The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 05

by Anthology

  "Oh, she threw herself out," replied Max, with a note of astonishment in his voice. "But you amaze me by telling me she didn't die. Why, she pitched herself out headlong when the air-ship was over a hundred feet from the ground - nearly two hundred, in fact. The girl must have as many lives as a cat."

  "And suppose she hadn't thrown herself out, what then?" asked Lea, with a quite indescribable inflection of her voice.

  "What then? May I smoke?" said Max, taking out his cigarette-case.

  Lea nodded, not having a word ready to reply with. He struck a match, lit his cigarette, and went on, in a voice that could not have been more imperturbable if he had been discussing the day's prices on the Bourse-

  "Well, then, I suppose I should have acted as any other man who was also a good anarchist would have done under the circumstances. You see, under those same circumstances, Miss Milton would have had the disadvantage of being at the same time a really decent-looking girl and the daughter of a race which every good anarchist is, by the very principles of his being, impelled to reduce to the last extremity of degradation, and so-"

  "And so," said Lea, leaning forward, her lovely face all aglow with what was now genuine, uncontrollable admiration for the masterful spirit of the man who, without a perceptible effort, had thus put her desperately meant home-thrust aside "and so there isn't the slightest need for you to say any more about it.

  "Max, I've met my master, and, like any other woman who is a woman, I'm glad of it. There's my hand. Take it or leave it, as seems good to you. When the Vengeur comes back to Fontainebleau, you will only have to renew your invitation, and I will take that trip to the clouds and beyond them,- as your guest, remember,- and you shall show me all these kingdoms of the air and the world and the glories thereof, and after that- well, we shall see. Now, does that content you?"

  Max made no reply in words, simply because no words occurred to him which to his mind were capable of doing justice to the situation. He rose to his feet, picked Lea up bodily in his arms, pressed one long, lingering kiss on her willingly surrendered lips, and then put her down again. Then, seating himself beside her, he put his arm round her waist, drew her head down on to his breast, and said quietly-

  "It is so! If ever mortal man had reason to be content, then I am content. I have offered you what no man was ever yet able to offer to woman, and you have accepted it. May the Fates cover all my plans with confusion if ever, for a moment even, you have reason to regret the choice that you have taken!"

  And then he bent his head down and kissed her again, and after that she raised her head and looked him in the eyes, and said in a low, steady tone-

  "Even so. You have given to me what never was given to woman before, and I have given you in return all that a woman can give; and if either of us fails in justice to the other, may that other be able and willing to exact the last penalty of vengeance that human hate could wish for! And now let us talk."

  The hint was obvious, and Renault took it, and so for nearly an hour this strangely-betrothed man and woman sat and talked just as any other man and woman in all Paris might have talked, saving only for the subject of their conversation. Each told the other in quiet, matter-of-fact narrative what his or her experiences had been since the last time they had met, and then they went on to discuss the prospect that now lay before the ruthless apostles of the propaganda by force.

  They discussed the fate of nations as though they had been the joint arbiters of destiny, and they decided whether monarchs and statesmen should live or die as best suited their purposes; whether the war that had been declared between Britain and Russia should be allowed to go on, or whether either State should be paralysed by blows which they alone could strike at its head; and whether those who now held the guiding reins of the world should be allowed to hold them a little longer, or whether, by striking them down, one after the other, in swift succession, the States of Europe should be thrown headlong into the demoralisation of leaderless anarchy. As the little clock in the boudoir chimed six, Lea rose and said-

  "Now, for the present, or till to-morrow morning, au revoir. As I told you, I have a card for the President's reception to-night at eight, and you may be sure that I shall not fail to do what is necessary. By to-morrow I shall have made the necessary arrangements for our journey, and you will find me at the Lyons station at eight o'clock, by which time those whom it may concern will understand that I am somewhere else. Happily, rich American widows in Paris are expected now and then to be guilty of some eccentricity, and this will do for one of them. And so, mon maître bien-aimé, à demain, au revoir!"

  When the train left Paris for the south at a quarter past eight the following evening, Max and Lea were seated in a first class coupe, and by ten o'clock they bad reached the little open space in the forest in which Lea for the first time saw the, to her, strange shape of the Vengeur, as the air-ship, prompt to the minute of the rendezvous, dropped slowly through the darkness on to the soft brown turf.

  Five minutes later, they were on board, and Lea saw the tree-tops swiftly sinking down beneath her as the Vengeur soared up again into her element. The night was dark and cloudy, but through the clouds the pale glimmer of half a moon could every now and then be seen. As soon as the Vengeur was well clear of the trees, Max took Lea with him into the conning-tower, and, inclining the slats of the airplanes, he sent a signal for full speed to the engine-room. Then, slipping his arm round Lea's waist, partly perhaps with the object of keeping her steady during the air-ship's upward flight, he said-

  "Now watch with all your eyes!"

