by Anthology
"Of course, I know that you have strength on your side, but I also know that I have it in my power to put myself far beyond your reach if I even thought you were going to use it. You see that ring on the hand you have been kissing with such fervour? Well, that is such a ring as Lucrezia Borgia used to wear. Ah, so you let go already, do you? Perhaps you are wise, but I could have killed you with it some time ago if I had wanted to; and you must understand that I can kill myself with it at any moment that I choose, and, further, that I will do so the instant that you attempt to take any unfair advantage.
"No, don't say anything now, please, let me finish, and let us understand one another clearly. I am not to be taken by assault, understand that once for all. To what you have said I reply neither 'yes' nor 'no' for the present, because I will give no answer except in perfect freedom. There is no reason that I can see why I should not like you as well as Max, unless, of course, you take deliberate steps to make me dislike you; but before you can expect any answer, you must give me my freedom back - perfect freedom, mind, so far as the ship is concerned. I must be free to come and go as I like, unwatched and uncontrolled; and you must set Sophie free too, so that I may be with her if I choose."
"But Max," he objected, rising to his feet again; "you do not mean-"
"No," she said. "I see what you are going to say. I will promise not to interfere with him. I see that it would be useless, even if he did not deserve to be treated as a traitor. And, for the matter of that, I don't mind confessing that he won me rather by force than persuasion, for I believe he would have killed me if I had refused to come with him to the camp. Perhaps you may win me more worthily; who knows? If you can, why, then you will, and there's an end of it; but you will never do it while you are the master and I am the captive."
"And I will never try to do so," he said, stepping backwards to the door and throwing it open. "There, your door is open and you are free, and here is the key of Sophie's cabin. Now I have accepted your terms. You will keep faith with me, won't you?"
"Yes, I will," she said, getting up from the sofa and holding out her hand to him. He took it as a courtier might have taken the hand of a queen, and as he bent over it and kissed it, she said, " As you keep faith with me, so will I keep it with you. As for the future- well, you know what the English say in their proverb, 'Faint heart ne'er won fair lady yet.' And now, before you go, I have a favour to ask you."
"It is granted before you ask it," he replied, looking up at her with a light in his eyes and an expression on his face which told her how complete her victory over him had been.
"Well, it is only this," she said: "I want you to put Max somewhere else and let me share his cabin with Sophie. It is the biggest in the ship, you know, and we shall be more comfortable there. You see, she is the only other woman on board, and you can understand that I should like to be with her."
"Of course," he said. "There can be no objection to that. I will have him moved at once, and in a few moments you can take possession. Au revoir!" And with that he bowed himself out of the cabin, leaving the door open behind him.
The first use she made of her freedom was to go to Sophie's room and lock herself in there. A quarter of an hour later, Taxil knocked at the door and told her that Max's cabin was ready for them. She unlocked the door and went out, followed by Sophie, who seemed to be crying bitterly, and went straight to her new quarters.
"Now," she said to Sophie, as she locked the door behind her, "I will show you how we can turn the tables on these traitors, and how you shall have all the revenge that even a woman scorned can want. I am afraid there is no chance of saving Max, for they will watch him closely, and the first attempt we made, they would kill him, but we can avenge him and ourselves too. They won't watch us, for that fool Taxil- I suppose you won't mind me calling him that now?- has been pleased to fall in love with me, and when a man's in love, a woman can do what she likes with him. He has promised me perfect freedom on board the ship, and this is the first use I am going to make of it."
As she spoke, she took a little key from the bunch of trinkets at her belt and knelt down before a little triangular cabinet fixed to the wall in one corner of the cabin. She opened it, pulled out a drawer, and took a small bunch of keys from it. Then she pulled up the thick rug which covered the floor of the cabin and disclosed half a dozen slides in the floor, each of which had a keyhole at the end. She unlocked one and pulled the slide back, disclosing a cavity filled with a light reddish-grey powder.
"That," she said, "is one of the reservoirs for the reserve of the motor-fuel, and this is the fuel itself. Now watch."
She thrust her hand down through the powder at the end of the compartment at which she had unlocked it, groped about for a moment, and then took hold of something and pulled. The powder immediately began to flow down through a hole, and as it disappeared, she raked more and more of it over the hole with her hand, until at last the compartment was empty.
"There goes a thousand miles of travelling power," she said. "Scattered uselessly in the air! Now you must help me, Sophie, and we will get rid of the lot before they suspect anything. I'll unlock the slides and you open them. We'll have them all empty in ten minutes."
"I see," said Sophie, with a savage snap of her teeth. "You mean that if they do give Max up to the English, as I suppose they mean to do, they shan't be able to fly very far afterwards, and so they'll be in just the same plight as the ships they have left behind at the camp."
"Exactly," said Lea, as she went on unlocking the slides and pulling them open. "Max entrusted this secret to me, so that I could do this if anything ever happened to him. Hartog can't make any more of the fuel without getting fresh materials, and to get them he must either meet with the Pilgrim or go back to the camp, and I don't think he'll dare to do that, for he has turned traitor to both parties. Besides, he knows there's a large reserve on board somewhere, though I don't think either he or Taxil knows that it's here, and if they did, they'll come to look for it too late now."
