Entrusting the helm for a moment to the passenger, Herrick crawled forward, and while the rising gale shrieked above them and around them, held a hasty, whispered conversation with the now excited engineer.
"We'll never do it, sir, we'll never do it," Wilton said, hoarsely. "St. Margaret's Bay; Why, see! we've left it far behind already. No landing there to-night. What's the best air-ship that ever was built against a wind like this?"
"Land us anywhere, anywhere," was Herrick's vehement answer.
"Yes, if we can," muttered Wilton, gloomily. "I'm afeard there's something wrong with her, and that's the truth, Mr. Herrick."
"Good God!" exclaimed Herrick, with an anxious glance towards the figure in the stern.
"See that?" gasped the engineer, as a strong gust from the north drove the bow of the boat farther sea-ward. "See that, sir? I tell you, she can't stand it."
Again and again the same thing happened. The gale, so far as it was easterly, drove them westward along the coastline, and ever and again the fierce gusts from the north forced them away from it. Linton crept back to the stern. Thirty minutes passed—minutes of increasing suspense. At the end of that time they had lost their bearings. TheBladudbecame more and more beyond control.
"Is there danger?" Renshaw asked the question very softly.
"I am afraid there is, sir," said Linton.
The other nodded: "I thought so. What part of the coast is that down there?" he asked after an interval.
Linton peering over, pondered a minute before he answered:
"Dover's left far behind by this time. We've passed Hastings. Those must be the lights of Brighton."
"We can't get down?"
"Impossible at present. We must drive straight ahead. Inside the Isle of Wight there'll be a chance for us—more shelter and more ships. Wilton knows that part."
"Can we last as long?"
"I think so—I hope so."
A long silence fell as theBladudbattled with the wind. Then there came a startling, rending sound that indicated some defect in the machinery. The boat began to veer erratically.
"Steady, sir, steady," roared Wilton, making a trumpet of his hands. "For God's sake head her north!"
From below there rose a sullen, surging sound, the threatening monotone of angry waves breaking upon a rocky shore.
The sound grew fainter. They must be travelling inland—across the Isle of Wight. Now, then, was the time for a descent. Dimly in the forepart of the boat, Wilton's bent form could be discerned, his face peering, his hands at work in the complex box of theBladud'smachinery. Suddenly he threw himself back, sitting on his heels, and Herrick thought he saw his hands raised with a gesture of despair. TheBladudlurched and swayed violently, and for a moment it seemed as if the gyroscope had wholly failed to act. If that were so, in a moment the boat might lose her equilibrium, and all would end. But that was not the trouble. Linton now realised that it was the lowering apparatus thatwould not work. TheBladudstill rushed madly forward. With unchecked speed, they flew across the island. Another coast line then came into view—the long low line of lights stretching from Portsmouth, across Southsea to Eastney and Fort Cumberland. There was hope, then, or if not ground for hope, at least a fighting chance!
But theBladudnow by some inexplicable perversity of the machinery made obstinately for the eastern extremity of the line of lights. That, again, might serve if only they could descend on the wide common of Hayling Island. They were nearing it every moment. Presently from below there rose a new menace, an angry sound—grating and monotonous, that Linton could not understand.
"What's that?" he shouted.
"The Woolseners," bellowed Wilton, in reply, and made a wild gesture with his disengaged hand. He knew the deadly peril—those shifting banks of shingle churned in the shallows by the ceaseless action of the tides and waves. The Woolseners were as fatal as the Goodwin Sands to every ship or boat that found herself among them.
With a desperate effort, aided by Renshaw and directed by Wilton, Herrick forced over the helm. Another ominous crack reached their ears, but for the moment they were successful, and a sudden squall from the east aided their combined efforts. They now were heading straight for Portsmouth Harbour. All might yet be well!
