The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 05

by Anthology

  "Yes, that would be a very comforting thought in my present position if only poor Lea wasn't among them. It will be a miserable end for her to meet anyhow; and yet, if I'd left her at the camp, it wouldn't have been much better, even if it hadn't been much worse. Ah, well! I can't save her now, though, if I could, and there was a ladder from here down into the middle of that gaping, yelling crowd, that's longing to tear me limb from limb, I'd willingly walk down if it would save her.

  "Hullo! What's that they are bringing up Parliament Street from the Horse Guards? A captive military balloon, as I am still alive. So that is your little game is it, gentlemen? What a pity you haven't got one of the Syndicate's air-ships here to fetch me off. I think you'd find it rather more useful than that clumsy-looking thing.

  "Yes, that's what it is; all right. There's the balloon, and there's the car and the cart with the windlass and rope. I suppose they've been practising with it in the Park. Really, that is quite a brilliant idea for the British War Office, but I'll give them something a bit more brilliant than that before they've finished the experiment.

  "I wonder what sort of a fool they take me for. Let's see, have I got anything in the way of a weapon about me? Yes. I'll be hanged if they haven't left me my sheath knife! Good! Now, there won't be more than three men come up with it. I wonder if I could manage to despatch them and then cut the rope before they could wind it back to the earth. No! That won't do. They weave a couple of strands of wire now in those ropes. I couldn't cut it even if I could kill the fellows before they got it down, and even if I got clear away, I should have to come down somewhere, or else get blown out to sea, and starve and go mad if I didn't get drowned.

  "No; I've had my fun, and I'll end the game here, and now. I don't care very much for fame, but the world shall remember the way I went out of it as long as anarchy itself is remembered. Yes, cheer away, my friends! You see they've got it into position, and four brave men - volunteers, no doubt - are getting into the car to come and pull a lonely and defenceless anarchist off the top of Nelson's Column. A glorious exploit, but it will be more glorious before it's finished - for me if not for you. It's a good job there isn't a breath of wind stirring, even up here.

  "Yes, it is rising perfectly straight. It will come to within about ten feet of the capital, and then I suppose they'll throw out grappling irons and haul it up close, and then they think there will be a bit of a fight. What a set of fools! Here it comes. It's only about fifty feet away now, so here goes. I wish to God I could live to see the end of the fun!"

  The gigantic crowd which thronged, not only the square, but all the approaches to it, was staring upwards with strained, fixed eyes, all concentrated on the great mass of the balloon, which slowly rose in a vertical line from the wagon containing the windlass up towards the capital, on which stood Max Renault, alone and forsaken, and really at bay at last.

  The spectators expected to see him dragged off the capital and into the car and then brought down again. A strong guard of police and dragoons from the Horse Guards kept a large open space round the waggon, and stood ready to protect the prisoner from the infuriated multitude that was longing to tear him limb from limb, but both mob and guard were destined to be disappointed in a fashion at once as terrible as it was unexpected. As the top of the balloon rose to within a dozen feet of the edge of the capital, they saw the figure of their anticipated victim leap from where he stood down into the midst of the swelling mass of inflated silk.

  In the instant that he did so, they saw the sunlight flash upon something bright that he held in his hand. Instinctively everyone grasped at least a portion of his desperate intention, and a mighty roar of rage and horror rose up simultaneously from tens of thousands of throats. Then there came silence, a silence of speechless, breathless apprehension. Then those who thronged the upper windows of the buildings round saw the knife flash to and fro through the riven silk.

  The knife dropped, and Max took something from his mouth and rubbed it on the breast of his coat. Then came a spark of fire, a mighty rush of pale blue flame, and then a frightful explosion. The balloon burst like a huge bubble in a momentary mist of flame, and car and rope crashed down on to the waggon, spattering it and all the pavement about it with the blood and mangled remains of the four would-be captors and the victim who had destroyed them with himself. And so, outwitting both the false friends who had betrayed him, and the foes who would have taken him alive, died Max Renault - game to the last.

