CHAPTER XLVII.

COMMOTION.

With the wing of the dawn--that is, with the wing of the dawn for business in London--Mark Cray was at the offices in the City. Barker was there before him, and started forward to meet him as he entered. Mark had not succeeded in seeing Barker the previous night.

"Cray, it's all up. I'm afraid it's all up."

"Have you heard from Wales?"

"I got a telegram this morning. There's an irruption of water, in earnest this time. It's flowing in like so many pumps. Look here."

Mark's hands shook as he laid hold of the telegram. "I wasn't in bed till three o'clock," said he, as if he would give an excuse for the signs of agitation. But though he tried to account for his shaking hands, he could not for his scared face.

Yes Mr. Barker was no doubt right: it was "all up" with the Great Wheal Bang. Mark and he stood alone over the table in the board-room: in consultation as to what they could do, and what they might do.

Might they dare--allowing that the public still reposed in happy security--to take some shares into the market, and secure themselves something out of the wreck? Barker was all for doing it; at any rate for _trying_ it--"whether it would work," he said. Mark hung back in indecision: he thought there might be after-consequences. He told Barker the episode of Mr. Brackenbury's visit, and of his satisfying that gentleman with the cheque of Bracknell, Street, and Oswald Cray, which cheque was no doubt cashed by that time.

"Mean old idiot!" apostrophised Mr. Barker. "That's always the way with those petty people. They'll make more fuss over their paltry hundred pounds or two than others do over thousands. I'd not have paid him, Mark."

"I couldn't help it," said Mark. "You should have seen the work he made. Besides, if I had not, he'd have proclaimed the thing from one end of London to another."

"Well, about these shares," said Barker. "We must make as much as ever we can. Will you go, or shall I?"

"Perhaps it's known already," returned Mark, dubiously.

"Perhaps it isn't. Brackenbury gave you his word that he'd keep quiet, and who else is likely to know it? Letters _can't_ get here till the afternoon post, and nobody at the mine would make it their business to telegraph up."

Mark stood in restless indecision. When annoyed, he was fidgety to a degree; could not be still. Perhaps he had inherited his mother's temperament He pushed back his hair incessantly; he fingered nervously the diamond studs in his shirt. Mark was not in the habit of wearing those studs by day, or the curiously fine embroidery they were adorning. Whether, in his confusion of faculties, he had put in the studs that morning, or had absently retired to rest in his shirt the previous night, studs and all, must be left to conjecture.

"Look here, Barker," said he. "If news had not come to _us_ of the disaster, to you and to me, I'd willingly have taken every share we possess into the market, and got the money for them down, if I could. But the news _has_ come: and I don't think it would do."

"Who's to know it has come?" asked Barker.

"Well, things do often come out, you know; they nearly always do; especially if they are not wanted to. Perhaps the telegraph office could be brought up to prove it, or something of that."

"Well?" said Barker.

"Well," repeated Mark. "It mightn't do."

"Oh, bother, Cray! We must do it. We must stand out through thick and thin afterwards that the message never reached us. I could; and you are safe, for you have not had one at all. Look at our position. We _must_ realise. Of course we can't attempt to negotiate many shares; that would betray us; but a few we might, and must. We must, for our own sakes we can't stand naked, without a penny to fall back upon."

Mark still hesitated. "I'd have done it with all the pleasure in life but for this telegram," he reiterated. "For one thing, Oswald would never forgive me; my name's the same as his, you know; and I shall have to face him over this two hundred pounds: that will be bad enough. And there's my mother. And my wife, Barker; you forget her."

"I don't forget her. I am thinking of her," was Mr. Barker's answer. "It's for her sake, as much as ours, that you ought to secure a little ready money. You'll want it. I know that much, for I have been down in luck before."

Mark looked irresolute and pitiably gloomy. "I don't see my way clear," he resumed, after a pause. "Let's put the thing into plain black and white. I go out, and sell some shares, and get the money paid down for them, and pocket it. An hour afterwards the news spreads that the mine's destroyed, and the shares are consequently worthless. Well, Barker, my belief is that they could proceed against me criminally for disposing of those shares----"

"Not if you did not know the mine was wrong when you took them into the market."