While they talked, both girls worked hard shovelling the priceless powder out through the holes at the bottoms of the reservoirs. At the speed at which the air-ship was flying, it was drawn out by the strong draught and scattered instantly and invisibly astern, and in less than half an hour all the six reservoirs had been emptied, and the Revanche had been deprived of motive power which would have carried her over a voyage of over six thousand miles.
Then the slides were drawn over and locked again, and everything in the cabin replaced in order. At mid-day their lunch was brought to them by the man whose turn it was to act for the day as steward, and just as they had finished, there came a knock at the door. It opened, and Hartog came in, smiling and bowing, with a ludicrous attempt at mock politeness.
"My tear young ladies," he said, stopping just inside the cabin and rubbing his hands together with an air of intense satisfaction, "if you vill look out of de vindow, you vill see dat ve are just coming ofer London, and if you vant to see de last of our late captain, Max, you had better come up on deck, and you shall see him. Dis vay, please, and don't lose any time, because ve are in a hurry."
"Thanks, M. Hartog; but, if it is all the same to you, we would rather stop here, I think," said Lea. "I suppose you mean to throw the poor fellow overboard, and neither of us-"
"Oh no; I can assure you ve shall do noding of de kind," replied the German, bowing again, and still rubbing his hands together. "Ve could not tink of asking young ladies to look upon such a painful spectacle as dat. Ve are only going to put him in a place of safety, and say `goot-bye' to him politely. I can assure you you shall not see von hair of his head hurt, and I vould much rader you come dan dat I should haf to send an escort for you."
"That means, I suppose," said Lea, "that if we don't come, you will fetch us by force, in spite of what Taxil promised me?"
"Ja, dat is even so," said Hartog shortly, as he turned away and walked out of the door.
"I suppose we must go, Sophie," said Lea.
" It will be better than being dragged out by that little brute and his men. Poor Max, I wonder what they are going to do with him! It will be a miserable end for him, whatever it is, and I'd give ten years of my life now to save him if I could; for, at any rate, he is a man, and these others are only fools or brutes."
Her voice broke as she ceased speaking, her face was ashy pale, and her limbs were trembling with apprehension and excitement now that the supreme moment in the fate of the man who had been her lover had come. Sophie, as pale and trembling as she was, nodded in reply, and put her arm through hers, and together the two girls went on deck.
Their first glance round showed them that they were floating over Trafalgar Square at a height of about eight hundred feet, the second showed them Max, standing bound, gagged, and blindfolded, and with a noose of a rope round his body under his arm-pits, by the low rail that ran round the deck. Two men stood on either side of him and two others stood behind him holding the rope, and Hartog was close beside him with an open knife in his hand. As they reached the deck, Lea had made a sudden motion as though to run to Max, but Taxil stopped her, whispering "No, for Heaven's sake don't go near him! If you do, you'll only get hurt and do him no good. You'd have known nothing about it if it hadn't been for that brute Hartog, but he would have you up to see what he is going to do. If you don't want to look, shut your eyes, and trust to me to settle with him afterwards."
But, do what they would, there was a horrible fascination about the scene which forced them to look whether they would or no. The air-ship sank slowly down towards the square, from which they could see the people hurrying as fast as their legs could carry them, evidently in dread of a repetition of what had happened after Max's rescue from Newgate. When she reached the level of the capital of Nelson's Column, she stopped and swung slowly towards it, then she rose a little, and hung exactly over it.
Hartog now cut the cords which bound Renault's hands and feet, saying as he did so-
"Now, M. Max, it is time to say 'goot-bye.' Ven you touch ground, holdt on in case you fall. You vill find yourself in a nice airy situation mit a good extensive view. Here are some nice cigars and a box of snatches vitch I vill put into your pocket in case you vant to smoke ven you haf got dat gag out of your mouf. Now over mit him, boys, and if he kicks, knock him on de head to keep him quiet, or else he might fall and hurt himself."
As he gave the word, Max was lifted bodily from the deck, and the next moment hung suspended just over the flat surface of the capital of the column. In an agony of fear and horror Lea leant over the side, and saw him lowered until his feet touched the stone and his outspread arms caught the base of the figure. Then the rope was cut. Hartog threw a piece of iron rod, round which was tied a piece of paper, down into the square, and shouted once more-
"Goot-bye, M. Max. Take care of yourself, and give our compliments to the goot people of London. Goot-bye!"
Then he stamped on the deck, and as the air-ship rose into the air and darted away to the eastward, a mist floated before Lea's eyes, and with a faint cry of "Max! Max!" she fell fainting into Taxil's arms.
CHAPTER XL.
GAME TO THE LAST.
RENAULT'S first action, as soon as he had satisfied himself that his feet were resting on a solid foundation, was to take the bandage from his eyes. Although he felt certain that such an enemy as Hartog would have taken very good care to leave him in a position from which no escape was possible without the intervention of a miracle, still, with that elementary instinct of self-preservation which in such supreme moments rises superior to, and independent of, all reasoning, he lifted the bandage very slowly from his eyes, for fear of being dazzled and dazed, and so losing his footing by some involuntary movement.
