CHAPTER XVI.
A WOOING IN MID AIR.
After breakfast on the Friday morning, Natasha and Arnold werestanding in the bows of the _Ariel_, admiring the magnificentpanorama that lay stretched out five thousand feet below them.
The air-ship had by this time covered a little over 2000 miles of hervoyage, and was now speeding smoothly and swiftly along over thesouth-western shore of the Red Sea, a few miles southward of thesixteenth parallel of latitude. Eastward the bright blue waves of thesea were flashing behind them in the cloudless morning sun; the highmountains of the African coast rose to right and left and in front ofthem; and through the breaks in the chain they could see the hugemasses of Abyssinia to the southward, and the vast plains thatstretched away westward across the Blue and White Niles, away to theconfines of the Libyan Desert.
"What a glorious world!" exclaimed Natasha, after gazing for manysilent minutes with entranced eyes over the limitless landscape. "Andto think that, after all, all this is but a little corner of it!"
"It is yours, Natasha, if you will have it," replied Arnold quietly,yet with a note in his voice that warned her that the moment whichshe had expected and yet dreaded, had already come. There was no usein avoiding the inevitable for a time. It would be better if theyunderstood each other at once; and so she looked round at him witheyebrows elevated in well-simulated surprise, and said--
"Mine! What do you mean, my friend?"
There was an almost imperceptible emphasis on the last word thatbrought the blood to Arnold's cheek, and he answered, with a ring inhis voice that gave unmistakable evidence of the effort that he wasmaking to restrain the passion that inspired his words--
"I mean just what I say. All the kingdoms of the world, and the gloryof them, from pole to pole, and from east to west, shall be yours,and shall obey your lightest wish. I have conquered the air, andtherefore the earth and sea. In two months from now I shall have anaerial navy afloat that will command the world, and I--is it notneedless to tell you, Natasha, why I glory in the possession of thatpower? Surely you must know that it is because I love you more thanall that a subject world can give me, and because it makes itpossible for me, if not to win you, at least not to be unworthy toattempt the task?"
It was a distinctly unconventional declaration--such a one, indeed,as no woman had ever heard since Alexander the Great had whispered inthe ears of Lais his dreams of universal empire, but there was astraightforward earnestness about it which convinced her beyondquestion that it came from no ordinary man, but from one who saw thetask before him clearly, and had made up his mind to achieve it.
For a moment her heart beat faster than it had ever yet done at thebidding of a man's voice, and there was a bright flush on her cheeks,and a softer light in her eyes, as she replied in a more serious tonethan Arnold had ever heard her use--
"My friend, you have forgotten something. You and I are not a man anda woman in the relationship that exists between us. We are twofactors in a work such as has never been undertaken since the worldbegan; two units in a mighty problem whose solution is the happinessor the ruin of the whole human race. It is not for us to speak ofindividual love while these tremendous issues hang undecided in thebalance.
"One does not speak of love in the heat of war, and you and I andthose who are with us are at war with the powers of the earth, andhigher things than the happiness of individuals are at stake. Youknow my training has been one of hate and not of love, and till thehate is quenched I must not know what love is.
"Remember your oath--the oath which I have taken as well as you--'_Aslong as I live those ends shall be my ends, and no humanconsiderations shall weigh with me where those ends are concerned._'Is not this love of which you speak a human consideration that mightclash with the purposes of the Brotherhood whose ends you and I havesolemnly sworn to hold supreme above all earthly things?
"My father has told me that when love takes possession of a humansoul, reason abdicates her throne, and great aims become impossible.No, no; that great power which you hold in your hands was not givenyou just to win the love of a woman, and I tell you frankly that youwill never win mine with it.
"More than this, if I saw you using it for such an end, I would takecare that you did not use it for long. No man ever had such an awfulresponsibility laid upon him as the possession of this power laysupon you. It is yours to make or mar the future of the human race, ofwhich I am but a unit. It is not the power that will ever win eithermy respect or my love, but the wisdom and the justice with which itmay be used."