  ·ÊÊ·ÊÊ·ÊÊ·ÊÊ·ÊÊ·

  Twelve hours later the Revanche, far away over the North Sea, a little to the northward of the Arctic Circle, was driving to the north-eastward before a furious gale, blowing at a speed of over eighty miles an hour. For four hours she had been flying against it, with the whole power of her engines concentrated on the stern propellers, and at the end of that four hours Taxil went to Hartog, who was steering in the conning-tower, and said-

  "We have only a couple of hundredweight of the fuel left, and I have just been to the reserve reservoirs in Max's cabin, and they're empty."

  "Empty? Vat is dat you say? Mein Gott! den dere is treachery on board even now!" Hartog almost screamed, half in passion and half in fear. "Max vould never haf been such a fool as to come on a voyage like dis mit only fuel enough for about two tousand miles on board her. Some von has emptied dose reservoirs, and I believe it is dat defil of a girl who has done it. She is de only von who can have known of dem besides you."

  "Don't call Lea 'devil' in my hearing, please," said Taxil curtly, "or you and I will quarrel. I don't believe Max would have told her about them, and if she had known, she couldn't have opened them, for I took the keys from Max myself, and they have never been out of my possession. It's no good shouting or calling names. The question is, what are we to do? We are using all our power now, and not making forty miles an hour headway. In three hours all the fuel will be done, and then we shall just drop into the sea, for we are a good four hundred miles from land anywhere. We must turn the power on to the fans, and keep her afloat at any risk."

  "But, Gottsdonnerwetter, man, don't you see vat dat means?" shouted Franz, who was now almost in a frenzy of fear at the prospect he saw so clearly before him. "Look here at dis chart. Ve are very little south of de Arctic Circle, and dis infernal vind is blowing a hurricane. If ve stop de screws, ve shall go north at someting like sixty miles an hour, and, by tam, if no von has found de Pole yet, ve shall soon find it.

  "Look, dere is der ice ahead of us. You see der ice-line on de chart. Ve cross dat and ve are lost, unless dis infernal vind stops. Ve shall go drifting avay over de ice-fields, and unless ve can keep afloat long enough to fly over der oder side, ve shall come down vere no living man has ever been, and then you vill have reason to see how fondt you are of your Lea, for, by tam, you vill vant to eat her!"

  The words were hardly out of his mouth before Taxil's knife leapt out of its sheath, flashed for a moment before Franz's eyes, and then sank deep into his breast. Almost without a groan he dropped to the floor of the conning-tower, and as he did so, the fearful thought flashed across Taxil's mind that he had killed the only man now left among the anarchists who possessed the secret of the motor-fuel.

  Almost mechanically he locked the steering-wheel, went into the engine-room, turned the power of two engines on to the lifting fans, and slowed the centre propeller down to half speed. Then he went back to the conning-tower, set the air-ship's head across the storm, locked the wheel again, and went to Lea's cabin to tell her what had happened.

  When morning came, the Revanche was flying in the midst of a furious snowstorm across a white, desolate wilderness, which could be dimly seen through the thick-flying flakes. The power of the engines was visibly failing. Only a few pounds of the precious fuel now remained. In a last despairing effort, Taxil concentrated all the power left at his disposal upon the lifting fans, determined to keep afloat over the icy grave that lay beneath them as long as he could. But this was not for very long. The speed o
f the fans visibly slackened, and slowly the Revanche began to sink down through the snow to the awful silent wilderness in which her last voyage was to end.

  "It's all over, I'm afraid, Lea," he said to her, as they stood shivering side by side on deck. "We shan't be long before we meet the fate that I fear now we have deserved."

  "Deserved?" she cried, in a voice that came brokenly from between her chattering teeth. "That you have deserved, you mean, you cowardly, treacherous hound! If it hadn't been for you and your treachery, Max would still be in command, and the Revanche would still be floating in triumph through the air. You have given him over to his enemies, but, thank God, I've avenged him."

