The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 05

by Anthology

  He managed to get himself firmly planted in the crown of the tree, with his legs wedged between the leaves, and then, holding the slack of the rope in his teeth, he gradually pushed the body of the unconscious girl forward and downwards until her brother got his one free arm round her waist. Then, bracing himself in his seat, he took the rope in one hand, steadying her with the other, and said-

  "Now, if you've got her, slide down to the next spike. I'll keep her weight on the rope. Don't be afraid of her falling."

  "All right," said Sir Harry. "Lower away."

  And then with a rustle Violet disappeared through the leaves. Tearing his clothes and his skin against the rough rind of the tree, Sir Harry slid and climbed with his burden down from spike to spike, Adams always keeping the rope sufficiently taut to relieve him of the greater part of her weight, until at length, bleeding and breathless, he passed the last spike, and laid her on the ground.

  "It's all right, Adams," he shouted in a hoarse, gasping voice. "Thank God she is safe so far, if she is only alive!"

  "Good!" replied Adams, at once lowering himself out of the top. "I'll be down in a minute, and then we'll carry her to the shed."

  By the time they got Violet back to the shed and laid in one of the berths, Lucy had returned on her pony from the camping-ground, with the news that Mr. Austen, with Mark Edwards, a young physician who had joined the colony with the second party of emigrants, and Dr. Roberts, the surgeon of the Calypso, a bluff, good-natured man of considerable talent and more experience, whom it has not been necessary to introduce to the reader before, were coming after her on ponies, and that her own mother and Dora's would also be there before long, to take charge of either of the missing guests if any nursing was necessary.

  Lucy was, of course, terribly shocked to learn the nature and the extent of the misfortunes that had brought the day's enjoyment to such a terrible end, but, with the same promptness that she had displayed in going for help, she settled down at once to help Dora in doing what could be done for Violet before the doctors came, while Sir Harry and Adams looked after the wounded lieutenant. In less than half an hour later, the anxiously awaited assistance came, and Doctor Roberts at once took charge of Violet, who was still alive, although all efforts to restore her to consciousness had failed, while Doctor Edwards attended to the lieutenant.

  Some twenty minutes afterwards, the doctor came out of the hut, looking very serious, and asked Mrs. Merton to go again with him for a few moments. Then, leaving her with Violet, he went to Sir Harry, who greeted him with-

  "Well, Roberts, is there any hope for her? Tell me the worst at once, because it can't be worse than what I have been dreading for her."

  "My dear fellow," said the doctor, putting his arm through his and leading him away from the others, "I'm not going to attempt to disguise from you the fact that the poor girl is very badly injured. Of course I've not been able to make a very complete examination yet, and I can't until I have the necessary instruments from the ship, but as far as I have been able to go, I have found that the right leg is broken both above and below the knee, the collar-bone is broken, and the right shoulder badly dislocated. So far, there is nothing in that that a strong young girl couldn't get better from, but I'm sadly afraid that there's serious injury to the spine as well, and concussion of the brain on the top of that."

  The doctor felt the muscles of Sir Harry's arm quiver as he spoke, but as he didn't speak for a moment, he went on-

  "So far, I don't know whether or not there are any internal injuries, but of course there may be. She has evidently had an awful fall, and only being caught in the top of that palm tree saved her from being smashed out of all human shape. As it is, we can only be thankful that she is alive, and do our best to pull her through."

  "And what about Wyndham?" asked Sir Harry.

  "Oh, he'll do, I think. That wound's nothing to the one he had in Africa. If the knife had gone under instead of over the rib that it struck, it would have touched the heart and finished him. As it is, there is nothing to stop him being about again in three months, especially in a magnificent climate like this.

  "I don't think we shall have either of them moved from here, at any rate for the present. This mountain air is splendid, and the valley is perfectly sheltered. Couldn't have a more perfect place for a sanatorium, so we must turn a couple of these huts into hospitals for the time being, and Edwards and I will take turns in constant attendance as long as it's necessary. You can rest assured that everything that can be done will be done."

  No one left the crater of Mount Orient that night. Messengers had been despatched by Mr. Austen to the settlement and the yacht, to bring up everything that was necessary, from the doctor's instruments to provisions and tents for those for whom there would be no room in the huts. Fires were lighted, and the electric lights by which the constructors of the air-ship had worked by night were turned on. Like the other machinery used in building, the dynamos were driven by water power, so the current was always ready for use.

  It was a little before midnight, when Wyndham had dropped off to sleep, and Violet still remained invisible by the doctor's orders, that Sir Harry, Mr. Austen, and Adams were taking a turn in the clearing before going to bed, and Sir Harry was speaking quietly, but in a voice that bespoke a resolution of no small moment.

  "I have seen enough to-day and to-night," he said, "to convince me that in allying myself with you, if you will have me, I shall be doing the best thing that I can do, not only for myself and poor Violet, if she survives what she has to go through, but also for the world at large. I didn't tell you before, but I may tell you now, that when Wyndham and I first discovered that you possessed an air-ship, he decided to throw up his commission in the British Navy, and offer his services to you as navigating lieutenant of the Nautilus.

