GIFT OF

MICHAEL REESE

THE YELLOW DANGER

RECENT FICTION

By GRANT ALLEN.

An African Millionaire. 6s. By R. S. WARREN BELL.

The Cub in Love. is. 6d. By FREDERIC BRETON.

True Heart. 6s. By G. B. BURGIN.

The Cattle-Man. 6s.

" Old Man's " Marriage. 6s. By HUGH CLIFFORD.

Studies in Brown Humanity. 6s.

In Court and Kampong. 73. 6d. By GEORGE EGERTON.

The Wheel of God. 6s. By GEORGE FLEMING.

Little Stories about Women. 33. 6d. By R. MURRAY GILCHRIST.

A Peakland Faggot. 28. 6d. By MARIE CONNOR LEIGHTON and ROBERT LEIGHTON.

Convict 99. 33. 6d. By HALDANE MACFALL.

The Wooings of Jezebel Pettyfer. 6s. By LEONARD MERRICK.

One Man's View. 33. 6d. By W. C. MORROW.

The Ape, the Idiot, and Other People. 6s. By HELMUTH SCHWARTZE.

The Laughter of Jove. 6s. By GORDON SEYMOUR.

The Rudeness of the Honourable Mr. Leatherhead. 2s.

A Homburg Story, zs.

Cui Bono ? 2s. By Lady TROUBRIDGE.

Paul's Stepmother. 33. 6d.

London : GRANT RICHARDS, 1898.

THE

YELLOW DANGER

BY

M. P. SHIEL

AUTHOR OF 'THE MAN-STEALERS,' 'PRINCE ZALESKI,' ETC.

BREVIS ESSE LABORO !

Messrs. Horace and Gibbon,

SECOND EDITION

iLontron

GRANT RICHARDS

9 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C. 1898

First -printed June 1898. Reprinted August 1898.

y

(

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

1. THE NATIONS AND A MAN i

2. THE HEATHEN CHINEE 10

3. RUMOURS OF WAR 15

4. FIRST BLOOD 20

5. How ENGLAND TOOK THE NEWS 30

6. HARDY .40

7. IN THE CHANNEL 49

8. THE BATTLE , ' . .56

9. JOHN HARDY GIVES AN ORDER 71

10. JOHN HARDY AMONG WOMEN ^ 79

11. JOHN HARDY AMONG THE NATIONS 92

12. THE AWAKENING 104

13. JOHN AND YEN 117

14. THE VANISHED FLEET 129

15. THE SUICIDE OF EUROPE 140

16. THE LOVE WHICH FOO-CHEE BORE TO AH-LIN . . . 149

17. THE CHINESE IRON 160

18. SIN-WAN ' ,.170

vi THE YELLOW DANGER

CHAP.

19. 'THE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY' 179

20. ' WHAT A FACE ! ' . .191

21. MURRAY'S DIARY 197

22. MURRAY'S DIARY (continued) 205

23. THE FROWN OF ENGLAND 218

24. BEFORE THE BATTLE 230

25. THE GREATER WATERLOO 239

26. THE YELLOW DANGER 252

27. THE THREE GOSPELS 258

28. THE YELLOW TERROR 263

29. THE WEAK POINT . . 274

30. THE CHINESE SCREAM 283

31. THE MEETING 297

32. ' TO-DAY' 316

33. THE 'CRIME' or HARDY 333

34. THE BLACK SPOT 343

CHAPTER I

THE NATIONS AND A MAN

As all the world knows, the Children's Ball of the Lady Mayoress takes place yearly on the night of 'Twelfth Day,' 6th January. In the year '98 the function was even more successful than usual, owing to Sir Henry Burdett's fine idea that the children should be photographed in support of the Prince of Wales' Hospital Fund. The little Walter Raleighs, Amy Robsarts, flocked in throngs to the photographer's studio adjoining the grand salon of the Mansion House ; while all that space outside between the Mansion House, the Bank, and the Stock Exchange was a mere mass of waiting, arriving, and departing vehicles.

If anything tended to take a little of their exuberance from this and other New Year jubilations, it was a certain cloudi- ness in the political sky ; nothing very terrifying ; yet some- thing so real, that nearly every one felt it with disquiet. An Irish member, celebrated for his ' bulls,' was heard to say : ' Take my word for it, there's going to be a sunset in the East.' Men strolled into their clubs, and, with or without a yawn, said : c Is there going to be a row, then ? ' Some one might answer : ' Not a bit of it ; it'll pass off presently, you'll see.' But another would be sure to add : ' Things are looking black enough, all the same.'

It was just as when, on a clear day at sea, low and jagged edges of disconnected clouds appear inkily on the horizon-edge, and no one is quite certain whether or not they will meet, and whelm the sky, and sink the ship.

But the horizon had hardly darkened, when, again, it cleared.

2 THE YELLOW DANGER

The principal cause of fear had been what had looked un- commonly like a conspiracy of the three great Continental Powers to oust England from predominance in the East. First there was the seizure of Kiao-Chau, the bombastic fare- wells of the German Royal brothers ; then immediately, the aggressive attitude of Russia at Port Arthur ; then immediately, the rumour that France had seized Hainan, was sending an expedition to Yun-nan, and had ships in Hoi-How harbour.

All this had the look of concert ; for within the last few years it had got to be more and more recognised by the British public that centuries of neighbourhood had fostered among the Continental nations a certain spirit of kinship, in which the Island- Kingdom was no sharer.

In the course of years the Straits of Dover had widened into an ocean. Europe had receded from Britain, and Britain, in her pride, had drawn back from Europe. From the curl of the moustache, to the colour and cut of the evening-dress, to the manner in which women held up their skirts, there was similarity between French and German, between German and Russian and Austrian, and dissimilarity between all these and English.

It is true that the Russian hated the German, and the German the Russian and the French ; but their hatred was the hatred of brothers, always ready to combine against the outsider. This had been begun to be suspected, then recog- nised, by the British nation. Alone and friendless must England tread the wine-press of modern history, solitary in her majesty ; and if ever an attempt were made to stop her stately progress, she was prepared to find that her foe was the rest of Europe.

But very soon after the unrest had arisen, it began to sub- side. France denied the annexation of Hainan ; the semi- official Nord-deutsche Allgememe Zeitung^ inspired by Wilhelm, painted Germany as the patron of commerce, with an amiable weakness for theatrical displays ; Russia was defeated in the matter of the removal of Mr. MacLeavy Brown, and seemed sufficiently limp after it; while spirits were raised by the probable guarantee of a Chinese loan by the British Government.

But meanwhile, at the children's ball at the Mansion House, events were working in a quite different direction from that of peaceful settlement.

THE NATIONS AND A MAN 3

Ada Seward was the presiding deity in the nursery of Mrs. Pattison of Fulham. On the night of the 6th, Dr. and Mrs. Pattison had to be present at a ball in the West End, and Ada on that night was busy ; for it was necessary for her, first of all, to convey Master Johnnie Pattison, costumed as Francis I., to the Mansion House ; and then to hurry homeward again to take Miss Nellie Pattison to a children's evening with charades in South Kensington.

The fact that it was wet when she reached the Mansion House may have had something to do with her troubles. The landing-place was occupied by some other carriages, and dis- mounting with her charge, an umbrella over him, she cried to the coachman in a hurried manner through the drizzle :

'Wait till I come back.'

The man afterwards declared that he understood her to say :

1 Go away, and come back.'

At any rate, when Ada again came forth into the crush to look for the Pattison brougham, it was nowhere to be found.

And now her lips went up in a pout of vexation. c What on earth is any one to do now ? ' she said. She was pressed for time, and yet at a loss.

The throng of private carriages seemed to have banished all cabs from the region of the Mansion House. She looked and saw none ; then into her pocket, and found only six- pence. These two circumstances decided her against the cab. Instead, she ran a few yards, dodging among the carriages, and at the entrance to Poultry, skipped into a moving 'bus.

She sat in a corner for five minutes, with agonised glances out of the door at the slowly receding clocks. Then some one — a man sitting nearly opposite, whom she had not noticed — addressed her :

' Why, Miss Ada, is that you ? '

4 Oh ! ' she cried, ' Mr. Brabant, is that you ? It's a long time since — how are you ? ' ^

1 Well, I'm pretty fair, Miss Ada, as times go, you know. Hope you are the same.'

' Still in the army ? '

' Oh yes — the Duke of Cambridge's Own, you know. You living in London now ? '

'Yes— at Fulham.'

4 THE YELLOW DANGER

Here conversation flagged ; and in that minute's interval, Brabant, with a sudden half-turn to his left, said :

1 Just allow me to introduce you to my friend here — Miss Seward — Dr. Yen How.'

In the light of the 'bus lamp Ada Seward saw a very small man, dressed in European clothes, yet a man whom she at once took to be Chinese. With a wrinkled grin, he put out his hand and shook hers.

He was a man of remarkable visage. When his hat was off, one saw that he was nearly bald, and that his expanse of brow was majestic. There was something brooding, medita- tive, in the meaning of his long eyes ; and there was a brown, and dark, and specially dirty shade in the yellow tan of his skin.

He was not really a Chinaman — or rather, he was that, and more. He was the son of a Japanese father by a Chinese woman. He combined these antagonistic races in one man. In Dr. Yen How was the East.

He was of noble feudal descent, and at Tokio, but for his Chinese blood, would have been styled Count. Not that the admixture of blood was very visible in his appearance ; in China he passed for a Chinese, and in Japan for a Jap.

If ever man was cosmopolitan, that man was Dr. Yen How. No European could be more familiar with the minutiae of Western civilisation. His degree of doctor he had ob- tained at the University of Heidelberg; for years he had practised as a specialist in the diseases of women and children at San Francisco.

He possessed an income of a thousand tael (about ^"300) from a tea-farm ; but his life had been passed in the practice of the grinding industry of a slave. Nothing equalled his assiduity, his minuteness, his attention to detail. He had once written to the Royal Observatory at the Cape pointing out a trifling error in a long logarithmic calculation of the declension of one of the moons of Jupiter, originating from the observatory.

In the East he could have climbed at once to the very top of the tree — even in the West, had he chosen. But he chose to lie low, remaining unnoticed, studying, observing, making of himself an epitome of the West, as he was an embodiment of the East.

THE NATIONS AND A MAN 5

In whatever country he happened to be — and he was never for many years in any one — he was most often to be found in the company of people of the lower classes ; and of these he had a very intimate knowledge. So great was his mental breadth, that he was unable to sympathise with either Eastern or Western distinctions of class and rank. He often struck up chance friendships with soldiers and sailors about the capitals of Europe; and these patronised and exhibited him here and there.

Yen How knew that he was being patronised, and sub- mitted to it — and smiled meekly. In reality, he cherished a secret and bitter aversion to the white race.

He had two defects — his shortness of sight, which caused him to wear spectacles ; and his inability, in speaking without effort, to pronounce the word ' little.' He still called it * lillee.'

On that date of 6th January, when he drove westward with Brabant and Ada Seward, he was perhaps forty years of age, but seemed anything between sixteen and sixty; a hard, omniscient, cosmopolitan little man, tough as oak, dry as chips.

Yet in that head were leavening some big thoughts ; and his heart was capable of tremendous passions.

In reality, could one have known it, as he fared onward through the drizzle in the trundling 'bus, smiling behind his spectacles, he was the most important personage in London, or perhaps in the world.

Dr. Yen How was capable of anything. In him was the Stoic, and the cynic, and the tiger ; with a turn of the mind he could become a savant^ or a statesman, or a crossing- sweeper, or a general. He possessed this excellence : a clear brain.

By one of those extraordinary freaks of nature for which there is no accounting, this man wanted to see Ada Seward a second time after parting with her that night.

Brabant, who had known her in her native town of Cheltenham, accompanied her to the gate of the Pattison villa, Yen How with them.

As he was leaving her, the little doctor put his mouth to her ear, and whispered hurriedly :

' I will wait here to-morrow night at eight for one lillee kiss*

The girl was astounded.

* Well, the idea !' she just gasped.

6 THE YELLOW DANGER

Before she could proclaim her indignation, the two men turned off.

Till he reached his home in Portland Street, Yen How was engaged in one long, continuous, secret smile — a smile at his own expense. This outburst of his in the role of lover was new to him, absolutely. His relations with women hitherto had consisted in the business of curing their sicknesses. By what subtle physiological or psychological affinity this one particular English girl had been able to evoke from this particular dry Chino- Japanese a request for ' one lillee kiss,' he was unable to divine. Such an affinity there undoubtedly was ; but its origin lay among reasons far too abstruse for the unravelling of Yen.

Yen How smiled that first night, but he presently found that this was no smiling matter.

At eight the next evening he was duly at the Pattison gate ; but, alas, no Ada was to be seen. Ada, however, was there, though invisible. She, with the Pattison cook, whom she had brought out to enjoy the fun, was hiding behind a shrubbery, and peering through, shaking with laughter at the futile waiting of the little doctor.

And now Yen How, for the first time in his life, began to suffer on account of a woman.

He loved ; and in his love was the concentrated passion of many other men. Melted rock is lava — and he suffered.

He used at night to hang about the house, which was lonely at that hour, waiting. To his patience there was no end — to his resolution to possess her, by fair means or foul, no end.

Even in the matter of love the Eastern is essentially different from the Western. It is impossible for us, in anything, to understand them, so foreign are they. With us love is frequent, a powerful mood ; with them the whole man is involved, and love becomes a passion having all the characteristics of ordinary flame.

One night, as he lurked about, he met her returning from some shopping. By this time Yen How had become a standing joke for Ada in the kitchen and the servants' bedroom. He walked to her.

' Ah/ he said with sideward head, and a cajoling smile, ' you are here, then ? You will give poor Yen How one lillee kiss ? '

THE NATIONS AND A MAN 7

The whole idea of courtship possessed by this clownish and unpractised lover consisted in asking for one little kiss. Ada Seward's views of the matter were more elaborate. She despised his strong simplicity.

' Perhaps you are not aware whom it is you are talking to,' she said.

Yen was aware ; he could have shut his eyes and drawn an exact picture of her face.

1 Ah,' he said, * not even one lillee '

' I'll give you one lillee box of soap to wash your face, if you like ! ' she cried, running and looking back. The house was near ; he could not overtake her.

Perhaps it would have been impossible for Miss Seward to utter words more calculated to drive Yen to madness than this reference to 'soap.' If his suit was hopeless, it was now borne in upon him that it was hopeless on account of his race. The girl did not listen to him, and reject him ; she rejected him without taking him into consideration at all. It was as though a mule, or a cat, had asked her to be his.

But his persistence did not fail. He flung his other pursuits to the winds, and the Pattison villa became for him the centre of the world. Sometimes he caught bright glimpses of her. Once again he met her in the street, and once again she overwhelmed him with jeers. So passed January, February, and March.

To Yen How, the bourgeois, the thought never at all occurred that the girl was below bourgeois class. He was a great man, and merely saw in Ada the eternal woman. Dukes marry duchesses ; but the Goethes, the Mahomets, wed cooks and water-carriers. On that very plan was built Yen How.

At the beginning of April he stood one night outside the Pattison gate, when he saw her. It was eleven o'clock ; she was coming from the theatre, leaning on the arm of Private Brabant. Brabant, since their meeting in the 'bus, had several times been ' out ' with her.

As the two approached, Ada saw the little doctor.

* There's that little Chinaman again, John,' she said, pressing Brabant's arm. ' It's getting too much of a good thing now, isn't it ? '

8 THE YELLOW DANGER

'Confound the little rat,' said Brabant; 'he wants his nut cracked, I should think, doesn't he ? '

The doctor tripped up to them, smiling nervously. Before he could speak, Brabant, who had had a glass, said :

' Come, come, Mr. Yen How, get out of this. Can't you see the young lady doesn't want you fooling round her ? '

' Well — but — my soldier friend,' said Yen, ' there is no harm done '

' Come, get out of it ! ' said Brabant more roughly.

* No, no, you go too fast, you see,' began Yen apologetically. ' Are you going — yes or no ? ' said Brabrant, now flushing

angrily.

' Go away, why don't you ? ' put in Ada.

* Ah ! I — I am here to see my lillee girl,' hazarded Yen.

1 Oh, don't be a stupid little goose of a Chinaman ! Just fancy ! ' she said.

This was the most unkindest cut of all for Yen. He winced, touched with anger.

1 Are you going or not ? ' said Brabant, an ultimatum in his tone.

' No ! ' said Yen ; then, more decidedly, ' No, no ! '

Brabant put out his arm and pushed him on the shoulder.

It was not a violent push, but in an instant the doctor's face was almost black with rage. He had in his hand a stout bamboo stick, which he at once lifted and slashed with terrible force across the soldier's cheek, leaving a bruised weal which Brabant bore with him to the grave.

In retaliation the soldier lifted his large and bony fist, and sent it into the doctor's face. Yen How dropped.

The street was deserted. Not knowing what to do, the girl and the soldier bent over him for five minutes, when, to their surprise, Yen How raised himself slowly, placed his handkerchief against his red and dripping face, and slowly limped away without a single word.

Once he stopped deliberately as he moved off, turned, and looked at them ; and in the moonlight they distinctly saw him twice shake his forefinger warningly in their direction.

Then he went on his way.

Between that night and the beginning of May he never once stepped outside the house in which he lived. He had resumed his close and far-reaching studies.

THE NATIONS AND A MAN 9

At the beginning of May he was on board the Peninsular, bound for the East.

By the end of September he was a member of the Japanese Parliament.

In December we find him a leading spirit in the Tsung-li- Yamen, or Chinese Foreign Office, and making voyages between Tokio and Pekin.

CHAPTER II

THE HEATHEN CHINEE

YEN How was nothing if not heathen. He was that first of all.

His intellect was like dry ice. Though often secretly en- gaged in making The Guess, on the whole, he despised all religions — the faiths of the West, the superstitions of the East, he despised them all alike. He was full of light, but without a hint of warmth ; and so lacked the religious emotion.

It is not likely that ordinary ethical considerations would much influence the aims of such a man. He was like an avalanche, as cold, and as resistless.

What was Dr. Yen How's aim ? Simply told, it was to possess one white woman, ultimately, and after all. He had also the subsidiary aim of doing an ill turn to all the other white women, and men, in the world.

If the earth had opened and swallowed him, then he would have renounced his hope ; but for no lesser reason. He went coolly and patiently to work to secure his desire.

But no man, surely, ever employed means so huge to an end so small. A European, perhaps any other man, having once conceived the means, would quickly have forgotten the end in the tremendous interest of the means themselves. But in all that Yen did the face of Ada Seward was always consciously ' before his eyes.' The nature of this man was as simple as the elemental rock.

His career in the East, from the first hour of his return, was meteoric. He rose like a rocket. The order of the day in China, and especially in Japan, was Western modernity; and here was a man who simply breathed Western modernity, and who yet was an Eastern of the Easterns. His skin was

THE HEATHEN CHINEE n

more yellow than the yellow man's, and his brain was more white than the white man's. When the English Inspector- General of Roads and Bridges at Tokio asserted that the Imperial tax in Britain on railway passenger traffic was, he believed, £$ per cent, Yen How's face wrinkled into a chaos of smiles. ' No — two,' he said quietly ; and no one doubted which was right. Yen introduced a new method of protecting bridges during the daily earthquakes of Japan, by means of articulated joists and sleepers. When the Naval Director at Pekin introduced a specification for a new battle-ship to be mounted with two m-ton guns, Yen proved by statistics (which he quoted from memory) that the tendency of the most modern shipbuilding was rather in the direction of quick-firing guns than of heavy armaments. The m-ton became 45-ton. He was soon invaluable.

At this time the people of Japan were strongly excited against the freebooting of Russia and Germany in China, and strongly animated in favour of England. England was, in fact, the beau-ideal, the Great Pattern, of Japan. It required no great force of imagination for her to call herself * the Britain of the East'; this notion at once occurred, of itself, to every one ; and, of course, the copyist sympathised with her original rather than with others. With England predominant in China, moreover, there would be an assurance of free trade ; and Japan was a trader. So strong was the enthusiasm in favour of England, that the nation was even willing to put its fleet at the disposal of its Big Model in case of need.

The ulterior purposes of Japan, of course, remained in doubt. She was even then building in various parts of the world an additional fleet, which, when finished, would make her a sea Power far in advance of any nation in the whole earth, with the exception of England herself. What in the hour of her manhood, when she had cast her leading-strings, she would do with this vast force was a disturbing question to many ; but, meanwhile, it was clearly her intention to use England as an ally — till the years ripened.

