CHAPTER XIX.

THE COUP D'ÉTAT.

While the fierce struggle for Fort Warden was proceeding, and while Nicholas Jardine lay dying, the Vice-President of the Council and her adherents were engaged in desperate efforts to strengthen the grip of Woman on the governance of England. To wrest to their own advantage the crisis that would arise on the expected death of the President was of paramount importance to the Kellick party. To turn it to their destruction was the anxious object of their political opponents. Thus was foreshadowed--for the critical hour--a fierce and crucial struggle for supremacy.

The chief directors of the counteracting movement, General Hartwell, the woman-hater, and Sir Robert Herrick, wise in counsel and learned in law, were in constant conference. They met daily, and their conferences and study of reports often lasted far into the night.

The outcome of their labours was to be seen in the creation of an association, which Linton had mentioned to Zenobia. It embodied both men and women, who styled themselves, as a bond of union, the Friends of the Phoenix. The general aim of this association was to re-establish man in his proper position in the State, and the particular aim to bring about the restoration of the long-lost leader, Wilson Renshaw.

The last mentioned feature of the programme, though at first received with natural incredulity, presently acted with magical effect in quickening public interest; and when secret, but authoritative, assurances were forthcoming that Renshaw still lived, had been released by the Mahdi, and was about to return to England, vast numbers speedily enrolled themselves as Friends of the Phoenix. The great strength of the movement lay in the voluntary enlistment of hosts of disciplined men. The Police, the regular Army, and the Territorials, furnished many thousands of recruits.

The old Household troops followed General Hartwell almost to a man; the Corps of Commissionaires followed suit. These men, in turn, rendered excellent, because unsuspected, service as propagandists among the humbler classes of the civil population. Evidences of disgust and discontent with the aggressive dominion of Woman were found on every side.

The time was almost ripe. It looked as if but a match were needed to produce a vast and far-reaching conflagration; and the main problem that exercised the minds of General Hartwell and Sir Robert was how, when the moment came, to use the ready instruments of revolt without incurring the risk of bloodshed and the development of civil war. Every possible precaution was taken. The Friends of the Phoenix pursued their plans with the utmost secrecy, it being realised that, in order that the projected _coup d'état_ might succeed, it was essential that it should take the Kellick faction completely by surprise.

Finally, it was decided to seize the occasion of a banquet in the City, at which it was known that the Vice-President would make an oratorical bid for a new mandate from the nation. This banquet, postponed from time to time in consequence of events at Dover and the President's illness, was to take place shortly after Mr. Jardine's funeral. It was announced that reasons of State and public convenience rendered further delay impossible; "Reasons of State" meant the interests of the Kellick faction; "Public convenience" had reference to the opening of a new London railway tube.

An extension of the old Tube from the Post Office, via Gresham Street, to the Guildhall, had long been a cherished scheme of the City Fathers. The old approach through King Street and Cheapside to the head-quarters of the Corporation was only suitable for use in fine weather. But whatever changes and chances had befallen London during the first forty years of the twentieth century, British weather had developed but little alteration, and certainly no improvement. That State processions and civic functions should be spoilt by drizzle, rain, or fog, as so frequently had happened to pageants of the past, was felt to be not merely inconvenient, but quite uncalled for. The new alternative route presented many advantages. Celebrities and non-celebrities bound for the City on great occasions would be enabled to enter a special train at the West End, and could come to the surface in Guildhall Yard. The feast of oratory and the flow of champagne might thus be attained without the disadvantage of a preliminary journey through the rain-swept streets of the murky city. In like manner the members and officers of the corporation would enjoy similar immunity whenever official occasion required them to go westward.

The feminine note in politics had something to do with the project; for woman, advanced woman, in her hours of ease and finery did not like to have her feathers and laces spoilt by London smuts and drizzle; and woman, of course, had become very much in evidence in the City of London. Facetious persons went so far as to say that the City Fathers had been superseded by the City Mothers, and further justified their views by treating the male minority as indistinguishable from a set of old women. The arrival of Woman as a member of County Councils and other public bodies, not to say in Parliament itself, long ago had rendered it practically certain that the conservatism of the City must ultimately yield to the onslaughts of the sex. In the fulness of time a woman took her place on the Bench as Chief Magistrate of the City of London. A wondering world was called upon, for the first time, to do honour to a Lady Mayoress, who shone with no reflected light. She herself was the Sun of the City firmament. Lord Mayor for some years there was none.

The Lady Mayoress who held office at the critical period that had now arrived was a devoted ally of the Vice-President, and bent on advancing in every possible way the authority and interests of her sex. To this end the Corporation, which had largely subsidised the new branch tube, had solicitously waited the opportunity to entertain the acting representative of government in honour of the occasion. On the day of the banquet, the principal City streets presented their normal appearance to the eyes of all ordinary observers. The Vice-President and her supporters were to travel to the Guildhall by the new route. There was no occasion, therefore, for decoration, or for the special services of the military, or even of the police. Nevertheless, large numbers of uniformed men might have been observed moving through the side streets in small parties. In the neighbourhood of the General Post Office and of the Guildhall these numbers rapidly increased as the hour appointed for the function drew near. At the same time there were similar musters in the immediate vicinity of the Houses of Parliament, the War Office, the Admiralty, and other public offices.

