The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 05

by Anthology

  "But fancy, bloodshed in our beautiful Utopia!" said Dora, with a shudder. "Who of us would ever have thought that our paradise was going to be turned into a battlefield, or a slaughter-house, for I suppose it will be more like that than anything else? I won't see it. Violet, you and I will shut ourselves up here until it's over. I could never think Utopia the same again if I saw people being killed on it."

  "Yes, we will do that," said Violet. "I think I love Utopia now quite as much as you do, and I couldn't bear to see it desecrated by bloodshed any more than you could."

  So it came to pass, four days later, that the two girls sat hand in hand, silent and trembling, in their darkened cabin, listening to the crash of exploding shells, and the fearful thudding roar of the machine guns, which told them that the extermination of the anarchists who had taken possession of Utopia was being carried out with pitiless thoroughness.

  They felt the air-ship rising and sinking, shooting forward and stopping, and every now and then swinging swiftly round, and this went on for six hours incessantly. Then at last they felt her gently touch the ground and come to a standstill. As she did so, the door of their cabin opened, and Sir Harry came in in his shirt-sleeves, and with the perspiration running down his face.

  "It is all over!" he said huskily. "You can come out now, for there isn't one of the scoundrels left alive on Utopia. It's been hot work, but we've done it. Look -doesn't it seem like being at home again?"

  As he spoke, he pulled the window-slide back, and when Dora and Violet looked out, they saw that the War-Hawk was resting on the plateau on which they had held their memorable New Year's Day picnic, and far away below them the lovely familiar landscape stretched away down to the bay, and on from the white coral beach across the emerald water of the lagoon to the long white line of breakers tossing and foaming on the reef.

  "How delightful it is to be able to breathe this glorious air again!" exclaimed Violet, as her brother and Markham carried her chair out into the open. "If only poor Bertie were here now instead of being cooped up in a ship under water, I think I could get well altogether in a week. Why - what is the matter?" she continued, glancing anxiously from one to another of the little group about her chair. "What are you looking at each other like that for - has anything happened to Bertie? Tell me at once, please. Don't be afraid even if he is - if he is dead, for if he is, I know that he will have died at his duty like a sailor and a gentleman."

  There was silence for a moment, and then Dr. Roberts, passing a slip of tissue paper to Sir Harry, said-

  "Tell her, Milton- you can do it better than I."

  "What is it? Never mind telling me. Give it to me!" exclaimed Violet, almost snatching the paper out of her brother's hand. She opened it with trembling fingers and read through a gathering mist of tears-

  "BULL POINT STATION,ÊÊÊÊÊ

  "July 17th, midnight.

  "News just received that Nautilus was surprised and torpedoed by unknown vessel off Scillies soon after nightfall. Wyndham in command. None saved.

  "GARDNER."

  "It is God's will and the fortune of war," murmured Violet in a weak, broken voice. "Oh, my poor brave Bertie, to think of you dying like that! Take me back- I-"

  Then her head fell forward on her breast, and her bands dropped limply on her lap.

  "It has killed her! I thought it would," cried Sir Harry, springing forward and taking hold of her hand. "Roberts, how could you-"

  "Dead? nonsense!- she has only fainted. I'll have her round in three minutes," said the doctor, bustling off to the ship for his restoratives. "There's no harm done- don't be afraid."

  CHAPTER XXXVII.

  PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT.

  WELL, sweetheart, I think that danger is past for the present. I thought at one time they were going to break into open revolt, but I managed to convince them in the end of my good faith and devotion to the sacred cause of anarchy. That compromise was not at all a bad idea. I am to take Hartog into my confidence, tell him the secret of the composition of the fuel, and, whenever I go away from the camp, leave the formula for its preparation in a place known to him, so that, if anything happens to me, he can come back, find it, and prepare the fuel as it's wanted. Very pretty, isn't it?"

