The Steampunk Megapack

by Jay Lake

  Arnold deftly and rapidly put the parts together, continuing his running description as he did so, and in a few minutes the beautiful miracle of ingenuity stood complete before the wondering eyes of the Circle, and a murmur of admiration ran from lip to lip, bringing a flush of pleasure to the cheek of its creator.

  “There,” said he, as he put the finishing touches to the apparatus, “you see that she is a combination of two principles—those of the Aëronef and the Aëroplane. The first reached its highest development in Jules Verne’s imaginary “Clipper of the Clouds,” and the second in Hiram Maxim’s Aëroplane. Of course, Jules Verne’s Aëronef was merely an idea, and one that could never be realised while Robur’s mysterious source of electrical energy remained unknown—as it still does.

  “Maxim’s Aëroplane is, as you all know, also an unrealised ideal so far as any practical use is concerned. He has succeeded in making it fly, but only under the most favourable conditions, and practically without cargo. Its two fatal defects have been shown by experience to be the comparatively overwhelming weight of the engine and the fuel that he has to carry to develop sufficient power to rise from the ground and progress against the wind, and the inability of the machine to ascend perpendicularly to any required height.

  “Without the power to do this no air-ship can be of any use save under very limited conditions. You cannot carry a railway about with you, or a station to get a start from every time you want to rise, and you cannot always choose a nice level plain in which to come down. Even if you could the Aëroplane would not rise again without its rails and carriage. For purposes of warfare, then, it may be dismissed as totally useless.

  “In this machine, as you see, I have combined the two principles. These helices on the masts will lift the dead weight of the ship perpendicularly without the slightest help from the side-planes, which are used to regulate the vessel’s flight when afloat. I will set the engines that work them in motion independently of the others which move the propellers, and then you will see what I mean.”

  As he spoke, he set one part of the mechanism working. Those watching saw the three helices begin to spin round, the centre one revolving in an opposite direction to the other two, with a soft whirring sound that gradually rose to a high-pitched note.

  When they attained their full speed they looked like solid wheels, and then the air-ship rose, at first slowly, and then more and more swiftly, straight up from the table, until it strained hard at the piece of cord which prevented it from reaching the roof.

  A universal chorus of “bravas” greeted it as it rose, and every eye became fixed on it as it hung motionless in the air, sustained by its whirling helices. After letting it remain aloft for a few minutes Arnold pulled it down again, saying as he did so—

  “That, I think, proves that the machine can rise from any position where the upward road is open, and without the slightest assistance of any apparatus. Now it shall take a voyage round the room.

  “You see it is steered by this rudder-fan under the stern propeller. In the real ship it will be worked by a wheel, like the rudder of a sea-going vessel; but in the model it is done by this lever, so that I can control it by a couple of strings from the ground.”

  He went round to the other side of the table while he was speaking, and adjusted the steering gear, stopping the engines meanwhile. Then he put the model down on the floor, set all four engines to work, and stood behind with the guiding-strings in his hands. The spectators heard a louder and somewhat shriller whirring noise than before, and the beautiful fabric, with its shining, silvery hull and side-planes, rose slantingly from the ground and darted forward down the room, keeping Arnold at a quick run with the rudder-strings tightly strained.

  Like an obedient steed, it instantly obeyed the slightest pull upon either of them, and twice made the circuit of the room before its creator pulled it down and stopped the machinery.

  The experiment was a perfect and undeniable success in every respect, and not one of those who saw it had the slightest doubt as to Arnold’s air-ship having at last solved the problem of aërial navigation, and made the Brotherhood lords of a realm as wide as the atmospheric ocean that encircles the globe.

  As soon as the model was once more resting on the table, the President came forward and, grasping the engineer by both hands, said in a voice from which he made but little effort to banish the emotion that he felt—

  “Bravo, brother! Henceforth you shall be known to the Brotherhood as the Master of the Air, for truly you have been the first among the sons of men to fairly conquer it. Come, let us go back and talk, for there is much to be said about this, and we cannot begin too soon to make arrangements for building the first of our aërial fleet. You can leave your model where it is in perfect safety, for no one ever enters this room save ourselves.”

  So saying the President led the way to the Council-chamber, and there, after the Ariel—as it had already been decided to name the first air-ship—had been christened in anticipation in twenty-year old champagne, the Circle settled down at once to business, and for a good three hours discussed the engineer’s estimate and plans for building the first vessel of the aërial fleet.

  At length all the practical details were settled, and the President rose in token of the end of the conference. As he did so he said somewhat abruptly to Arnold—

  “So far so good. Now there is nothing more to be done but to lay those plans before the Chief and get his authority for withdrawing out of the treasury sufficient money to commence operations. I presume you could reproduce them from memory if necessary—at any rate, in sufficient outline to make them perfectly intelligible?”

  “Certainly,” was the reply. “I could reproduce them in fac simile without the slightest difficulty. Why do you ask?”

  “Because the Chief is in Russia, and you must go to him and place them before him from memory. They are far too precious to be trusted to any keeping, however trustworthy. There are such things as railway accidents, and other forms of sudden death, to say nothing of the Russian customs, false arrests, personal searches, and imprisonments on mere suspicion.

