Already, so it was stated, the German war squadron was on its way to England, and German vessels of every sort were conveying an army of half a million of men to this country, nominally to assist King Edward's troops in crushing the rebellion. Once, however, they had succeeded in effecting a landing, the real purpose for which they had come here would be revealed, and they would co-operate with the Dumpling's forces, and officially recognise his claim to be Emperor of England and of France. The fact that a German squadron had sailed with sealed orders the day before the outbreak, lent some colour to this preposterous theory, and the fact, also, that undoubtedly something in the nature of a panic prevailed at Court, went far to support it. What was wrong there nobody knew. The Prince of Wales and the Prime Minister, it was known, had been hastily summoned, and had driven to Buckingham Palace in hot haste, surrounded on every side by escorts large enough to be spoken of as small armies. An hour after their arrival, the King, so it was stated, had, in response to a loyal demonstration outside the Palace, appeared for a moment at a window, hurriedly bowed, and as hurriedly retired.
Clearly something was wrong at Court, and what that something was, and how intimately concerned in it I was to be, I could not in my wildest dreams have conceived.
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE GREAT FIGHT IN FLEET STREET.
Until three o'clock on Monday afternoon there was no new disturbance, no reassembling of the rioters; but soon after that hour it was clear that something was astir. This time there was no marching in companies, but the vast crowds that were quietly but systematically pouring cityward from every quarter were clearly acting under instructions, and according to some method of organisation. So far as I could see, it was towards the open space in front of the Royal Exchange that the crowd was converging, and thither I allowed myself to be carried with the stream.
On this occasion it was quite clear that the mob was neither sanguine nor confident, and for this there were reasons. The first was the absence of the Dumpling. That he was to have met his lieutenants at a certain hour, and at a certain place, that morning, but for some unaccountable cause had failed to keep the appointment, was already common knowledge. When he was present, that heterogeneous gathering seemed organic. It acted not as a mob, but as one man; and one man, in a sense, it was, since each contingent—come as it might from Bermondsey, from Poplar, or from Canning Town—seemed like one of the limbs of a human body, of which this man, the Dumpling, was the controlling brain.
By his absence, however, this body politic seemed dismembered. The magnetism exercised by his single personality was extraordinary. So long as he was known to be at their head, the rioters followed their appointed leaders, his lieutenants, with fearless confidence, moving and acting in concert, not like an undisciplined mob, but like drilled troops, trained and controlled by a master of men. Now, in a single day, the whole movement seemed, in his absence, to have gone to pieces.
Another reason for the nervousness of the rioters was the mysterious action, or inaction, of the military and the police. No attempt either to prevent the people from assembling, or to disperse them when assembled, had been made; and no blue or red-coated myrmidons of the civil or of the military forces had attempted to bar the thoroughfares, or to offer opposition of any sort to the revolutionaries. With the Dumpling present, as their leader and head, the absence of the police and of the military would have been counted by the mob as a signal proof of the completeness of their victory. With him away, it seemed ominous of ambush, pregnant with evil; and when the Dumpling's second in command announced that he intended, in their leader's absence, to carry out the plan of campaign as arranged by their leader himself, and gave the order for the riflemen to form up, and for the rank and file to fall in behind, the order, though obeyed, was obeyed spiritlessly and unwillingly.
Then came the news that troops, mounted and on foot, were approaching by way of Queen Victoria Street and Cheapside; and as the trees of a great forest sway and waver before the coming of a storm, so over the rebel army there passed a sudden tremor, as if the members of that army were undecided whether to fight or to fly.
Sharp and clear, however, came the words of command, and sullenly the legions of Labour prepared for the fray. Once again victory rested with the revolutionaries. Nor was I surprised, for to me, at that stage of the struggle, it seemed as if the police and the soldiers had bided their time too long. An armed mob gathered together in the space known as the Poultry, and holding all the approaches, would be difficult to dislodge, presenting as it did a solid phalanx to any opposing force which, owing to the comparative narrowness of the converging thoroughfares, would of necessity be compelled to present a somewhat narrow front to the rebel army. Queen Victoria Street, it is true, being broad, would allow the soldiery to come on in companies, forming an attacking line of formidable length. This, however, the Dumpling's second in command had realised, for, immediately facing Queen Victoria Street, he placed the pick of the rebel riflemen. No sooner did the troop of cavalry, which was advancing upon the rioters, come within range, than the barrels of the riflemen, and the saddles of the front row of soldiery, were almost simultaneously emptied. After each volley Queen Victoria Street was for a moment blocked by a line of dead and dying soldiers and horses, but no sooner was the opposing line re-formed, and ready to come on, before another volley from the rebel riflemen emptied every saddle again.