He looked out under it as he raised it, and the first glimpse showed him where he was. He was on the east side of the capital, and therefore facing Morley's Hotel and Charing Cross, and far away over the roofs above which he stood he could see the rapidly diminishing shape of the airship as she sped away into the clouds. Moved by an irresistible impulse, he shook his fist at it and mumbled an inarticulate curse on Hartog and her crew behind the gag which filled his mouth. Then his old sang froid came back to him, and he sat himself down deliberately with his back against the base on which the figure of Nelson stands beside the coil of rope, and proceeded to untie the fastenings of the gag.
"You treacherous little beast!" he said, as soon as his stiffened tongue and jaws had recovered the faculty of speech. "You malicious, vindictive little cur! What an ass I was not to let the Newcastle people stretch that worthless little bull neck of yours as they wanted to! Why the deuce didn't you pitch me overboard in the Bay of Biscay as I intended to pitch you, and have done with it?
"That would have been too generous a way for you to treat an enemy, I suppose; and yet, after all, I don't know - I must confess there's a sort of what the old dramatists used to call `poetic justice' about it. As you said, the good people of London had very good reason for wishing to see me again, and you've certainly put me in a fairly conspicuous position.
"Oh yes, I thought so; the audience is beginning to collect for the spectacle. Curious how times change, and men change with them! The last time I was in this neighbourhood, the people couldn't get out of the way fast enough. They seemed to look upon me as a sort of destroying pestilence, as I possibly was; and - curse that treacherous, sausage-eating little pig, and the curs that turned on me at the last moment! - if it hadn't been for them, I should be that still, instead of playing an entirely new version of St. Simeon Stylites on the top of Nelson's Column.
"Still, it is no use growling; the game is up, and if, as Byron says, the wolf dies in silence, a good anarchist can meet his end with no less dignity, I suppose. At any rate, when the end does come, I shall have the satisfaction of knowing that I have sent a good few thousands of my enemies to perdition before me. Yes, that was a glorious night when I left the heart of London burning behind me, and they won't have repaired those ruins down yonder at Westminster until a good time after they have settled accounts with me.
"Well now, I wonder how they are going to get me down. Obviously they must either fetch me down or shoot me up here, unless I oblige them by jumping down. I don't see how they could fetch me, because I wouldn't go. There isn't a man in England plucky enough to climb up and fetch me down. I suppose they'd do that by flying a kite over the column, like they do over mill chimneys, and then hauling ropes and ladders up. Or perhaps they might build a scaffolding - only that would be too much trouble, I should think, especially as I might disappoint them by jumping off just as it was finished. It looks a nasty fall, and those stones look most uncompromisingly hard; but still, I should never feel the smash. According to all accounts, big falls are rather pleasant experiences than otherwise.
"Ah, what has that policeman picked up down there? Looks like a bit of paper tied to something. I daresay it's a message that that little pig Hartog threw over to tell them I am here. Yes, that is evidently it. See how they're pointing up. Ah, you brutes! you think you've got me now, don't you? And you are looking forward to another little scene in Newgate Yard which will not be interrupted by the appearance of an anarchist air-ship; but I can promise you that that will never happen. You shall have something more tragic than that if you have anything.
"Tonnerre! what a crowd, and what a sea of stupid, gaping, upturned faces! If I could only have command of the Revanche now for ten minutes, they might burn me alive or break me on the wheel afterwards. Wouldn't I scatter them in fine style! And aren't they howling, too. It's a good job my aerial experiences have given me a steady head, or I might lose it and fall down. But, bah! what a fool I am! It will only be a few minutes or a few hours sooner, after all, and what would that matter?
"Ah! a bullet. So you'd shoot me like a trapped wolf, would you, messieurs? That was rather a bad shot. I think you have knocked a piece of Nelson's coat away. I don't care to be shot, because I might only be wounded; so I think I'll lie down
for a bit. Yes, and I may as well have a smoke at the same time. There, that's better; now they can't see me, and I can have one more smoke in comfort, at any rate.
"I wonder what that little blackguard Franz is going to do? And, tonnerre de Dieu! I never thought of that - I wonder whether poor Lea has remained faithful and remembered what I told her about the reserves of fuel? Yes, she must have done; she could never have joined those curs, and she's too clever and a good deal too spiteful not to have played that little trick upon them, and if she has, what a gorgeous swindle it will be for Hartog and the rest!
"There isn't an ounce of the stuff in the camp except what's on board the other ships - I took very good care of that; and the Revanche will only have about enough to travel a thousand miles with, and then - why, down she comes like a balloon with the gas let out; and when that happens, I don't think I shall have very much cause to envy either Franz or any of them. They'll be drowned like so many rats in the sea; or, better still, they will have to drop on land, and then - if they don't get torn to pieces by wild animals - they'll give a little pleasant excitement to the whole of Europe, and then get strung up or shoved under the guillotine, to the applause of a most appreciative audience.