Under the Marquis Ito's Ministry Yen How was offered a post of Under -Secretary, but he refused it. He suggested that he should become Secretary to the Minister as his private servant ; and this was arranged. He knew that high public rank in Japan would exclude him from high public rank in

12 THE YELLOW DANGER

China, if his double personality should become known — and China was the chief field of his labours. Meanwhile, he was drawing large revenues as a mandarin, and lived, for his own purposes, in a style nearly princely.

* Poh ! ' he said to the Marquis Ito, sipping tea among rugs, ' there are no statesmen now. Statesmen ! — there are no such things. Not here — not in Europe. An ordinary man is a man who thinks in days ; a statesman proper thinks in thousands of years. The outlook and computations of a statesman should be as much vaster than those of a private person, as a country is vaster than a tea-house. Believe me, there are no statesmen.'

* Come, doctor, why do you say that ? ' asked the Marquis. 'Look forward five hundred, a thousand years, Marquis,

and what do you see ? ' answered Yen How. ' Is it not this ? — the white man and the yellow man in their death-grip, con- tending for the earth. The white and the yellow — there are no others. The black is the slave of both ; the brown does not count. But there are those two ; and when the day comes that they stand face to face in dreadful hate, saying, " One or other must quit this earth," shall I tell you which side will win?'

1 Which do you think ? '

* The white will win, Marquis.'

' Perhaps I differ from you,' said the Marquis Ito.

' Ah ! you differ from me. But I am right all the same ; and I mean, sooner or later, to prove it to you abundantly, abundantly ! The white will win, I tell you ! You great men in Japan are trying to copy them, straining your poor necks to come up with them ; but I have passed my life in studying them — and I've got something to tell you ; listen to it : you cannot, Marquis, you cannot, you cannot ! '

1 Our Navy already ' began the Marquis.

* Poh ! your Navy ! Who built it for you ? It was they. Your Navy is like a razor in the hands of an ape which has seen its master use it. The brute may or may not cut its own throat with it. And as soon as they build a navy for you, they will build one twice as big for themselves, and twice as good. There is no reason why you should not follow them, and go on following them — only understand that you cannot catch them f And this is another thing that you should under-

THE HEATHEN CHINEE 13

stand — that the longer you follow them, the farther they get away from you. Their rate of progress is continually increas- ing. Every day that passes over the world gives them an additional advantage over you. To-day their guns can mow you down by hundreds ; in a hundred years they will mow you down by thousands ; in five hundred years by millions. Can't you see ? — you are losing time ! '

* What do you mean ? '

'Ah, I mean that there are no longer any statesmen, Marquis. The eye of the statesman ranges far, far into the tracts of the future, doesn't it ? But we ! Here are we now — we Japanese, we Chinese, we yellow men — playing about in little diplomatic mud-puddles with French, and Russian, and English, and German, as if all that mattered two sen ! And all the time we know well, yet seem not to know, that French, and English, and the rest, are equally our foe, and tyrant, and vulture, one not more than the other ! That if we do not eat them all now, at once, they all will swallow us whole some day, soon — soon. And to see China fighting with Japan in such a case, and Japan banging into China — is it not childish enough to make a donkey, or even a Grand Lama, laugh ? There are no statesmen any longer, Marquis.'

* Well, come, I see something in what you are driving at,' said Ito. 'We and China are like two birds' pecking at each other on a bough, when suddenly they are both down the belly of a serpent, which has been calmly watching them. Well, but what are we to do ? By your own showing, the birds can do nothing against the serpent.'

'Did I say that?' asked Yen, lifting his eyebrows in innocent surprise. ' Oh, I didn't mean it ! There are many birds, you see, and few serpents. In the world to-day there are 408,000,000 Christians and — mark the figures — 1,004,000,000 non- Christians. I can see that you are startled.'

' You think that by sheer force of numbers '

' Yes, if we had taken our opportunity in time — if we had struck two hundred — a hundred years ago. Even to-day I believe that it is hardly too late, if the yellow race can find a great leader. I am perfectly sure that in a hundred years time it will be too late.'

'Why so?'

i4 THE YELLOW DANGER

' I have told you. By that time the white man will have something like a magician's power over all nature. He will say to the mountains and the seas : " Be removed ! " — and at his mere whisper they will obey him. We yellow men, too, will have advanced, but they will have vastly outstripped us. We cannot follow them, I tell you. The day will come when our mere numbers will no longer be of any importance in baulking and overthrowing them.'

' You talk of big things, my friend,' said Ito. ' Are you serious ? '

'Yes, Marquis, I am serious.'

' You advocate a League of the yellow races ? '

' I do.'

' He ! he ! the idea tickles me ; it is so very far from realisation — there are so many obstacles '

'No, really — I think not. I believe it is very near to realisation. Events are at this moment in progress at Pekin which will force it to accomplishment — soon. Suppose I tell you that I, personally, have laid those events in train ? '

' You, doctor ? What, are you going to lead us all, then, against Paris and London ? He ! he ! '

'Perhaps, Marquis.'

' What, to face the Nordenfeldts, and the Maxims, and the Krupps ? The Chinese will run from the first twelve-pounder ! '

' There may not be any twelve-pounders there when they get to Paris and London] said Yen How with absolute coolness, yet with an emphasis and an intonation of solemnity in his voice which held the Marquis from answer for a minute.

' Really, I don't understand you,' he said at last.

'Yet my meaning should be clear.'

'No — do explain yourself.'

Yen How rose to his feet before he answered.

* Marquis,' he said, ' is it possible you do not see that China has it in her power to turn Europe into an exhausted waste within, say, three months from to-night, without firing a single shot, or spending a single tael ? '

CHAPTER III

RUMOURS OF WAR

As the year wore on, some of the International difficulties centring round Kiao-Chau, Port Arthur, and Hainan re- opened. In England more than all the old unrest revived.

What added to this unrest was the fact that some of the items of the rapidly -succeeding batches of news were quite inexplicable.

From the beginning of the year it had been known that Germany had not made so brilliant a bargain in the acquisi- tion of Kiao-Chau as she had imagined. The territory placed under her { sovereign rights ' had been strictly limited by China, and granted only as a 'lease.' When Prince Henry of Prussia arrived with the Deutschland and Gefion, he found that there were no ' laurels ' to win, and nobody at whom to strike out with his absurd mailed fist.

Moreover, on much the same terms as Germany obtained Kiao-Chau, and, later in the year, Russia obtained Port Arthur, Britain obtained Wei-hai-Wei and Mirs Bay.

What, then, was the surprise of the world, including the Germans themselves, when, in the middle of December, came the news that China had ceded a large additional region to the Kaiser, absolutely without conditions !

There was not a single brain in Europe which could divine the motive of this virtual gift.

At this time Li Hung Chang, recalled to power by the Emperor at the beginning of the year, was still at the head of affairs in Pekin. But in the short space of two months he had acquired the habit of taking no step without the suggestion of the new element in Chinese politics, the far-seeing Oriental-

1 6 THE YELLOW DANGER

European, the much -toiling member of the Tsung-li-Yamen, the omniscient Yen How. Already Yen had swung himself into the position of the virtual ruler of China.

Yen How seemed to Li Hung Chang, haunted as the old statesman had always been by the vision of dismemberment and downfall which overhung China, something like an angel of light. Here was another brain which saw as his had all along seen — only far more clearly, and with powers of invention far vaster to avert the catastrophe.

* Let us be definite,' Yen had said, in words which old Li long remembered, one night as they smoked together alone on a moonlit veranda. ' Do let us be honest with ourselves, your Excellency ! You agree with me that the yellow man is doomed — if the white man is not ; in your heart you think it. Then let us say it in definite words ; for as soon as ever we have said it, we have gone half-way toward grappling with our fate.'

' Ah, I have said it often and often,' answered Li, ' but to what good ? '

* If you believe that now is the time for action, as I do, you have the matter in your own hand.'

'How so?'

1 To me it is clearer than the moonlight there. The facts of the situation seem to stare me in the face.'

< Speak, Yen How.'

' I will speak, your Excellency. To me it seems that if we could supply a motive to the combined Japanese and Chinese nations to traverse Asia and the Caucasus, and then to overrun the Europe of to-day, there is no power on earth that could permanently check the overwhelming momentum of their progress.'

' It is nonsense, my son,' said Li, with a pull at his long pipe.

' Note this,' replied Yen — * I only say that I believe — for who can be sure ? The white man is strong and stern ; his frown is dreadful. I only say that I believe — though a host of four hundred millions cannot be mown down in a day, your Excellency. The throats of the Maxims might grow hoarse and burst at this task. Still, perhaps you are right — perhaps I talk nonsense. I did not seriously mean to propose a march against the Maxim thunder. But I have a thought — a thought.

RUMOURS OF WAR 17

Suppose China and Japan can take away the Maxims first, and then march afterwards.'

'Speak your meaning, Yen How,' said Li; 'all is dark to me.'

'We wish the white races killed,' answered Yen; 'well, there are two ways, are there not ? We might kill them our- selves— that, you say, is nonsense. The other way is to get them to kill one another.'

Li's pipj came from his mouth, and the outer comers of his eyes screwed up into an expression of the most exquisite enjoyment.

' What is left alive of them after their mutual slaughter,' Yen How went on, ' we can kill. Their lands will be weak with loss of blood, their treasuries will be exhausted — there will be no Maxims there any more.'

At these last words his own eyes, too, wrinkled up into delicious merriment.

' The trump card is in the hand of China,' he said.

How the white races were to be made to destroy one another Li never asked, though the conversation lasted far into the night. He knew well. That, at least, was simple.

' England,' said Yen as they parted, ' she is the worst. All the others against her.'

A few weeks afterwards the cession of large ' additional territories in China to Germany was rumoured.

And now followed, in rapid succession, a series of the most startling, the most inexplicable reports.

It seemed as if China was not waiting for dismemberment from abroad, but was dismembering herself wilfully, with precipitate frenzy.

First came the intelligence that France had been besought by the Chinese Government to assume the Protectorate, without conditions, of Hainan and Yun-nan.

These few lines of telegram threw Europe into a state of fever. It was decided by every one that, if the intelligence was true, no earthly consideration of risk would keep the rapacious hand of the Frenchman from grasping at this plum.

In a week or so it was definitely known that the news was true, and that France had accepted the offer. Rumours of war filled the air. The world was agog, and every spot was an arena for discussion. Only one man was silent — the

18 THE YELLOW DANGER

British Foreign Secretary. The newspapers besought him for a word ; he remained wrapped in taciturnity. A deputation of merchants waited upon the Under-Secretary ; he answered only with a few strong words of hope.

At this time Yen How's name got into the papers. It was said that this mysterious man, whose dazzling rise in the Celestial Empire was sketched, had recently taken a fresh journey to Tokio. Then a vague telegram, printed in England in small nonpareil type, appeared, stating that the probable object of Yen How's renewed journey was to conclude a secret treaty between China and Japan. But the report was unsubstantiated.

The real bomb was yet to burst into the midst of Europe. It was hurled by the St. Petersburg correspondent of the Daily News.

China had offered to Russia the protectorate of the Yangtse Valley.

It was now, for the first time, that it entered two or three of the shrewdest heads in Europe that China was deliberately seeking to plunge the world into war by working upon the rapacity and selfish greed of the nations.

One gentleman, living at a country-house in Hampshire, wrote to the Times to this effect. But his letter attracted no attention.

Yet, looking back now, it seems strange that the idea did not occur to others. For it must be remembered that the Yangtse Valley had been regarded as peculiarly the sphere of English power. More than this, England had now partly guaranteed a Chinese loan of twelve millions sterling, and it was agreed that the security for this should consist of the land-tax and the unpledged part of the Customs dues. Now, the chief source of both land-tax and Customs dues was the Yangtse Valley.

Yet the next day the Russian Novosli published an inspired article, stating that on no account could Russia withdraw from the prominent place into which events had forced her in the East.

The feeling in England was one of horror at the blind and criminal cupidity of the Continental nations. The word 'war' was on every tongue. Twice in one day there were hurried meetings of the Cabinet. Thousands of private

RUMOURS OF WAR 19

letters poured in upon the Foreign Office, urging patience and firmness.

But the hand of the Government was forced in an unex- pected manner.

Two items of news followed each other rapidly.

First, that on the 2ist day of the i2th moon of the 24th year of Kuang Hsii — that is to say, on the i4th December 1898 — the Yellow Jacket had once more been taken from Li Hung Chang ; and that the dominant talents of the man, Yen How, had triumphed over all obstacles, and raised him to the very head of affairs at the Court of Pekin.

The next day a telegram from Sir C. M. Macdonald, the British Minister in China, reached the Foreign Office. This was at once made public.

It stated that China professed herself unable to meet the next accruing interest -instalment on the loan, though the Minister had information from Sir Robert Hart, the Controller of the Imperial Maritime Customs, which led him to doubt the avowal of inability.

Whatever else this might mean, it certainly seemed to mean war. The security for China's default, real or pretended, which was due to England, had already been placed under the control of Russia.

In the House of Commons the Under-Secretary stated that there was still a hope of peace — a hope that ' the Empire of Russia would act with that spirit of fairness and magnanimity in this crisis which alone could prove her worthy of her great traditions.' These words were borne at a run by dozens of excited members to interested individuals among the crowd which surrounded the House from Westminster Bridge round to the Aquarium.

London went to sleep with some degree of quietude that night, Mr. Curzon's reply having been published in an eagerly bought-up 10 o'clock edition.

But the next morning, Mr. Goschen being abroad at an early hour, it was suddenly discovered that, by some extra- ordinary means, Malta was telegraphically isolated from England ; and a hurried telegram was at once despatched from the Admiralty to Admiral Sir Michael Culme-Seymour, the Flag-Officer in Commission at Portsmouth.

CHAPTER IV

FIRST BLOOD

BEFORE eleven o'clock the Majestic^ the flag-ship of the Channel Squadron, was leaving Portsmouth harbour behind her at the rate of ten knots. She was under the command of the senior officer in command of the squadron, Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Stephenson, and with her went the little gunboat Halcyon.

The mystery underlying the sudden journey of this couple was not difficult to unravel. The truth was, the Government was greatly startled by the event of the morning. The Majestic was, in reality, a convoy to the Halcyon ; the smaller vessel was acting as a despatch- boat to Malta, and the battle-ship was seeing her on her journey till she was deemed to be out of danger of molestation.

It had come to that already.

At the Government offices the words ' treachery ' and ' war ' had risen to more than one agitated lip. Europe, it was felt, was drifting, drifting — whither ?

The task of the Halcyon was to warn the Governor of Malta, and to order the mobilisation of the Mediterranean Fleet near the Straits of Gibraltar. It might be necessary at a few hours' notice to block the entrance of the Mediter- ranean ; it might even be necessary to hurl back a foreign invader from the shores of England, and the Channel Squadron was woefully limited in weight of metal.

During the day business in London came practically to a standstill. Wholesale withdrawals of foreign securities were reported from the City. By 3 P.M. it was generally known that a military attach^ to the Embassy at Paris had arrived by

FIRST BLOOD 21

private yacht with a sealed despatch from Sir E. J. Monson, and had hurried to the Foreign Office.

A day of almost breathless tension reached its climax when, at 9 P.M., Mr. Curzon made the announcement to a full House that peaceful negotiations were still in progress with Russia, but that, late in the afternoon, Germany had made demands of England and China with respect to the recently-ceded territories, with which England, as he might say at once, would certainly be unable to comply.

The next morning, before break of day, England found herself telegraphically disconnected with the Continent.

About this precise hour, the Majestic, having her small companion some half a mile or more away on her starboard quarter, was butting her way about S. by W. through a rough Biscay sea. It was a cold and squally morning, still dark, though a chill hint of day now mingled bleakly with the East. The sea was handling both ships rudely, and the Majesties ponderous lurching through some six or seven degrees brought the acrid green sea washing about the base of her forward barbette, while from the bows of the Halcyon it went hissing aft in a continuous rain of spray.

It was just after five bells in the morning watch, at an hour when the gloomy gray of the morning had lightened a little, that the look-out man of the Majestic reported a big ship astern steaming leisurely south about seven miles away. The rate of the Majestic was ten knots, that of the stranger about six; but immediately after her coming into sight, a black cloud of redundant smoke revealed the stranger's will to improve her pace.

That she had been lurking about with some object of search was clear. That she was now getting up steam seemed to indicate, if anything, that she had found what she was looking for.

In a few minutes it was- made out that she was La Gloire, a French battle-ship of about the weight and armature of the Majestic.

La Gloire's cloud of smoke was premature — it occasioned a suspicion of her motives. The first thing which Sir Henry Stephenson did was to order the Halcyon by trumpet-call to steam at full speed S.W. a distance of six miles. The Halcyon, at all events, had to be kept out of danger.

22 THE YELLOW DANGER

Yet he could hardly have expressed his reason for giving this order. Was any one at war with any one? He was ignorant of the fact, if so.

He was not long in doubt. La Gloire, even while getting up steam, had pricked off her course three points to star- board. It seemed as if she was about to give chase to the Halcyon.

' What ! Are we in for a fight then, Captain ? ' said the Vice-Admiral with a smile of surprise, and a puckered brow.

'It almost looks like it, certainly,' replied Fleet-Captain Hardy.

' Well, come now, we shall see,' said the Vice- Admiral.

By this time La Gloire had not only hoisted her colours, but had extra colours on masts and stays. The Majestic wore the ordinary single ensign.

Captain Hardy had ordered steam for full speed. The next moment the Majestic swung round to starboard about six points. She was still ahead of La Gloire. At her present course and speed she would interpose between the English gunboat and the French ship.

For quite half an hour the two ships continued to approach each other slowly and obliquely, having started from a separat- ing interval of about five miles. On this course the sea was more aft, and the rolling and sullen plunging of the ships less marked.

On board the Majestic, meanwhile, all was bustling action. Decks were cleared, magazines were opened, ammunition and projectiles got out ; water-tight doors were closed. The dawn lightened to a chill and drear twilight.

The real object of La Gloire was to intercept and capture any despatch-boat from the Channel, which might attempt to take intelligence through the Straits. The sending out of the battle-ship with such an object was, however, a breach of international law, and an act of treachery; for no one had declared war against England, though declarations of hostilities were already in the bureaux of more than one of the ambassa- dors at London.

That the despatch-boat should be convoyed, and by a first- class battle -ship, was unexpected. La Gloire found herself checkmated. There before her lay her prize ; but between her and it was the thunder and lightning of England.

FIRST BLOOD 23

But, though checkmated, she showed no intention of being checked. She kept on her way with rising speed. The two ships, in malign silence, like two red-eyed planets rushing to jarring combat, drew nearer. When their speed had increased to thirteen knots, they were about two miles apart. Decks on, both were cleared, collision-mats were ready, preparations were made for rigging torpedo-nets in an emergency. Nearer, in awful silence, they drew, two giants with limbs oiled for battle ; and the bleak and raw sea-wind of the dawning made hoarse sounds above their funnels.

But one of the ships was still in doubt whether there was to be fighting, and, if so, why. There was a brief consulta- tion on board the Majestic, and then she signalled :

{ Are we combatants ? '

There was no reply.

To this silence the Majestic sent aloft the answer :

' Trafalgar.'

And now the baleful silence recommenced. Both com- manders had stationed themselves in their conning -towers. On either ship not a soul was to be made out by the glasses save the crews of the quick-firing guns on the hurricane decks, and of the machine-guns on the tops. By five minutes past seven the fleet-engineer of the Majestic announced that he had steam enough to drive the vessel at her utmost trial speed. ,

The strategy of the French commander in riot answering the Majesties question was soon apparent, for Sir Henry Stephenson felt himself bound to wait for the first shot, being uncertain how matters stood on shore. And the first shot in modern naval warfare must often mean victory.

The two vessels slowly converged, La Gloire on the other's starboard side, steering S. by E. ; the Majestic on the other's port bow, heading S. by W. Suddenly La Gloire sharply altered her course by several points to the eastward, and impetuously bore down upon the Majestic.

'Well/ said Sir Henry Stephenson to himself, 'that is uncommonly like an act of hostility. Well, then, Mr. Frenchman - '

Immediately the Majestic, too, pricked off eastward, her after-pair of 67-ton guns being kept trained on the enemy as she manoeuvred. The ships were now so well within effective range that the Majesties thin smoke, blown into a wide

UNIVERSITY 1

24 THE YELLOW DANGER

hovering fog by the east wind, half concealed her movements from La Gloire.