Still travelling at great speed, they traversed nearly half the distance, it now being Wilton's design to bring theBladuddown on Southsea Common. Then, suddenly, the horizontal movement of the boat absolutely ceased. All the motive power that was left in her began through some terrible mishap to beexpended in the development of rapid elevation. The frantic efforts of Wilton to check the upward rush were unavailing, the boat went up and up with terrible velocity. This last catastrophe was paralyzing, overwhelming. Climbing higher and higher, the boat would rapidly exhaust her small remaining store of compressed air. Then, in an instant, would commence a reversal, and theBladudwould rush down through space—the end for all on board, inevitable death.
Linton again left the helm in Renshaw's hands. It was useless to retain it. He scrambled forward to assist Wilton in his desperate efforts to right the machinery. A dreadful feeling of sickness began to overpower him as the air-ship swayed and waltzed in the upper air-currents, lurching and righting as if struck by successive waves, but ever mounting higher and yet higher.
It grew intensely cold. Feathery flakes of snow began to envelop them. Their lungs laboured. It became more and more difficult to breathe. Linton gasped enquiries which either Wilton did not hear or could not answer. He glanced back at their ill-starred passenger, who had set out to recover power and a great position and now was rushing to an awful death. He saw that Renshaw's head rolled limply on his shoulders. Already he seemed to be insensible. Filled with terror and alarm, he shouted to Wilton though the man was close to hand, but his voice, though the effort of utterance was so great, sounded even to himself quite faint and far away.
By the light of the protected spirit lamp fixed to the tiny engine house, Linton saw that the recording instrument already registered an altitude of 20,000 feet.
A dull indifference began to take possession of hismind. His faculties were slowly freezing. Even his eyesight now began to fail. He could scarcely see the column of mercury in the glass, or the minute hand of his watch. He felt that consciousness would soon completely desert him. His right hand was resting on the gunwale of the boat; he found he could not raise it. He could scarcely move his lower limbs, and, turning once more to glance at the barometer, his head fell forward helplessly.
By a violent exercise of his muscles and his will, he raised his face a little, but for an instant only. It drooped again. He slid down into the bottom of the boat. His fading gaze sought that of Wilton. They looked into each other's eyes, like dying men bidding one another silent, sad farewells. The mists of death already seemed to be closing on them, when a sudden variation of the temperature, or, it may be, some magnetic current partially revived them. But theBladudstill rushed upward, ever upward. They had reached a height of four miles above the earth, and the temperature had fallen to 24° below freezing point of water. To this appalling altitude theBladudhad ascended with almost incredible rapidity.
Upward, and upward still, they went, until five miles, then six, was reached above the surface of the vanished earth.
Out of the void a muffled voice reached Linton's ears, the welcome voice of a living fellow-creature. It was Wilton trying to rouse him, Wilton speaking with urgency and vehemence.
Gradually he came out of his swoon; familiar objects close to him revealed themselves again. Wilton was lying in the bottom of the boat. He was striving in vain to reach Linton. The piercing cold had almost paralyzed him. His hands were freezing.
What did Wilton want? What was he trying to do?
As far as could be judged, they had now reached an altitude of 37,000 feet—nearly seven miles. The mists closed in again. The thread of life was on the point of breaking. Linton became half conscious that a thick crust of ice had formed upon his clothes, his breath was freezing on his lips and in his nostrils. He glanced again with an agonizing effort at the moving record of their elevation. Another 1,000 feet, and then 2,000 feet. Needles of ice were pricking at his eyes. Close to him the prone form of Wilton seemed to be covered with minute crystals from head to foot. Linton tried to stretch out his hands to touch him, but found that they were helpless, numbed. What, he vaguely wondered, was Wilton doing now? What mad idea was this? With an exhausting effort the engineer had just smashed the lens of his telescope. Then his hands seemed again to fail him.
Watching him helplessly, Linton felt that everything was useless, hopeless, lost. It would soon be over.
But Wilton had gripped the broken glass of the telescope between his teeth. What was he doing now? Why was he sawing frantically, convulsively, at that tightened cord?
Ah! that was it! Well done, Wilton. But it was hopeless, quite hopeless, after all. Linton rolled his head feebly. They had climbed another 1,000 feet, and they were mounting still.
