The World Peril of 1910
Page 35
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE "AURIOLE"
"All aboard, I think, Captain Roker," said Mr Parmenter, as he walkedlast to the top of the gangway ladder, and stood square-footed on thewhite deck of the _Auriole_.
"All aboard, sir," replied Hiram Roker, "and now I reckon you'll have toexcuse me, because I've got to go below just to see that everything's inworking order."
"That's all right, Mr Roker. I know where your affections are centred inthis ship. You go right along to your engines, and Mr Hingeston will seeabout the rest of us. Now then, Mr Lennard, you come along into theconning-tower, and whatever you may have seen from the conning-tower ofthe _Ithuriel_, I reckon you'll see something more wonderful stillbefore we get to London. You show the way, Newson. See, here it is, justabout the same. We've stolen quite a lot of ideas from your friendErskine; it's a way we've got on our side, you know. But this is goingto be one of the exceptions; if we win we are going to pay."
Lennard followed Mr Parmenter down the companion-way into the centresaloon of the _Auriole_, and through this into a narrow passage whichled forward. At the end of this passage was a lift almost identical withthat on the _Ithuriel_. He took his place with Mr Parmenter and MrHingeston on this and it rose with them into a little oval chamberalmost exactly like the conning-tower of the _Ithuriel_, with theexception that it was built entirely of hardened papier-mache and glass.
"You see, Mr Lennard," said Mr Parmenter, "we don't want armour here.Anything that hits us smashes us, and that's all there is to it. Ouridea is just to keep out of the way and do as much harm as we can fromthe other side of the clouds. And now, Newson, if you're ready, we mightas well get to the other side and have a look at the sun. It's sort ofmisty and cheerless down here."
"Just as easy as saying so, my dear Ratliffe. I reckon Hiram's got aboutten thousand horse-power waiting to be let loose; so we may as well letthem go. Hold on, Mr Lennard, and don't breathe any more than you canhelp for a minute or two."
Lennard, remembering his cruise in the _Ithuriel_, held on, and also,after filling his lungs, held his breath. Mr Hingeston took hold of thesteering-wheel, also very much like that of the _Ithuriel_, with hisleft hand, and touched in quick succession three buttons on asignal-board at his right hand.
At the first touch nothing happened as far as Lennard could see or hear.At the second, a soft, whirring sound filled the air, growing swiftly inintensity. At the third, the mist which enveloped Whernside began, as itseemed to him, to flow downwards from the sky in long wreaths ofsmoke-mingled steam which in a few moments fell away into nothingness. Ablaze of sunlight burst out from above--the earth had vanished--andthere was nothing visible save the sun and sky overhead, and anapparently illimitable expanse of cloud underneath.
"There's one good thing about airships," said Mr Hingeston, as he took aquarter turn at the wheel, "you can generally get the sort of climateand temperature you want in them." He put his finger on a fourth buttonand continued: "Now, Mr Lennard, we have so far just pulled her up abovethe mist. You'll have one of these ships yourself one day, so I may aswell tell you that the first signal means 'Stand by'; the second, 'Fullpower on lifting fans'; the third, 'Stand by after screws'; and thefourth--just this--"
He pushed the button down as he spoke, and Lennard saw the brilliantlywhite surface of the sunlit mist fall away before and behind them. A fewmoments later he heard a sort of soft, sighing sound outside theconning-tower. It rose quickly to a scream, and then deepened into aroar. Everything seemed lost save the dome of sky and the sun risingfrom the eastward. There was nothing else save the silver-grey blurbeneath them. As far as he was concerned for the present, the earth hadceased to exist for him five minutes ago.
He didn't say anything, because the circumstances in which he foundhimself appeared to be more suitable for thinking than talking; he juststood still, holding on to a hand-grip in the wall of the conning-tower,and looked at the man who, with a few touches of his fingers, washurling this aerial monster through the air at a speed which, as hecould see, would have left the _Ithuriel_ out of sight in a few minutes.