"Ah! I see you distrust me. You think that because I have the powerto be a despot, that therefore I may forget my oath and become one. Iforgive you for the thought, unworthy of you as it is, and also, Ihope, of me. No, Natasha; I am no skilled hand at love-making, for Ihave never wooed any mistress but one before to-day, and she is wononly by plain honesty and hard service; just what I will devote tothe winning of you, whether you are to be won or not--but I must haveexpressed myself clumsily indeed for you to have even thought oftreason to the Cause.
"You are no more devoted adherent of it than I am. You have sufferedin one way and I in another from the falsehood and rottenness ofpresent-day Society, but you do not hate it more utterly than I do,and you would not go to greater lengths than I would to destroy it.Yours is a hatred of emotion, and mine is a hatred of reason. I haveproved that, as Society is constituted, it is the worst and not thebest qualities of humanity that win wealth and power, and suchrespect as the vulgar of all classes can give. But it is not suchpower as this that I would lay at your feet, when I ask you to sharethe world-empire with me. It is an empire of peace and not of warthat I shall offer to you."
"Then," said Natasha, taking a step towards him, and laying her handon his arm as she spoke, "when you have made war impossible to therivalry of nations and races, and have proclaimed peace on earth,then I will give myself to you, body and soul, to do with as youplease, to kill or to keep alive, for then truly you will have donethat which all the generations of men before you have failed to do,and it will be yours to ask and to have."
As she spoke these last words Natasha bowed her proudly-carried headas though in submission to the dictum that her own lips hadpronounced; and Arnold, laying his hand on hers and holding it for amoment unresisting in his own, said--
"I accept the condition, and as you have said so shall it be. Youshall hear no more words of love from my lips until the day thatpeace shall be proclaimed on earth and war shall be no more; and whenthat day comes, as it shall do, I will hold you to your words, and Iwill claim you and take you, body and soul, as you have said, thoughI break every other human tie save man's love for woman to possessyou."
Natasha looked him full in the eyes as he spoke these last words. Shehad never heard such words before, and by their very strength andaudacity they compelled her respect and even her submission. Herheart was still untamed and unconquered, and no man was its lord, yether eyes sank before the steady gaze of his, and in a low sweet voiceshe answered--
"So be it! There never was a true woman yet who did not love to meether master. When that day comes I shall have met my master, and Iwill do his bidding. Till then we are friends and comrades in acommon Cause to which both our lives are devoted. Is it not betterthat it should be so?"
"Yes, I am content. I would not take the prize before I have won it.Only answer me one question frankly, and then I have done till I mayspeak again."
"What is that."
"Have I a rival--not among men, for of that I am careless--but inyour own heart?"
"No, none. I am heart-whole and heart-free. Win me if you can. It isa fair challenge, and I will abide by the result, be it what it may."
"That is all I ask for. If I do not win you, may Heaven do so to methat I shall have no want of the love of woman for ever!"
So saying, he raised her hand to his lips and kissed it, in token ofthe compact that was made between them. Then, intuitively diviningthat she wished to be alone, he turned awa
y without another word, andwalked to the after end of the vessel.
Natasha remained where she was for a good half-hour, leaning on therail that surrounded the deck, and gazing out dreamily over thesplendid and ever-changing scene that lay spread out beneath her.Truly it was a glorious world, as she had said, even now, cursed asit was with war and the hateful atrocities of human selfishness, andthe sordid ambition of its despots.
What would it be like in the day when the sword should lie rusting onthe forgotten battle-field, and the cannon's mouth be choked with thedesert dust for ever? What was now a hell of warring passions wouldthen be a paradise of peaceful industry, and he who had the power, ifany man had, to turn that hell into the paradise that it might be,had just told her that he loved her, and would create that paradisefor her sake.
Could he do it? Was not this marvellous creation of his genius, thatwas bearing her in mid-air over land and sea, as woman had nevertravelled before, a sufficient earnest of his power? Truly it was.And to be won by such a man was no mean destiny, even for her, thedaughter of Natas, and the peerless Angel of the Revolution.