  “We can risk none of these, and so there is nothing for it but your going to Petersburg and verbally explaining them to the Chief. You can be ready in three days, I suppose?”

  “Yes, in two, if you like,” replied Arnold, not a little taken aback at the unexpected suddenness of what he knew at once to be the first order that was to test his obedience to the Brotherhood. “But as I am absolutely ignorant of Russia and the Russians, I suppose you will make such arrangements as will prevent my making any innocent but possibly awkward mistakes.”

  “Oh yes,” replied the President, with a smile, “all arrangements have been made already, and I expect you will find them anything but unpleasant. Natasha goes to Petersburg in company with another lady member of the Circle whom you have not yet seen.

  “You will go with them, and they will explain everything to you en route, if they have no opportunity of doing so before you start. Now let us go upstairs and have some supper. I am famished, and I suppose every one else is too.”

  Arnold simply bowed in answer to the President; but one pair of eyes at least in the room caught the quick, faint flush that rose in his cheek as he was told in whose company he was to travel. As for himself, if the journey had been to Siberia instead of Russia, he would have felt nothing but pleasure at the prospect after that.

  They left the Council-chamber by the passage and the ante-room, the sentry standing to attention as they passed him, each giving the word in turn, till the President came last and closed the doors behind him. Then the sentry brought up the rear and extinguished the lights as he left the passage.

  Fifteen minutes later there sat down to supper, in the solidly comfortable dining-room of the upper house, a party of ladies and gentlemen who chatted through the meal as merrily and innocently as though there were no such things as tyranny or suffering in the world, and whom not the most acute observer would h
ave taken for the most dangerous and desperately earnest body of conspirators that ever plotted the destruction, not of an empire, but of a civilisation and a social order that it had taken twenty centuries to build up.

  CHAPTER VII

  THE DAUGHTER OF NATAS.

  Supper was over about eleven, and then the party adjourned to the drawing-room, where for an hour or so Arnold sat and listened to such music and singing as he had never heard in his life before. The songs seemed to be in every language in Europe, and he did not understand anything like half of them, so far, at least, as the words were concerned.

  They were, however, so far removed from the average drawing-room medley of twaddle and rattle that the music interpreted the words into its own universal language, and made them almost superfluous.

  For the most part they were sad and passionate, and once or twice, especially when Radna Michaelis was singing, Arnold saw tears well up into the eyes of the women, and the brows of the men contract and their hands clench with sudden passion at the recollection of some terrible scene or story that was recalled by the song.

  At last, close on midnight, the President rose from his seat and asked Natasha to sing the “Hymn of Freedom.” She acknowledged the request with an inclination of her head, and then as Radna sat down to the piano, and she took her place beside it, all the rest rose to their feet like worshippers in a church.

  The prelude was rather longer than usual, and as Radna played it Arnold heard running through it, as it were, echoes of all the patriotic songs of Europe from “Scots Wha Hae” and “The Shan van Voght” to the forbidden Polish National Hymn and the Swiss Republican song, which is known in England as “God Save the Queen.” The prelude ended with a few bars of the “Marseillaise,” and then Natasha began.

  It was a marvellous performance. As the air changed from nation to nation the singer changed the language, and at the end of each verse the others took up the strain in perfect harmony, till it sounded like a chorus of the nations in miniature, each language coming in its turn until the last verse was reached.

  Then there was silence for a moment, and then the opening chords of the “Marseillaise” rang out from the piano, slow and stately at first, and then quickening like the tread of an army going into battle.

  Suddenly Natasha’s voice soared up, as it were, out of the music, and a moment later the Song of the Revolution rolled forth in a flood of triumphant melody, above which Natasha’s pure contralto thrilled sweet and strong, till to Arnold’s intoxicated senses it seemed like the voice of some angel singing from the sky in the ears of men, and it was not until the hymn had been ended for some moments that he was recalled to earth by the President saying to him—

  “Some day, perhaps, you will be floating in the clouds, and you will hear that hymn rising from the throats of millions gathered together from the ends of the earth, and when you hear that you will know that our work is done, and that there is peace on earth at last.”

  “I hope so,” replied the engineer quietly, “and, what is more, I believe that some day I shall hear it.”

  “I believe so too,” suddenly interrupted Radna, turning round on her seat at the piano, “but there will be many a battle-song sung to the accompaniment of battle-music before that happens. I wish “—

  “That all Russia were a haystack, and that you were beside it with a lighted torch,” said Natasha, half in jest and half in earnest.

  “Yes, truly!” replied Radna, turning round and dashing fiercely into the “Marseillaise” again.

  “I have no doubt of it. But, come, it is after midnight, and we have to get back to Cheyne Walk. The princess will think we have been arrested or something equally dreadful. Ah, Mr. Colston, we have a couple of seats to spare in the brougham. Will you and our Admiral of the Air condescend to accept a lift as far as Chelsea?”