In front of Hingeston as he sat at the steering-wheel were two dials.One was that of an aneroid which indicated the height. This nowregistered four thousand feet. The other was a manometer connected withthe speed-gauge above the conning-tower, and the indicator on this washovering between one hundred and fifty and a hundred and sixty.
"Does that really mean we're travelling over a hundred and fifty milesan hour?" he said.
"Getting on for a hundred and sixty," said Mr Parmenter, taking out hiswatch. "You see, according to that last wire I sent, we're due in thegardens of Buckingham Palace at ten-thirty sharp, and so we have tohustle a bit."
"Well," replied Lennard, "I must confess that I thought that my littletrip in the _Ithuriel_ took me to something like the limits of everydayexperience; but this beats it. Whatever you do on the land or in thewater you seem to have something under you--something you can depend on,as it were--but here, you don't seem to be anywhere. A friend of minetold me that, after he had taken a balloon trip above the clouds andacross the Channel, but he was only travelling forty miles an hour. Hehad somewhat a trouble to describe that, but this, of course, getsrather beyond the capabilities of the English language."
"Or even the American," added Mr Hingeston, quietly.
"Why, yes," said Mr Parmenter, rolling a cigarette, "I believe weinvented the saying about greased lightning, and here we are somethinglike riding on a streak of it."
"Near enough!" laughed Lennard. "We may as well leave it at that, as yousay. Still, it is very, very wonderful."
And so it was. As they sped south the mists that hung about the northernmoors fell behind, and broken clouds took their place. Through the gapsbetween these he could see a blur of green and grey and purple. A fewblotches of black showed that they were passing over the Lancashire andMidland manufacturing towns; then the clouds became scarcer and anenormous landscape spread out beneath them, intersected by white roadsand black lines of railways, and dotted by big patches of woods, longlines of hedgerows and clumps of trees on hilltops. Here and there thewhite wall of a chalk quarry flashed into view and vanished; and oneither side towns and villages came into sight ahead and vanished asternalmost before he could focus his field-glasses upon them.
At about twenty minutes after the hour at which they had left Whernside,Mr Hingeston turned to Mr Parmenter and said, pointing downward with theleft hand:
"There's London, and the clouds are going. What are we to do? We can'tdrop down there without being seen, and if we are that will give halfthe show away. You see, if Castellan once gets on to the idea thatwe've got airships and are taking them into London, he'll have a dozenof those _Flying Fishes_ worrying about us before we know what we'redoing. If we only had one of those good old London fogs under us wecould do it."
"Then what's the matter with dropping under the smoke and using that fora fog," said Mr Parmenter, rather shortly. "The enemy is still a dozenmiles to southward there; they won't see us, and anyhow, London's a bigplace. Why, look there now! Talking about clouds, there's the very thingyou want. Oceans of it! Can't you run her up a bit and drop through itwhen the thing's just between us and the enemy?"
As he spoke, Lennard saw what seemed to him like an illimitable sea ofhuge spumy billows and tumbling masses of foam, which seemed to roll andbreak over each other without sound. The silent cloud-ocean was flowingup from the sou'west. Mr Hingeston took his bearings by compass, sloweddown to fifty miles an hour, and then Lennard saw the masses of cloudrise up and envelop them.
For a few minutes the earth and the heavens disappeared, and he feltthat sense of utter loneliness and isolation which is only known tothose who travel through the air. He saw Mr Hingeston pull a lever withhis right hand and turn the steering-wheel with his left. He felt theblood running up to his head, and then came a moment of giddiness. Whenhe opened his eyes the _Auriole_ was dropping as gently as a bird on thewing towards the trees
of the garden behind Buckingham Palace.
"I reckon you did that quite well, Newson," said Mr Parmenter, lookingat his watch. "One hour and twenty-five minutes as you said. And now I'mgoing to shake hands with a real king for the first time."