When It Was Dark Part 23

"I'll start directly the plates have gone down to the foundry and the men are off, just keeping one hand to see to the gas-engine."

"And, Burness, lock up the galley safely when you come down with the proof."

"I'll do it, sir," and the great man--indispensable, and earning his six hundred a year--went away with the precious papers.

"That is perfectly safe with Burness," said Spence, as the foreman compositor retired. "He will make no mistakes either. He is a capital Greek scholar, corrects the proof-readers themselves often."

"Yes," answered Ommaney, "I know. I shall leave everything in his hands.

Then late to-morrow night, just before the forms go to the foundry, I shall shove the whole thing in before any one knows anything about it, and nothing can get round to any other office. Burness will know about it beforehand, and he'll be ready to break up a whole page for this stuff. Of course, as far as leaders go and comment, I shall be guided very much by the result of my interview to-night and others to-morrow morning. I shall send off several cables before dawn to Palestine and elsewhere."

Once more the editor began to pace up and down the room, thinking rapidly, decisively, deeply. The slim, fragile body was informed with power by the splendid brain which animated it.

The rather languid, silent man was utterly changed. Here one could see the strength and force of the personality which directed and controlled the second, perhaps the first, most powerful engine of public opinion in the world. The millionaires who paid this frail-looking, youthful man an enormous sum to direct their paper for them knew what they were about. They had bought one of the finest living executive brains and made it a potentate among its fellows. This man who, when he was not at the office, or holding some hurried colloquy with one of the rulers of the world, was asleep in a solitary flat at Kensington, knew that he had an accepted right to send a message to Downing Street, such as he had lately done. No one knew his face--no one of the great outside public; his was hardly even a name to be recognised in pa.s.sing, yet he, and Spence, and Folliott Farmer could shake a continent with their words.

And though all knew it, or would at least have realised it had they ever given it a thought, the absolute self-effacement of journalism made it a matter of no moment to any of them.

While Englishmen read their dicta, and unconsciously incorporated them into their own p.r.o.nouncements, mouthing them in street, market, and forum, these men slept till the busy day was over, and once more with the setting of the sun stole out to their almost furtive and yet tremendous task.

Every now and then Ommaney strode to the writing-table and made a rapid note on a sheet of paper.

At last he turned to Spence.

"I am beginning to have our line of action well marked out in my brain,"

he said. "The thing is grouping itself very well. I am beginning to see my way. Now about you, Spence. Of course this thing is yours. At any rate you brought it here. Later on, of course, we shall show our grat.i.tude in some substantial way. That will depend upon the upshot of the whole thing. Meanwhile, you will be quite wasted in London. I and Farmer and Wilson can deal with anything and everything here. Of course I would rather have you on the spot, but I can use you far better elsewhere."

"Then?" said Spence.

"You must go to Jerusalem at once. Start for Paris to-morrow morning at nine; you'd better go round to your chambers and pack up now and then come back here till it's time to start. You can sleep _en route_. I shall be here till breakfast-time, and I can give you final instructions."

He used the telephone once more and his secretary came in.

"Mr. Spence starts for Palestine to-morrow morning, Marriott," he said.

"He is going straight through to Jerusalem as fast as may be. Oblige me by getting out a route for him at once, marking all the times for steamers and trains, etc., in a clear scheme for Mr. Spence to take with him. Be very careful with the Continental timetables indeed. If you can see any delay anywhere which will be likely to occur, go down to Cook's early in the morning and make full inquiries. If it is necessary, arrange for any special trains that may be necessary. Mr. Spence must not be delayed a day. Also map out various points on the journey, with the proper times, where we can telegraph instructions to Mr. Spence. Go down to Mr. Woolford and ask him for a hundred pounds in notes and give them to Mr. Spence. You will arrange about the usual letter of credit during the day and wire Mr. Spence at Paris after lunch."

The young man went out to do his part in the great organisation which Ommaney controlled.

"Then you'll be back between three and four?" Ommaney said.

"Yes, I'll go and pack at once," Spence answered. "My pa.s.sport from the Foreign Office is all right now."

He rose to go, vigorous, and with an inexpressible sense of relief at the active prospect before him. There would be no time for haunting thought, for personal fears yet. He was going, himself, to the very heart of things, to see and to gain personal knowledge of these events which were shadowing the world.

The door opened as he rose and Folliott Farmer strode in. With him was a tall, distinguished man of about five-and-thirty; he was in evening dress and rather bald.

It was Lord Trelyon, the Prime Minister's private secretary.

