When It Was Dark Part 22

"No, no," cried Spence, getting his voice back at last and speaking like a man in acute physical pain. "_A new tomb has been found. There is an inscription in Greek, written by Joseph of Arimathaea, and there are other traces._"

His voice failed him.

"_Go on, man, go on!_" said the editor.

"_The inscription--tells that Joseph--took the body of Jesus--from his own garden tomb--he hid it in this place--the disciples never knew--it is a confession_----"

Ommaney was as white as Spence now.

"_There are other contributory proofs_," Spence continued. "_Hands says it is certain. All the details are here, read_----"

Ommaney stared fixedly at his lieutenant.

"_Then, if this is true_," he whispered, "_it means?_----"

"THAT CHRIST NEVER ROSE FROM THE DEAD, THAT CHRISTIANITY IS ALL A LIE."

Spence slipped back in his chair a little and fainted.

With the a.s.sistance of two men from one of the other rooms they brought him back to consciousness before very long. Then while Ommaney read the papers Spence sat nervously in his chair, sipping some brandy-and-water they had brought him and trying to smoke a cigarette with a palsied hand.

The editor finished at last. "Pull yourself together, Spence," he said sharply. "This is no time for sentiment. I know your beliefs, though I do not share them, and I can sympathise with you. But keep yourself off all private thoughts now. We must be extremely careful what we are doing. Now listen carefully to me."

The keen voice roused Spence. He made a tremendous effort at self-control.

"It seems," Ommaney went on, "that we alone know of this discovery. The secretary of the Palestine Exploring Society will not receive the news for another week, Hands says. He seems stunned, and no wonder. In about a fortnight his detailed papers will probably be published. I see he has already telegraphed privately for Dr. Schmoulder, the German expert. Of course you and I are hardly competent to judge of the value of this communication. To me--speaking as a layman--it seems extremely clear.

But we must of course see a specialist before publis.h.i.+ng anything. _If this news is true_--and I would give all I am worth if it were not, though I am no Christian--of course you realise that the future history of the world is changed? I hold in my hand something that will come to millions and millions of people as an utter extinction of hope and light. It's impossible to say what will happen. Moral law will be abrogated for a time. The whole moral fabric of Society will fall into ruin at once until it can adjust itself to the new state of things.

There will be war all over the world; crime will cover England like a cloud----"

His voice faltered as the terrible picture grew in his brain.

Both of them felt that mere words were utterly unable to express the horrors which they saw dawning.

"We don't know the truth yet," said Spence, at length.

"No," answered Ommaney. "I am not going to speculate on it either. I am beginning to realise what we are dealing with. One man's brain cannot hold all this. So let me ask you to regard this matter _for the present_ simply from the standpoint of the paper, and through it, of course, from the standpoint of public policy----"

He broke off suddenly, for there was a knock at the door. A _commissionaire_ entered with a telegram. It was for Spence. He opened the envelope, read the contents with a groan, and pa.s.sed it to the editor.

The telegram was from Hands:

"Schmoulder entirely confirms discovery, is communicating first instance with Kaiser privately, fuller details in mail, confer Ommaney, make statement to Secretary Society, use Wire medium publicity, leave all to you, see Prime Minister, send out Llwellyn behalf Government immediately, meanwhile suggest att.i.tude suspended decision, personally fear little doubt.--HANDS."

"We must act at once," said Ommaney. "We have a fearful responsibility now. It's not too much to say that everything depends on us. Have you got any of that brandy left? My head throbs like an engine."

A sub-editor who came in and was briefly dismissed told his colleagues that something was going on in the editor's room of an extraordinary nature. "The chief was actually drinking a peg, and his hand shook like a leaf."

Ommaney drank the spirits--he was an absolute teetotaler as a rule, though not pledged in any way to abstinence--and it revived him.

"Now let us try and think," he said, lighting a cigarette and walking up and down the room.

Spence lit a cigarette also. As he did so he gave a sudden, sharp, unnatural chuckle. He was smoking when the Light of the World--the whole great world!--was flickering into darkness.

Ommaney saw him and interpreted the thought. He pulled him up at once with a few sharp words, for he knew that Spence was close upon hysteria.

"From a news point of view," he continued, "we hold all the cards. No one else knows what we know. I am certain that the German papers will publish nothing for a day or two. The Emperor will tell them nothing, and they can have no other source of information; so I gather from this telegram. Dr. Schmoulder will not say anything until he has instructions from Potsdam. That means I need not publish anything in to-morrow's paper. It will relieve me of a great responsibility. We shall be first in the field, but I shall still have a few hours to consult with others."

He pressed a bell on the table. "Tell Mr. Jones I wish to see him," he told the boy who answered the summons.