Situated as they were, it would of course have been impossible, evenif it had been in any way desirable, for Arnold and Natasha to havekept their compact secret from their fellow-travellers, who were atthe same time their most intimate friends.
There was not, however, the remotest reason for attempting to do so.Although with regard to the rest of the world the members of theBrotherhood were necessarily obliged to live lives of constantdissimulation, among themselves they had no secrets from each other.
Thus, for instance, it was perfectly well known that Tremayne, duringthose periods of his double life in which he acted as Chief of theInner Circle, regarded the daughter of Natas with feelings muchwarmer than those of friendship or brotherhood in a common cause, anduntil Arnold and his wonderful creation appeared on the scene, he waslooked upon as the man who, if any man could, would some day win theheart of their idolised Angel.
Of the other love that was the passion of his other life, no one saveNatasha, and perhaps Natas himself, knew anything; and even if theyhad known, they would not have considered it possible for any otherwoman to have held a man's heart against the peerless charms ofNatasha. In fact they would have looked upon such rivalry as merepresumption that it was not at all necessary for their incomparableyoung Queen of the Terror to take into serious account.
In Arnold, however, they saw a worthy rival even to the Chiefhimself, for there was a sort of halo of romance, even in their eyes,about this serious, quiet-spoken young genius, who had come suddenlyforth from the unknown obscurity of his past life to arm theBrotherhood with a power which revolutionised their tactics andvirtually placed the world at their mercy. In a few months he hadbecome alike their hero and their supreme hope, so far as all activeoperations went; and now that with his own hand he had snatchedNatasha from a fate of unutterable misery, and so signally punishedher persecutors, it seemed to be only in the fitness of things thathe should love her, win her for his own, if won she was to be by anyman.
This, at any rate, was the line of thought which led the Princess andColston each to express their unqualified satisfaction with the stateof affairs arrived at in the compact that had been made betweenNatasha and Arnold--"armed neutrality," as the former smilinglydescribed to the Princess while she was telling her of the strangewooing of her now avowed lover. Natasha was no woman to be wooed andwon in the ordinary way, and it was fitting that she should be theguerdon of such an achievement as no man had ever undertaken before,since the world began.
The voyage across Africa progressed pleasantly and almostuneventfully for the thirty-six hours after the crossing of the RedSea. After passing over the mountains of the coast, the _Ariel_ hadtravelled at a uniform height of about 3000 feet over a magnificentcountry of hill and valley, forest and prairie, occasionally beingobliged to rise another thousand feet or so to cross some of theridges of mountain chains which rose into peaks and mountain knots,some of which touched the snow-line.
Several times the air-ship was sighted by the people of the variouscountries over which she passed, and crowds swarmed out of thevillages and towns, gesticulating wildly, and firing guns and beatingdrums to scare the flying demon away.
Once or twice they heard bullets singing through the air, but ofthese they took little heed, beyond quickening the speed of theair-ship for the time, knowing that there was not a chance in ahundred thousand of the _Ariel_ being hit, and that even if she werethe bullet would glance harmlessly off her smooth hull of hardenedaluminium.
Once only they descended in a delightful little valley among themountains, which appeared to be totally uninhabited, and here theyrenewed their store of fresh water, and laid in one of fruit, as wellas taking advantage of the opportunity to stretch their legs on_terra firma_.
This was on the Saturday morning; and when they again rose into theair to continue their voyage, they saw that they had crossed thegreat mountain mass that divides the Sahara from the little-knownregions of Equatorial Africa, and that in front of them to thesouth-west lay, as far as the eye could reach, a boundless expanse ofdense forest and jungle and swamp, a gloomy and forbidding-lookingregion which it would be well-nigh impossible to traverse on foot.
Early in the afternoon the four voyagers were gathered in thedeck-saloon, closely examining a somewhat rudely-drawn chart that wasspread out on the table. It was the map that formed part of themanuscript which had been found in the car of Louis Holt's miniatureballoon, and sketched out his route from Zanzibar to Aeria, and thecountry lying round so far as he had been able to observe it.