  The next moment the Vengeur leapt forward and upward; the cloven air sang and whistled past her, and the black curtain of cloud seemed to fall bodily towards the earth. For a moment the grey billows rolled noiselessly about them, and then, in wondering admiration too intense for words, Lea saw a vast, limitless sea of snowy cloud-fleeces spread out beneath her, and above she saw the unclouded vault of heaven gemmed by myriads of stars, amidst which the golden crescent of the moon floated stainless and serene, her white light casting a huge shadow of the swiftly-flying Vengeur on the snowy cloud-sea beneath them.

  There was no sleep for Lea that night. In vain Max tried to persuade her to go to her cabin as the larger hours of the morning approached. Intoxicated with the strange beauties of the scene and the bewildering novelty of her first aerial voyage, she insisted on remaining with him in the conning-tower until the beauties of the moonlit night were eclipsed by the glories of the sunrise over the sea of clouds, which still lay outspread beneath them as far as their eyes could reach.

  Then, when weariness at last overcame her, she went to her cabin, to sleep and dream of all the marvels she had seen, and Max, after sending for Taxil to take command, went to his, to dream other dreams no less entrancing. About two o'clock in the afternoon, Lea met Max again in the saloon, and, after their greeting, said-

  "Well, where has this wonderful voyage brought us to by this time?"

  He pulled back the slide from one of the side windows and pointed through a great rift in the clouds that lay a thousand feet below them. Her eyes followed the direction of his finger as he pointed downwards, and she saw beneath the clouds another cloud of grey-blue smoke, through which a thousand roofs and spires were dimly showing.

  "There's London," he said. "To-night we will dine at the Metropole, and then run up to the Criterion and see a comedy, of course adapted from the French, which I think will amuse you. There's a burlesque anarchist in it, not at all a bad character from the capitalist point of view. The interesting part about it is that in the last act it almost becomes a tragedy."

  Not many hours later, Lea remembered these lightly-spoken words, in the midst of the first real agony of terror which she had ever passed through. The Vengeur was brought to ground in the midst of a dense bank of fog which lay along the Essex shore of the estuary of the Thames, a little to the north of Southend-on-Sea, and Max and Lea landed, with one of the crew to carry their two valises and t
o act as messenger between them and the airship if necessary.

  Taxil had, of course, received minute instructions as to keeping in touch with them; and as they took their way towards the station, the Vengeur rose in the air again and vanished in the fog.

  That evening, as Max had promised, they dined at the Metropole, and afterwards went to the Criterion Theatre to see the comedy and the burlesque anarchist.

  Of all the theatres in London, that was the worst one they could have chosen to visit on that particular night, for, as the Fates would have it, while they sat in their stalls, one of the side boxes in the second tier was taken possession of by two gentlemen, who were no others than Sir Harry Milton and Lieutenant Wyndham.

  In such a place it was impossible that Lea's brilliant and uncommon beauty should not attract almost universal attention. Sir Harry recognised her at once, and then began to look curiously at her companion. Of course, he pointed him out to Wyndham, and then the two opera-glasses came earnestly into play. Max's disguise was quite good enough to deceive even an intimate acquaintance passing him casually in the street, but it could not stand the searching examination that be was subjected to for the next two hours.

  Feature by feature, gesture by gesture, he was identified without having an idea of what was going on. For, the moment their suspicions were aroused, Sir Harry and Wyndham kept themselves and their friends well in the background of the box. At length, when the performance was over, conjecture had so far become certainty that they had determined to take the risks and act.

  Just before the curtain came down, they left their box and stationed themselves among the well-dressed idlers who were already lounging about the entrance to the theatre. As the occupants of the stalls and dress circle and boxes came slowly up the steps which led from the theatre, they watched each rank narrowly, until Lea at last appeared, leaning on Max's arm. This was Sir Harry's cue. He walked forward, and, raising his hat to Lea, said-

  "Good evening, Mrs. Dail. Who would have dreamed of seeing you in London? What has London to offer so superior to the delights of Paris?"

  Before she could reply, Wyndham stepped quickly up from the other side. With one swift movement of his left band he snatched the moustache and beard from Max's face, and, taking him by the collar with his right, said in a loud, clear voice-

  "Good evening, Mr. Max Renault, anarchist and murderer. Who would have thought of seeing you here to-night?"

  Max, taken utterly off his guard, tried to wrench himself free and force his way through the excited crowd which Wyndham's startling words had instantly brought about them, but it was no good- the surprise had been too carefully planned, and he was completely trapped. When the crowd divided again, it was to allow two policemen to go out holding the famous anarchist securely handcuffed between them.

  CHAPTER XIX.

  A SCENE AT BOW STREET.

  THE arrest of Max Renault occurred at a few minutes past eleven, and before midnight the news - embellished, of course, by the wildest rumours and exaggerations - had spread far and wide over London, and had been flashed over the wires, not only to the provinces, but to the Continent and America as well.

