This was the prominent announcement, made on the afternoon of the third day, which began to quicken interest and excite the minds of people in England.
All that evening countless families discussed the information with curious unrest and foreboding. In all the towns the churches were exceptionally full at evensong. One fact was more discussed than any other, more particularly in London.
Although the six men who had left England so suddenly, almost furtively, were obviously on a mission of the highest importance, no reputable paper published more than the bare fact of their departure. Comment upon it, more detailed explanation of it, was sought in the columns of all the journals in vain.
The next morning was big with shadow and gloom. A shudder passed over the country. Certain telegrams appeared in all the papers which struck a chill of fear to the very heart of all who read them, Christian and indifferent alike.
It was as though a great and ominous bell had begun to toll over the world.
The faces of people in the streets were universally pale.
It was remarked that the noises of London, the traffic, the movement of crowds engaged upon their daily business, lost half their noise.
The shops were full of Christmas gifts, but no one seemed to enter them.
In addition to the telegrams a single leading article appeared in the _Daily Wire_, which burnt itself, as the extremest cold burns, into the brains of Englishmen.
"The French Consul-General and Staff, who were paying a ceremonial visit to the Latin Patriarch, have been attacked by fanatical Moslems, and only escaped from the fury of the crowd with great difficulty, aided by the Turkish Guards. A vast concourse of Armenian Christians, Russian pilgrims, and Aleppine Greeks afterwards gathered round the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The strange discovery said to have been made by the English excavator, Mr. Hands, and the German Doctor Schmöulder, has aroused the mob to furious protest against it. For nearly an hour fervent cries of '_Hadda Kuber Saidna_,' 'This is the tomb of our Lord,' filled all the air. The Mohammedans and lower-class Jews made a wild attack upon the protesting Christians in the courtyard of the church. Many hundreds are dead and dying.