For a time it seemed as if the British ship were in retreat, and the French giving chase ; then suddenly both ships were hidden from each other. Sir Henry, taking advantage of his windward position, had thrown overboard some twenty casks of smoke -producing tow and naphtha and tar, which at once separated the two ships with a blackness of thick brown reek, mingled near the water with bickering tongues of flame. The commander of La Gloire^ fearing that in this fog of fume the Majestic might suddenly turn about and ram him, at once changed his course south-west, and was immediately the retreating ship. The English admiral had guessed his thought, arid when the region of the smoke-making composition was passed, the beam of the Majestic was abreast of La Gloirfs poop.

It was the lieutenant in charge of the fore-barbette of the Majestic who first woke the thunder of this winter-morning tragedy.

Simultaneously, with one bang of wrath that shook the Majestic herself from stem to stern, both the 67-tonners of this barbette went crashing into La GloirJs quarters.

At this moment the ships were not much more than half a mile apart. When the smoke cleared it was at once seen that the whole stern armament of La Gloire was in ruins, her after-barbette shattered, the two heavy guns unshipped. One of the shells had penetrated abaft her after-armoured tube and there burst, killing fifty men, and rending into a chaos of debris all it met. From the poop of the French ship rose a wide hurry of white smoke. At the same time a steady bombardment of quick-firing guns was opened from both vessels. In three minutes all unarmoured or unsheltered spots in each ship were cleared of every living thing. Twelve -pounders, six- pounders, three -pounders mingled in swift -cracking uproar, punctuated by the brut growl of the Gardners and the more rasping detonation of the Nordenfeldts. All the air was war, and all the intervening sea a commotion of hissing foam.

But now the machine-guns in the tops were silent, their protecting shields had been shot away, and their crews annihilated. One of La Gloire's funnels was gone, and the

FIRST BLOOD 25

other pierced, while three projectiles from her had burst their way through shields of six-inch nickel steel, and put three of the Majesties central battery guns out of action, striking them fairly on the chase. Within three minutes the two ships had belched forth a flaming hail of some twenty-two thousand rounds of shot, riddling all except the most heavily- armoured parts of each other, tearing to shreds all light gun- screens, and turning unarmoured ends and box-batteries into shambles.

Already it seemed improbable that either ship, unless the other were at once destroyed, could come out of this anarchy of thunder and live.

The starboard side of the Majestic was still presented to the port of La Gloire, but La Gloire's speed had been greatly reduced, owing to injuries to her funnels, and the Majestic had forged forward abreast, then somewhat ahead of the other.

Vice-Admiral Stephenson was every moment awaiting the second crash of his after-barbette into the French ship's beam, when La GloirJs two fore-barbette guns sent out their voices simultaneously.

One of the shots glanced against the centre armour-belt of the Majestic at the water-line, leapt, struck her fore-armoured tube, and went driving far forward into the sea,< where it burst in a high water-lily of spouting foam.

The other wrought terrible havoc. It struck the Majesties central battery at the height of the deck, burst inside, blew away the chief part of the hurricane deck, and turned all the guns in that battery into a mere heap of twisted and crumpled metal.

But as the British ship staggered at this blow, her blue- jackets sent up a cheer, for the next instant the after-barbette in their own ship was talking, too ; and a few seconds after- wards it was seen that La Gloire's forecastle was on fire, tfiat she had gone down by the bows, and that her screws, half out of the water, were furiously revolving in a broad mound of wheeling spume.

Was she sinking, then ? The British Vice - Admiral ex- pected now to see her strike her flag. But even as he looked, he was undeceived.

Yonder, a hundred yards astern, somewhat to his port

26 THE YELLOW DANGER

side, he saw a sight which might have made even the heart of a Nelson leap. It was a small object, looking like a cubical box; and even as he glanced at it, it disappeared utterly beneath the waves.

He knew this to be one of the ingenuities from the Forges et Chantiers de la Mediterrane'e. It was a submarine boat, and the object which he had seen for a moment was the top of her conning-tower as she rose for an observation of distances and directions.

The submarine boat had been secretly lowered into the water from La Gloire's starboard side. Her motor was electric, supplied from storage batteries, and her speed, even at some depth, considerable. Vice-Admiral Stephenson knew that her aim was to pass under his torpedo-nets, carrying an electrically-fired torpedo, to be attached to his already half- ruined ship.

At once he went circling at full speed to starboard, crossing the bows of the now slowly-progressive La Gloire, one of whose fore-barbette guns was useless, and the other unready to fire.

At the same time he had rapidly lowered from his port side a second-class torpedo boat which he then carried on deck. By means of hot water from the Majesties boilers, she was already under steam, and with careful handling, in spite of the parent ship's now headlong, wheeling flight, she touched the water in safety, and at once went fretting fussily through the billows, a mere cloud of hurrying spray, at a speed of fourteen knots. Like some buzzing bee with deadly sting, she drove straight upon La Gloire.

The alarm on the French ship at this hasting ruin re- sembled panic. Disregarding the movements of the Majestic^ her commander at once put his helm a-port, and turning upon his small foe the comparatively uninjured armament of his starboard side, poured forth, in one continuous roll of artillery, a bombardment of some twelve thousand pounds per minute. La Gloire was now, however, well in the trough of the sea, which flowed in bulky swells from east to west ; the greater portion of her huge outburst of fire failed to take effect ; and still the puffing thing came near and yet nearer, overwhelmed, but steadfast, drowned, but headlong, tiny, but terrible.

The climax of the fight was near. It had lasted but a few minutes : it had seemed like an eternity in hell.

FIRST BLOOD 27

At about three hundred yards from La Gloire the little torpedo-boat launched a Whitehead.

As the oiled and gleaming needle of steel slid swiftly into the water, it passed straight through the body of a great swell, and came instantly out on the other side, making directly for La Gloire 's quarter ; but before it could reach her, the ship manoeuvred slightly to starboard, and the projectile slipped hurriedly under her stern, and exploded harmlessly some distance away.

But even as it did so, another torpedo came shooting through the waves from the little boat.

At the same time the crew of the torpedo-boat were seen to be wildly leaping at random over her sides into the waves. Seen — but dimly seen — for the whole craft from stem to stern, as well as all that region of the water into which she was now plunging on her last voyage, was enveloped in one hissing white cloud of stinging vapour. Two of her men instantly sank scalded to death. A twelve -pounder, shot upwards, had burst into her boiler.

It had not come from La Gloire. It had come from the unseen thing which was cruising darkly beneath the sea in search of the Majestic.

Immediately the submarine boat rose again, and the man in her conning -tower, looking a moment abroad, saw the Majestic — or rather he saw a vast mass of smoke which utterly concealed the Majestic and the direction of her bow. All he could note was that she was fearfully and wonderfully near to La Gloire; that she was approaching La Gloire — rapidly, rapidly — with horrid impetuosity.

He did not hesitate a moment, but, putting his fins into play, instantly sank, and made for a point at which he believed he would intercept the rushing ship.

The mass of smoke which he had seen around the Majestic had been intentionally caused by her commander. The Vice- Admiral had ordered every gun which still worked to be dis- charged, whether they bore upon the French ship or not, and enveloped in the mantle of ascending reek which poured from the hot weapons, he put his helm hard down, suddenly left the evolutionary curve of sixteen points through which he had been circling, and drove straight upon La Gloire. He was going to ram.

28 THE YELLOW DANGER

At that great moment expectation stood in horror. ' Pre- pare to ram ! ' went forth the command from the conning- tower, and every man on the Majestic fell flat to his face, as though at the sound of the trump of doom. And now, while the clock might tick, and tick again, the men on La Gloire became aware of what was coming. Up out of her envelope of vapour suddenly loomed the Majestic upon them, near and huge, like a monster rising from the deep. Just then the remaining fore-barbette gun of La Gloire was being discharged, and the ships being nearly bow to bow, the shell went forth with disastrous havoc, shattering the thickly armoured fore- barbette of the Majestic, battering the conning-tower, destroy- ing the funnels, and shocking the Vice-Admiral into a state of insensibility.

But even as it did so, the crash came. The ram of the Majestic touched La Gloire on her starboard bow, glanced a little, then with a horrid ' z-z-zip-p,' 'z-z-zip-pj then with a bursting and rending uproar like the cracking asunder of an arsenal, went tearing and smashing a shapeless hole 20 feet in length along her beam. The sea poured into the doomed ship ; and at once she lurched bow-ward to starboard.

But the ram of the Majestic was not yet clear of La Gloire, when the most stupendous hubbub of the whole battle, drowning every other sound, rent the heavens. It was a double detona- tion, yet the two reports followed so closely one upon the other, that they seemed almost like one.

They were the sounds of two torpedoes.

The 28,000 tons of the two great ships half-leapt from the water, and started apart, shivering to their keels; and two immense pillars of white cloud, which soon were one, rose high, shutting them from each other.

One of these torpedoes had been affixed by the crew of the submarine boat beneath the bow of La Gloire, which they had mistaken for the Majestic ; the other was the second of the two which had been despatched from the Majesties torpedo-boat before she had sunk. It had caught on to the keel of La Gloire aft, and its explosion had been delayed, perhaps half a minute, till now.

When the smoke cleared a little, the commander of La Gloire was seen, with blood- soaked clothes, and haggard face, and eyes staring with horror, standing on the wreck of his

FIRST BLOOD 29

after-barbette, frantically hauling down his colours. He sent forth to the wreck which he had made of the Majestic this cry of terror —

' Au nom de Dieu I — we are sinking ! — -for God's sake . . .'

The captain of the Majestic at once lowered his only boat which was capable of floating, though half of her port-side, too, was smashed away. The whole crew of the British vessel had hurried to deck, ready, even as they cheered in victory, to aid in the work of rescue.

But as the boat pushed off, men were seen leaping hurriedly from La Gloire, in a vain attempt to escape her suction as she went down. She gave them little time. The bursting of the two torpedoes fore and aft had simply turned her into a skeleton of disconnected ruin. She lurched a little aft — up went her bows like two hands laid together in prayer — then her whole length settled evenly lower ; she lurched aft again, obliquely, clumsily ; then, as if with sudden resolve, she skipped forward, dived her nose briskly into the sea, and disappeared.

Three of her crew of six hundred were saved.

Meantime, the captain of the Majestic was signalling to the Halcyon, waiting, eager for fight, five miles away :

* We are sinking — make haste.'

The great ship was settling slowly down by the bows ; for the torpedo which had burst beneath the bows of 'La Gloire had wrought great havoc upon the other's forward bottom also ; nor could the pumps produce much impression upon the inrushing waters.

The Halcyon succeeded in. taking off the hundred and fifty- two that were left of her crew, taking also on board the crew of the French submarine boat, who had escaped injury. They hardly stopped to watch the Majestic settle slowly down, before the gunboat's bows were once more turned, to bear her momentous message, toward the Straits.

But if Dr. Yen How had been there to see that battle of the giants, and its result, the corners of his eyes would have wrinkled up into a very web of tickled merriment.

CHAPTER V

HOW ENGLAND TOOK THE NEWS

ON the morning of the duel between La Gloire and the Majestic it was rumoured at an early hour in the neighbour- hood of Fleet Street that China had dismissed Sir Robert Hart from the Controllership of the Imperial Maritime Customs, and that a Russian was about to be appointed in his stead.

The announcement appeared in the morning papers, and its almost immediate consequence was a rise of threepence per quartern in the price of bread.

But though there were few who were not by this time in a state of excited expectancy, things on their outside wore much their usual appearance. In London the commonplace 'bus and cab went about the streets, and the occasional bicycle, with swift and silent feet, manoeuvred among them. Perhaps from Holborn and the Strand to the City the 'buses were fuller than ordinary, perhaps the cabs moved at a slight increase of pace. The pavements were rather crowded, as much, perhaps, as on a Christmas Eve night, not nearly so much as on a Lord Mayor's Day. In back streets the coalmen cried ' Coal,' and their faces were black with the grime of the ordinary worka- day of life.

Yonder, the sun wore his usual broad-faced benignity. He seemed to have no suspicion that on this particular morning his old earth was in her death-throes, and a quite new earth in travail to be born.

It was a bright and sunshiny forenoon, the 1 6th of March 1899 — eighteen days and nine months before the dawn of the twentieth century.

The Evening News it was which, in a premature eleven

HOW ENGLAND TOOK THE NEWS 31

o'clock fourth edition, applied the match to the latent mine of excitement which smouldered in the minds of the people. It declared in a little thunderbolt of breathless news, five lines of ' pica ' type, that the Stock Exchange had been suddenly closed, and that it was rumoured that the Government was appointing private brokers for the transaction of only such business as might be essential.

A step so decisive, as every one saw, could only have for its object the prevention of a financial panic which might be disastrous. And for this prevention there must be a cause not as yet generally known.

Yet such a step should have been expected ; for hardly any, except the peace-at-any-price party, any longer hoped that war could be averted — though with whom the war was to be, against what odds, it was not so easy to decide. At any rate, no one could suppose that the cessions of territory by China to the three Powers were spontaneous; it was shrewdly suspected that they were the result of a secret understanding arrived at between them and China at the time when the three had combined to save China from Japan, after the Chino-Japanese war. It had, therefore, the look of a conspiracy to oust England from her share in an empire four-fifths of whose commerce was being carried by British ships; and from end to end of the land the idea that England should submit to such a conspiracy was scouted with indignation.

The severance of telegraphic and telephonic communica- tion, too, between the Continent and England looked like an act of war, whoever was responsible for it. It was re- ported, and then denied, that three army-corps of 120,000 men were being mobilised toward Brest. It was known that the War Office, the Admiralty, and the Foreign Office were in intensely active inter -communication; that there were frequent and hurried meetings of the Cabinet. But still, with that silence which precedes the storm, with that subdued excitement which a trifle will cause to burst into passion, England waited, still hoping against hope to be allowed to go on her way in peace.

The public were in blissful ignorance of the fact that the Majestic and La Gloire had already been lying four or five hours at the bottom of the Atlantic.

Then came the announcement of the Evening News, and

32 THE YELLOW DANGER

the pent-up emotion broke suddenly out. In the City, even before this, the streets had become a mere sea, with currents and eddies, of thronging heads. Here the facts of the case were sooner known; when the rumour spread westward, London was awake. All pretence at traffic quickly ceased.

The general tendency and main current of this weltering human ocean was westward in that part of it which was east of Charing Cross, and eastward in that part of it which was west of Charing Cross. The House of Commons, as in all supreme moments of stress and danger, had become the cynosure and the magnet of the nation. Thither the throng pressed.

What was it all about ? No one was certain. Was there war — at last ? — in very truth ? And with whom ? No one knew.

For twenty-six years Europe had been practically at peace. The Grseco-Turkish war, the Spanish-American, were not wars — they were the bickering of naughty children. The Franco- German had been grim enough, but it had long since got to be recognised that the next, when it actually came — at last — would hardly resemble it ; for the French and German nations had fought, and each still existed an integral nation, in spite of the squabble ; but the struggle that was looked forward to when Europe, in the fulness of time, next brought forth her monstrous offspring of war, would, as men knew, be stupendous, world- wide, and final ; the combatants would consist of mankind ; the whole future of the world would be determined by it ; and in the greatness of that day, war, the destroyer, would itself be destroyed.

This was the logical outcome of the conditions under which Europe, groaning under her weight of armour, waiting, watching, eager to end her foul disease of hatred, had for many years been living.

And now — at last — she was in travail — pang on pang, and shriek on shriek ; and her birth-hour was at hand.

But in the London streets the crowd was worthy of the occasion — a crowd without violence, perfectly self-controlled — the meeting of a nation. There was a poor old Chinaman with a sore and swollen foot, on the heel of which he used to limp, begging, about the City and Holborn. By some chance he became involved in the crowd opposite the New Law Courts, where it was very thick ; and he was soon at a loss what to do with his big, bandaged foot without boot. At that moment

HOW ENGLAND TOOK THE NEWS 33

the name of China stank. But the old Canton beggar was no sooner seen to be in difficulties than the press opened before him ; he hobbled forward ; a murmur spread round him — half jeer, half cheer — and a rain of five or six pennies made him blessed. He hobbled through a lane which instantly closed behind him, thanking the gods for war.

The bells of St. Clement Danes burst out, telling the notes of a slow hymn-tune.

Eastward, in a window of the Daily News> there was a big sheet of paper, written over in large, blue-pencil letters with the words : ' War with Russia.'

Westward, in the fagade of the National Liberal Club, there was a square, white space exhibited to the public inscribed with the words in charcoal : ' War with France and Germany.'

' I s'y,' said a work-girl to her lover, ' there's a blooming Frenchman a-looking at the placard. Can't you tell by the squint of him ! '

'Oh, don't show him to me, or I'll go straight for him,' said Bill ; ' a Frenchman mykes me sick.'

But the girl's remark was passed on ; eyes were directed toward monsieur. He turned white, finding himself at the mercy of the crowd. But no harm was done to him; he was only quietly but persistently hustled, till he reached a comparatively empty by-street, dripping with the sweats of fear.

The exhibition of gratuitous notices in windows and at doors was the order of the day. Old habits of Stoic silence seemed for the moment to have disappeared — for the moment was ecstatic. Europe, it was felt, had drifted — drifted from the old moorings — into what new seas and latitudes? At Gatti's place in the Strand was written up in huge letters : 1 Italy to the Rescue ! ' In the shop window of some foreign faddist in Soho appeared these words : ' Russia is the Natural Ally of England ' ; and in Holborn, at the First Avenue Hotel, which was richly decorated with British and American flags, these words : 'One Blood, One Race, One Speech.7

A little street arab in half an hour attained to sudden wealth; he was a newspaper boy, and had in his hand a bundle of three Stars. In a moment of inspiration, Harry Tibbies, jammed against one of the lions in Trafalgar

34 THE YELLOW DANGER

Square, nimbly flung and twisted himself on to the pedestal, and held aloft his Stars. Thousands of eyes turned upon him. He took from his pocket a match, and deliberately applied the flame to the papers. Pointing to the smoke and flame, he cried in his shrillest Cockney :

' That's the French. So much for them / '

Thereupon he turned and pointed upward to the statue of Nelson. A shout of cheers at once filled the square, while the urchin was bombarded with a hail of pennies, sixpences, shillings, till he could no longer gather them up. When he had been lifted down, and coddled by the laughing crowd, an old gentleman got from him his address, and promised to remember him 'if' . . . but at 'if he stopped.

Down by St. Stephen's some cheers were making them- selves heard. It was three o'clock — a Thursday. The members were arriving in crawling carriages, one by one.

Mr. T. P. O'Connor stood up, leaning forward in his cab, bowing on each side, like Royalty. One man shouted : 1 Strike hard, Tay Pay ! ' And another : ' Don't spare them ! ' Mr. O'Connor drove out his large fist, and shook it in fearful menace at the sun.

The round orb of Mr. Chamberlain's eye-glass was all that could be distinctly made out of him, but behind it, his face seemed Rhadamanthine in its sternness, ashen in its pallor. A profound silence fell upon the people as he passed.

Within the House itself the benches were soon crowded, all but the Treasury and front Opposition benches. Prayers were read. So far there was no sign of impatience or emotion. There were ' Questions,' though there was nobody to answer them ; there was also a Light Railway Bill for somewhere to be reported, and the House calmly proceeded to the business in hand.

It was a place of stately traditions; the exhibition of emotion had always been foreign to it. Even when the elementary passions of humanity broke through, and swept like whirlwinds within its walls, it had known how to com- port itself with a dignity impossible to the other senates of the world.

No one, observing its outward aspect during that half-hour, could have dreamed that the nation it had led so long from

HOW ENGLAND TOOK THE NEWS 35

greatness to greatness stood on the very brink of swift and final ruin.

The Speaker put the question whether the Railway Bill should be reported. Only two Labour members rose to oppose it. The Speaker said presently :

' I think the Ayes have it.'

The thing was done. All eyes cast furtive glances in the direction of the spot behind the Speaker's chair. At that moment the form of Mr. Balfour was seen advancing slowly toward the Ministerial Bench.

Behind him, in a strange topsy-turvydom of party, came Sir William Harcourt talking to Mr. Chamberlain, and Mr. Asquith whispering to Mr. Curzon. Others followed. Then it was seen with a thrill, born of the certainty now of calamity, that the Prince of Wales had just quietly walked into the Peers' Gallery, immediately followed by Lords Salisbury, Rose- bery, and the Duke of Devonshire. Peering through the gratings of the Ladies' Gallery were Mrs. Gladstone, the Duchess of York, and others, while the Italian and American ambassadors sat in the places reserved for diplomats.