"Nonsense," returned Mark, irritably, "they'd be sure to know it. I tell you it would be safe to come out by hook or by crook. They'd call it felony, or swindling, or some such ugly name. Do you suppose I'm going to put my head into that noose? I was born a gentleman."

"And do you suppose I wish either of us to do it?" retorted Barker. "I shouldn't be such a fool. I never go into a thing unless I know I can fight my way out of it. I shall take a few shares into the market, and feel my way. I shall sell them for money, if I can; and you shall share it, Mark. I suppose you won't object to that."

No, certainly, Mark would have no objection to that.

"I did not hear of the disaster until later, you know," said Barker, winking. "News of it came up to us by the afternoon post. If they do find out about the telegram, why, I never opened it. Nobody saw me open it," added Barker, with satisfaction. "I have had so many up from the mine at my lodgings that the servants sign and put them in my sitting-room as a matter of course. This one was put there this morning, and I found it when I came down, but nobody was in the room. Oh, it will be all right. And I say, Mark, if----"

Mr. Barker's smooth projects were stopped. Absorbed in their conversation, he and Mark had alike failed to notice a gradually gathering hum in the street outside. A very gentle, almost imperceptible hum at first, but increasing to a commotion now. With one bound they reached the window.

A concourse of people, their numbers being augmented every moment, had assembled beneath. They were waiting for the opening of the offices of the Great Wheal Bang at ten o'clock. And the hour was almost on the point of striking.

"It's all up," shouted Barker in Mark's ear. "The news is abroad, and they have heard of it. Look at their faces!"

The faces were worth looking at, though not as a pleasant sight. Anger, rage, disappointment, above all _impatience_, were depicted there. The impatience of a wolf waiting to spring upon its prey. One of the faces unluckily turned its gaze upwards and caught sight of Barker's. Barker saw it; he had not been quick enough in drawing away from the window.

"They'll not be kept out now, doors or no doors," said he quietly to Mark.

Mr. Barker was right. Ere the words had died away upon his lips a sound as if the walls of the house were being beaten in ensued. The bells commenced a perpetual peal the knocker knocked incessantly, the doors were pushed and kicked and thumped. In the midst of it rose the sound of human voices in a roar: disjointed words distinguishable amidst the tumult. "Let us in! Come out to us!"

Mr. Barker advanced to the stairs, and leaned over the balustrades. "Williams," he called out to an attendant official below, "you can open the doors. The gentlemen may come up."

It was curious to note the difference in the two men. Barker was as cool as a cucumber; self-possessed as ever he had been in his life; ready to make the best of everything, and quite equal to the emergency. Mark Cray, on the contrary, seemed to have parted alike with his wits and his nerves. Not more completely did he lose his presence of mind in that long past evening which had been so fatal to Lady Oswald. His hands shook as with terror; his faff was white as death.

"Will they pull us to pieces, Barker?"

"Pooh!" said Barker, with a laugh at the evident tremor. "What has taken you, Mark? Let them rave on a bit without answering, and they'll calm down. Put _that_ in your pocket," he continued. "It will be a trifle to fall back upon."

He had touched the diamond ring that glittered on Mark Cray's finger. Mark obeyed like a child. He took it from his hand and thrust it into his waistcoat pocket; next he buttoned his coat, some vague feeling perhaps prompting him to hide the studs; but he did it all mechanically, as one not conscious of his actions. Terror was holding its sway over him.

"Why should they be excited against us? Heaven knows we have not intentionally wronged them."

"That's just the question I shall ask them myself when they are cool enough to listen to it," rejoined Barker with a gay air. "Now then comes the tug of war."

In they came, thick and threefold, dashing up the stairs and pouring into the room like so many bees. And then it was found that Mark's apprehensions had been somewhat premature. For these shareholders had come flowing to the offices not so much to abuse the projectors of the company as to inquire the true particulars of the disaster. The news had gone forth in a whisper--and to this hour neither Mark nor Barker knows how, or through whom, it had oozed out--but that whisper was vague and uncertain. Naturally those interested flew to the offices for better information. Was the damage of great extent? and would the mine and the company stand it?

Barker was of course all suavity. He treated the matter more as a joke than anything else, making light of it altogether. An irruption of water? well, perhaps a little drop had got in, but they must wait for the afternoon's post. It would be all right.

