Two hours later, the bugle-calls to re-assemble were sounded, and the rebel army re-formed to march westward by way of the Minories and Leadenhall Street to Cornhill, and so to the Bank of England, the Stock Exchange, the Royal Exchange, and the Mansion House, all of which were sacked and looted by the revolutionaries.
This—so the Dumpling had decided—was to end the work for that day. The bugles of dismissal were sounded; and little by little the great armies of Labour melted away.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
LONDON IN REVOLUTION.
Because the Rising had seemingly broken out in one day, because on the Saturday night London had gone to bed in peace and quietness, on the Sunday night London was aflame, and, on the Monday morning, London was apparently at peace again—because of all this, some hope was entertained in certain high official quarters that the trouble would subside as suddenly as it had arisen.
So, at least—possibly for the prevention of panic—it was pretended, and when, at mid-day, there was no sign of a reassembling of the forces under the Dumpling's command the belief was expressed in certain early afternoon papers that the threatened safety of the Empire was assured.
But the police were wiser. They knew that though the firing of the fuse had been but a night's, or even a moment's, work, the laying of the mine had been going on for years; and though the suddenness of the rising, coming as it did on a Sunday, had taken them unawares, it had not found them altogether unprepared, as after-events proved.
But on Monday, at mid-day, a sudden reaction set in. The wildest rumours were afloat of some awful danger that assailed not only London, but the very Empire.
The fact of the Dumpling's extraordinary resemblance to Napoleon, and of his claim to be the great Napoleon himself, had got abroad, and religious fanatics proclaimed him to be the Beast of the Book of Revelation, the anti-Christ who was to come. Them and their diatribes no sane man heeded; but that something was afoot which directly menaced our very existence as a nation, was believed by all. It was openly stated that the Dumpling and the German Emperor were acting in concert, and that it was from Germany that the arms and the funds which furnished the rioters with the sinews of war had come.
The Kaiser was depicted as not only jealous of the popularity of King Edward, but as hating the form of Limited Monarchy which exists in England, and as anxious to establish, first in Europe, and finally all over the world, the autocratic rule which prevails in his own country and in Russia. The Dumpling—so it was openly stated—had succeeded in convincing the Kaiser of the genuineness of his claim to be the re-incarnation of Napoleon. An agreement had been come to between the two men by which it was arranged that, if the Kaiser would assist the Dumpling to obtain supreme power in England, this country should be put under the rule of an Absolute Monarchy even more despotic and more autocratic than that of Russia and Germany. That once achieved, the German Emperor and the Dumpling would combine against France, and re-establish the Monarchy there.