Below, in the body of the Chamber, was not a sound, except a faint scratching of the pen of the Clerk to the House. Yonder, in the Press Gallery, the alert pressmen held pencil or pen ready, eager to record for ever every word of the momentous utterance which was coming.

In the spirit of the House was deep commotion ; on the surface calm.

Mr. Balfour rose to speak.

His face bore traces of some sort of suffering, like that of a man who has passed through the travail of a great ordeal. This was partly due to a want of sleep, occasioned by the stress of the last few days. Under his eyes were the semicircles of fatigue. But, apart from this, the face which he turned absently round the House before he spoke was changed : the dilettante politician, the charming literary amateur, the ennuy'e lounger — these familiar phases of his personality were no longer in evidence. Care sat on his faded cheek, a gravity heavy as the world.

He made a half-turn toward the Speaker, and as he said 1 Sir,' and paused, his neck stiffened with dignity.

' Sir,' he repeated, * I need make no apology at the present

36 THE YELLOW DANGER

time for interrupting the ordinary routine of the business of this House. Some adumbration of what I have to say must have already entered the mind of every one present. And yet, perhaps, not even the most far-seeing and the most prophetic of us may have been able to forecast the gravity of the an- nouncement which it is now my duty to make to this House and to the people of Britain.

* The recent course of affairs in China is known to all of us, and to all the world. It has not been suggested, even by our enemies, that our policy in that country, either originally or recently, was an aggressive one. The enterprise of our citizens, indeed, in the ordinary course of commerce, secured for them the greater part of the foreign trade of the land j but with that strong and large bounty of our race, which resembles nothing so much as the free air of heaven and the breadths of the ocean which it inhabits, we have left it open to every man on the face of the earth to go and do likewise, by engaging in free competition with ourselves. Later on we secured the appointment of an Englishman to the Controllership of the Imperial Maritime Customs in China ; in view of the fact that our trade with China amounted to a sum of ten millions sterling annually, this was a step dictated by ordinary caution. But what has been the consequence to other nations ? This : that our nominee has impartially distributed all subordinate posts in his gift to French, German, Russian, and Englishman alike, regardless of nationality, regardful only of merit. Such has been our action in the past. With regard to recent events, we know, and our enemies know, that the Government of this country has, in its holy passion for the maintenance of the peace of the world, submitted to affronts, to wrongs, to insults even, which would, weeks ago, have driven any of the less restrained Ministries of continental empires into a declaration of war.

* Even on points where undoubtedly many an Englishman would have considered that concession was derogatory to honour, we made concessions. We asked only of Germany thabTientsin should be a free port ; of France, that Yun-nan should be open to British enterprise; of Russia, that the valley of the Yangtse river should remain neutral country. Without threats, with no exhibition of heat, we claimed these rights.

HOW ENGLAND TOOK THE NEWS 37

' The reply of France, of Germany, and of Russia has been a declaration of hostilities.

'Two hours ago their respective Ambassadors placed a notice of war in the hands of the Government.'

The House received this announcement with a perfect stillness, in which horror contended with indignation. Mr. Balfour continued :

1 It is impossible to doubt that this vast combination of power is the result of a wilful and wicked conspiracy, aimed primarily at the British Empire, but aimed, in the end, against the progress and happiness of the human race. It comes upon us, like a bolt from unclouded skies, at an hour when the democracies of the world, recovering from centuries of mutual bloodshed, begin to catch glimpses of the dawn of a better day, and look forward to the yet fairer fruits of the peace which they enjoy. Sir, the declaration of this war is a blasphemy against mankind, and can proceed only from those mysterious powers of evil which seem ever to stand ready to mar the blessedness of the earth. Away now, for many a day, with the fair aspects of our modern life, the quietude of homes, and the untroubled flow of things. With one thought, at least, every Englishman may console himself, as he goes forth to bear his part in this stupendous struggle : " Britain is not to blame." Not to blame — and yet not all-unprepared, I think, sir, to comport herself with high valour, as of old, in this the greatest crisis of her august history. Nor is it prob- able that there lives a single Englishman, who, even in this hour of trial, can doubt that that same Providence which has led our race from small beginnings to the empire of half the earth, will, in its dark purposes, conduct it yet further upon its destiny of triumph and glory.'

Mr. Balfour sat down in the midst of a cheer which burst from every member of the House — English, Scotch, Irish, and Welsh — in a very tempest of loyal passion. The assembly leapt to its feet, and volley on volley of enthusiasm filled the chamber with sound. Exultation, for the moment, took the place of dignity ; and there ensued an exaggeration of one of those whirlwind 'scenes' which have occurred at intervals. Members bounded across the breadth of the House ; in the midst of the tumult, Mr. Burns was seen at the Treasury Bench, shaking the hand of Mr. Chamberlain; two Irish

3 8 THE YELLOW DANGER

members were sobbing in a kind of hysteria to each other ; and Mr. Labouchere, forgetting, was shouting to Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, who happened to catch his eye : ' Russia must be conquered first, and then France — Russia first ! '

During this row and chaos, Sir William Harcourt rose, seeming to wish to speak. A Labour member, who had been talking at the Speaker's chair, rushed away. c Order ! Order ! ' cried the Speaker, rising. Almost instantly the House re- sumed its quiet, and sat once more stern and impressive. In five minutes it had spent its exuberance. Now it was the Parliament of Britain again.

It was noticed now, with wonder, that Sir William was at the Treasury Bench instead of on the Opposition side. Mr. Balfour near him, was leaning his head on his hands in a pose of absolute weariness. Sir William said :

' I am asked, sir, to say a few words by the Leader of the House. It was his intention to add a few brief words to what he has already said; but the mental strain put upon him during the last few days has left him in a state of practical collapse. The right hon. gentleman has asked me to supply his place. If it should seem strange to any honourable member that the Leader of the Opposition should be asked to supply the place of the Leader of the House, I can only reply that the Opposition now consists of the countries of Russia, France, and Germany; in this country, certainly, there is no longer an Opposition. (Loud cheers.) I believe it to be a fact, sir, that if the rulers of the Continental empires in question had had any kind of conception of the real temper of the nation which they have wantonly and cruelly attacked, they would have paused — they would have hesitated. It is a country hard to conquer, sir — a race hard to quell; at least, it will be a united race and country. Liberal and Radical and Tory shall henceforth lose their titles in the common appellation of Soldier ; there shall be no more Orangeman, and no more Parnellite ; these shall merge their names in the common name of Patriot. The moment is great ; but England is great, too, and equal to the moment. (Prolonged cheering.) I have risen to announce, sir, that the chiefs of the former Opposition have this hour come from a meeting in Downing Street, which we were requested to attend by the Leader of the House with a view to the formation,

HOW ENGLAND TOOK THE NEWS 39

between us, of a Permanent Committee of Public Safety. I wish also to state that an immediate reduction of the interest on Consols and Government Stock from two and three- quarters to one and a half per cent is proposed ; that a tax on non-professional incomes exceeding ^TOOO, considerably in excess of the present rate, has been agreed upon ; and that the House will be asked to read three times and report to-day — for it is possible that hostilities have already com- menced— a Bill granting to the Government a sum of seventy- five million pounds for war expenses.'

After this, with perfectly business-like calm and grasp of details, the House proceeded to the matter in hand, getting through a mass of work with a celerity which astonished itself. Near six it rose.

An hour previously the Serjeant-at-Arms, attended by a mass of city functionaries, had declared war against the three countries from the steps of the Royal Exchange.

Meanwhile, the news had gone like wild-fire through the country ; and everywhere it met with the same indignation, scorn, and hard-headed pride. It was not, as Sir William Harcourt had shrewdly said, a particularly easy task which the nations of Europe had undertaken.

England might break; but it was already clear that she was not fashioned of the kind of steel which could be made to bend.

CHAPTER VI

HARDY

1 INVASION ' was the word which more frequently than any other rose to the lips of Englishmen.

The muster of French, Russian, and German ships in the Northern Seas was eagerly criticised. It was found that their weight of metal was overpoweringly great compared with the small muster of the Channel Squadron. Away out in the China Seas the British fleet had been strengthened; it was cruising in force in the Mediterranean ; it was at the Cape, at Australia, at North America, at the West Indies, in the Pacific ; it was not in the English Channel.

Under these conditions the war-like activity in Britain itself went on with intensity. Even before the declarations of war the Adjutant -General had issued telegraphic orders all over the country for the calling out of the first-class army reserve, and the mobilisation of the militia and volunteers. With wondrous celerity commercial England turned herself into military England. What conscription did for foreign countries, that the manly mood of the race did for us. The women of England, especially, exhibited a spirit as war-like as the peril of their country was immense; and banishing fears and tears, they put on the sternly-proud brows of those heroic Roman matrons, who laughed when their sons were borne home dead with wounds in front. { Go along, boy, and give it 'em 'ot this time ! ' said a Clerkenwell mother, hand- ing his musket to her son. ' And don't be a-sparing o' thot sword o' thoine, Jock,' was the admonition of a Lancashire wife as her husband, in premature haste, set out, like many another, to flock to the regimental centre, before receiving

HARDY 41

the intimation that his presence was requisitioned. 'And you'll give them a good taste of what old Devon men are like, won't you, Steve?' was the exhortation of a Bideford lass. This was the mood — heroic, nothing less. Night and day the regimental districts and all military centres were hard at work, calling rolls, drafting troops to their regiments, and making all necessary preparations. A sound of trumpets re- echoed through the land.

On the night of the announcement in the House of Com- mons, at about ten o'clock, — suddenly, on the east balcony of Buckingham Palace, the Queen appeared.

It had been supposed that she was still at Windsor, and by what contrivance she came here without attracting attention was unknown ; to the crowds, thirsting, as they were, for some outward symbol of the might of England to which they could vent their intolerable emotions of love and loyalty, she appeared like a god-send dropped from Heaven.

One involuntary far-reaching shout of joy, spreading by contagion far up Piccadilly, far along Pall Mall, and re-echoed in thousand-fold acclamations, even by those who could not see her, burst instantly forth. A strong limelight or electric- light arrangement had been contrived, which focussed a powerful beam of white concentrated luminosity around her, and shot in shimmering rays far out and down through the night. Grouped around her was a party of the Royal family. On the right, the Prince of Wales; on her left, Lord Salisbury. In her hand she held aloft an object, the significance of which the crowd for a moment failed to grasp. When it did, the enthusiasm intensified beyond all bounds. It was one of the faded and ragged old flags, brought that afternoon from St. Paul's, which had served as ensigns in Wellington's Peninsular campaign.

A scene similarly striking was being witnessed on the esplanade at Southsea at the same hour, where some seven thousand blue-jackets, and the marines from Gosport, were on parade, and were being reviewed by the Princess May. Hither she had hurried after witnessing the scene in the House, and by the side of her sailor-husband, and Sir Michael Culme-Seymour, rode from end to end of the improvised ranks. Prince George addressed the men with a message of

42 THE YELLOW DANGER

confidence from the Queen, and hinted at the awful odds which they would probably soon be called upon to face. He and every one was conscious that he was talking to doomed men.

The Princess dismounted. She had a basket, which she opened, and from it took a strip of blue ribbon. A high flush of ardour mantled her face as she attached it to the bosom of a staff-captain near her. A touch of pathos was added to the ceremony through which she now deftly went by the fact that she wore a loose velvet mantle, the reason for which could not be concealed. To every officer, from fleet- captain and commodore to sub-lieutenant and cadet, she attached the little symbol of affection. So solemn was the rite that even the crowd was silent. It was her salute to the dying.

But even during the progress of this scene, one of a number of picket-boats which had been sent out from Portsmouth during the day was steaming into the harbour, fussy with news.

She and two companions, smart little steam-pinnaces which flitted through water like fish, had, earlier in the day, spied a fleet of cuirasses^ canonnieres^ croiseurs, and bailments de trans- port about S. by E. from Newhaven, fifty miles out. They were mostly French, but there were some German also.

The three boats, at intervals of a few minutes, came panting into Portsmouth harbour, like fluttered birds. Each contained five men, and the fifteen, almost at the same time, stood grouped round the Commander-in-Chief on the Hard.

' Could you make out what ships they were ? ' he asked.

4 We were rather too far off for that, sir,' answered a sub. near him.

There was silence for half a minute.

It was broken by a voice, which said :

1 The Amiral Baudin is among them, sir, the Hoche, the Massena, the Kaiser and the Deutschland?

Sir Michael Culme - Seymour turned ; he looked at the speaker; his eyebrows lifted a little. He did not know him.

Then, after a minute's deliberation, the Admiral said :

' How many ships all told ? '

1 There are about seventeen battleships, sir,' answered a middy eagerly, ' about twenty to twenty-three cruisers, and a

HARDY 43

large fleet of liners — Messageries Maritimes and Norddeutscher Lloyd — with an indefinite number of gun and torpedo boats, tenders, and composite small craft. They are making for Bognor, Littlehampton, or perhaps Worthing in a quadruple line of a good twenty or thirty cables' interval.'

' There can hardly be seventeen battleships,' said the Admiral musingly. ' Do you confirm that ? '

He turned suddenly to the unknown person who had ad- dressed him before — a mere stripling with a face highly flushed with excitement.

'Well — not quite, sir,' the young man replied; 'I de- cided that there were fourteen battleships, twenty-four cruisers, thirty-eight troopships and liners, and a flotilla of 104 small fry.'

' You seem pretty certain of your figures ? ' the Admiral said, with a smile.

* Middlingly certain, sir.'

' May I ask — who are you ? '

* My name is John Hardy, sir.' ' And your ship ? '

'The Powerful, sir.'

' Then, what on earth are you doing here ? '

(The Powerful was away out in the Yellow Sea, whither she had been commissioned since the previous year;)

' Looking about, sir,' replied the young man, dropping his light-blue eyes.

'But why are you not in China ?'

* I fell ill just as my ship was going to sail, sir,' and as he said it, he gave one of those peculiar half-secret coughs, so indicative of the consumptive chest.

' I see. Well — but how came you to be in the JupiteSs picket-boat ? '

'I was on the Jupiter as a middy before joining the Powerful, sir. Captain MacLeod knows me, and has been kindly pleased to notice me. I am a bird without a roost. I came down from London, hoping for some of the trouble down here. Captain MacLeod allowed me to take '

' Ah, that explains it, then. Well, he seems to have done well.'

The Commander-in-Chief bestowed upon him a smile of passing approval, and turned away. In a moment he had

44 THE YELLOW DANGER

forgotten the young seaman ; but when, a little later, he was reading a telegram from the chief coastguardsman at Worth- ing, giving the sighted ships of the enemy, number for num- ber, as Hardy had given them, then he thought once more of John Hardy.

1 Extraordinary genius for facts,' he murmured.

The Admiral knew that the picket-boats must, in order to avoid being blown out of the water, have reconnoitred the advancing fleet at such a distance as to be themselves invisible, or nearly so, to the enemy. There could be no doubt that John Hardy's long-lashed, azure-blue eyes possessed the faculty of seeing.

It often happened that people who came into contact with this young sailor thought of him a second time at unexpected moments, as the Admiral now did.

In a previous chapter we said that Dr. Yen How, sitting in a London 'bus on a certain night, was ' perhaps ' the most important person in the world. We should have stated the fact with quite absolute decision, if it were not that we were thinking of this particular sub-lieutenant, John Hardy.

They two — the little Chinese doctor, and this con- sumptive English lad — held in their hands the destinies of the world.

Each had his own idea of the shape which the future of the human race should take ; each was determined that it should take the shape which he chose, and no other ; and each was immensely strong.

It was fated that these two should meet — soon — and more than once.

It was now six o'clock, and the blue-jackets had already passed in a swarm of hurrying boats to their respective ships. As the telegrams arrived from the coastguardsmen on the south-east coast they were transmitted by semaphore to the fleet. The Magnificent, under Rear-Admiral John Fellowes, was the flagship of the second-in-command of the Channel Squadron, and now, in the absence of the Majestic, became the flagship of the fleet.

At the Horse Guards, meanwhile, Lord Wolseley was receiving and sending message after message, both telephonic and telegraphic, relating to the despatch of troops from Aldershot, Victoria, London Bridge, and Clapham Junction

HARDY 45

to the South. Every ten minutes a Brighton and South Coast train, packed with over a thousand regulars and volun- teers carrying a day's cooked rations, dashed forth from each of these stations. Away in hasty flight swept the long strings of bristling carriages, the throttle-valves shrieking the dragon-cry of defiance and challenge which England sent out in answer to her foes.

By seven o'clock fifteen thousand men were massed upon Brighton, and an unaccustomed rattle of some ninety limbers sent thrills of very unusual dismay through the placid bourgeoisie of London-by-the-Sea. War, so long a word and a myth, had suddenly become a thing, real enough, near enough. Long files of private carriages, taking away mostly women and children, wended northward upon the Brighton road, while a crowd filled the steep street leading to the station, to watch the ever-new batch of arrivals which debarked at all the platforms, up and down alike, and at sidings, the empties being returned along the up and down lines according to convenience. By eight o'clock thirty thousand troops with one hundred and ten guns, under Sir Evelyn Wood, were concentrated, and waiting for the enemy; and all through the night the number was being rapidly increased.

But they waited in vain.

England had been several times invaded by foreigners. The last occasion was in the year 1066, and that occasion Providence designed to be the last for ever. This land had since then nursed a race as superb and firm as the foot with which she spurned the breakers raving round her in- violate shores.

At one bell in the second dog-watch the signal was given from the flag-ship : the Channel Squadron, in a double line ahead, at intervals of six cables, some under forced draught, was to steam down Spithead for the Channel, the Magnificent^ like the bell-wether of a flock, leading one line, the Prince George the other.

At that moment John Hardy climbed from the look-out pinnace which he had been permitted to command, on to the deck of the Jupiter.

His heart misgave him, he shrank within himself, he slunk guiltily. He knew that he had only to be noticed to be

46 THE YELLOW DANGER

turned peremptorily away. He was merely a visitor, a guest — a privileged one, it is true — but an outsider. That he should dream of taking part in the coming fight was preposterous, the more so as every man knew beforehand that all were going to certain death. And he had no shadow of status in any ship present.

But he wanted desperately to see the row, and his mind was one of those dominant ones not very subject to considera- tions of routine.

Once, when a * chief-captain ' of cadets on the Britannia, with no further temptation to dissoluteness than his weekly two-and-sixpence of pocket-money, he had been reported to the Admiralty for 'unsatisfactory conduct'; another such report, and he would have bidden farewell to the British Navy for ever. It was that same gipsy attitude of mind, that sort of devil-may-care lawlessness characteristic of him, which was working in him now, as he stood sulkily there, abaft the after- funnel. He felt like being shut out and banished — and he wanted to see the row. He thought of skedaddling and hiding till the ship was well out from land.

But there was a suspicion of meanness in this contriv- ance, and even while he hesitated, Captain Angus MacLeod sighted him.

The captain had been an intimate friend of Hardy's father, and was an executor of the very large real and personal fortune of which the boy was the heir. Hardy now, at the age of nearly nineteen, was an orphan. The family was Hampshire. The country-house in which he had passed his earlier boy- hood lies fifteen miles south of Andover.

The captain beckoned. Hardy ran and stood before him on the hurricane-deck with downcast eyes, and cheeks blushing like a girl's. By nature he was extremely bashful.

1 You here ? ' said the captain, with a deep seriousness in his tone.

* As you see, sir,' answered John, with a faint attempt at a smile, and a nervous shifting of a leg.

* You know as well as I do, John,' said the captain sternly, ' that this is only a piece of insolence on your part ! '

' If it strikes you in that light, sir — of course : but I should take it very kindly of you if you could see your way to let me be in for the trouble.'

HARDY 47

'In for the trouble? This is a most unprecedented piece of cheek, John Hardy ! Be good enough to get ashore, sir. Do you imagine that I am going to have your blood on my hands, then ? '

4 Whose blood, sir?'

* Your blood, sir ! '

I My blood is all right, sir,' said John sulkily.

c Come, come, are you sane ? Can't you see that we are all going to pretty certain death, boy ? '

I 1 can't think that, sir.'

'Not? Aren't French and German cannon as good as English, then?'

1 They may be on land, sir ; but hardly, I think, on Her Majesty's seas.'

At these words, 'Her Majesty's seas,' back went the captain's head in one sudden cry of gleeful laughter. Her Majesty's seas ! Perhaps there was not one living man English enough, and audacious enough, to produce that phrase, save this particular sub-lieutenant standing bashfully there.

But he, on his part, saw nothing extraordinary in the phrase — it slipped from him quite naturally, an offspring of his quietly supercilious habit of mind.