"This gives us, after all, very little idea of the distance we haveyet to go," said Arnold; "for though Holt has got his latitudepresumably right, we have very little clue to his longitude, for hesays himself that his watch was stopped in a thunder-storm, and thatin the same storm he lost all count of the distance he had travelled.Added to that, he admits that he was blown about for twelve days inone direction and another, so that all we really know is thatsomewhere across this fearful wilderness beneath us we shall findAeria, but where is still a problem."
"What is your own idea?" asked Colston.
"Not a very clear one, I must confess. At this elevation we can seeabout sixty miles as the atmosphere is now, and as far as we can seeto the south-west there is nothing but the same kind of country thatwe have under us. We have travelled rather more than 2700 miles sincewe left the Hindu Kush, and according to my reckoning Aeria liessomewhere between 3000 and 3200 miles south-west of where we startedfrom on Thursday morning. That means that we are within between threeand five hundred miles of Aeria, unless, indeed, our calculations arewholly at fault, and at that rate, as we only have about four and ahalf hours' daylight left, we shall not get there to-day at ourpresent speed."
"Couldn't we go a bit faster?" put in Natasha. "You know I and thePrincess are dying to see this mysterious unknown country that onlytwo other people have ever seen."
"You have but to say so, Natasha, and it is already done," repliedArnold, signalling at the same moment to the engine-room by means ofa similar arrangement of electric buttons to that which was in thewheel-house. "Only you must remember that you must not go out on decknow, or you will be blown away like a feather into space."
While he was speaking the three propellers had begun to revolve atfull speed, and the _Ariel_ darted forward with a velocity thatcaused the mountains she had just crossed to sink rapidly on thehorizon.
All the afternoon the _Ariel_ flew at full speed over the seeminglyinterminable wilderness of swamp and jungle, until, when theequatorial sun was within a few degrees of the horizon, one of thecrew, who had been stationed in the conning tower at the bows,signalled to call the attention of the man in the wheel-house.Arnold, who was in the after-saloon at the time, heard the signal,and hurried forward to the look-out. He gave one quick glance ahead,signalled "half-speed" to the engine-room, and then went aft again tothe saloon, and said--
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br /> "Aeria is in sight!"
Immediately everyone hastened to the deck saloon, from the windows ofwhich could be seen a huge mass of mountains looming dark anddistinct against the crimsoning western sky.
It rose like some vast precipitous island out of the sea of forestthat lay about its base; and above the mighty rock-walls that seemedto rise sheer from the surrounding plain at least a dozen peakstowered into the sky, two of their summits covered with eternal snow,and shining like points of rosy fire in the almost level rays of thesun.
As nearly as Arnold could judge in the deceptive state of theatmosphere, they were still between thirty and forty miles from it,and as it would not be safe to approach its lofty cliffs at a highrate of speed in the half light that would so soon merge intodarkness, he said to his companions--
"We shall have to find a resting-place up among the cliffs on thisside to-night, for we have lost the moon, and unless it wereabsolutely necessary to cross the mountains in the dark, I should notcare to do so with the ladies on board. Besides, there is no hurrynow that we are here, and we shall get a much finer first impressionof our new kingdom if we cross at sunrise. What do you think?"
All agreed that this would be the best plan, and so the _Ariel_ ranup to within a mile of the rocks, and then the forward engine wasconnected with the dynamo, and the searchlight, which had sodisconcerted the Cossacks on the Tobolsk road, was turned on to thecliffs, which they carefully explored, until they found a littleplateau covered with luxuriant vegetation and well watered, about twothousand feet above the plain below.
Here it was decided to come to a halt for the night, and to reservethe exploration of Aeria for the morning, and so the fan-wheels weresent aloft, and the _Ariel_, after hovering for a few minutes overthe verdant little plain seeking for a suitable spot to alight in,sank gently to the earth after her flight of more than three thousandmiles.
The Angel of the Revolution: A Tale of the Coming Terror Page 17