"I thought I would come myself with Mr. Farmer, Mr. Ommaney," he said, shaking hands cordially. "Lord ---- will see you. He tells me to say that if it is absolutely imperative he will see you. I suppose there is no doubt of that?"

"None whatever, I'm sorry to say, Lord Trelyon," the editor answered.

"Farmer, will you take charge till I return?"

He slipped on his overcoat and a felt hat and left the room with the secretary without looking back. Spence followed the two down the stairs--the tall, athletic young fellow and the slim, nervous journalist. These were just driving furiously towards the Law Courts as Spence turned into Fleet Street on his way to Lincoln's Inn.

Fleet Street was brilliantly lit and almost silent. A few cabs hovered about and that was all. Presently all the air would be filled with the dull roar and hum of the great printing machines in their underground halls, but the press hour was hardly yet.

The porter let him into the Inn, and in a few moments he was striking matches and lighting the gas. Mrs. Buscall had cleared away the breakfast things, but the fire had long since gone out. The big rooms looked very bare and solitary, unfamiliar almost, as the gas-jets hissed in the silence.

One or two letters were in the box. One envelope bore the Manchester post-mark. It was from Basil Gortre. A curious pang, half wonder and antic.i.p.ation, half fear, pa.s.sed through his mind as he saw the familiar handwriting of his friend. But it was a pang for Gortre, not for himself. He himself was wholly detached now that the time for action had arrived. Personal consideration would come later. At present he was starting out on the old trail--"The old trail, the long trail, the trail that is always new."

He felt a _man_ again, with a fierce joy and exultation throbbing in all his veins after the torpor of the last few weeks.

He sat down at the table, first getting some bread and cheese from a cupboard, for he was hungry, and opening a bottle of beer. The beer tasted wonderfully good. He laughed exultingly in the flow of his high spirits.

He wrote a note to Mrs. Buscall, long since inured to these sudden midnight departures, and another to Gortre. To him he said that some great and momentous discoveries were made at Jerusalem by Hands, and that he himself was starting at once for the Holy City as special correspondent for the _Wire_. He would write _en route_, he explained, there was no time for any details now.

"Poor chap," he said to himself, "he'll know soon enough now. I hope he won't take it very badly."

Then he went into his bedroom and hauled down the great pig-skin kit-bag, covered with foreign labels, which had accompanied him half over the world.

He packed quickly and completely, the result of long practice. The pads of paper, the stylographic pens, with the special ink for hot countries which would not dry up or corrode, his revolvers, riding-breeches, boots and spurs, the kodak, with spare films and light-tight zinc cases, the old sun helmet--he forgot nothing.

When he had finished, and the big bag, with a small Gladstone also, was strapped and locked, he changed joyously from the black coat of cities into his travelling tweeds of tough cloth. At length everything seemed prepared. He sat on the bed and looked round him, willing to be gone.

His eye fell on the opposite wall. A crucifix hung there, carved in ebony and ivory. During his short holiday at Dieppe, nearly nine months ago now, he had gone into the famous little shop there where carved work of all kinds is sold. Basil and Helena were with him and they had all bought mementoes. Helena had given him that.

And as he looked at it now he wondered what his journey would bring forth. Was he, indeed, chosen out of men to go to this far country to tear Christ from that awful and holy eminence of the Cross? Was it to be his mission to extinguish the _Lux Mundi_?

As he gazed at the sacred emblem he felt that this could not be.

No, no! a thousand times no. Jesus _had_ risen to save him and all other sinners. It _was_ so, must be so, should be so.

The Holy Name was in itself enough. He whispered it to himself. No, _that_ was eternally, gloriously true.

Humbly, faithfully, gladly he knelt among the litter of the room and said the Lord's Prayer, said it in Latin as he had said it at school--

_Pater noster!_

CHAPTER II

AVOIDING THE FLOWER PATTERN ON THE CARPET

Sir Michael Manichoe, the stay and pillar of "Anglicanism" in the English Church, was a man of great natural gifts. The owner of one of those colossal Jewish fortunes which, few as they are, have such far-reaching influence upon English life, he employed it in a way which, for a man in his position, was unique.

He presented the curious spectacle, to sociologists and the world at large, of a Jew by origin who had become a Christian by conviction and one of the sincerest sons of the English Church as he understood it. In political life Sir Michael was a steady, rather than a brilliant, force.

He had been Home Secretary under a former Conservative administration, but had retired from office. At the present moment he was a private member for the division in which his country house, Fencastle, stood, and he enjoyed the confidence of the chiefs of his party.