  "You!" he gasped, clutching her arm in a savage grasp. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean that I and Sophie emptied the reserve reservoirs. Do you think I was going to let a wretched little cur like you reign in Renault's place? Not I - not even to save myself from a fate like this. Now I have told you. Kill me if you like!"

  And as she spoke, the Revanche touched the snow-covered surface of the Polar ice.

  CHAPTER XLI.

  THE SYNDICATE PREPARES TO ACT.

  A FORTNIGHT after the last tragedy of Renault's life had been enacted in Trafalgar Square, the War-Hawk and the Volante returned from their work of exterminating the anarchists in the Southern hemisphere, and exploring their stations and treasure-stores, under the guidance of Rene Berthauld. They dropped to earth for a few minutes on Lundy Island, to learn the news of what had happened in their absence, and to telegraph the hour of their arrival in London to Mr. Maxim at the offices of the Syndicate.

  Of course, the first news that was told them was the story of Renault's fate, and as soon as Sir Harry heard it, he turned to Mr. Austen and Adams, who were standing beside him, and said-

  "Well, there's an end of that part of my undertaking, and I must confess that it is a more dramatic one than I think I could have brought about myself, for I must either have sent him into eternity out of a pitched battle, or else, if I had caught him alive, I could only have handed him over to the law, to be hung prosaically, like any commonplace murderer. I must own, too, that the exit he made for himself was more worthy of him, for, wild beast as the fellow was, there was something about his cold-blooded pluck and pitiless thoroughness that even I can't help admiring."

  "Yes," said Adams quietly. "If he had only been born five hundred years ago, he would have probably been a shining light of chivalry, and one of the finest soldiers of his time; and even now, if it hadn't been for that twist in his intellect that made him an anarchist, he would have made about the ablest dictator that a South American Republic could have wished for."

  "If he hadn't devoted himself to politics," added Mr. Austen drily, "and risen to the same position in France. Still, whatever he was, or might have been, the world is very well rid of him. Now, I think we had better go on board again and get off to London. We can read up the rest of the news en route from the papers."

  Three hours later, that is to say, about ten o'clock at night, the two air-ships touched earth again in the middle of Hyde Park. Sir Harry, Mr. Austen, Adams, Dr. Roberts, Violet, and Dora at once disembarked, taking with them two of the War-Hawk's crew to carry Violet's invalid chair, and then the air-ships immediately rose again and vanished into the darkness.

  The party went straight to Sir Harry's town house in Grosvenor Place, where they found the chairman of the Syndicate already awaiting them. Then the directors forthwith shut themselves in the library to hold the meeting that had been arranged by telegraph, while the two girls betook themselves to Violet's sitting-room for a quiet chat until supper-time. Dr. Roberts, not being a member of the Syndicate, and having, apparently, nothing particular to do, vanished mysteriously. About half an hour later there came a knock at the door of Violet's room, and as Dora cried "Come in," it opened, and the doctor entered.

  "I have brought a visitor for you, Miss Violet- someone who has come on rather important business, so you must excuse the lateness of the hour." Then, before she could reply, he threw the door wide open, and without any further introduction, in walked Wyndham, not only alive, but as well and hearty as he had ever looked in his life.

  Dora controlled her astonishment with a success that was almost suspicious; but Violet sat for a moment transfixed and rigid, with wide-staring eyes, and her hands clutching the arms of her chair convulsively. Just as Wyndham was running forward to her, the doctor stopped him, and said in a short, sharp tone-

  "Wait-and you will see something!"

  And so he did, for the next moment Violet's whole body seemed shaken by an overpowering emotion; then, raising herself on her arms, she struggled to her feet, and with a glad cry of-

  "Bertie! Bertie! Then you are not dead after all!" tottered half-way across the room and fell fainting into his arms.