A young man came in, the editor of the "personal" column.

"Is the Prime Minister in town, Mr. Jones?" he asked.

"Yes, sir; he's here for three more days."

"I shall send a message now," said Ommaney, "asking for an interview in an hour's time. I know he will see me. He knows that I would not come at this hour unless the matter were of national importance. As you know, we are very much in the confidence of the Cabinet just now. I dare not wait till to-morrow." He rapidly wrote a note and sent for Mr. Folliott Farmer.

The big-bearded man from Spence's room entered, smoking a briar pipe.

"Mr. Farmer," said Ommaney, "I suppose you've done your leader?"

"Sent it up-stairs ten minutes ago," said the big man.

"Then I want you to do me a favour. The matter is so important that I do not like to trust any one else. I want you to drive to Downing Street at once as hard as you can go. Take this letter for Lord ----. It is making an appointment for me in an hour's time. He _must_ see it himself at once--take my card. One of the secretaries will try and put you off, of course. This is irregular, but it is of international importance. When I tell you this you will realise that Lord ---- _must_ see the note. Bring me back the answer as rapidly as you can."

The elderly man--his name was a household word as a political writer all over England and the Continent--nodded without speaking, took the letter, and left the room. He knew Ommaney, and realised that if he made a messenger boy of him, Folliott Farmer, the matter was of supreme importance.

"That is the only thing to do," said Ommaney. "No one else would be possible. The Archbishop would laugh. We must go to the real head. I only want to put myself on the safe side before publis.h.i.+ng. If they meet me properly, then for the next few days we can control public opinion. If not, then it is my duty to publish, and if I'm not officially backed up there may be war in a week. Macedonia would be flaming, Turkish fanatics would embroil Europe. But that will be seen at once in Downing Street, unless I'm very much mistaken."

"It's an awful, horrible risk we are running," said Spence. He was forgetting all personal impressions in the excitement of the work; the journalist was alive in him. "Hands's letter and diagrams seem so flawless; he has exhausted every means of disproving what he says; but still supposing that it is all untrue!"

"I look at it this way," said Ommaney. "It's perfectly obvious, at any rate, that the discovery is of the first importance, regarded as news.

Hands has the reputation of being a thoroughly safe man, and now he is supported by Schmoulder. Schmoulder is, of course, a man of world-wide reputation. As these two are certain, even if later opinion or discovery proves the thing to be untrue, the paper can't suffer. Our att.i.tude will, of course, be non-committal, until certainty one way or the other comes. At any rate, it seems to me that you have brought in the greatest newspaper 'scoop' that has ever been known or thought of. For my part, I have little doubt of the truth of this. Can't go into it now, but it seems so very, very probable. It _explains_, and even _corroborates_, and that's the wonderful thing, so much of the Gospel narrative. We shall see what Llwellyn says. I've more to go into, but, meanwhile, I must make arrangements for setting up Hands's papers. Then there are the inscriptions, too. Of course they must be reproduced in facsimile. As we can't print in half-tone, I must have the photograph turned into an absolutely correct line drawing, and have line blocks made. I shall have pulls of the whole thing prepared and sent by post to-morrow at midnight to the editors of all the dailies in London and Paris, and to the heads of the Churches. I shall also prepare a statement, showing exactly how the doc.u.ments have come into our possession and what steps we are taking. I shall write the thing to-night, after I have seen the Prime Minister."

He went to his writing-table once more, moved the telephone indicator, and summoned the foreman printer.

In a few moments a lean Scotchman in his s.h.i.+rt sleeves--one of the most autocratic and important people connected with the paper--came into the room.

"I want an absolutely reliable linotype operator, Burness," said Ommaney. "He will have to set up some special copy for me after the paper's gone to press. It'll take him till breakfast-time. I want a man who will not talk. The thing is private and important. And it must be a man who can set up from the Greek font by hand also. There are some quotations in Greek included in the text."

"Well, sirr," said the man, with a strong Scotch accent, "I can find ye a guid operrator to stay till morning, but aboot his silence--if it's of great moment--I wouldn't say, and aboot his apt.i.tude for setting up Greek type I hae nae doot whatever. There's no a lino operrator in the building wha can do it. Some of the men at the case might, but that'll be keeping two men. Is it verra important, Mr. Ommaney?"

"More important than anything I have ever dealt with."

"Then ye'll please jist give the copy into my own hands, sirr. I'll do the lino and the case warrk mysel' and pull a galley proof for ye too.

No one shall see the copy but me."

"Thank you, Burness," said the editor. "I'm very much obliged. I shall be here till morning. I shall go out in an hour and be back by the time the machines are running down-stairs. Then the composing-room will be empty and you can get to work."