  “The condescension is in the offer, Natasha,” replied Colston, flushing with pleasure and glancing towards Radna the while. Radna answered with an almost imperceptible sign of consent, and Colston went on: “If it were in an utterly opposite direction”—

  “You would not be asked to come, sir. So don’t try to pay compliments at the expense of common sense,” laughed Natasha before he could finish. “If you do you shall sit beside me instead of Radna all the way.”

  There was a general smile at this retort, for Colston’s avowed devotion to Radna and the terrible circumstances out of which it had sprung was one of the romances of the Circle.

  As for Arnold, he could scarcely believe his ears when he heard that he was to ride from Clapham Common to Chelsea sitting beside this radiantly beautiful girl, behind whose innocence and gaiety there lay the shadow of her mysterious and terrible parentage.

  Lovely and gentle as she seemed, he knew even now how awful a power she held in the slender little hand whose nervous clasp he could still feel upon his own, and this knowledge seemed to raise an invisible yet impassable barrier between him and the possibility of looking upon her as under other circumstances it would have been natural for a man to look upon so fair a woman.

  Natasha’s brougham was so far an improvement on those of the present day that it had two equally comfortable seats, and on these the four were cosily seated a few minutes after the party broke up. To Arnold, and, doubtless, to Colston also, the miles flew past at an unheard-of speed; but for all that, long before the carriage stopped at the house in Cheyne Walk, he had come to the conviction that, for good or evil, he was now bound to the Brotherhood by far stronger ties than any social or political opinions could have formed.

  After they had said good-night at the door, and received an invitation to lunch for the next day to talk over the journey to Russia, he and Colston decided to walk to the Savoy, for it was a clear moonlit night, and each had a good deal to say to the other, which could be better and more safely said in the open air than in a cab. So they lit their cigars, buttoned up their coats, and started off eastward along the Embankment to Vauxhall.

  “Well, my friend, tell me how you have enjoyed your evening, and what you think of the company,” said Colston, by way of opening the conversation.

  “Until supper I had a very pleasant time of it. I enjoyed the business part of the proceedings intensely, as any other mechanical enthusiast would have done, I suppose. But I frankly confess that after that my mind is in a state of complete chaos, in the midst of which only one figure stands out at all distinctly.”

  “And that figure is?”

  “Natasha. Tell me—who is she?”

  “I know no more as to her true identity than you do, or else I would answer you with pleasure.”

  “What! Do you mean to say “—

  “I mean to say just what I have said. Not only do I not know who she is, but I do not believe that more than two or three members of the Circle, at the outside, know any more than I do. Those are, probably, Nicholas Roburoff, the President of the Executive, and his wife, and Radna Michaelis.”

  “Then, if Radna knows, how comes it that you do not know? You must forgive me if I am presuming on a too short acquaintance; but it certainly struck me to-night that you had very few secrets from each other.”

  “There is no presumption about it, my dear fellow,” replied Colston, with a laugh. “It is no secret that Radna and I are lovers, and that she will be my wife when I have earned her.”

  “Now you have raised my curiosity again,” interrupted Arnold, in an inquiring tone.

  “And will very soon satisfy it. You saw that horrible picture in the Council-chamber? Yes. Well, I will tell you the whole story of that some day when we have more time; but for the present it will be enough for me to tell you that I have sworn not to ask Radna to come with me to the altar while a single person who was concerned in that nameless crime remains alive.

  “There were five persons responsible for it to begin with—the governor of the prison, the prefect of police for the district, a spy, who informed against her, and the two soldiers who executed the infernal sentenc
e. It happened nearly three years ago, and there are two of them alive still—the governor and the prefect of police.

  “Of course the Brotherhood would have removed them long ago had it decided to do so; but I got the circumstances laid before Natas, by the help of Natasha, and received permission to execute the sentences myself. So far I have killed three with my own hand, and the other two have not much longer to live.

  “The governor has been transferred to Siberia, and will probably be the last that I shall reach. The prefect is now in command of the Russian secret police in London, and unless an accident happens he will never leave England.”

  Colston spoke in a cold, passionless, merciless tone, just as a lawyer might speak of a criminal condemned to die by the ordinary process of the law, and as Arnold heard him he shuddered. But at the same time the picture in the Council-chamber came up before his mental vision, and he was forced to confess that men who could so far forget their manhood as to lash a helpless woman up to a triangle and flog her till her flesh was cut to ribbons, were no longer men but wild beasts, whose very existence was a crime. So he merely said—

  “They were justly slain. Now tell me more about Natasha.”

  “There is very little more that I can tell you, I’m afraid. All I know is that the Brotherhood of the Terror is the conception and creation of a single man, and that that man is Natas, the father of Natasha, as she is known to us. His orders come to us either directly in writing through Natasha, or indirectly through him you have heard spoken of as the Chief.”

  “Oh, then the Chief is not Natas?”

  “No, we have all of us seen him. In fact, when he is in London he always presides at the Circle meetings. You would hardly believe it, but he is an English nobleman, and Secretary to the English Embassy at Petersburg.”

  “Then he is Lord Alanmere, and an old college friend of mine!” exclaimed Arnold. “I saw his name in the paper the night before last. It was mentioned in the account of the murder”—

  “We don’t call those murders, my friend,” drily interrupted Colston; “we call them what they really are—executions.”