No! What was this? There was a change. Something had happened. Linton was sensible of a strange eddying, a pause, a feebler flapping of the aeroplanes.
Merciful God! The boat had ceased to rise. Nowshe was sinking, sinking, with appalling speed, yet checked to some extent by the broad aeroplanes, just as a bird would be when, with extended wings, it floated down to earth.
He tried to frame some words; tried to touch Wilton with his hand; failed to do either. Wilton lay motionless, with bleeding lips.
Out of the blur of mental chaos, Linton Herrick found himself roughly dragged back to consciousness. Kneeling in the boat, he discovered that he was submerged in water to the waist; flecks of salt water smote him in the face; all around there was a welter of wild, tossing waves.
In his ears, to add to his distraction, there sounded a harsh and melancholy bell. It was tolling, tolling, close at hand.
TheBladud, water-logged, tossed feebly in the trough of the angry sea. Built on a theory that she could float for a considerable period, it nevertheless rushed in upon Linton's mind that in a few minutes she would sink. He struggled to his feet, grasping the rigging as he did so. Something arrested his attention. What was that silent log-like thing the waves were rolling yonder in the semi-darkness? It must be Wilton, poor Wilton, who had saved their lives—or tried to save them, only to lose his own. Wilton! Dead!
A voice hailed him. It came from Renshaw, his companion. He also was on his feet, swaying from side to side as the boat, settling deeper and deeper in the water, plunged and lurched beneath them.
"Look!" cried Renshaw, "the buoy! We must swim for it!"
As he spoke he plunged over the side and struck out for a towering object that rose and fell in thewaves only a few yards away. Linton realised that that was where the clangour of the bell was coming from—the refuge of the shipwrecked—the bell-buoy close at hand!
Before he fully knew what he was about, he, too, was struggling in the waves. He was a strong swimmer, but, clogged with his wet clothing, another yard or two would have been too much for him. He shouted some incoherent words of encouragement to Renshaw, and struck out with all his small remaining strength. The tall frame-work of the Spit-buoy rose out of the sea just in front of him. From its apex came louder than ever the noise of the iron clapper beating on the metal, as the tossing sea roiled the huge buoy this way and that.
His hand touched something hard.
He grasped an iron rail. Slowly and laboriously he drew his dripping form out of the sea. Then, panting heavily, he threw himself down face downward, full length, on the deck of the buoy, and stretched out both hands to the other swimmer. Renshaw's strength seemed well nigh spent. He was making futile struggles to rid himself of his heavy coat. As he rolled over helplessly, almost swept beneath the buoy, Linton grasped his collar.
The next moment he had drawn him to the rail. A breathing space, and then another effort, exhausting and prolonged.
Two panting men, half drowned but saved, lay side by side upon the buoy, fenced from the greedy sea by rusty, dripping iron bars. Above them, in the stormy mournful night, ding dong! the bell kept clanging to and fro—this way and that, with every wave and motion of the singing sea.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE COUP D'ÉTAT.
While the fierce struggle for Fort Warden was proceeding, and while Nicholas Jardine lay dying, the Vice-President of the Council and her adherents were engaged in desperate efforts to strengthen the grip of Woman on the governance of England. To wrest to their own advantage the crisis that would arise on the expected death of the President was of paramount importance to the Kellick party. To turn it to their destruction was the anxious object of their political opponents. Thus was foreshadowed—for the critical hour—a fierce and crucial struggle for supremacy.
The chief directors of the counteracting movement, General Hartwell, the woman-hater, and Sir Robert Herrick, wise in counsel and learned in law, were in constant conference. They met daily, and their conferences and study of reports often lasted far into the night.
The outcome of their labours was to be seen in the creation of an association, which Linton had mentioned to Zenobia. It embodied both men and women, who styled themselves, as a bond of union, the Friends of the Phœnix. The general aim of this association was to re-establish man in his proper position in the State, and the particular aim to bring about the restoration of the long-lost leader, Wilson Renshaw.