  "And are you going to do it?" asked Lea, looking up at Max with a smile of incredulity. They were alone together in their sitting-room in the bungalow on the afternoon of the day on which the council of war had been held at the camp of Mount Prieta. Lea, for some reason of her own, which she declined to give, had not been present, and Max had been explaining to her what had taken place.

  "Do it?" he said, with a short laugh at her question. "No, I see you don't take me seriously. You know me too well for that. I have been expecting this trouble ever since I brought the Vengeur away from Utopia. The command of the air is a magnificent thing; but, like every other priceless possession, it entails endless difficulties and dangers. You see, we are above and beyond all human laws now, and that cuts both ways. I am the master of these fellows just as long as I can keep them in hand by moral force, and remain the only possessor of the secret. Now they want the secret, and they mean to have it.

  "If I don't find some means of outwitting them, they will take it by force, or, anyhow, I don't suppose one of them would scruple to use the methods of the Holy Inquisition, and torture me till they either killed me or wrung it out of me. Yet, on the other hand, if I tell them, every one of them is equal to me, all command is at an end, and therefore all concerted action. Then every one would be plotting against everybody else to kill him, so as to remain the sole possessor of the command of the air.

  "They might work together until we have smashed up those two or three ships that the Syndicate seems to have; but after that it would simply be a matter of mutual extermination, until only one man was left in command of one ship, and he would be able to do as he pleased until one of his crew killed him or forced him to share the secret with him, and so on. That is anarchy in command of the air, worked out to its logical conclusion. These idiots don't see how our conditions have changed since we left the earth for the air; and as they won't submit to reasonable and necessary control, they shall pay for their folly and their want of confidence in a way that will considerably astonish them.

  "What I mean to do is this, and I shall want your help in doing it. The only really dangerous man among them is Hartog, and he will have to be disposed of. He is coming with us in the Revanche to-morrow, because none of the other fellows will give up the command of their ship, and so he will have to wait for the new one that should be coming from the Atlantic in a few days now. Ostensibly we are going out to meet her and hand her over to Franz. I shall write out the formula to-night, show it to Franz, and then hide it. I'll take care you know where it's hidden, and you must manage to get hold of it and destroy it before we start.

  "Then, when once we get Franz on board the Revanche, over the Bay of Biscay, I'll denounce him as a traitor to the crew, who, I really believe, are devoted body and soul to me, and then I'll put a bullet through his ugly head and drop him into the Bay. When that's done, we'll just get right out of the way and lie low for a month or two. Meanwhile, the other fellows will have used up their supply of fuel, and the air-ships will be lying waiting, useless and helpless, in the camp, and some fine morning we'll come back and wipe the lot out. Now, what do you think of that?"

  "Excellent," replied Lea, with an admiring smile. "It couldn't be better, as far as it goes. But haven't you forgotten the Syndicate and its fleet? What are you going to do about them?"

  "Oh, for that I have to trust, to a certain extent, to the chapter of accidents; but that danger is not by any means as great as it seems at first sight. When we have disappeared for a bit, the odds are, they'll think we've quarrelled among ourselves and wiped each other out, or something of that sort. They'll never find the fleet up here, and we can keep out of sight, and, whenever we get a chance, drop unexpectedly on one or two of their air-ships and blow them up until we've
got rid of the lot in detail.

  "It won't matter if it takes a year or two to do it. There'll be no hurry when these other fellows are disposed of; and then, when the Revanche is the only air-ship in existence, and we've killed, as we probably shall have done, Austen and Adams and the rest of them, we can begin a nice, pleasant little reign of terror on our own account."

  "I see, I see!" said Lea. "That will be famous if we can only do it; and, after all, I really don't see why we shouldn't. I suppose you won't mind Sophie Vronsky coming on board with us, will you, if only for Taxil's sake and mine? She is really the only girl in the world I can make a companion of, and I feel pretty certain that there would be difficulties with Raoul when he knew she was to be abandoned with the rest."

