable to reach the aisles, tried to climb over the closely ranged lines of movable stalls. Many of these seats fell with a crash, and horrified spectators in the balconies saw masses of people heaped and struggling on the ground. The bandsmen had risen excitedly, instruments in hand, unheeding for once the gestures of the conductor, who turned with pallid face, the perspiration in great drops on his forehead, and made imploring gestures to the audience. Bruised and bleeding, distraught with terror, some of those who had fallen in the effort to escape struggled to their feet and fought viciously and desperately to reach the exit doors.

The officials of the Sunday League, with many persons in the audience, now made great and partially successful efforts to prevent a general rush. Shouts of “Sit down! sit down!” came from all parts of the building. The bandsmen were the first to resume their seats, and while the outgoing crowd was checked and marshalled into some sort of order, others set a good example, and, realising that there was absolutely no reason for panic, settled down as if intending to remain throughout the programme. But by a wise discretion on the part of the conductor, the concert was abandoned. At a signal, the familiar first bar of the National Anthem brought all to their feet again; then, turning to the audience, the wielder of the bâton invited them to join; and, with extraordinary volume and fervour, “God Save the King” brought the concert to a close. A terrible catastrophe had been averted; for, by marvellous good fortune, no life was lost in the frantic effort of a section of the audience to escape. Those who were injured were being hurried, half-fainting, into cabs, and those who were merely suffering from shattered nerves sat on chairs in the corridors, while anxious friends tried to restore them to some degree of self-control.

The swift reaction, born of unexpected safety, may perhaps account in some measure for what followed. The woman whose scream had given the first impulse to disturbance--afterwards recognised as a Spanish dancer at the Empire music-hall--was suddenly seen to be moving down the corridor in a wild, fantastic dance. Bursts of laughter greeted the extraordinary and unlooked-for display. An avenue was made for her, and on she danced. Her hat was gone; her long black hair had fallen to her waist, and her eyes were blazing with the look of a demoniac. The crowd closed after her, with fresh laughter, which presently gave place to excited and wondering exclamations. Now she was in the entrance hall, and one of the officials laid his hand upon her shoulder. She shook herself free with a scream of foreign words. Another moment, and those peering eagerly from the entrance steps and pavement, saw the Bacchantic figure whirling in the street. The cries and tumultuous shouts which arose among the crowd around the dancer, and the warning shouts of the drivers of approaching vehicles, brought hosts of visitors to the open windows of the Langham and the neighbouring houses. Presently, those who could look down from these vantage points, and others who now packed the steps of All Souls’ Church, saw with bewilderment that the magnetism of example had drawn some six or seven young girls and women into a kind of dance which imitated the movements of the Spaniard.

Thus the glare of the electric lights revealed one of the strangest and most lamentable scenes ever witnessed in the streets of London. It was brief, but pregnant with painful possibilities. Two or three policemen, as soon as they realised in some measure what was happening, assisted by some resolute men who had now emerged from the hall, brought the dancers to a forcible standstill. Their resistance was cat-like, savage; but exhaustion aided the efforts of the constables, and within twenty minutes the roadway was cleared, the crowd dispersed, and Langham Place had almost resumed its normal aspect.

For ten days after these occurrences there was nothing to indicate that they were likely to be repeated. Then, in another quarter of London, there was a somewhat similar outbreak, and, unhappily, on a more extensive scale. It took place among the girl-pupils attending a large school of shorthand in Southampton Row. Rumour had it, and probably it was true, that some of them had been present at Queen’s Hall on the occasion already chronicled. After the long, hot afternoon hours in the class-rooms, the shorthand pupils--girls and youths--poured out in the usual throng into the streets. There was a good deal of gossiping, as usual, and here and there a little innocent flirtation. The flower-sellers, who drive their trade near Cosmo Place on the pavement of Southampton Row, as usual eagerly drew attention to their baskets. Then one, whose basket was first emptied, executed a wild pirouette of triumph. Some of the young men applauded vigorously. Here and there a girl was pushed forward, and some of the more reckless danced a few steps, in imitation of the flower-seller. The spark was in the bonfire! and before any one realised what was happening, a score of dancers, male and female, filled the pavement, and by force of numbers moved into the roadway. To escape the horse traffic and motors, they whirled across at an angle into Russell Square. The cabmen on the stand applauded them derisively, bursting into coarse guffaws. Incoherent cries came from the parched throats of the dancers. Some of them now joined hands and swept over the broad southern roadway of the square; others, with grotesque gestures, danced alone, leaping into the air at intervals. A cornet-player, who was standing near the north corner of Bedford Place, raised his instrument to his lips, and the clear, sudden notes that followed seemed to act upon his hearers as a trumpet-call. It served to quicken to an almost appalling degree the epidemic character of the amazing outbreak; for passers-by, moved as by an irresistible impulse, joined in the maddened movement of the dancers. They overflowed into the quiet thoroughfare of Bedford Place. From the residential hotels and boarding-houses on either side people rushed to the doorways and windows. Servants, with shrill cries, hurried up area steps to witness, with loud comment, the stupefying display, until many of the watchers themselves were drawn into the widening circles of the excited dancers.