  "If you can see your way to making him that when he gets well, I think you will do well, for I know that he is a very skilful sailor, as well as being as brave as a lion, and that he is really thought a great deal of by the authorities at home, especially after that last affair of his on the West Coast."

  "Yes," said Mr. Austen, "I am quite sure of that; and I can tell you that he won't even need to ask for the command of the Nautilus if he is willing to take it."

  "I am glad to hear it," continued Sir Harry. "Now, as regards myself, of course you know I am one of those somewhat useless creatures called gentlemen of fortune, and so I have been trained to nothing useful, and know nothing useful. But I have one thing that's useful, and that's money. Happily I have plenty of that, and with your help I'm ready to devote every penny that I have got to the work of hunting down that scoundrel Renault, and punishing him for what he has done to-day.

  "If you call teach me to do anything else, you'll find me willing to learn, but that I'm ready to do now. I can raise half a million, if necessary, as soon as I get back to England, and another million after that if it is wanted to build cruisers and air-ships and find the best material and talent for the work that money can buy. You can think over what I have said to-night, and give me your answer in the morning."

  "There's no need for that," said Adams. "If you like to join your fortunes with ours, either for good or until your object is accomplished, there is no one in Utopia who will not welcome you; and as for the help that you offer us in repairing our loss, that, too, we will accept in the same spirit in which it is made; so that is a bargain between us, either as friends for the time being or comrades for good."

  "Lieutenant Wyndham has just woke up. He is much better, and wants to speak to Sir Harry at once," said Dora, who had joined them unperceived while they were talking.

  Sir Harry went at once, and found his friend sitting in his berth propped up by pillows.

  "How's Violet?" he asked, almost in a whisper.

  Sir Harry shook his head.

  "I don't know yet, old man," he said. "Roberts won't let me see her yet, but he tells me there is no immediate danger. What do you want me for? You mustn't t
alk too much, you know."

  "I know," replied Wyndham. "But I've just remembered where I saw that fellow Renault, and I want to tell you before I forget again. It was nearly four years ago, when I was on leave in London. The police had raided an anarchist club somewhere up near the Caledonian Road, and a friend of mine, a barrister, was retained to prosecute the fellows who were caught. Renault was one of them, but he called himself Louis Rolland then.

  "They found him with explosives in the house, just the things that the anarchists use in making their bombs, and they also found correspondence which made it plain enough to my mind that he and the others had something to do with the murder of President Carnot. The case was as plain as daylight against them, but they had a very smart man for them, and because it couldn't be actually proved that they were using the explosives to manufacture bombs, the whole lot got off.

  "Take my word for it, Renault's an anarchist, pure and simple, and he has stolen the air-ship to go and join those fellows in the Destroyer. The Lord only knows what will happen if he succeeds."

  "And Heaven only can prevent it," added Sir Harry, "for no earthly power can."

  CHAPTER IX.

  A SOLILOQUY IN MID-AIR.

  MONARCH of all I survey.' Ah! I wonder what poor old Cowper would have made Robinson Crusoe say if he could have imagined him in such a position as this. 'Free as air' is not the word for it, for the air isn't free, because I am its master. No, riding on the wings of the wind- that is more like it, and yet even that doesn't do, for my wings are my own by right of- well, we'll say conquest, though I suppose respectable society would find another name for it, and the wind - the tamed, subjugated wind - only holds them up like the passive, conquered slave that I have made it

  "No, there are no words to describe it. It is too glorious, too transcendent for words, this conquest of the air really achieved at last, the realisation of all the dreams of flight from the days of Daedalus until now. Look, look, my eyes, for you have never beheld such a scene as this before, nor have the eyes of any mortal man before me - moi, Max-Renault, veritable roi des airs! For what is mere commonplace ballooning to this when you know that your balloon is but the slave, the plaything, of every breath of air that blows, a mere helpless straw floating about without will hither and thither in the currents of the ocean of atmosphere?

  "Bah! what is that compared with this? A touch on one lever or another, and I fly to right or left, dive to the surface of the sea or soar beyond the clouds, just as my turn of fancy may suggest. And look at those islands down yonder, those snow-ringed gems of emerald set on the sapphire shield of the sea - look how they rise in front of me and go dropping away behind me, and how those few fleecy clouds that I could leap over with a single bound come flying towards me as if to greet their new comrade of the air!

  "Ah! a hundred miles an hour, with another twenty or thirty in hand for a pinch, and an ocean of which I am the only navigator stretching above me and below me, in front and behind and on either hand, wider than the wide world itself, open and free, and all mine, mine alone among all the sons of men. I, the Magellan, the Columbus of the new world, the realm of air that I have conquered; I, to whom land and sea and air are open; to whom the most secret places of the world, where no human foot has trodden, must be open as the daylight; whose gaze, if I but will it, may explore even the unseen solitudes of the poles; I, who can outsoar the vultures and outrace the storm.