  It had been a risky experiment, but it had succeeded, as Doctor Roberts had been confident it would when he arranged the sending of the false telegram to Lundy which Violet had read in Utopia. The violent and unexpected emotional shock had overcome the remaining nervous weakness that had been day by day diminished by careful treatment and nursing, and under its stimulus the interrupted nerve-connections had been restored, and the muscles of her lower limbs once more placed under the control of her brain. Wyndham lifted her up and laid her on the sofa, and in a very few minutes the doctor had brought her back to consciousness.

  "Now, see if you can stand up again," he said to her when she had swallowed a fairly stiff glass of brandy and water.

  "I think I can," she said, and then, giving one hand to him and another to Wyndham, she raised herself slowly, but steadily, from the sofa, and stood once more erect upon her feet.

  "That will do," said the doctor. "Now sit down again, and don't over-exert yourself, whatever you do. Come along, Miss Dora. You and I have nothing more to do here. The case is now one which demands strictly private treatment, and we can leave her with perfect safety in Lieutenant Wyndham's hands. You can come back later on and bring her down to supper."

  The meeting of the directors lasted an hour, and during that time Mr. Maxim told them that the building of the fleet had progressed very satisfactorily, and that within twenty-four hours a fleet of five-and-twenty vessels, not counting the War-Hawk, the Volante, and the now repaired Vengeur, would be ready to take the air, fully equipped for the assault on the anarchists' stronghold at Mount Prieta.

  "I quite agree with you, gentlemen," he said in concluding his report, "that it will be much better to dispose of these scoundrels before we commence our final undertaking. A fortnight ago- in fact, on the very day that Renault put an end to himself- they abandoned their previous tactics, and, instead of operating as a fleet and according to some definite plan of action, they scattered, and every one of the ships seems to have gone off on a raiding expedition of her own.

  "For about a week they absolutely terrorised the Continent from end to end. They set fire to towns and villages, slaughtered people by hundreds, and then landed, armed to the teeth, and committed the most unheard-of crimes under cover of their ships' guns. Then they suddenly disappeared, and for the last five or six days no one has heard anything about them. The whole world has been looking for them, for no one knew what country was to be attacked next, but so far not a single ship has made her appearance again.

  "Now, putting two and two together, it seems to me that there has been a mutiny in the anarchist camp, the first result of which was the abandonment of Renault on the top of Nelson's Column. No doubt they fought about the secret of the fuel. Renault probably refused to give it up, and so in revenge they gave him up to his enemies: Then, with what fuel they had left, they went on one last burst of wickedness, and then retired to their camp, where I expect you will find they have left their air-ships and scattered back to their old haunts."

  "That may be true of the majority of them," said Mr. Austen, "but I'm afraid it is too good to be true of that scoundrel Hartog and the Revanche. This ma
n Berthauld has told us that he is an extremely clever chemist as well as engineer, and, difficult and risky as the job would be, it is just possible that be has got possession of some of the fuel and analysed it. If he has done that, one can easily see why he should stir up a revolt against Renault, and insure his being killed or executed, so as to be the only possessor of the secret himself. At the same time, I confess that that doesn't square with the fact that the Revanche herself has not reappeared."

  "Another probability," suggested Adams, "is that some one else has killed Hartog for just the same reason. I was quite sure that these scoundrels could never stick together as long as one of them had a secret like that. The proverbial apple of discord would be a mere nothing to it. However, I suppose we shall find all that out before long. And now with regard to the war, Mr. Maxim, how does that actually stand?"

  "In this way," replied the chairman. "Thanks chiefly to the really wonderful exploits of Lieutenant Wyndham in command of the Nautilus, and Renault's destruction of the French and Russian fleets in the Baltic, France and Russia have been thoroughly well thrashed at sea. England, of course, lost very heavily as well; but public opinion woke the Admiralty up so thoroughly, that wonderful progress has been made in refitting damaged ships and getting others into commission that were nearly finished, so there is now an ample force to guard the coast and put any attempted invasion out of the question. As for the Russian squadron in the East, it is simply a thing of the past.