The captain's face settled soon again to gravity. This was no laughing matter.

' But we are wasting time, John Hardy,' he said severely. ' Will you be good enough, now, to leave my ship ? '

1 In what, sir ? '

1 In — in — what did you come in ? '

' In the picket-boat, sir.'

The captain turned his face from side to side, puzzled and irritated. John, seeing entreaty useless, was adopting tactics.

* You shan't stay here, sir — that is certain,' cried the captain. ' Somehow or other — you go ! Get the dinghy.'

' Shall I scull her ashore, sir? ' 'Yes.'

' And who will bring her back, sir ? ' ' I don't care ! Take two blue-jackets, then.' ' Isn't it rather late, sir ? ' 'How?'

'I fancy the ship is already moving rapidly through the water, sir.'

48 THE YELLOW DANGER

The captain started.

' Boy, boy,' he muttered under his breath. He loved the lad, and had loved his father.

But the captain was just now extremely busy. He tossed his hand and walked away. The strength and tenacity of John Hardy's will sometimes produced results which had the look of fate and inevitableness.

And so it happened that he was with the Channel Squadron, borne in the Jupiter ; when it steamed at thirteen knots past Selsey Bill to meet the fleet of the Allies.

CHAPTER VII

IN THE CHANNEL

DR. YEN How had his Idea, and John Hardy had his. Nothing in the world is of such supreme importance as an Idea.

Dr. Yen How's Idea was this : that the cupidity and blind greed of the white races could be used by the yellow man as a means to the yellow man's triumph ; the white races could be made to exterminate each other preparatory to the sweep, in hundreds of millions, of the yellow man over an exhausted and decimated Europe. Hence the grants by China of territories to Russia, Germany, and France — and the consequent war.

John Hardy's Idea was this : that the new naval warfare admitted of every bit as much constructive plan and shrewd sea- tactics as the old ; that the sailor-hero was still possible — the new Drake, the new Richard Grenville, the new Nelson ; that it was not (as every one supposed) a mere question of weight of metal, or superiority of gun-fire, now any more than it ever was ; that a man born with the sea in his soul, and the sea- breeze in his hair, like the old sailor-souls, would still do the trick.

This was his Idea ; and he had also this other, subsidiary to that first one — had it more vitally than any other modern Briton — that nothing in the world was of the least importance, except England, and the march of England, and the glory of England.

Perhaps the lad was utterly unconscious that he had these ideas, but he had them ; they were there in him, radically and profoundly ; and if he was unconscious of them, as he was of

E

50 THE YELLOW DANGER

his circulation, that was an added proof of their radicalness and profundity.

His nature was as elementary, and simple, and strong, as the nature of Dr. Yen How.

Just as the captain of the Jupiter flung his head irritably and turned from him, John Hardy caught the sleeve of a middy who was hurrying past, and said eagerly :

' I have got permission to see the row after all ! '

* Good biz,' the middy nodded, as he passed on. ' I wish you joy ! '

And presently he was at the sleeve of a sub., saying :

'Here I am, you see. I have got permission to look on at the row after all ! '

' It is like your ubiquitous luck, Hardy,' the other said, and hurried by.

Hardy was usually more taciturn than this ; the fact that he went about in this way volunteering his news showed that he was more or less excited, out of himself. He was going to see a fight — a real one this time. To this moment he had no idea what a naval battle was actually like. Summer manoeuvres were a different affair.

His coldly practical nature was illustrated by the fact that the grudging quality of the captain's permission did not at all lessen his satisfaction ; he had got it — that was enough. He looked only at results.

The object of the enemy was to effect a landing at Shore- ham, or near it — a quiet spot, less conspicuous than Brighton or Worthing. They hoped by their prompt and sudden arrival, so soon after the declaration of war, to catch the British fleet napping — as, in fact, they partially did — and so to be able to land three corps d'armee^ consisting of 120,000 men, 360 guns, 30,000 horses, and a fairly adequate commissariat and field-transport materiel, without the inconvenience of first of all undergoing a naval engagement.

Their sudden presence on the shores of Britain proved that war must have been secretly premeditated and prepared for by them some time before the declaration of hostilities — another indication of that suspicion of treachery which, all through, characterised the action of the Allies in this war. But the excellent telescopes of the coast-guards, and the brisk scouts of the British fleet, served to give a warning which, though

IN THE CHANNEL 51

late, was not hopelessly so. The enemy, moreover, in their over-confidence, had committed an error in tactics in approach- ing too near the coast while there was still a little twilight.

Off Bognor the captains and commanders of ships were assembled in the large ward-room of the Majestic. Rear-Admiral John Fellowes had signalled half-speed, and summoned them to a conference.

The officers sat round, hanging on his words, as the Rear- Admiral began to speak.

* Of course, gentlemen,' he said, ' it has been a matter of anxious consideration to me in what formation we are to approach the enemy. What makes our arrangements rather difficult is the fact that we know little of their present dis- position. But it seems to me that one thing should be certain — namely, that their troop-ships and liners will be stationed well in the rear, while the whole weight of metal of their ships of war will be put forward to protect their land forces on the liners, etc. They will assume that our first care will be to destroy their land forces in our panic at the idea of invasion, . and their whole effort will be bent upon protecting them, and frustrating us.

* Of course, in thus guessing our objects they are right enough. We wish, naturally, to baulk the attempt at in- vasion ; but I must point out to you that our object, to be wise, must be twofold, and that our secondary object is more important than our first. I mean, that from the reports we have received of the number of transports, etc., it is impossible that they can have with them a land-force of more than 1 20,000 to 160,000 men, and that, even supposing these effect a land- ing, the land-forces at present in Britain are possibly quite capable of dealing with them, provided the enemy be not reinforced by fresh increments of invading army-corps in the near future.

' It must, then, be our business to make such fresh invasions impracticable for some little time by shattering, as far as we can, the enemy's powers of convoy — that is, their ships of war. For I need not point out to you that the combined countries of France, Russia, and Germany may place several millions of armed men in England, practically as fast as they choose, if only they have ships to bring them over, and a convoy to protect them from the battleships and coast-defence ironclads

52 THE YELLOW DANGER

at British stations. And against such forces the land-force of Britain would, of course, be impotent.

c This, then, is my point of view. We must send back our invaders with such a rip in their battered metal that these particular war-ships shall have had enough of invasion for some little time.

' In the effort we shall all probably perish, but that, I take it, is not with any of us a matter of salient importance.

' What I propose is this : that we approach to within five miles of the enemy in our present formation ; if they approach us in line abreast, or in a semicircle convex or concave, then we echelon right and left respectively, each battleship fasten- ing on the nearest antagonist as fortune may decide; while gunboats, torpedo-boats, and fast third-class cruisers like the PeloruS) will deploy right and left in an attempt to get behind the enemy, where they will do all the damage they can, special attention being given to the destruction of rudders and screws, so as to obviate their ramming-power.

1 If, on the other hand, they confront us in line ahead, then we retain our formation, the first ship attacking the first, the second the second, and so on.

'My instructions at present cannot, of course, but be general, and much, in any case, must be left to individual initiative — happily so, I think, in the case of British com- manders. Further orders will, if necessary, be sent out by trumpet-call, and passed from ship to ship in both files.'

A bow of acquiescence went round the table. The policy was felt to be bad for the immediate present, but wise for the immediate future.

At that moment the flag -lieutenant of the Rear- Admiral entered the room.

' The enemy's fleet is reported in sight, sir,' he said.

' Ah ! what is the hour ? '

' Nearly three bells, sir.'

' What has been made out ? '

' Only three electric search-lights in a line — probably they are thirteen miles off.'

1 Are preparations well advanced on board ? '

'Yes, sir.'

' And the same, I presume, in all your ships, gentlemen ? '

They all expressed assent.

IN THE CHANNEL 53

* Well, then, gentlemen, here, you see, we are in for it — " it " meaning the first really great naval battle of modern times. I dare say that we shall conduct ourselves with credit, fighting as we do in the name of justice and our country. In half an hour, say, we shall be face to face with these people. I recommend that a ration of grog be served out to all blue- jackets meantime, and that final preparations be pushed forward. My flag-lieutenant will send up as signal the words " For England." I think that is all I need say now, except to wish you a very hearty good-bye, and a fine fight, and the aid and favour of Almighty God.'

The officers, having saluted, trooped hurriedly forth with mutual adieux, and half-satiric, half-sad morituri salutamuses^ and went away through the gloom each to his own ship.

The snouts of the ponderous bulks of metal were ploughing leisurely through the sea.

Yonder, lit by flash-light on the flag -ship, fluttered the battle- word of the coming combat — ' For England.'

But the night now had darkened. A wind freshened from the sou'-west, and drove sombre expeditions of slow cloud over the face of the scurrying and struggling moon. She seemed affrighted at the pregnant silence of this gliding navy — a silence pregnant with a thousand thunders. But the sea was fairly calm, crisped only with short low fringes of foam driven by the wind.

The Jupiter was the second ship in the port file — that is to say, on the side nearest the coast as the fleet forged eastwards.

Her captain had been so preoccupied with affairs during the bustle of the afternoon that he had eaten nothing for hours. Almost immediately on reaching his own ship after the conference, he hurriedly descended to his quarters, and sat to swallow some cold mouthfuls.

Happening to lift his eyes as he ate, he saw, sitting on a couch in the apartment, and quietly watching him, his guest, John Hardy. He had forgotten John.

'Well, John,' he said, across a gag of mutton, 'so you have dared, after all. In spite of my orders, eh, sir ? Well, I suppose I must make the best of you, as you are here. But you are a foolish lad, you know.'

' It can't be of any consequence, sir/ said John. ' I wanted to see a fight. It is always experience.'

54 THE YELLOW DANGER

' Yes, yes. But a young man like you. Have you no care for your life, sir ? '

' It can't be of any consequence, sir.'

{ " A day less or more, On sea, or on shore, We die — does it matter when ? "

Is that the sort of sentiment, eh, John ? '

' Something of that sort, sir.'

'Well, you might do worse, perhaps. But what is the matter with you ? The sweat is rolling down your face.'

'They have been allowing me to help a little about the ship, sir.'

* What, with your own hands, sir ? ' ' Yes, sir.'

* Well, John Hardy — I shall never have another chance of telling you, so let me tell you now, boy — I must say that I regard you as a most worthy specimen of the Navy. Your school and cadet careers were not very brilliant, were they ? Rather — ahem — well — we will say nothing of that. But in other respects — you know what I would say, perhaps — I give you my Certificate — that sort of thing. Certainly, you are as bold as a fly, modest, thoroughly English — a little — er — original, perhaps, eh, sir? Like your father, eh, sir? But with the makings of a great sailor in you, John Hardy. Pity you should be throwing yourself away like this.'

John was blushing.

* You are very kind, sir,' he just muttered.

' Do not mention it. The circumstances excuse one, you know, in being quite frank.'

' Quite so, sir.'

John, all the time, was burning to ask a question. Sud- denly he said :

'Might I ask, sir, what are the proposed tactics for the battle ? '

* Well, John, there's going to be plenty of fun, apparently, for you to see. The idea is to concentrate all our efforts upon the battleships and big cruisers, so as to render it out of the question, if possible, for this particular fleet again to act as convoy to an invading force.'

'And the liners and transports, sir?'

IN THE CHANNEL 55

' They are to be left severely alone this time.' 1 To land their troops on British soil, sir ? ' 'Yes, boy — yes — this time.'

Suddenly John Hardy leapt to his feet, his hands clenched, his face inflamed.

'Oh, sir/' he cried.

The captain looked at him in surprise, saying :

' Well, what's the matter ? '

* Captain MacLeod, England will never bear such an indignity ! '

' Well, my boy, but war, you understand, is not fun and heroics — it is dead earnest. England will have to bear it, I'm afraid.'

1 She shan't, by God I ' cried John Hardy, striking out his right fist, suddenly riven and smitten by the Call of Heaven within ^m.

Then, immediately, he fell back upon the couch, sobbing bitterly into his two hands.

The captain stood over him, patting his shoulder, murmuring :

* Poor John ! poor John ! '

CHAPTER VIII

THE BATTLE

THE fleets drew nearer, vaguely revealed to each other by electric search-lights. ^

That morning, as early as five o'clock, the French, Russian, and German national anthems had been played ^ on board the fleet of the Allies at Brest, and the colours saluted. Immediately afterwards the ships steamed out of harbour. The land-troops were already massed on board the transports.

To prevent their movements being watched and reported, they had proceeded at a high speed, never very far from the French coast, till they reached the longitude of Fecamp; then, striking directly northward for Beachy Head, had slackened speed about five o'clock, forty miles from the coast; then, as the twilight gathered, they had deflected their course to about west by north, making in a leisurely way for the neighbourhood of Shoreham. When they first became aware of the approach of the British fleet, they were moving almost directly westward, as the British were moving directly eastward.

The formation of the enemy was in a quadruple line abreast. In the front were fourteen first-class battleships at twelve cables' interval ; in the second, cruisers of the three classes ; in the third, gunboats, torpedo-boats, and composite gun-vessels ; in the fourth, the array of liners and troop-ships bearing the land-forces.

The British Rear-Admiral had rightly surmised what would be the action of the French Centre- Amiral ; his primary thought was for the troop-ships. Out from the flagship went a

THE BATTLE 57

trumpet-call, repeated far over the ocean in a long line of sonorous and brazen-lunged iteration. Down the files of ships it went braying, a voice that died and instantly rose in vibrant outcry again, commanding all troopers and liners to go pacing backward twelve miles to eastward, and there maintain a hollow square till further notice.

Through the wide region of black smoke which poured forth now over the Channel from the entire allied fleet, flocked the captains of ships to a hurried conference with Centre - Amiral des Vismes de Monthier on the Amiral Baudin.

His recommendation was that the allied battleships should form in two double lines, converging inwards toward the British ships, just as the British ships (as could be already surmised) were diverging outward toward the Allies. He said : * \|^ have fourteen battleships — they, I take it, eight.' (In reality, the British battleships only numbered seven, for the tyajestic was gone.) ' I propose, then, that the four battle- ships of our present line now farthest to starboard will form the outer converging line of starboard attack, and the next four the inner converging line, parallel to the outer; thus, toward the coast, two starboard lines of eight allied battle- ships will have between their broadsides a line of four British battleships — and the contest, I think, should be shdrt.

'In the same way with our port battleships; the three farthest to port will form the outer converging line, the next three the inner — thus two port lines of six allied battleships will have between their broadsides a line of four British battleships, eight to four, and six to four. The contest should not be long, messieurs. I even suggest, as a point of tactics, that, in view of our preponderance, we should make our victory instantaneous by placing a very short interval between the combatant ships — say, a kilometre at the most ; for, of course, the shorter the conflict the less our damage — a point of immeasurable importance to us, considering the role we have to fill in convoying more invading land-forces in the near future. I need not point out, too, that an enemy's ship, hemmed in between two hostile ships, will be the more hampered in ramming, the closer the quarters. But we have little time for talk ; cruisers, gunboats, and composite vessels will find their work cut out according

58 THE YELLOW DANGER

to the dispositions of the enemy's less massive flotilla. I can only hope that these recommendations meet with your approval, as I know they do with that of my colleague, Vice-Admiral von Griidenau. Adieu, then, messieurs ! This interruption to our progress will, in a quarter of an hour, be overcome. Vive la France I Vivent—^-vivent — les Allies ! '

' Vive la France — vivent les Allies / ' repeated the allied commanders round the table, as they raised to their lips wine poured from the carafes ; then, saluting, they hurried to their gigs.

And none too soon. They had hardly reached their ships, and turned them to the performance of the prescribed evolu- tions, when the fleet of England was upon them.

The Centre -Amiral had made a small error in guessing the formation of the British battleships. He had assumed that, their number being small, they approached Jfce allied fleet in two divergent single lines of ships; but the British Rear-Admiral, hoping for some unknown hypothetical ad- vantage, had, as we have seen, decided to advance in two divergent echelons, or step-shape formations. The error was of little importance, for the Allies would quickly detect the formation, and modify their movements accordingly.

Unfortunately for them the eyes of John Hardy, with their faculty of sight and insight, were abroad over the sea that night.

He had burst into sobs in the captain's quarters of the Jupiter. The captain stood over him, patting his shoulder, wondering at the intensity of the lad's pride and patriotism.

But it was neither pride nor patriotism which was then rending the frail frame of Hardy with sobs — it was some- thing far more. To hear irresistibly the Heavenly Call to be up and save the world, and then, at once, to be over- whelmed with the bitter sense of the strong Commonplace, and with the feeling of sheer impotence in the face of it — this is the tragedy of genius.

John sobbed. There had risen in him a sublime strength, an immoderate arrogance, and with it the tingling consciousness that, were he that night the Admiral of the Fleet, he would and could somehow save England from the shame of an invading foot ; then, all at once, he re-

THE BATTLE 59

membered that he was by no means the Admiral of the Fleet. So he sobbed.

But his sobs were in the nick of time, for he had the trick of luck. They softened and touched the captain, just at the right instant.

' Well, John, I must be going,' he said.

John lifted up his hot face.

'Where shall I take my place, sir?' he asked.

* Your place ? I should stay here if I were you.'

c May I, sir, if it is not asking too much '

'What?'

'Come with you, sir.'

'Whereto?'

' The conning-tower, sir.'

' My good fellow !'

' If it is not asking too much, sir. One must see the fight from somewhere, as one happens to be here.'

'Well — but — the conning-tower !'

' I shall make myself small, sir. You won't talk to me, nor I, of course, to you. A guest chooses his lodging in a case of doubt, you know, sir.'

He was smiling now, and when he smiled his face was wonderfully winning.

The captain hesitated, and was lost. He said : '

' Well, you are an original, John, that's all I can say — like your poor father before you, boy. Come along, then — come along !'

They ran briskly up.

Suddenly the still night was a-sound. The two fleets were about to mingle.

At that moment so great was the disparity of weight, that the wildest hope of patriotism could have predicted nothing but swift destruction to the British ; nor was the objective of the British captains victory, but only the disablement, as far as might be, of the enemy.

To explain the appalling ruin and havoc which one pair of seeing sailor-eyes brought upon the entire allied squadron, we must employ diagrams.

The following is the formation in which the seven British battleships approached the enemy, with an interval of about a knot, or nautical mile, between each pair of ships, A being the

60 THE YELLOW DANGER

Rear- Admiral's ship, the Magnificent, A' the Prince George lead- ing the starboard echelon, and B' the Jupiter •, bearing Hardy.

The following is the formation in which the allied battle- ships advanced, about the same interval being preserved among ship-pairs as among British ship-pairs.

West

1^ E:

B 1^ A

THE BATTLE 61

The fleets were no sooner on the point of mingling than Hardy, standing now with Captain MacLeod in the conning- tower of the Jupiter^ was in full possession of their method of advance ; and he was no sooner in full possession of it, than he started, his eyes widened, and words burst from him.

' Sir,' he cried, ' the enemy are advancing in two double files. It seems clear to me that they suppose us to be advancing in two single files.'

'Yes, that is so,' said the captain, proceeding to give the order in which John had interrupted him.

' But, sir, sir,' persisted John.

'Well, John, well/ said the captain.

* It seems to me, sir — really — that if the Jupiter and the Victorious both put out external lights and lie low, the enemy will continue to think that we are in single file instead of in echelon, and then '

Up leapt the captain's arms.

' By gad, you are right, boy ! ' he cried, staring hard at Hardy, his head struck into a sudden sideward suspension of silent meditation.

Then, in a flash, he saw it all — the whole inwardness of the boy's suggestion — the long vista of results — the whole huge drama of the enemy's disaster.

1 Sir — Captain MacLeod— ' said John, all eagerness.

* But to warn the Victorious in time ? ' mused the captain.

' Send me, sir ! Water from the engines — the picket-boat ! The Victorious is only two miles off; I shall be there in three or four minutes.'

'Well — I say yes. You understand, of course, that you will never come back.'

'Thank you, captain — good-bye — they are done for, captain, by the Lord ! '

He was gone, rushing.

On board Her Majesty's ships of war things were done with a certain nimbleness; everything was oiled and easy, and went off with the gliding smoothness of lightning. The Jupiter was carrying at her mast-head the bright white steam- light, on her starboard bow the usual green, and on her port bow the usual red light ; by the time these were out, and the whole ship plunged into darkness, the little picket-boat was driving her head through two combs of foam, herself in dark-

62 THE YELLOW DANGER

ness, with Hardy and three blue-jackets, in a direction nearly south.

