The Lord of the Sea | Page 4

It was a Friday evening, and up at the Hall the Sabbath had commenced,
two Sabbath-tapers shining now upon the Mezuzzah at the dining-room
door, Frankl being of the Cohanîm, the priestly class--a Jew of Jews.
As he had passed in, two Moghrabîm Jews had saluted him with:
"Shabbath"; and mildly he had replied: "Shabbath".
But swift upon his steps strode Hogarth: Hogarth was at the lodgegates
--was on the drive--was in the hall.
But, since Frankl was just preparing to celebrate the kiddush, "He
cannot be seen now", said a man in the hall.
"He must", said Hogarth.
As he brushed past, two men raised an outcry: but Hogarth continued
his swift way, and had half traversed a salon hung with a chaos of
cut-glass when from a side-door appeared the inquiring face of Frankl
in pious skull-cap.
"What is it?" he cried--"I cannot be seen--"

He recognized the man of the towing-path, and on his face grew a look
of scare, as he backed toward a study: but before he could slam the
door, Hogarth, too, was within.
"Who are you? What is it?" whined Frankl, who was both hard master
and cringing slave.
Hogarth produced the Circular: but of Margaret not a word.
"Caps-and-tassels, you?"--flicking Frankl on the cheek with a fillip of
his middle finger.
"You dare assault me! Why, I swear, I meant no harm--"
Down came the whip upon the Jew's shoulders, Frankl, as the stings
penetrated his caftan, giving out one roar, and the next instant, seeing
the two Jews at the doorway, groaned the mean whisper: "Oh, don't
make a man look small before the servants", crying out immediately:
"Help!"
Soon five or six servants were at the door, and, of these, two Arab Jews
rushed forward, one a tall fellow, the other an obese bulk with bright
black eyes, the former holding a slender blade--the knife with which
"shechita", or slaughtering, was done: and while the corpulent Jew
threw himself upon Hogarth, the other drew this knife through the flesh
of Hogarth's shoulder, at the same time happening to cut the heavy
Arab across the wrist.
Now, there was some quarrel between the two Arabs, and the injured
Arab, forgetting Hogarth, turned fiercely upon his fellow.
Hogarth, meanwhile, had not let go Frankl, nor delivered the intended
number of cuts: so he was again standing with uplifted whip, when his
eye happened to fall upon the doorway.
He saw there a sight which struck his arm paralysed: Rebekah Frankl.
Two months had she been here at Westring--and he had not known it!

There she stood peering, of a divine beauty in his eyes, like
halfmythical queens of Egypt and Babylon, blinking in a rather
barbarous superfluity of jewels: and, blinded and headlong, he was in
flight.
As for Frankl, he locked that door upon himself, and remained there,
forgetting the sanctification of the Sabbath.
The Hebrew's eyes blazed like a wild beast's. The words: "As the Lord
liveth..." hissed in whispers from his lips.
He took up a pinch of old ashes, and cast it into the air.
As Shimei, the son of Gera, cursed David, so he cursed Richard
Hogarth that night--again and again--with grave rites, with cancerous
rancour.
"I will blight him, as the Lord liveth; as the Lord liveth, I will blight
him..." he said repeatedly, his draperied arms spread in pompous
imprecation.
As a beginning, he sat and wrote to Reid's Bank, requesting the
payment in gold of £14,000--to produce a stoppage of payment at the
little Bank in which were Richard's savings.
Afterwards, with mild eyes he repaired to the dining-hall, and
sanctified the Sabbath, blessing a cup of wine, dividing up two
napkined loaves, and giving to Rebekah his benediction.
IV
THE SWOON
Hogarth went moodily down the hillside to the Waveney, across the
bridge, and home, his sleeve stained with blood.
In the dining-room, he threw himself into an easy-chair in a gloom lit
only by the fireglow, in the room above mourning a little harmonium
which Margaret was playing, mixed with the sound of Loveday's voice.

The old man said: "Richard, my boy..."
Hogarth did not answer.
"Richard, I have somewhat to say to you--are ye hearkening?"
Richard, losing blood, moaned a drowsy "Yes".
And the old Hogarth, all deaf and bedimmed, said: "I had to say it to
you, and this night let it be: Richard, you are no son of mine".
At this point Hogarth's head dropped forward: but many a time, during
long years, he remembered a dream in which he had heard those words:
"Richard, you are no son of mine..."
The old Hogarth continued to ears that did not hear:
"I have kept it from you--for I'm under a bargain with a firm of
solicitors in London; but, Dick, it doesn't