  Some accounts said that he had been arrested in the act of throwing a bomb on to the stage, and that it was only on his examination at the police court that the real importance of the capture had been discovered. Others, again, said that the now famous air-ship herself had descended in Hyde Park, and had been captured with all hands on board; while yet a third rumour said that she was still at large, and had gone to attack Windsor Castle out of revenge for her captain's arrest. The true facts were, however, as they were set forth at the end of the last chapter. Renault offered no resistance, and did not even utter a word of protest as soon as he saw that he was fairly in the toils. All he said was confined to a couple of sentences addressed to Sir Harry, and that was-

  "I am not going to deny my identity; I only wish to say that Mrs. Dail had, of course, not the slightest idea of it. I hope that, as a gentleman, you will see that she suffers as little inconvenience as possible."

  Sir Harry bowed in reply, and at once offered his arm to Lea, who took it, and, after one brief, frightened glance at Max between the two policemen, she went out with him, saying as she did so-

  "What an awful thing!- and, would you believe it, Sir Harry, I have almost been silly enough to allow that man to persuade me to marry him. What an escape! Ugh! it makes me cold all over to think of it. Please get me a cab. I'm staying at the Metropole; my maid will be there waiting for me, and I shall get back to Paris first thing in the morning.

  "No, please don't trouble to come with me. Really I would rather not. I shall be quite safe, and - well, you see, I left the hotel with one gentleman, as he called himself, and it would hardly do to go back at this time of night with another, would it? Those hotel people do talk so. Thanks; this will do nicely. Good-night, and a thousand thanks for your kindness!"

  She waved her hand to him from the cab, in farewell, and he called another, and drove off to Bow Street to join Wyndham and his two friends. Lea drove to the Metropole, had her valise and Max's brought down, paid her bill, called another cab, and drove off at once to Charing Cross.

  As she gave the direction, a man who bad been lounging about the hotel entrance turned away and sauntered up the Avenue towards the station. He was the man who had left the Vengeur with them to act as means of communication between them and the air-ship if necessary.

  When Lea had dismissed her cab at Charing Cross, she took a ticket for Cannon Street, and the man, following close after, took one for the same place, and got into the same carriage with her. She managed to find an empty first-class compartment, and by the time the train reached Cannon Street, she had given her companion an account of what had happened, and a lengthy and minute message to Taxil. At Cannon Street they parted. Pierre, the sailor, disappeared on foot in the direction of Cheapside, and Lea got into a cab and drove to Aldersgate Street station.

  There she watched the cabman out of sight, took a ticket for Farringdon Street, and then, leaving the station, got into another cab and told the man to drive her to an address in Westbourne Terrace, where, three-quarters of an hour later, she was telling the story of Max's arrest to Rolland and his wife.

  The next morning there was hardly anything on the newspaper placards but the great black letters which announced the event of which all England was already talking; the unexpected and almost grotesquely easy capture of the famous anarchist and captain of the still more famous air-ship, which, as all the world knew, had destroyed, single-handed, three powerful cruisers and the same number of torpedo-boats.

  When Max was brought before Sir John Bridge at Bow Street at ten o'clock the next morning, not only was the court packed to suffocation, but Bow Street itself was filled with an anxious, excited crowd, bent on getting a glimpse of those who had played the chief part in the capture of the prisoner. As Sir Harry and his friends drove up, the crowd parted, and cheered them as they went through. Outside reporters took snap-shots at them as they entered the court, and rushed off to have them reproduced to embellish the sensational narratives of their adventures in Utopia and on the Atlantic, which the nimble fingers of hundred of compositors were already setting up to form a sequel to the police court proceedings.

  The proceedings themselves were of the simplest possible character, but they were none the less interesting on that account. When Max was brought into the dock, he stood leaning on the rails in front, between the two stolid, stalwart policemen who guarded him, with an unconcern that could not have been more absolute if he had been a spectator watching the most trivial of cases. He politely but firmly refused all offers of legal aid, and with equal politeness disregarded the magistrate's warning that anything he said might be used against him at the assizes if he were sent for trial.

  First, Lieutenant Wyndham, then Sir Harry, then the officers of the liners appeared in succession in the witness-box and told what they knew of the accused, his
crimes and his extraordinary exploits. The quietly-told, circumstantial narratives were spoken in the midst of a breathless silence, which was broken for the first time when Sir Harry described Max's attempt to carry off his sister in the air-ship, and then all eyes were turned for a moment on to the accused, and a low murmur of irrepressible indignation ran like a fierce growl through the crowded court.

  Max simply lifted his eyebrows a little, and, with an almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders, turned to Sir Harry and waited for him to go on with his story. He followed every word of the evidence against him with the minutest attention, and as soon as the case for the prosecution was finished, he said very quietly-

  "Is it permitted for me to say anything now?"

  "If you have anything to say," replied Sir John, "or if you have any reason to give why I should not commit you for trial, as I at present intend to do, I am of course bound to hear you; but I must again warn you, as you have refused the protection of any legal adviser, that anything you may have to say is, under the circumstances, more likely to do you harm than good.

  "You are accused of the most terrible crimes, and, so far as this court is concerned, the evidence against you is more than sufficient, seeing that you have already admitted your identity. It is my duty to advise you to say nothing now, but to take steps to engage proper legal assistance, and then follow your counsel's advice implicitly."