The picket-boat passed before the ram of the Repulse (C'), and in less than two minutes Hardy was at the conning-tower of the Victorious (B).

Suddenly the Victorious^ too, vanished into darkness.

The night was now very gloomy.

There remained a third ship, the Mars (D), whose presence it was desirable to conceal for the time being; the concealment was not so necessary, as she was more remote from the advan- cing fleet, and by the time the significance of her presence in her then position was understood, the mischief might be done.

But Hardy would leave nothing to chance. It was quite out of the question now that, if he attempted to reach the Mars, the little picket could live in the shattered sea-surface, into which, surely, in a minute's time all that area of water would be torn by shot and shell. Yet he dared. The little boat, in a very passion of haste, throbbing as though she would throb her little heart out, went panting north-westward toward the Mars.

Was he too late ? There was a sudden shock and roar from the east, and in the night a dull glare red and morose. He sat, the tiller-ropes in one hand, the other holding a double- glass to his eyes. A gust of wind had blown away his straw hat ; the breeze was a-play in his hair.

A British first-class torpedo-boat rushed sounding past him, hasting wrathfully to battle, washed in spray from stem to stern. Close by his starboard bow she dashed like an angry darting fish, leaving the little picket nodding and dipping in a choppy sea which almost swamped her hurried embassy. The next moment a shrapnel-shell burst into light a hundred yards before him. The fight had commenced — Bellona was abroad.

Was he too late ? He knew now that to reach the Mars he must perish. Certainly, he could never return to the Jupiter. But he held on his way. He was full of a great joy. Now he knew verily for what he was born ; it was for this — the mixed and multitudinous roar of cannon sounding over the sea — England's sea — his sea ! Something in his heart, in his life's blood, and in his very soul's soul, answered to it, was akin to it. Never had he been really glad till this night. He held on his rash and desperate way.

His eyes were alight with battle.

THE BATTLE 63

Suddenly he said under his breath : ' Bravo 1 '

The lights of the Mars had gone out into darkness.

Her captain — Captain Henderson — had noted, first, the extinguishing of \hzjupiter lights, and had been puzzled ; then the going out into darkness of the Victorious. He had stood with knit brows for two minutes, and had understood. A few seconds later the Afars, too, was invisible.

At once John Hardy put his helm to starboard, running about north-east, to regain the Jupiter. He was now hurrying into the very region of the starboard limb of the enemy's fleet, and by the time he neared the Repulse, that ship was already engaged with two of the enemy. In another half- minute the sea around these three was a white tempest of thrashed and spurting spray, as when thronging hail flogs stingingly upon a lake, and the sky about them was a vague domed cavern of coppery flame. Never did sailor, in so small a craft, run the gauntlet of a more ticklish peril, passing through a sea crowded with torpedoes, and cracking shells, and balls of fire. But the picket-boat never so much as swerved ; straight onward she throbbed, through the region of lurid half-light, at her stern-post the Union Jack ; then once more into darkness. John Hardy sprang up the side of the dark Jupiter and ran to the conning-tower.

'You have done it, then, John?' cried Captain MacLeod; ' I congratulate you from my soul.'

' Thank you, sir. Now, perhaps, I think we may see these fellows banged a little '

1 We may, John, we may — thanks to you, boy. Wait, wait — let us see.'

It did not take long to see.

In a very few minutes the condition of the battle was this : two French ships, one on each side of her, were battering the Magnificent (A) into shambles ; two more, one on each side of her, were making a wreck of the Prince George (A') ; two more were tackling the Repulse (C) ; the Jupiter was not fighting, the Victorious was not fighting, the Mars was not fighting — the Allies being unconscious at the moment of their presence in their then unsuspected position ; one German ship was in collision with a French on the starboard side of the Resolution (C) ; one French ship was ramming another French ship between the Resolution and the Mars (D); another

64 THE YELLOW DANGER

French ship was blowing a German ship out of the water at a point a long way to the west of the British fleet ; and two German ships were cruising about in the same longitude, searching in vain for two enemies which should have been there, and were not.

Thus, of the fourteen allied battleships, six only were engaged in actual conflict with three British vessels, while a fourth British vessel (C) was pouring a tempest of barbette, quick-firing, and machine shot into the ships in collision on her starboard, and watching the sinking of a French ship rammed by a French on her port, side. How this complexity of tragedy overwhelmed the enemy will be readily seen by the following plan, published in every London newspaper the next morning. Black squares and small letters stand for allied ships, circles and capitals for British, the three British which put out their lights being printed black.

*\

.

v* •-?•< .-

'

» \.'\ \-

X'X V-

THE BATTLE 65

It will be seen from the plan that, the lights of the three ships being extinguished, the starboard limb of the allied squadron saw a straight line of British ships — namely, C, 0', A', — consisting of the Resolution, the Repulse, and the Prince George. This made them certain of their conjecture that the British were advancing in two single lines, and they accordingly proceeded to port and starboard of these three, in order to attack on both broadsides ; but expecting not three, but four, British vessels in each limb, the allied ships n and o went on south-westward to seek them.

Meanwhile, on their port side also, the allied ships saw a straight line of British ships, namely A, C, consisting of the Magnificent and — once again — the Resolution. Believing that this limb, too, consisted of four distinct ships, two of which were farther on, and not appreciating the fact that the same Resolution (C) was about to be attacked by two of their star- board fleet, they steamed forward. Two of their ships, c andyj reached the stations indicated on the plan, surprised to find no enemy ; while two others, / and m, came into contact with two of their own starboard limb, b and e. Before she could stop her speed, m had hopelessly rammed e, and the Resolution was pouring a murderous hail upon both b and /, which had similarly collided, b at this time being an inert mass floating helplessly with screws shattered by // while yonder to the west, c and o, both searching for the missing enemy, made a sudden discovery, and began to batter each other with shrapnel, before ever guessing at the hopeless error, and the blind delu- sion, and the harum-scarum of disaster, in which they had been involved by the simple expedient of Hardy.

At this moment — simultaneously — the three darkened ships opened fire ; and peaceful merchantmen, heading with slow industry on their diverse ways, heard far and wide over the Channel the cry and rumour of that complex war.

It was a fearful battle. Nearly all the allied ships which were in actual combat with British ships, having taken position in the hope of pouring a double broadside on the British ship, one from each side, now suddenly found themselves in the predicament which they had planned for the British ; for, with- out warning, a dark unsuspected ship opened fire upon them, placing between two fires those who for others had planned two fires.

66 THE YELLOW DANGER

Thus, the ship k was between the fires of the Jupiter and the Repulse, the ship j between the fires of the Repulse and the Victorious, and the ship d between the fires of the Victorious and the Magnificent. As yet, no colours had been struck, but the Friedrich Wilhelm (£), whose stern-works had been shattered by the Duguesclin (/), was a barely -floating ruin, with only one water-tight compartment uninvaded by the waters; the Prince George (A') was just plunging — with screws high in the air, and a shriek from her burst and hissing engines that reached the clouds — to her last resting - place ; the Massena (e), with a strange fatal sudden- ness, had sunk on being rammed by the Hoche (m) ; and almost immediately afterwards the Hoche herself cracked in twain amidships, struck by a torpedo intended for the Mas- sena, which had been launched by a second-class torpedo- boat lowered in the dark by the Mars ; while the Mars herself, having not yet relighted her lamps, was rammed at her central armour-belt by a second-class British cruiser, the Charybdis, the smaller ship sheering away with broken bows to go down by the head three miles away amid a crowd of allied cruisers.

Yonder to westward of the thickest region of battle, the Amiral Baudin (c), with a single 37-c.m. shell, had annihi- lated both funnels of the Brandenburg, while the Brandenburg, before she could detect the ruse by which she was made to destroy her own flagship, had rattled the ribs of the Amiral Baudin with a rain of thousands of rounds of machine and quick-firing loj and 8-c.m. shot, and had sent a barbette shell shrieking into the bowels of the French ship, where it ripped her armoured deck, and in a nightmare of fury rent the whole central interior of the vessel into debris.

It was shortly after this that even the din of that wide and various warfare received, as it were, an added shock of horror, when a broad sheet of flame was seen to rise and ride in quivering glare toward the sky, and the next moment a bang of thunder where the Repulse had been shook the universal sea. A fire had run through her entire length between-decks, and ignited at nearly the same moment every atom of explosive within her into one splendid detona- tion. She did not burst — she crumbled to fragments. At the same time, at the other end of that line of ships, the

THE BATTLE 67

Magnificent was quietly going down by the poop, where a French submarine-boat had affixed a Whitehead.

In a very few minutes after the actual commencement of hostilities, four of the seven British battleships had dis- appeared, and nine of the allied fourteen.

Of the intricate and incalculable warfare that was darting in furious wrath in every direction in the shape of the less massive armatures little was salient where all was vast. The enemy was preponderant in number, but deficient in weight of first-class cruisers. The mutual havoc went on rapidly with com- plex disaster and success. Ships about to disappear rose again, blown high by torpedoes ; men on the point of going down in the wheeling suction of some great vessel were arrested in their descent to be mangled by distracted shrapnel, or scalded by some flight of stinging steam ; crafts were destroyed and destroyed again, and ten times destroyed again, before they sank in scattered shreds. It was an anarchy and blindness of rage, which rent the already rent, and mutilated the already murdered.

Theyi^wfer, by some favour of her position, was still sea- worthy, when Captain MacLeod, a minute after the blowing- up of the Repulse, said aloud to himself :

' Now, I think I might very well ram that ship.'

' That ship ' meant the French battleship >£, which, now that the Repulse has gone, was turning, together with her sister-ship /, her whole attention upon the Jupiter. Part of the Jupiter's fore-deck had already been ripped, and a fore- barbette gun unshipped.

At once she went wheeling in a sixteen-point curve to starboard, pouring at the same time a broadside upon the enemy. But it was at once seen that the most delicate seamanship would now be required, for not only was the Jupiter's intention detected, but k began to manoeuvre to anticipate the attack by herself delivering the ram, while the chase was promptly joined by /, which had just lodged a finishing shell in the Victorious (B).

The three vessels, though one of them was sinking slowly, and all were more or less ruined, were intact in engines and steering-gear, and went careering in swift flight on evolu- tionary curves whose outcome only the nicest commanding skill could determine. To destroy a funnel of one or both — this

68 THE YELLOW DANGER

was Captain MacLeod's hope. He started a rattle of quick- firing shot as the three vessels wheeled nearer. But there was a racket on board fat Jupiter — a bursting shell — a clatter of broken plate — a stream of blood poured down John Hardy's face — Captain MacLeod fell limp at his feet.

At that moment, from the conning -towers of both the French ships there went forth the command : ' Prepare to ram.7 The Jupiter was between them; and her captain was laid low.

But a born sailor now commanded her.

Hardy gave the order to slacken speed. With his eyes on both the hurrying, impending ships he waited thirty, thirty- five seconds ; and at the right fraction of a second he ordered : ' Full steam ahead ! '

Blood covered his face, and the breeze in his hair gave him an aspect of wildness and disarray ; but his brain was cool.

As the poop of the Jupiter slipped elusively from between the two advancing rams there arose an outcry on both the French ships. But it was too late. No celerity of hand, no power on earth, could now avert the awful catastrophe. The two bows met, and crashed.

One of the French ships leaned to port, as if fainting in despair, then languidly sank.

Was he really in command ? Captain MacLeod lay at his feet. Who knew ? Would not his, John Hardy's, commands be obeyed tacitly, if he tacitly assumed the command ? And he, at least, was under no orders from the Rear-Admiral. He ordered three points to starboard, and full speed ahead. The Jupiter went hasting at once directly northward.

Hardy was running from the fight.

The first clear necessity seemed to him now to get out of the battle, while the Jupiter's engines were still intact.

He suspected, indeed, that she was already sinking. But there was hope. She went ploughing northward. Her posi- tion on the outskirts of the battle favoured him.

Of what particular crime was it that he was guilty ? He knew well that it was a crime. Was it treason, or piracy, or mutiny, or felony? The place which he occupied should have been filled by the commander of the Jupiter^ now that her captain was senseless. Hardy knew that ; but her com- mander was under flag-orders. He was not.

THE BATTLE 69

Three miles to the north he turned the ship's bow from north to north-east ; three more miles and he turned it from north-east to east. Now he breathed freely ; the Jupiter was well beyond effective range of the battling ships.

Her lights had long since been again put out. On she went through the darkness, east by south now, battered and broken in her upper works, but tolerably sound below — and with funnels still whole ! and with a ram ploughing through the water at eighteen miles an hour ! and absolutely safe now from shot !

John Hardy stood in her battered conning-tower with the wind in his light hair, and the blood on his face, and a slight frown on his brow. And on through the darkness drove the silent battleship.

In little more than half an hour she was upon that hollow square of troopers and liners, which were here just forging through the water till the conclusion of the fight. There were thirty-eight of them, and they contained over 120,000 men.

Suddenly, out of the darkness, the Jupiter pounced upon them.

Has the reader seen a thoroughbred, long-snouted fox- terrier, the prize-winner perhaps at some show, let loose in a small room among a hundred hoarded rats ? With a gleeful, sudden spring he is among them, as they scamper into a huddled heap at the corners, seeking to hide from the very sight of their little, leering eyes that countenance of wrath. He, for his part, gives one, and only one, swift crack at the bones of the neck, and disdainfully drops the limp vermin, to go on to the next.

It was something in this way that the Jupiter dealt with these thirty-eight troopships and liners. One after another they cracked like tea-pots, they snapped like rotten twigs, they sank at a touch. Hardy rammed one on one side of the square, and went straight on and rammed another opposite ; but in the rapid passage from opposite to opposite, he had sunk five others with barbette and broadsides of quick-firing guns. The Jupiter rushed among them like a fury, dashing through a multitude of complex evolutionary curves, and heap- ing havoc all around. It was a scene of unparalleled carnage. In a short time the ram of the ship was forging through masses of men and horses struggling in the water ; what was

70 THE YELLOW DANGER

left of the sides of the square was shooting forth flames ; and the Jupiter herself was being swept by tempests of bullets from the land-forces. Without visible result, however. Three only of the transports, sufficiently uninjured by the time they could get speed, escaped. The rest went down.

It was now a question with Hardy whether he could save the Jupiter by beaching her. She was already low by the stern, and the coast was miles away. The moment his work was ended, he gave the order to turn her bow directly north- ward.

He only just failed.

Half a mile out from Brighton, he bent over Captain Mac- Leod, looked close into his eyes, and put his hand over his heart. The heart beat, but a splinter had gashed all the chest.

'Sir, sir,1 said John, 'can you not '

He shook the Captain. A moan came from the prostrate man ; his eyes opened.

* Try to understand,' said John ; ' you will have to swim, or be lost. Can you understand ? '

The Captain stared stupidly, but nodded; and John stripped him hurriedly, then himself.

The next moment he gave the order :

' Hands to leap overboard and make for shore ! '

There was nothing resembling a boat any longer left on board \hejupiter.

In two minutes three hundred blue-jackets were in the water, and the Jupiter, left alone, took in a smooth cascade of sea over her poop.

A blue-jacket on one side of Captain MacLeod, and John on the other, made slow progress forward. Toward ten o'clock they felt bottom ; they dragged themselves forward, and fell upon Brighton beach.

CHAPTER IX

JOHN HARDY GIVES AN ORDER

\

HARDY in a faint on Brighton sands — Hardy waking on a down bed in Cavendish Square — the transition is rapid, but that is what in fact occurred.

Captain MacLeod, though gashed over the chest, woke to consciousness before John. John had his constant wound inside his chest, and gave signs of it in the form of those pathetic, clandestine coughs of his. He woke wheezing with asthma. Besides this, he had a scratch on his brow from a shell-splinter.

No. IIA Cavendish Square had been the town-residence of Hardy's race for some generations, and here, in solitary state, the young man lived when in London.

London, lately, had seen a good deal of him, though he liked the country when on shore. This new attractiveness of London was concentrated for John in a certain house in Hampstead.

When he opened his eyes, torn by a cough, they met two others bending low over him — old ones, surrounded by wrinkles ; anxious ones, full of solicitude. It was half-past eleven o'clock.

* Well, Bobbie,' said John with a smile, and stretched a little.

'I am pleased to see you so much yourself, I am sure, Master John,' said Bobbie ; ' how are you feeling now ? '

4 1, Bobs ? Much the same as usual, I suppose. Where on earth am I ? '

'You are in Cavendish Square, sir — in your own chamber.'

'Oh ay — I see that. I remember now, Bobbie. The battle, eh ? and the swim, eh ? The old Jupiter did not do so

72 THE YELLOW DANGER

badly, after all. Did any of the enemy escape ? And Captain MacLeod — how is he, Bobbie ? '

* He is said to be doing fairly well, Master John. He has a wound in his chest, which is not serious. He is better off than you, I am thinking. It was he who brought you here, sir.'

'When?'

'About four in the morning, sir/

' Ah, I fancy I recollect something of it. Well, that's all right, then, Bobbie.'

1 Ah, Master John, not all right, perhaps ! When, when, sir, will you learn to take care of that chest, sir ? '

' Oh, bother the chest, Bobs, boy. A fellow has got to do his duty, I suppose, Bobbie ? '

John Hardy's eyelids lifted as he said this, and he turned upward the pure cerulean azure of his eyes in clear open query upon old ' Bobbie,' the aged butler of his father and grandfather.

' Well, sir — well — if you put it in that way, of course. But still, there is this to be said: it was not, so to speak, your duty to go through this ; you had not, as one might say, any right to be there '

' No, Bobbie, but I was there, you see. And being there, it was natural that one should do what little one could for the old country, don't you think ? '

1 What little, sir ? ' cried Bobbie. ' Ah, that is like your way of speaking, sir — like your father before you, Master John ! This is a proud day for poor old Bobbie, Master John — forgive me for these tears, sir, the tears come quickly when we are old, Master John — a proud day, and the tiptop hour in the life of your father's old servant, Master John, making dying easy to him from this day onwards, sir. It was what I predicted of you, and to-day you have made true your old Bobbie's word before all the world, Master John. England this morning is ringing, sir, with the name of Hardy, ay, and France, too, sir, and Europe and America; and the servants down at the Hall have sent a telegram to poor old Bobbie, sir, all of them in a body, congratulating me on the man you have shown yourself, and it's a proud day, sir — a proud day — for poor old Robert Mason, Master John, is this that you have brought me.'

JOHN HARDY GIVES AN ORDER 73

Robert's flow of words was choked by sobs. John put out his hand, drew him nearer to the bed-side, and laid one arm round the stringy old neck, the boy's affectionate nature over- flowing in murmured words.

'I am so glad, Bobbie, if I have made you happy/ he whispered. ' You know I would do anything to do that, wouldn't I ? But what is it all about, Bobbie ? Have I done anything very extraordinary, then ? England was bound to beat those mounseer people, anyway, wasn't she ? '

Bobbie disengaged himself hurriedly. He had his proofs with him — chapter and verse. He had been poring all the morning over a score of newspapers, weeping as he only wept over his old Bible. He had brought them. He flaunted them in the face of John.

' Read those^ if you want to know what you have done ! Well, it's a proud day — a proud day — for poor old Bobbie, that's all I can say ! ' he cried in a weak, broken voice, tread- ing woe-begone about, his face in his hands.

John glanced through three or four of the papers, half sitting up, while Bobbie held ever and again to his lips a glass of egg and milk.

The Times concluded an article by saying : * Assuming that the account to hand derived from the statement of Captain MacLeod be correct, what words of eulogy shall we find in our English tongue to extol and glorify the very young man to whom Britain this day owes her immunity from the shame of an invading foot. In ancient Rome, the people would have been acutely conscious of their inability to invent any Dignity equal to their sense of obligation to such a deliverer. This young man would have been proclaimed Saviour of his Country, and would have been entrusted with the supreme direction of affairs — naval, military, and political — with the injunction to see to it ne respublica damnum capiat. How will England adjust herself to this new-found personality in her midst ? We wait with some anxiety to see what shall be done by the Government to the man whom the nation delighteth to honour.'

The Daily Chronicle lost itself in allusion and metaphor. It said : ' What Nelson was to the ship of wood and sails, that, it is already clear, is this young man to the ship of steel and steam. That is to say, he is its genius. He is

74 THE YELLOW DANGER

more still — he is its embodiment. Ralph Waldo Emerson, in one of his essays, points out that occasionally a man is born who is himself, as it were, the Thing in connection with which his activities are employed ; thus, Nasmyth was concentrated Iron, Edison is himself Electricity, Rudyard was himself a Lighthouse. We may add, John Hardy is himself a modern Battleship.'