  "Oh yes; of course she can come!" laughed Max in reply. "I've always thought she would make a capital sweetheart for Raoul, and I am quite glad to hear that they are likely to make a bargain of it. Now I must be off and see the Revanche got ready for her cruise to-morrow. It may be a rather long one; it would not do to have anything left out. Meanwhile, you and Sophie use your eyes and your ears, and learn everything you can that may be of use to us."

  Later on that afternoon, Max fulfilled his part of the bargain he had made with the captains of the fleet by writing out the formula, showing it to Hartog, and arranging with him where it was to be buried by them as soon as it was dark enough for them to do so unobserved by the others in the camp.

  Of course, Max did not forget to tell Lea the spot fixed upon, and how he would mark it for her; and so adroitly did she follow his directions, that the priceless paper had not been lying underground, in the bottle in which they had enclosed it, for more than an hour before she had dug it up again with her own hands, taken it out of the bottle, and replaced the latter almost exactly as she had found it.

  But nearly six hours later,- that is to say, about a little before four o'clock in the morning,- another visit was paid to the spot, this time by two men who had stolen out of the sleeping camp by different ways and met there, obviously not by accident.

  "Now, my tear Taxil," said one of them in a hoarse, guttural whisper, "dis is de spot, and ve vill have it out in tree minutes. It is not buried very deep. I did not tink it vas vorth vile, as I should vant it again so soon. You haf got your trowel, now dig avay. If ve only vorks our plans out right, dot little piece of paper vill mean der empire of de vorld to us; and you shall reign ofer it, mit de peautiful Lea, and I vill be your prime minister and chief engineer.

  "Ve vill share de secret between us, and take tundering good care dat no von else gets it so soon as ve haf got dat fool Renault out of de vay. Dat vas very lucky dat Sophie believes you so much in love nit her, and so faitful to Max dat she told you vat a dangerous person I ain, and how dey vas going to put me out of de vay. Now, if dey only knew dat it vas not Sophie at all, but de incomparable Lea, dat you haf been consuming your heart init love for all de time in secret; I tinks de game vould haf been played a little differently, eh?"

  "I suppose so," said Taxil, who meanwhile had been digging away with his trowel. "But, after all, it's Renault's own fault. He shouldn't have brought a girl like Lea into the camp, or on board his ship. He must have queer ideas of anarchy, after all, if he expected we should leave her to him, to say nothing of giving him the supreme command as well. Fancy us - anarchists and enemies of all laws - setting up a king over us, and giving him absolute power of life and death, for that is what the possession of the secret means, after all's said and done! Ah, here we are; this is the bottle, I suppose," he said, as the blade of his trowel struck with a clink on the glass.

  "Ja, dot vill be it," whispered Franz, pulling a corkscrew out of his pocket as Taxil drew the bottle from the hole. "Gif it to me, and I vill open it."

  Taxil handed him the bottle, and he gently drew the cork, and then inverted the bottle over his hand and shook it. Of course nothing came out, for the tiny roll of paper had long ago been consumed to ashes in Lea's bedroom fire.

  "Mein Gott, it is gone!" said Hartog in an agitated whisper. "By tam, dere are traitors in de camp! Now, vat is dat for a foul, dirty piece of treachery! No, dere is noding dere," he continued, shaking the bottle still more vigorously. "Now dot vill show you vat a scoundrel dat Renault is. No von else knew of de place but him, and he has come and stolen it avay. Taxil, my poy, dis is serious. Ve vill have to act sharp and prompt to-morrow, or you vill never get your Lea, and I shall haf a bullet drough mine head. Are you sure you can trust de men?"

  "Every one of them," replied Taxil. "They can't stand Renault's discipline, and they hate him for it, especially since he shot Gaston that day for grumbling at the strictness of the rules. They say they might as well be sailor slaves on board a man-of-war instead of free anarchists, as they ought to be.

