CHAPTER XXVIII

IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE

The daring _coup de main_ of Marcus White had met with the most amazing and complete success. With the exception of the Chancery judges, who, for purposes of criminal law, were a negligible quantity, every judge and magistrate entrusted with the maintenance of law and justice in the capital of England had been swept into one net. There could be no summons, warrant, or indictment, in the absence of these judicial officers, anywhere outside the City boundary. Arrests would be idle, for no magisterial hearing or trial could follow. The strong arm of the law, already greatly weakened, now was wholly paralysed! One and all, the judges and magistrates had disappeared, carried by a cockleshell steamer into the mystery of the darkness and the sea.

People were full of their own affairs, “fear was in the way,” and apprehension for themselves and their families left men but little power or wish to think about the functionaries of State. Moreover, on Christmas Eve the colossal outrage became known to only a very few, and knowledge came too late for any attempt to arrest the steamer in her reckless rush into the night.

Heads of departments had gone out of town--eager to escape the depression of the looming Christmas holiday in London. The War Office, the Admiralty, and the Home Office were in charge of messengers and caretakers. These circumstances, carefully counted on by the wire-pullers of Germany, had also played into the hands of Marcus White in his long-cherished, revengeful war against the representatives of the law of England.

The police were the first to learn what had happened. The startling story of the capture at first was scoffed at; but when the truth was made quite sure, the effect upon the Force was staggering. The police had long felt that there was a power arrayed against them which could not be subdued by ordinary means. They knew the extent to which the normal machinery of the criminal law had broken down. And now it was completely shattered! The men were powerless, and realising the fact, they felt like straws borne on the waves of a tumultuous river towards an unknown sea.

The general public were entirely ignorant of what had happened, and the news that came from the naval ports late on the afternoon of Christmas Day was too absorbing to permit of much inquiry about what was taking place nearer home.

Whatever families of other judges and magistrates might be asking or wondering, Aldwyth Westwood, as yet, knew of no reason for special anxiety about her father. For the past few weeks he had scarcely been at home. Weary of the police escort which had been told off to accompany him daily from Hill Street to the Law Courts, he had taken up his quarters at the Inns of Court Hotel, going not at all to his chambers in the Temple, but traversing, as he thought unnoticed, the short distance between Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Carey Street. There, in the room allotted to him as one of the law officers of the Crown, and burdened with his colleague’s official work as well as his own, the Solicitor-General had passed the days, forcing his brain to work, and haunted ever with the dread of a physical relapse.

The eager people who rushed to the news-agents’ shops on the morning of Bank Holiday were not seeking news concerning his Majesty’s judges, but were hoping to learn more of the movements of the hostile fleets and the reported conflagration at Portsmouth dockyard. News there was none. Not a single journal had been published. The great body of compositors had followed the example of the gas-workers; and the _Epoch_, which alone among London journals could have commanded the services of the men, had published nothing since its special edition of the previous day.

Baulked at the shuttered newspaper shops, hosts of people made for the railway stations in the hope that the bookstalls might have been supplied with special news. But here, too, everything was blank. Nothing authentic was ascertainable; but rumours were going round of interrupted communication with the provinces, of wires cut in all directions, and, worse still, of mysterious explosions in several tunnels, which blocked certain of the railways, and severed the links between London and the coast. An air of awe and anxious expectancy appeared on the faces of the bewildered people, and, too excited to remain in their houses, as the day wore on they came in ever-increasing numbers into the streets, until the snow on road and footway was churned into black and penetrating slush.

Multitudes flew to drink, at once their heaven and hell. There was no organised march or demonstration of the Leaguers, but everywhere they were seen in knots and groups. The sign of the Spider was more in evidence than ever, just at the moment when Kraken, monster-spider of the deep, seemed to have risen to the surface of the sea to crush the naval strength of England.

In the early afternoon, thousands of people assembled in Trafalgar Square, and rabid speakers, raucous in voice, breathed fire and fury into the frosty air.

Raggett, on the steps near the National Gallery, raved to a multitude of hearers, and no one dared to say him nay.

Presently, above his screaming tones, there came the sound of many voices chanting in the open air. Those who were standing on the steps on the west side of the square then saw a strange procession advancing slowly along Pall Mall East. A cornet-player, wearing a surplice, walked at the head of the procession, and the clear, strong notes of his instrument led the voices of a multitude of singers. A surpliced choir of quite a hundred men and boys was followed by the Sisters of the Kindly Life, and behind and around them came a mixed company of all classes, all ages, and both sexes--young men and maidens, old men and children. One and all rolled to the wintry skies a hymn of hope and triumph that filled the people in the square with wonder and amaze.

At first there were some jeers and vulgar cries, and here and there a burst of scornful laughter in the crowd. But the quaint hymn of the ancient Church had such a lilt and cadence in its setting, that tender chords were touched in the hearts of thousands, and scorn and blasphemy were silenced. The people were irresistibly drawn into the flood of the melody. They caught eagerly at the cards which every one in the procession held out to those who wanted them.

“’Ere, let’s ’ave a card, lady,” said a husky voice at Aldwyth Westwood’s elbow.

“Ain’t yer got a card for me, guv’nor?” came from every side.

Thus the volume of the song of triumph--discordant here and there, but earnest and full-throated--grew and strengthened as the band of singers advanced towards St Martin’s Church. Two banners floated in the air; the banner of the day--St Stephen’s, emblematic of his martyrdom; and the banner of the Holy Grail, emblazoned with the mystic Cup of Sacrifice. A jewelled cross gleamed high over all heads, and behind it, with clasped hands, walked Father Francis.