He looked round for Mark, hoping that gentleman's face would not arouse suspicion; but he could not see him. Mark, as Barker learnt afterwards, had contrived to escape from the room as the throng entered, and got into the street unnoticed, and leaped into a cab. Mark was beside himself that morning.

The unfortunate news spread from one end of London to the other. It was carried to Oswald Cray; but the day was advancing then. "The Great Wheal Bang Company had exploded, and there was a run upon the office." Oswald was startled; and betook himself at once to the premises, as the rest had done. On his way he called in upon Henry Oswald, and spoke a word of caution.

"It may be a false rumour," said he; "I hope it is. But don't do anything in the shares until you know."

A false rumour! When Oswald reached the offices he found it all too true a one. The secretary to the company, without meaning to do ill--indeed he had let it out in his lamentation--had unwittingly disclosed the fact of the previous irruption of water in the summer: and the excited crowd were going wild with anger. Many of them had bought their shares at a period subsequent to that.

Oswald heard this, and went to Mr. Barker in the board-room. That gentleman, rather heated certainly, but with unchanged suavity of demeanour, was still doing his best to reassure everybody. Oswald drew him aside.

"What a dreadful thing this is! What is the real truth of it?"

"Hush!" interrupted Mr. Barker. "No need to tell the worst to them. You are one of us. I'm afraid it is all up with the mine; but we will keep it from them as long as we can. Anyway, it's no fault of ours."

"What is it that they are saying about an irruption of water having occurred in the summer?"

"Well, so it did," answered Mr. Barker, whose past few hours' temporising with the crowd caused him perhaps to throw off reserve to Mr. Oswald Cray as a welcome relief. "But it wasn't much, that; and we succeeded in keeping it dark."

"Did Mark know of it?"

"Mark know of it!" rejoined Barker; "of course he knew of it. What should hinder him? Why, the telegram bringing the news was given me at Mark's house; and, by the way, you were present, I remember. It was the evening that old doctor in the yellow trousers was there, with his two frights of daughters."

The scene rose as in a mirror before Oswald's memory. Dr. Ford and his daughters, Miss Davenal and Sara, Caroline Cray in her silks and her beauty. He remembered the telegram, he remembered that it appeared to disturb both Barker and Mark; and he remembered Mark's denial to him that anything was amiss with the mine.

"I do recollect it," he said aloud. "It struck me--perhaps it was rather singular it should do so--that something was wrong. Mark declared to me that it was not so."

The words seemed to tickle Barker uncommonly.

"Ah," said he, laughing, "Mark told me of it, and how he turned you off the scent. You'd not have put your thousand into it, perhaps, had you known of the water."

"Perhaps not," quietly replied Oswald. "And my thousand was wanted, I suppose."

"Law! you don't know the money that's been wanted," was the response. "And that irruption of water, slight as it was, made the demand for it worse. The mine has sucked it in like a sponge."

Oswald made no answering remark. "I suppose this irruption is worse than that?" he presently observed.

"Indeed I fear this is another thing altogether--ruin. But we ion% know anything certain until the post comes in this afternoon. We have had no letter yet."

"How did the news of it come to you?"

"By telegram. But the first news came to Mark; in an odd manner, too. A curmudgeon of a shareholder, old Brackenbury, went up yesterday evening to Mark just as he was going out to dinner with his wife, and insisted upon his paltry money, only two hundred pounds, being returned to him. He was inclined to be nasty; and if Mark had not satisfied him he'd have gone over London proclaiming that the mine was overflowing with water. The odd thing is, who could have telegraphed the news to him. We must have a traitor in the camp. Mark told me--oh, ah," broke off Mr. Barker, interrupting himself as a recollection flashed upon him--"I think he got the two hundred from you."

"And Mark knew the mine was then ruined!" returned Oswald, drawing in his lips, but not losing his calm equanimity.

"Brackenbury _said_ it was. He didn't know it otherwise. Brackenbury--Halloa! what's that?"

It was a shout in the street. A shout composed of roars, and hisses, and groans. Drawing up to the door of the offices was the handsome carriage of Mark Cray; and the crowd had turned their indignation upon it.

One look, one glimpse of the white and terror-stricken faces of its inmates, and Oswald Cray bounded down the stairs. They were the faces of Mrs. Cray and Sara Davenal.

What could have brought them there?