But it was reserved for the Daily Telegraph to embody in its ornamented style something of that shudder of delight with which England, through all her breadth, learnt with that morning's sunrise that she had still a son with a voice hoarse enough to proclaim once more to all the earth her Empire of the Sea. No style could have been too florid to express that day the feelings of the nation ; for emotion is, in its very nature, florid ; and England was in the grip of an emotion.

The Telegraph said : * No one has yet accused this journal of hero-worship ; and in speaking as we have spoken of Sub- Lieutenant John Hardy — whom, we confess, we have for the first time heard of half an hour ago — it is partly the man whom we laud, but above all, it is the great nation that could have produced him. We have at command some special information about Mr. Hardy ; and we say with the certainty of knowledge that he is as essentially an English thing as the cliffs of Dover, or the smuts of the Black Country. No other land could have given birth to anything at all resembling him. He is doubly the child of England ; for he is the child of the sea also. The sea is part of England. The oceans are not her boundary — they are her continuation. If one were to ask Mr. Hardy, "What is the breadth of England ? " he would probably reply, " Her breadth is the distance between the Poles." Such, at least, is the account we have received on good authority of the temperament of this latest scion of an old Hampshire family of thoroughgoing " sea-dogs."

'For the rest, the young gentleman is said to have an ailment of the chest; he has the typical blue eyes of the English tar, and very light wavy hair, which he wears rather long. He is small in stature, and slim. His face is said to be the gravest, saddest, prettiest girl-face in the land, and his disposition in private life is much more than usually mild, soft, and affectionate. Our informant hints at a supposed weakness

JOHN HARDY GIVES AN ORDER 75

for the fair sex, and confesses that, at the examination stage of his career, the man who bids fair to become the national hero proved himself far from brilliant.

' So much we have been able to gather ; and this fact also, that from boyhood Hardy has seemed to be deficient in one of the ordinary instincts of humanity — the instinct of Fear. Nothing, so far, has appeared to have had any tendency toward alarming him; to use our informant's words, "He would remain cool if the earth were bursting to pieces." Such is the man who has ranged himself on the side of England against the allied nations of the Continent.

1 This is no time of ordinary routines and gradual processes. The moment is ecstatic — the hour is immense with Fate. Let the nation for the nonce fling to the winds its old Shibboleths of Use and Wont, and now, without delay, proceed to garland with its fairest laurels the head which has been its salvation. It is certain that, but for Mr. Hardy, we writing here should be writing with a boom of cannon in our ears. What guerdon is high enough for the man who has averted such a doom ? Fleet-Captain — Vice-Admiral — Admiral — these are the honorary titles that occur to us, as in no way commensurate with the reward which England owes, and will insist upon paying, to her deliverer. Nay, we know little of the English people if it do not straightway find something so akin to its own secret temper, something so precisely like its own inner self, in John Hardy, and in the cool rashness of John Hardy, and in his contemptuous way, and in his audacious gallantry, and in his homely, Cromwellian grandeur of mind — that a burst of enthusiasm from the entire nation shall at once pro- claim him its chosen and darling. England, as Mr. Matthew Arnold said, is a Nation " in the grand style " ; John Hardy, we do not hesitate to say, is a Man " in the grand style." It will not be surprising if these two, having once come across each other, shall, without delay, strike up a friendship perhaps unparalleled in history. The beginning of such a friendship we to-day announce.'

So the Telegraph. The Standard, on the other hand, came out with an essay on Blood. 'A democracy without an aristocracy,' it said, ' is like an egg without salt. It was necessary for Sub-Lieutenant Hardy, before he could annihilate the navies of Europe, to have behind him a long line of

76 THE YELLOW DANGER

ancestors whose home was the sea. He is the apex of a pyramid, the rest of which consists of centuries of the ocean- life and ocean-culture of a race. It is Blood that tells.'

The Morning Post was the only organ to suggest that the country should insist upon the importance of order, and see to it that, if only formally, the young lieutenant should be court-martialled ; while the Evening News covered itself with horrid fame by saying : ' By the Goddess of Victor y, Nelson has slain his thousands ; but by Jupiter^ Hardy has slain his ten thousands ! '

There was no journal which did not join in this chorus which rose to greet John Hardy as he woke on the i7th of March. He was the only person who saw his praises with anything like equanimity.

He glanced through three of the articles, then pushed the heap from him.

' Well, Bobbie,' he said, c it is decent to see one's name all about in the prints. But what is it all for ? '

1 There is the opinion of England,' said old Robert, ' about a son of John Nelson Hardy, sir ! '

1 Of England, Bobs ? ' said John ; * don't you believe that. These writing fellows are not England. England is silent — great and silent. She means more, Bobs, and says less. She will love me, too, for what I have done, perhaps — but different from this talk — in her own silent way '

He stopped, coughing.

* Ah, that cough, Master John ! ' said Robert.

' Bother the cough ! it is rather bad this morning, though, isn't it ? Do you know what I think I shall do, Bobbie ? ' 'Well, sir?' 1 Go to a hot country at once.'

* A hot — what, sir ? '

' A hot country, Bobs.'

Bobs was alarmed. He at once suspected diplomacy. John was whimsical, and wilful. Bobs knew what it meant when those dry rose-lips closed tightly.

'Which country, Master John?' said the old man tremulously.

He divined horribly that the bird was about to fly from the old cage.

* Which country, sir ? ' he repeated before John answered.

JOHN HARDY GIVES AN ORDER 77

' I am thinking of China, Bobbie,' said John. The old man's hands met in terror.

' China, Master John ? Oh, don't, don't say China, Master John ! '

* I believe that China is a hot country — in the summer, Bobbie ? ' said John in innocent query.

1 1 know nothing about China, Master John. Certainly, it is no fit place for such as you/

' Oh, I don't see that, Bobbie.'

1 But why China, Master John, if you really think of going anywhere? China, recollect, is at the other end of the world.'

' But that's where my ship is, isn't it, Bobbie ? ' " ' Your ship ? What, ships again 1 — and you coughing there like an echo among the Chiltern Hills? Well, well, I suppose it's no use an old man talking, — who has served your father before you, and your grandfather before him.'

' Yes, it is, Bobbie ; believe me, it is, Bobs ! But still — really — you will try and be good, won't you? I must go, Bobbie.'

* Well, that sea ! ' said Bobbie, a hand over his mouth, shaking the head of contemplative wonderment. He was thinking of that 'sea-fever' which, in the history of > the house of Hardy, had more than once resulted in domestic tragedy and disaster.

{ Well, that sea ! ' he said — ' those ships ! '

' No, it isn't quite that, Bobbie ; it isn't the sea,' said John. 1 Don't go blaming the sea. Of course, one is fond of the sea, and all that ; but that isn't quite the reason now. I feel that I must go, and I must really.'

1 Well, but isn't that what I said, Master John ? — that it is no use an old man talking ? That no one pays any heed to him ? no one whom he has watched over, and yearned his

heart over, more than any son ? Ah ' suddenly the old

man fell half over the bed, imploring with tears. ' Listen to me, Master Johnnie, do, now — give up these wild thoughts ! What good can come of them ? So, from a boy it always was — and did old Bobbie ever lead you wrong ? Do, now, don't think of such things — it is the Enemy puts them in your head — drive them away ! Here is all England going to make

78 THE YELLOW DANGER

much of you — why not stay with old Bobbie ? Don't go, my son ! Don't you go ! You are not in a fit state, and it is no fit place, among a pack of heathen men, fighting fiends — what good can you do ? Stay here with me ! Can you suppose that I would tell you wrong? Come, now, comfort old Bobbie's heart — tell me '

John Hardy rubbed his pink face against the old man's shrivelled cheek.

' It is so hard to say no to you, Bobbie,' he said. * I hardly think it is right of you to urge me in that way. You see, I have made up my mind, and it is hardly — kind, is it ? If one's mind is made up in a certain way, it is beyond one's power to change it, is it not ? Go I must, you see.'

The dry rose-leaves were pressed close now, and Bobbie should have noticed them ; but he went rashly on.

1 Only listen to me, Master John,' he said. ' Hear me out '

'No — no more,' said John. 'I bid you be silent now. Pass me a sheet of note-paper and a pencil.'

Old Bobbie, mouse-quiet in a moment, hobbled to a desk, and then back.

John scribbled a few words, handed them to the old man, and said :

'It is all right, Bobbie. I am not the least cross, you know. But there are times when one must be allowed to go one's own way, aren't there ? Have that telegram sent off at once, will you ? And bring me a good big tumbler of cham- pagne, will you, Bobs ? '

The telegram with which Bobs shuffled off contained these words : —

To Selby, Captain of English Bird> lying at Freshwater. Please have English Bird ready to sail by Sunday night at latest. Going coast Spain. JOHN HARDY.

The English Bird was a 74-ton schooner-yacht of Hardy's own, with an easy speed of ten knots.

CHAPTER X

JOHN HARDY AMONG WOMEN

JOHN HARDY had this trouble: he was 'non-intellectual,' and his passion had fastened upon a person all intellect.

Had his entry into the Navy depended upon his passing the usual examination as a competitor, he would certainly never have entered it. As it was, he was a ' service cadet,' and had received a nomination as the son of an officer of the navy who had performed long and distinguished service. Even so, he had had to pass a test examination ; and in this very elementary ordeal he had failed in the subject * French.' Once more he received a nomination, and once more he was given a chance in the examination-hall of the Commissioners of Cannon Row — his very last. All that half-year he was 1 swotting ' like an elephant at the fatal ' French,' to the neglect of ' Composition,' another of his weak points. During the hot week in June preceding the examination he was a true slave of the lamp ; but his strong will this time was at work. With his lucky knack, he scraped through. The number of 'pass' marks was 660 : he got 662. :

Hardy was not a book-man ; he had even a secret con- tempt for book-men and book-learning.

Moreover, as we said before, he got into trouble later on. While in training on board the Britannia he had been re- ported to the Admiralty for ' unsatisfactory conduct ' and had been 'warned.' The 'unsatisfactory conduct ' consisted in walking arm-in-arm with a girl of the lowest class through the streets of Dartmouth, both the girl and John being pretty far gone in a state of intoxication.

These, then, were his weak points : That he was far from

8o THE YELLOW DANGER

literary ; that he was too fond of fermented things ; that he was too fond of feminine persons.

Up to the time at which we met him, he still made spell- ing mistakes in common English words in writing ordinary letters.

In five or six of the ports of Europe there were more than one young woman unforgetful of the crinkled hair and angel- eyes of John Hardy. He was, indeed, painfully shy in the presence of women, and was a very clumsy and heavy lover — but he was also very good-looking, and naif: and one thing made up for the other. On the whole, he * arrived.'

He loved every woman in the world ; and this love was, in general, returned.

But most of all he loved Miss Isabel Jay, known to her friends as c Bosey ' ; and Bosey, apparently, did not love him. Her love was already taken up by something else — a thing which she called ' Art.'

He went to see her on the day of the telegram to Fresh- water. A strip of black plaster concealed the scratch on his forehead. He was in the habit, even on visits of ceremony, of wearing a rough and heavy pea-jacket, such as pilots wear, with brass buttons, and thus attired he went out into the streets, a soft cap on his head.

Could he have been recognised, he would have been lifted on the shoulders of the people, and carried to his destination.

A servant ushered him into a very dainty inner room at Hampstead — a kind of studio-boudoir, in a Greek style, with Corinthian pillars, and flimsy saffron hangings. Miss Jay was rather an heiress, and lived with an old aunt in a stately solitude. There now she sat before an easel, with brush and palette.

She was a lady of many accomplishments : of that unspeak- ably ' new ' kind ; had written two novels of the ' problem ' sort; she was a preacher of land -nationalization; she had painted one knows not how many pictures ; she was not yet nineteen ; and she was pretty.

She had a substantial body, with a waist quite as large as that of Eve or Venus. She wore her red-gold hair in coil upon coil of neglige richness about her head ; her eyes were green.

JOHN HARDY AMONG WOMEN 81

In her large countenance there were intelligence and strong self-assurance. The hard bones of her corset were not more visible through her bodice than the Will of her character in her face.

1 Oh, Mr. Hardy, I am glad ! ' she cried. * Ah, and I have heard ! '

1 About the battle, and so on ? '

' Yes, if " so on " means yourself. How very brave you must be ! '

' Englishmen are that, you know.'

' Are not a good many great cowards ? Men do so live in regions of fantasy ! Women are more prosaic — and clearer. Did you ever see an average English girl in the presence of a mouse, Mr. Hardy ? '

1 Girls are different,' said John.

Bosey's lips tightened. This was the kind of ancient point of view, purely male, to which she had the most touchy antipathy.

'Oh, different of course,' she said, 'in pose of nervous structure, and so on, and so on. But substitute for the mouse the broker's man, and you get at once a measure of the average Englishman's courage.'

' Somebody has been misleading you/ said John. • English- men are brave. Foreign people are afraid of things.'

She looked at him with real pity, for his insularity, his unintelligence.

'But why misleading ? Can it be that you think an ordinary girl incapable of observing for herself?'

' I ? Why, if you only knew how much I like girls ! '

' Ah, now you are sarcastic.'

' You are too shrewd.'

' I never know whether you are making fun of me or not.'

' Well, what does it matter, Mr. John ? '

' But it is not nice to be made fun of by some one whom you like.'

'Really ///&?'

' You know ! '

' You are too complimentary.'

' Like isn't the word. I think I like you better than any one in the whole world.'

' Now you are — what is the word ? — spooney.'

82 THE YELLOW DANGER

' I should be as happy as the Queen if you would only like me back.'

I Spooney ! '

' You are not making fun ? '

' Don't be suspicious. You are too penetrating.'

* Well, what do you say ? ' ( To what ? '

' To my liking you so much ? '

I 1 can only say that it is distinctly spooney.'

* But do you like me back ? '

'Oh, // Well, yes, as you ask me. I like you — back. But in my own fashion, you understand ; not in that design- ingly spooney way.'

* I do not understand you,' said John. ' You are not like other girls.'

'Then logically you should not like me, since you like other girls so very very much.'

1 1 do, though. I like you much better than any of the others. You must not go by logic/

'Ah, but I am nothing if not logical, Mr. Hardy.'

'But facts are facts, aren't they? If logic contradicts a fact, then you must throw the logic overboard to the sharks. I tell you I like you better than any one. That is enough.'

' Enough for what — for me ? '

' It should be.'

' But our human nature is more or less complex, I suppose? Do you mean that the mere fact of your caring for me should be enough to lead me to corresponding actions ? That is wrong, you know. Listen, Mr. Hardy : we first met — how long ago ? — about five weeks, I think — at Lady Sinclair's, you remember. And since then, how many times ? About six, perhaps. Well, I can see that you are used to easy conquests, you know ; and at once I detected that you were laying your- self out to be captured by me, if I chose to take the trouble to capture you. But I did not choose ! I have other things to think of; and it will be as much as I can possibly do, supposing I live for eighty years in tolerable health of body, to get through the little all I have in mind. I am not going to say that it is out of the question that some day I may not allow myself to be seduced into marriage by some man or other ; but, at the moment, it is a thing so remote from the

JOHN HARDY AMONG WOMEN 83

actual strain of my thoughts, that, I assure you, it has quite the look of an impossibility. All the time, mind you, I am secretly alive to the fact that it must be very nice to be petted and kissed by charming lips; but it is not, you see, precisely what I have chosen for myself. You know about ' scorning delights and living laborious days,' don't you ? Well, that is my way. So I beg, once and for all, that you will be more sensible with respect to me for the future, Mr. John.'

Bosey delivered this lecture with brush uplifted. She bent and gave a touch to the picture.

As the last words passed her lips, a sigh escaped Hardy, and this sentence, barely whispered :

' You are the mate for me, by the Lord ! '

She heard him and cried :

'Mr. Hardy!'

His lips were pressed together. But as he was the firmest, so he was the most uncouth, of lovers. He said :

' 1 am going to China in a day or two. I should like to marry you before I go.'

She broke into ripples of evil laughter.

' Not so soon ! Not so soon ! ' she cried, angry now.

' When I come back,' he said simply.

She looked into his face in unfeigned surprise.

' Have I not told you ? ' she cried, almost with alarm. * What do you mean ? I am quite a free subject, you know. This is not Turkey ; this is not — Peru. Do you mean that because you are to be the national hero, and so on ? Oh, but that is in rather queer taste, then ! Have I not answered you?'

' I love you ! '

' I don't care ! '

'I do/9

' You do not ! '

' Ah, you don't know ! '

* You are to keep away ! '

' I shall have you yet ! '

'ffavemtl*

'Yes.'

' Silly boy.'

1 Give me one ! '

' Don't come '

84 THE YELLOW DANGER

' Just one.'

' What?'

1 Kiss/

1 Ur ! — silly. Do — go — away. This is too absurd ! '

She stamped. The dry rose-leaves had brushed her hot cheek. So far had passion led Hardy. Then he started — to this point he had never dared, on his own initiative. A shock of scarlet shyness possessed him.

1 Ah, now I have presumed/ he said, stammering. ' For- give me — I will go '

* Well, it is of no consequence, Mr. Hardy/ she answered, calm already, holding out her hand, 'but perhaps you had better go/

'Well, then — But you understand that I am going to China?'

'Perfectly. I believe that you will find the Chinese charming artists/

1 While I am away you will not be marrying some one else ? '

'Not I. You may be confident that I shall remain self- sufficient. Even the new National Darling, you see, cannot tempt me/

1 But you will think sometimes of a poor sailor/

' The newspapers, you know, will remind me of the poor sailor/

'Good-bye. I am going/

' Then go/

' When I come back from China, I shall have you/

'You said that before — whatever having me may mean : and I said — No/

' But I shall/

'Well, we won't discuss the matter now. I am sorry for you, you know, because you look — epati. But you will soon get over it, and it will do you good. You were over- confident, you know. Will you say good-bye, now ? '

' May I kiss your hand ? '

' Nonsense ! you are just like a child/

'May I?'

4 Well, if that is any comfort to you '

He kissed her hand with old-fashioned ceremonial, caught up his cap, and was gone.

Had he been more successful, he would have walked straight

JOHN HARDY AMONG WOMEN 85

home, and to bed, and so made the course of history other- wise.

As it was, he went wandering through a number of streets in a desultory mood, not knowing whither he went.

Night had fallen.

He had a deep radical love for this girl. He said to him- self, walking himself tired : ' I will have her, I will have her, by the Lord '

Suddenly his own name caught his eye. He was in front of the Palace Theatre of Varieties.

London was alight. The streets thronged with people. The facades of the Palace were arrayed with galaxies of jets.

There, on a board, the ink still wet, appeared the attrac- tion of the night :

MISS LOTTIE COLLINS

Will Appear To-night In Her New Patriotic Song,

Entitled : •BRAVO, JOHN HARDY!'

The song had been composed, learned, orchestrated, and rehearsed, all in the course of a single day.

He stood looking at the placard, smiling. He felt in his pocket; he had some money. It was about time for the entertainment to begin. He went in.

His mind was, in some of its aspects, as unstable as water. It shifted like phosphorescences in the dark. All forms of pleasure, especially, had great power to deflect and draw him. He could be won from grave to gay by the simplest means. He had not only the soul of a hero but the mind of a baby.

He remembered that one could smoke and drink in music- halls. By heaven ! he would make a night of it. If there was blame, the blame was Bosey Jay's.

He never took the dry-land quite seriously. To him it was ' shore ' — rather a foreign place — a place for ' sprees/

He put his hand into his pocket again, and looked at what money he had. There was plenty. Now then for Bacchus and Terpsichore ; wine, and song, and — Woman ?

86 THE YELLOW DANGER

Nearly all the afternoon, at this very hour, a stream of carriages, containing ecstatic photograph-hunters, Mr. Goschen, Lords of the Admiralty, pressmen rabid for an interview, distinguished persons, were moving toward, and away from, the door of No. IIA Cavendish Square. John Hardy was not at home.

He found himself in one of the 'pit-stalls' during the performance of a ventriloquist. In a few minutes he had provided himself with cigars, and a goodly tumbler of spirit- and-soda-water.

A girl, sitting next to him, touched a companion on the other side of her — a soldier, whose name was John Brabant — and whispered :

* Just look at him ; isn't he handsome ? '

Her name was Ada Seward. She was the woman who, alone in the world, had been able to melt the ice of Dr. Yen How.