  "No, there won't be any difficulty with them, especially as I've promised them plenty of plunder, and at least a village a week to sack and amuse themselves in. That's the sort of life they want. They're sick of just stopping up in the air and up here, and having all fighting and no fun. But we shall have to polish Renault off pretty quickly in the morning, now that he's got the paper back. By the way, I hope you've remembered what there was on it."

  "Dere vas no fear of dat, my poy. You don't vant to show me figures twice for me to remember dem; and, besides, I wrote it out again - not completely, 'cause I had no chance, but enough to help me remember it - immediately after ve had buried it. Anyhow, it is impossible for dose oder fellows to get it, and dat is all ve vanted to take it for.

  "Now, you had better bury de bottle again, so dat some von else can find de choke out for demselves, for ven ve are gone, dose chaps vill be hunting all ofer de valley for it. It is very sad, but dere is not von of dem dat can keep fait' mit der oder. Dat is de vorst of dese common sort of anarchists."

  "And I don't suppose you'll keep faith with me much longer than it suits your purpose, you little pig," said Taxil to himself a few minutes later, when he had buried the bottle and parted from his fellow-conspirator. "Well, Lea is worth risking anything, even life itself, for, and I'll do it; but when I once get hold of the secret, I'll take care that that dirty little German doesn't have the chance to make much use of it."

  While Taxil was indulging in this soliloquy, Hartog, stealing furtively on his way back to bed, was communing with himself after very much the same style.

  "Dat is a goot, useful boy," he muttered under his breath as he slunk along. "And he vill be serviceable to me just for de present in vorking out vat de vorld vill soon call de tragic fate of Max Renault, der anarchist. By tam, vat a grim sort of joke dat vill be! I vill teach him to svindle me, and lay blots for my life, to shoot me and sling me into de sea as if I vas von of dem Utopians instead of a goot anarchist, who got all de money for him and made his engines and air-ships.

  "Ach Himmel, vat is dat for ingratitude! De man has no soul at all who could do dat to his friendt. But I vill show him who has de longest head in de long run. Ven he buys me for a fool, he vill just lose his money. Dere is not going to be any king of der air but Franz Hartog, I can tell him. Dat vas a very nice little scheme vat he had to put me out of de vay so conveniently, but ve shall see, Monsieur Max, ve shall see!"

  Despite the plots and counter-plots which were thus working underneath the surface of everyday life in the anarchists' camp, so cunningly were all the parts played, that the company of the Revanche took their places as quietly, with just the same appearance of friendliness as ever; and as she rose into the air, shortly before daybreak, hats were waved and cheers followed her, just as though, instead of a cargo of hate and jealousy and murderous designs, she carried the hearty goodwill of the whole anarchist community.

  CHAPTER XXXVIII.

  MUTINY.

  THE deceptive peace that reigned on board the Revanche was maintained unbroken, as though by common consent, until a couple of hours after sunrise, when the air-ship was flying northwards at a speed of eighty miles an hour, some three thousand feet
over the Bay of Biscay.

  Renault, Hartog, Taxil, and the two girls had breakfasted together in perfect apparent cordiality, discussing the plans of the immediate future, as though they honestly meant to act together for the rest of their lives, instead of being resolved each upon the other's destruction or captivity and wholesale treachery to their followers. Anarchy, as Renault had said to Lea, was about to produce its logical and only possible result. Armed with the means, if not of conquering, at least of terrorising the whole earth, the inherent viciousness of their principles, by making it impossible for the anarchists to trust each other with authority and confidence, was about to turn their weapons against each other, and save society by their mutual destruction.

  The dream which the arch-anarchist had dreamed while crossing the Pacific in the stolen Vengeur had been fulfilled almost to the letter. His name was a word of terror from one end of Europe to the other, and also, in a lesser degree, over those other areas of civilisation which had learned of his exploits, and waited in fear and trembling to see which of them he would attack first. And now, at the very floodtide of his power and success, he saw himself confronted, as he had foreseen, by treachery and mutiny in his own camp, and on board his own flag-ship.