There was no apparent connection between these various groups, but in reality they were acting in complete unison. They had the same password--"the Phoenix"--and were directed from one and the same centre. In a word, one and all, these men were Friends of the Phoenix.

Towards afternoon, when Londoners began to look for the early editions of the evening papers, which were expected to contain a summarised report of the Vice-President's speech in the City, extraordinary rumours began to spread throughout the Capital; and in the Clubs, the restaurants, the railway stations, and in the streets groups of men and women engaged in eager and excited discussion. The impatience of the public became uncontrollable. Crowds besieged the news-vendors' shops, and clamoured at the railway bookstalls. Even the newspaper offices were invaded, and when, at length, copies of the evening journals were available, hosts of people struggled fiercely to secure them. Scenes of extraordinary tumult were witnessed. The newsboys, tearing through the streets on their bicycles, were waylaid. Men fought and scrambled for copies of the papers, and as placard after placard appeared, public excitement was augmented until it reached the verge of frenzy.

A COUP D'ÉTAT.

REIGN OF WOMAN ENDS.

RENSHAW RETURNS.

Wild cheers and shouts broke out when lines like these were read by gaping multitudes. People came hurrying to their doors and windows; drivers of cabs and omnibuses stopped their vehicles, staring, laughing, shouting, questioning, and adding to the general babel and bewilderment. The streets were blocked. The news ran through the town like flame, evoking everywhere unbounded enthusiasm and the wildest joy. The climax was reached when overhead were heard the wind-harps of a fleet of air-ships. Fifty or sixty of the official craft had been repaired and brought into the service of the Phoenix. Sweeping over every district of London, they scattered tens of thousands of cards bearing Renshaw's portrait, and containing the same three-lined announcement that figured on the placards of the leading newspapers. At the same time, throughout the populous provincial centres, as well as in the Capital, similar cards in enormous numbers passed from hand to hand, and were scattered lavishly in every public place.

But it was at Whitehall that the interest and excitement culminated. For there, riding through the streets, bare-headed and gravely acknowledging the plaudits of an enormous concourse, Renshaw himself was seen, passing on his way to the House of Commons, supported by General Hartwell and Sir Robert Herrick, and escorted by a jubilant army of the Friends of the Phoenix. The Friends already were in possession of all the Public Departments. Officials who withstood them or protested were quietly but summarily displaced.

Everywhere the plan of campaign had worked like clockwork and without a hitch; and nowhere was the bloodless revolution more complete than in the City itself. The Vice-President's expected speech had not been reported because it was never uttered. The Friends of the Phoenix, in strong force, had taken possession of the Post Office Station of the new Tube directly the train carrying the City's distinguished guests had passed into the tunnel. At the same moment, another body of the Friends had seized the Guildhall terminus. Only those in the secret knew of what was happening in the depths of the earth. The City went about its business, the banquet waited, but no guests arrived. At both ends of the avenue the approaches to the Tube were completely blocked. The force available to maintain the blockade was more than sufficient. A handful of resolute men could easily have prevented access to or from the level of the streets. The lifts, by preconcerted signal, had been disconnected; the narrow winding staircases from the subterranean stations were effectually blocked. No violence was used; none was necessary. Behind the barriers at the top and at the bottom of the staircases stood resolute men, determined and trustworthy Friends of the Phoenix, who turned a deaf ear to all appeals and protests. No one was allowed to go down; no one was permitted to come up. Questions, clamour, threats from the imprisoned Vice-President and her party availed nothing. It was necessary to isolate certain people for a certain time, and isolated they were.

Meanwhile, London learnt about the great and new situation. The Friends of the Phoenix carried out welcome change, and the nation got a firm grip on the to the letter the plans of their leaders, and Wilson Renshaw, saved from all perils, acclaimed throughout the Capital, was triumphantly restored to a position of power from which no enemy or rival could displace him.

But he had a message for the nation, and for all nations, and the speech in which he delivered it thrilled the white man's world. He warned the peoples of Europe and America of a coming conflict, which would dwarf to insignificance all the international struggles, however stupendous, hitherto known to history. The white peoples, he declared, must abandon their mutual rivalries and ambitions. The sexes in civilised countries must check their suicidal competition for supremacy. Each and all must prepare, with united and unbroken front, to face the common foe. They were threatened with annihilation. Not so long ago the British nation alone had embraced 360 millions of the coloured races of the globe. Vast numbers of these had passed under other sceptres; but the change had only served to accelerate the rising of the dominated natives, who, far and wide, had learned to realise the overwhelming strength with which the weight of numbers had endowed them. No longer would the Black Man submit to their absolute dominion. No longer would the Yellow and the Tawny accept as their predestined masters the little band of pale-faced rulers by whom they had so long been held in subjection. The revolt was imminent. The Mahdi had proclaimed a holy war. The Crescent would be in the van, and North and South, and East and West, the coloured races would rise against, and seek to overwhelm, the recreant children of the Cross.