She was a small creature, with skin of a warm yellowish colour, and little quaint Chinese eyes, and light hair with the whitest tinge of red in it ; not perhaps pretty, but with some unspeakable attraction of piquancy about her uncommon, saucy little face, which had caused her to receive twelve offers of marriage before she was twenty. Her friends declared that she was the living image of Miss Marie Tempest, the ' Geisha ' prima donna. In figure she was typically English.

She was perishing to speak a word to the sweet pink face by her side, to its delicate aristocratic lines. At last, during a loud song consigning the German nation to perdition, she found her chance.

' Now, young gentleman,' she said, ' that is my dress, please; it won't be fit to look at to-morrow if you throw any more brandy-and-soda over it.'

John gave her the sweetest smile she had ever beheld on mortal lips, and said :

1 Pardon me.'

At the same time, he looked into her face, and liked it.

The waiter had already borne him three whispering glasses of beverage.

* May I ? ' he said ; ' here, waiter — may I order for you and your companion ? '

John Brabant bowed low with a hearty ' Thank you, sir ! '

JOHN HARDY AMONG WOMEN 87

But Ada, who was quite three or four grades higher in the social scale than he, being in his company only owing to old associations, nudged the soldier deprecatingly, objecting to the obligation.

It was too late, however. The offer had been accepted. In a few minutes John Hardy and Ada were talking — Ada laughing, John smiling. Brandy-and-soda became the order of the day. Hardy had soon a good deal more than enough.

The audience was in a queer mood, impatient, intolerant. There was neither an empty seat nor a spare inch of standing- room in the place ; but the people's interest was all bent upon one future point in the entertainment — the entrance of Miss Collins — and meanwhile they took not the least pains to con- ceal their indifference. There was something rowdy in the tone of the assembly.

* By Jove, I am liking you ! ' His lips were at her ear.

' Ah, now, that's the drink talking, not you/ ' The drink ? Nonsense ! I am, really. Are you liking me back ? '

'Ah, that would be telling ! '

1 You are!'

' Go away with you ! Why, I have only just seen you ! '

' That is of no importance.'

' Oh, isn't it, though ! '

* Don't be a cruel girl. Here, waiter '

' Do you know what I think you are — from your ways ? ' 1 No ; tell me.'

* You tell me ; let me see if I am right. What are you ? ' ' You mean my profession ? '

' Yes.'

' I am a sailor.'

Had Ada's ears been more delicately nurtured, she would have detected there, half-drunk though Hardy was, a very slight intonation of imperial arrogance.

' A sailor ? You ? Go on ! Show me your hands.'

' Oh, my hands are not very rough, I admit. But still — I am a sailor. You may believe me — in the navy, you know.'

' I see. Well, do you know I had an idea of something

88 THE YELLOW DANGER

like that ? A sailor ! Yes, that is what you are. You come to the point so soon, don't you ? — -like sailors do.'

* Well, but do you like me back, now ? '

* No, thank you. No sailors for me. They are here to- day, and gone to-morrow.'

* That is because they must. You can't punish them for doing their duty to their country, can you ? '

' The country is one thing, but girls have got to look after themselves, you see.'

'You are too practical.'

' I have got to be.'

' But you will have me for your sweetheart ? '

'Perhaps I will, and perhaps I won't. It depends.'

Here was an Achievement in Indefiniteness. John Hardy fled from the mental indeterminateness in which the answer left him, by turning to his glass for a drink.

The shifters of the indicating numbers removed the card 7, and put up the card 8 ; ' 8 ' meant Lottie Collins. A murmur of expectancy rumoured through the building. The air grew electric. Every one knew that great things were coming. Already the nerves of the audience were strung high and tense.

1 That is very indefinite.'

'I can't help it. Wait and see how we feel to-morrow morning.'

'Only say now that you like me.'

' Well, suppose I say — yes. No, no — it's too stupid ! '

' Sweet of you, Nell ! Is your name Nell ? '

' Yes. How on earth did you know ? It is my second name. They call me "Ada." '

'Ada— what?'

'AdaSeward.'

' I shall call you " Nell." I like that better.'

' And what is yours ? '

'John.'

Ada was smitten by Coincidence. On each side of her was a 'John' — one a soldier, the other a sailor. She was the link which united and disparted Her Majesty's forces.

' John— what ? '

Here John paused. He was now in a high state of fuddle- ment, but was capable of remembering that his name was on

JOHN HARDY AMONG WOMEN 89

placards all about the town, and about to be proclaimed by * No. 8.'

* John — what ? ' came the question again.

But Miss Collins rescued him. There was the rattle of a drawn-up curtain — an intense ' Sh — h — h ' swept through the building — and at once there followed a clap and cry of applause as the whole audience leapt to its feet. Miss Collins had bounded on to the stage, bedraperied from head to heel in the Union Jack.

The air was electric. Every heart bounded in every bosom. John Hardy's right arm had stolen and twined round Ada Seward's left, his fingers kneading and palpating the soft flesh of her forearm. With his left hand he lifted the glass to his lips. He alone, on the subject of himself, remained careless.

Amid a dead silence the artiste lifted up her arm, and so for a minute stood. Then she gave a sharp, shrewd twist to her wrist, and passionately shouted —

* Bravo, John Hardy ! '

And again the audience leapt to its feet, with howls of rapture, which lasted five minutes.

The boxes were packed with some quite distinguished people.

At last there was quiet. The artiste began to sing. The tune was simple and stirring — the words were like raw rum, as crude and as strong :

When the Allied fleet came over, and passed the Straits of Dover,

They thought they'd have it all their little way ; But a knowing little cardy (they call him Johnnie Hardy),

He crashed them his Ta-ra-ra-Boom-de-aye.

CHORUS

Oh ! isn't he a jolly little boy ?

And don't he know his little way about ! When he handed in his card, and the French saw 'Johnnie

Hard,' Lord ! transformation scene, you bet, and wild, distracted rout !

There's a little sailor lad, and his eyes are mild and sad, And you'd think he'd not one blooming word to say !

But holy Moses guard ye (he's known as Johnnie Hardy) When he crashes his Ta-ra-ra-Boom-de-aye !

90 THE YELLOW DANGER

CHORUS

Oh ! isn't he a joy, that jolly sailor-boy ?

And don't he know his little way about ! When he winks his little eye, you may just lie down and die,

For his red right hand is thunder, and his eyes shoot light- nings out !

By this time the audience, wrought to a high excite- ment, had caught the lilt of the tune. When Miss Collins repeated the last chorus, the house vociferated it, utterly drowning her voice in the wheeling tumult which now pre- vailed. She pretended to retire, loaded with the masses of flowers showered upon her from the boxes ; but at once re- turned at the call of the audience. She sang :

Ah, boldly they came over ; and they crossed the Straits of Dover ;

But * Hardy ! ' was the answer England hurled that day ; And Johnnie winked his eye, and they all lay down to die,

When he crashed them his Ta-ra-ra-Boom-de-aye !

CHORUS

So isn't he just bricks, with his little crafty tricks?

And dortt he know his little way about ! For his head is crisp with curls, he's a devil with the girls,

But ten thousand times a devil when the Dogs of War are out !

Once more she repeated the chorus, the audience taking it clamorously up. Then she tripped from the stage. But the house roared after her with the frenzy of men parting with their last earthly hope. She had now utterly mesmerised and enthralled them. The moment was ecstatic with an electrical tension impossible to describe. They bawled, they yelled, they stood up straining forward with gesticulations, tears pouring down many faces, handkerchiefs waving. At last she reappeared. She had a verse in reserve. She sang : —

Old England is the mother, and each of you a brother,

To this stern brow that bids the world obey ; And now we shan't be tardy (God bless you, little Hardy !)

In crashing more Ta-ra-ras-Boom-de-aye !

CHORUS

So, isn't he a joy, this British sailor-boy ?

And don't he know his little way about ! He couldn't hurt a fly, but he's tricky, and he's sly,

And he makes the sky to redden, and the roaring deep to spout !

JOHN HARDY AMONG WOMEN 91

She rendered this last verse with almost distracted verve and heat ; and before proceeding to give the chorus a second time, stretched forth her arm, and in a fierce tone of com- mand, cried : ' Stand all ! '

The audience sprang upright yelling, the male part of it uncovering. The singing of the last chorus burst forth uni- versally. And there, too, was Hardy, hopelessly drunk now, with an arm round Ada Seward's arm, he, too, standing, he, too — with an empty glass brandished in his left hand — laughing and singing : —

So isn't he a joy, this British sailor-boy ?

And don't he know his little way about ! He couldn't hurt a fly, but he's tricky, and he's sly,

And he makes the sky to redden, and the roaring deep to spout !

No sooner had Miss Collins disappeared, amid an un- paralleled tempest of sound, than the audience scattered. They were capable of no more emotion for that night.

Hardy found himself in the street, leaning on Ada Seward's arm. They were alone. Where the soldier Brabant had vanished to, neither Brabant himself nor any one else knew.

' Shee cheers for ole Nelson ! ' cried John Hardy. ' Ha ! ha ! ha ! — ole Nelson. Shee cheers, by the Lord '

1 Come now, be good,' said Ada. * Get into this, cab, will you? '

' Where you live ? '

She gave him the Pattison address, and impressed it upon him.

' Mind, I shall expect to hear from you,' she said, as she shoved him into the cab, and kissed him.

John, going home in the cab, murmured, with fainting, intoxicated breath :

* Bosey ! Bosey ! I shall have you yet, — by the Lord '

And Ada waited in vain. The next morning he had for- gotten her address.

But he remembered — her name.

CHAPTER XI

JOHN HARDY AMONG THE NATIONS

THE next day John Hardy shut himself up in a fit of sulky moroseness, flatly refusing to see any one. The day after that was Sunday, and on Sunday evening he was at Fresh- water.

His yacht was ready to sail.

He had in his breast-pocket letters of credit from the bankers of his solicitors to business houses in Paris, Berlin, Petersburg, Pekin, and Shanghai.

He had also with him a French dictionary, a German dictionary, a Bible, and a very elementary French conversa- tion book.

He had also with him a portrait of Bosey Jay, which he had obtained that morning from Lady Sinclair.

He had also with him a Colt's revolver.

He had also with him a shilling map of Northern China, and four sorts of foreign coin.

As he stepped from the train from Newport at Freshwater, he saw a late Sunday-edition placard announcing that 1 00,000 English troops were about to embark for Havre for a French invasion ; and this made his heart rejoice.

The English Bird weighed anchor at 8 P.M. He was under requisition by letter to attend at the Admiralty the next day, but he took not the least notice of it, leaving it to be supposed that he had set out before receiving the requisi- tion. He was a free subject, he said to himself.

Before sunrise on Wednesday morning he arrived at the old town of San Sebastian on the north Spanish coast.

He had taken the precaution to bring no linen marked

HARDY AMONG THE NATIONS 93

with his name. He intended to travel as an American citizen, under the name of Petersen. From San Sebastian he sent back the yacht to England, and at once proceeded with a small trunk by train to Bayonne, thence to Bordeaux, and thence by way of Angouleme, Poitiers, and Tours to the French capital. He reached the Gare d'Orle"ans on the Thursday morning at 9.30, nearly a week after the battle of Shoreham, and proceeded westward to a hotel in the neigh- bourhood of the Madeleine, reporting himself in the hotel bulletin as having travelled from Spain.

The first thing that happened to him was that he fell in love with that charming courtezan, Paris.

He had been so exceptionally and scrupulously insular, that he had always shrunk from leaving England, except in the ships on which he served. Hence he knew some of the ports of Europe very well, but had never been to Paris. Now was revealed to him they?//<? de joie of the cities of the earth, the pure feminine, as queer, and treacherous, and lovely, and indescribable, as woman. Whoso truly loves woman will not escape her witchery. She is the divine sinner.

Hardy intended to leave Paris at three o'clock; but he put off his departure till the next day ; and meantime he got into trouble.

The news of the disaster to the allied fleet had four days since reached France. But the whole thing was incredible ; it was not believed, or believed with only half the mind ; and for this reason : that the news had come by the roundabout way of the Mackay-Bennet cable — from New York ! What lent some colour of truth to the report was the incompre- hensible fact that the Contre-Amiral and General de Rosney had sent no despatch-boat to announce the landing of the troops on English soil. Yet the nation refused to believe the incredible. They waited, with suspended mind, with bated breath, wildly hoping.

In the impossible contingency of their fleet having been defeated, they argued that at least one ship would have escaped to bring them the news. But no ship had come : the fleet could not be defeated.

The fact was thatyfo* ships had escaped — three liners and two battleships. But of the three liners one was towing another at the rate of about half a knot an hour, and the

94 THE YELLOW DANGER

third was just forging through the water against a head wind under sail alone. The two battleships were German, and in sorry plight. One with a broken screw, and one with disabled engines, they were making their slow way north-eastward with a vague outlook toward Bremerhafen in the mind's eye.

Of the British ships not one craft had remained afloat.

However, on the morning of Hardy's arrival in Paris, one of the three liners drifted on to the French coast, near St Valery en'Caux, having on board an infantry brigade, and a crew, perishing with hunger, on the verge of frenzy with thirst. By noon Paris knew.

Then there was brouhaha and houlabalu^ or, as we say, c ructions.'

Paris, in her rages, as in all else, is like a woman. She tears her finery and ribbons to shreds ; she foams at the mouth ; her hair is ' all over the place ' !

Her last exuberance had taken the shape of the Dreyfus riots. Monsieur Zola had been the scapegoat. He had been declared a ' d'egener'e' by the University; had been regarded as a ' cas ' by the alienistes ; had been hopelessly caricatured ; was regarded as a man done for.

He waited. On this Thursday morning he had his revenge.

Under the great statue of France in the Place de la Bastille he stood, and the crowd around him spread far up the avenues leading into the Place. He was recognised : ' C'est M. Zola ! ' And he harangued them.

He had always been known as a very decent orator. And he three times used the word * trahison?

This word ' treason ' has a strange glamour for the French mind, carrying with it an extraordinary hint of the blackest infamy.

It was a word which Paris could ill bear at that moment. It simply made the crowd a kennel of rabid dogs. Already in other parts — in the Cite*, the Place de la Concorde, la Vilette — excited throngs were rushing riotously about the rues and avenues and boulevards, without the incentive of M. Zola's c trahison? And in the midst of M. Zola's crowd, in the deadliest peril, stood John Hardy.

On his forehead was the strip of plaster which covered the scratch received at Shoreham.

HARDY AMONG THE NATIONS 95

By some sure intuition, the French know an Englishman at once; they say of you at a glance, '// est anglais? And ' Hardy was very much of an Englishman.

If ever human boy enjoyed himself, it was he at that moment. He loved a row for its own sake, and here was the sweetest of all rows — a French row.

What added a touch of exquisiteness to his enjoyment was his inner knowledge of the cause of the row. These children had dashed themselves like impotent waves against the rock of England, and were now astonished to find that rock was hard, and could shatter them.

John could hardly understand a word of the harangue, though he once heard his own name, but he guessed what it was all about, and he saw it in the distorted faces of the people. He stood looking up into the startling eyes of the orator, quietly smiling.

At the first sounds of uproar he had run from his hotel, and followed a crowd eastward. No thought of his danger occurred to him. His attitude of mind towards the people among whom he found himself was one of quiet and assured dominancy.

M. Zola was about to complete his oration, and the mob to rush with some indefinitely hostile purpose toward the Elyse'e, when Hardy felt himself touched with a deliberate tap on the shoulder.

He looked round and up.

He was confronted by an extremely foreign-looking person, a middle-aged man to judge by his face, but with a head of quite white long hair, and a splendid white beard and mous- tache. He wore a gray, broad -brimmed, soft -felt sombrero sort of hat, which drooped on one side like a lady's Gains- borough. But the part of him that attracted attention was his two hands; they were simply two constellations of bulky flashing jewels : on each of the eight fingers being several huge rings, glittering with every variety of luminous stone.

His face was very excited. But he said to Hardy, with perfect polished politeness, lifting his sombrero :

' Ah, monsieur a march'e sur mon pied ! '

lfe ne comprendsj said John.

' Ah ! it is as I thought. Monsieur is, then, English.'

* That is so/ answered John incautiously.

96 THE YELLOW DANGER

'Ahl English — good. Very-well — all-right. I wished to say that monsieur has marched on my foot.'

John knew that this was a lie. But he made a concession ; with a condescending nod and smile he said :

'Afoyy/'

He meant to say ' Pardon? But *merci* and l pardon' somehow, were very much mixed up in his mind; he often used one instead of the other.

The very-foreign person said with a bow :

' I cannot help to think that the action was intentioned on the part of monsieur.'

' Go away, will you ? ' said John Hardy.

' But monsieur has not answered my question.'

' Yes, I have. Be good enough to go to the devil.'

'To the ? Very -well — all -right.' And at once he

lifted his voice high, interrupting the orator, crying out :

* Voifat messieurs — un anglais — de la Marine anglaise '

John had committed the indiscretion of wearing his mariner pea-jacket, with brass buttons engraved with anchors.

There arose an outcry round him. A commotion spreading wider through the crowd, like circles round a pebble-splash, had him for its centre. M. Zola ceased to hold forth.

They pressed round stiflingly. Hardy began to cough feebly. He pushed back with his elbow a rough -looking, brazen-eyed fellow in an owner's smock. But his effort to free himself was poor in force. In a moment or two his jacket was rent off him, and a cruel fist smote him heavily in the jaw. He saw clearly now that he was on the point of being torn to pieces.

He wondered what he could do; and having calmly measured the situation, and seeing no chance of escape, he broke into a laugh at his own expense, calling out loudly :

1 Cockers! Cockers!'

By 'cockers' he meant to call them 'pigs.'

In a moment he was on the ground on his back.

But whatever force it is which underlies the world had this frail and dauntless lad in its keeping for the time being. He was necessary.

A diversion was caused by a loud pair of lungs, which cried :

HARDY AMONG THE NATIONS 97

'Mais, messieurs, ecoutez-moi> ecoutez-moi '

It was the very-foreign person, who was also vehemently interposing his utmost bodily vigour to the rescue of John.

' You know me — you know me all — listen to me — I am Edrapol '

' Cest Edrapol ! Edrapol ! '

Instantly the rumour spread far, amid vives. Edrapol, the duellist, the Bulgarian, the world-renowned master of the pistol and the rapier ; it was he.

He explained. The English sailor had committed upon him a personal outrage. He begged — it was his simple right — that the life of the miscreant should be spared to make the reparation which was only his, Edrapol's, plain due. The stranger's death was certain either way, but, in short, messieurs, the other way was more neat — more convenable.

And so Hardy was, as it were, torn from the rough hands which had seized him. Edrapol's popularity in Paris was paramount. The mob, led by Zola, rushed westwards. Hardy and Edrapol were alone.

The escrimeur, bowing, handed his card to Hardy, and requested a return of the favour.

' What for ? ' said John. ' I have no card.'

' But monsieur will meet me ? '

'Where?'

'In the Bois, monsieur.'

' But what for ? '

'Why, to fight, monsieur.'

' You don't mean a duel ? '

' Why, naturally, monsieur.'

' I see. But an old man like you ? '

'Not too old, monsieur, perhaps.! Does monsieur then hesitate ? '

* I do. It is absurd.'

' Monsieur is, of course, sensible to the interpretation which one would naturally put upon any hesitation from his part?'

'No. I am not sensible of it. What interpretation?'

' That monsieur is a coward.'

'Well, but I am not one, interpret as you please.'

'Still, monsieur, I say the natural interpretation. I am sure you will realise my point of view if you recollect that I

H

9 8 THE YELLOW DANGER

have the reputation of being the deadliest swordsman in Europe.'

1 Is that so ? Oh, I didn't know.'

' Now I think monsieur realises my point of view ? '

' I do rather.'

'And monsieur will now fight?'

' I don't mind. What with ?'

I All that will be arranged for us by others, monsieur. If you will give me your name, your address, and the address of a friend to whom I may send a friend of mine '

I 1 have no friend worth mentioning here. Send your friend to me personally.'

He gave his real name and his address, and turned away from the bowing figure before him. He set out for his hotel.

Later in the day he found himself in front of the Chambre des Deputes, and dropped in with a stream of the public.

A glance showed a full house — Zola, Papa Sardou, the young novelist, Pierre Louys — and the Parisian pressmen overflowing into the foreign press.

Below, no dull uniformity, as in the House of Commons, but variety, colours, races. There is M. Grenier, the Mussul- man deputy, his white Arabian burnous, near the * passage of the Left.' The centre is packed — Republicans and Opportunists — Government - supporters these. The Right is the stronghold of the Clericals and Legitimists. To the Left, the Socialists.

In the centre of the circle, the tribune — a pulpit; and behind the