  "Glorious! glorious! and yet, alas! not quite so glorious as it might have been. Ah, ma belle Violette, why were you such a misguided little fool as to go and break that pretty neck of yours on those pitiless rocks, instead of being sensible, and coming to share this empire of the air with me - with me who loved you, for the time being at any rate, better than anarchy itself, or even Lea, the proud and fair, herself - fairest of the Daughters of Destruction?

  "Peste! what a fool the girl was to lose her life, and a share of the empire of the world, for a silly superstition called honour, and because she thought she loved someone else, as I suppose she did. And that lieutenant, qui le diable l'emporte - as he possibly has done by this time.

  "I think I struck home, for he went over like a stuck sheep,- better, in fact, for he never gave a kick,- and he deserved it, for if it hadn't been for him, I could have worked that beautiful scheme of mine out to the end, and shouldn't have been forced to come away in a hurry like this, without a bomb or a gun or an ounce of ammunition on board, except a rifle and a couple of revolvers, and a few hundred cartridges.

  "I wonder what evil twist of fate brought him to Utopia, just him - one man out of the few dozens that were in the police-court that day and saw me in the dock from which British justice so kindly released me. He must have remembered sooner or later, and then I suppose he would have denounced me as an anarchist and member of Autonomie Group No. 7, and then - malediction! - he might have spoiled everything, for those virtuous socialists might have believed him, and requested me to leave -without the air-ship - or, anyhow, they'd have watched me so that I couldn't have got her.

  "No, I think I was right to take Fortune by the forelock when I did. At any rate, I have got the ship, and that's the main thing, and as soon as I can get her armed, with the able assistance of Franz and the others, I'll go back to Utopia and make a wilderness of it. I wish I'd had a chance of killing old Austen before I left. I wonder whether he has told the secret to Adams or anyone else; but if he hasn't, he's bound to do so now, and I'll have to wipe the lot out before they can build another air-ship.

  "I don't expect they'll get the Nautilus launched for some time if that battery that I connected with the fuel reservoir only works properly. I think the clock work was all right, and would make the connection at the proper time. If it does, it will blow half of her into the basin, and not leave much of the other half together. Pity I bad to do the work in the dark, but if I'd showed a light, some prying fool would have been sure to see it, and then- phew! they'd have hung me like a dog, and I suppose in one sense I should have deserved it!

  "Ah, well, I must look for the best, and be thankful I got away as I did. What a scare there must have been in Utopia last night. By the way, what shall I call my pretty cruiser of the air? They were going to call her the Volante, but I think I must have something a bit more appropriate than that.

  "Yes, that will do; I'll call her the Vengeur, since she is to be the first instrument of my revenge upon the accursed society that guillotined my French father for strangling a thief of a lawyer who had ruined him, and drove my English mother to - bah! there is no use in troubling about that now. The day of vengeance will soon come now, and when it comes, sacre! what fun there will be when Franz has made me some guns and some of those pretty little projectiles that he used to talk about " Imagine my beautiful Vengeur being sighted some fine morning circling over Trafalgar Square, or the Place de la Concorde, or Broadway, or the Nevski Prospekt. Ah! I can fancy how the crowds will collect under me, how the people would rush out of the houses and the shops, crawling about, like the earth-worms that they are, and pointing up at me, and wondering what I am going to do.

  "And then think of the fun of a little aerial artillery practice at their expense! The bombs bursting in the middle of the crowds and scattering them, mostly in pieces, in every direction! Think how they'll run shrieking and raising their arms aloft for mercy, until they are knocked over, just as helpless as a flock of sheep would be in front of a machine gun.

  "But there will be better fun than that at Westminster and over the Chamber of Deputies on the Quai d'Orsay. Think of the effects of a nicely planted projectile through the windows of what those English call their Gilded Chamber! A charge of gun-cotton will make a nice mixture with the contents of the Woolsack, and the fragments of M. le President flying about the Chamber of Deputies will be a sight for all the oppressed of the earth to laugh at.

  "And it is possible now, all possible! The Queen of England in Windsor Castle, or the Tsar surrounded by all his slavish millions, will be n
o safer from me than the man who is walking along the street. What will the trifling, though meritorious, work of Vaillant and Henri, of Ravachol and Santo, be to what I shall do, flinging my thunderbolts from my aerial throne? Yes, it is splendid, this realisation of the long-dreamt-of ideal of human flight! Splendid, splendid!"

  Thus mused Max Renault, now no longer a mere conspirator against society, lurking in slums and by-streets, and passing under false guises among his fellow men, but master of an engine of destruction which, if the remainder of his plans only succeeded as his first venture had done, would enable him to bid defiance to the world from the unattainable altitudes of the air; and, more than that, to hurl death and destruction, to which no effective reply could be made, wherever his fancy bade him strike his blows.

  Somewhat bombastic as his soliloquy would no doubt have sounded had there been other ears than his own to listen to it, yet, when stripped of the rhetoric with which his French blood endowed it, it was nothing but sober fact. He had boasted of nothing that he could not accomplish. For the time being he was master of the air, and therefore an enemy that the mightiest State on earth would have good reason to fear, since he alone of all its enemies would strike straight at its heart, paralyse its directing will, and reduce its organisation to chaos in a few days or weeks of terrorism, as the case might be.