The last mentioned feature of the programme, though at first received with natural incredulity, presently acted with magical effect in quickening public interest; and when secret, but authoritative, assurances were forthcoming that Renshaw still lived, had been released by the Mahdi, and was about to return to England, vast numbers speedily enrolled themselves as Friends of the Phœnix. The great strength of the movement lay in the voluntary enlistment of hosts of disciplined men. The Police, the regular Army, and the Territorials, furnished many thousands of recruits.
The old Household troops followed General Hartwell almost to a man; the Corps of Commissionaires followed suit. These men, in turn, rendered excellent, because unsuspected, service as propagandists among the humbler classes of the civil population. Evidences of disgust and discontent with the aggressive dominion of Woman were found on every side.
The time was almost ripe. It looked as if but a match were needed to produce a vast and far-reaching conflagration; and the main problem that exercised the minds of General Hartwell and Sir Robert was how, when the moment came, to use the ready instruments of revolt without incurring the risk of bloodshed and the development of civil war. Every possible precaution was taken. The Friends of the Phœnix pursued their plans with the utmost secrecy, it being realised that, in order that the projectedcoup d'étatmight succeed, it was essential that it should take the Kellick faction completely by surprise.
Finally, it was decided to seize the occasion of a banquet in the City, at which it was known that the Vice-President would make an oratorical bid for a new mandate from the nation. This banquet, postponed from time to time in consequence of events at Dover and the President's illness, was to take place shortly after Mr. Jardine's funeral. It was announced that reasons of State and public convenience rendered further delay impossible; "Reasons of State" meant the interests of the Kellick faction; "Public convenience" had reference to the opening of a new London railway tube.
An extension of the old Tube from the Post Office, via Gresham Street, to the Guildhall, had long been a cherished scheme of the City Fathers. The old approach through King Street and Cheapside to the head-quarters of the Corporation was only suitable for use in fine weather. But whatever changes and chances had befallen London during the first forty years of the twentieth century, British weather had developed but little alteration, and certainly no improvement. That State processions and civic functions should be spoilt by drizzle, rain, or fog, as so frequently had happened to pageants of the past, was felt to be not merely inconvenient, but quite uncalled for. The new alternative route presented many advantages. Celebrities and non-celebrities bound for the City on great occasions would be enabled to enter a special train at the West End, and could come to the surface in Guildhall Yard. The feast of oratory and the flow of champagne might thus be attained without the disadvantage of a preliminary journey through the rain-swept streets of the murky city. In like manner the members and officers of the corporation would enjoy similar immunity whenever official occasion required them to go westward.
The feminine note in politics had something to do with the project; for woman, advanced woman, in her hours of ease and finery did not like to have her feathers and laces spoilt by London smuts anddrizzle; and woman, of course, had become very much in evidence in the City of London. Facetious persons went so far as to say that the City Fathers had been superseded by the City Mothers, and further justified their views by treating the male minority as indistinguishable from a set of old women. The arrival of Woman as a member of County Councils and other public bodies, not to say in Parliament itself, long ago had rendered it practically certain that the conservatism of the City must ultimately yield to the onslaughts of the sex. In the fulness of time a woman took her place on the Bench as Chief Magistrate of the City of London. A wondering world was called upon, for the first time, to do honour to a Lady Mayoress, who shone with no reflected light. She herself was the Sun of the City firmament. Lord Mayor for some years there was none.
The Lady Mayoress who held office at the critical period that had now arrived was a devoted ally of the Vice-President, and bent on advancing in every possible way the authority and interests of her sex. To this end the Corporation, which had largely subsidised the new branch tube, had solicitously waited the opportunity to entertain the acting representative of government in honour of the occasion. On the day of the banquet, the principal City streets presented their normal appearance to the eyes of all ordinary observers. The Vice-President and her supporters were to travel to the Guildhall by the new route. There was no occasion, therefore, for decoration, or for the special services of the military, or even of the police. Nevertheless, large numbers of uniformed men might have been observed moving through the side streets in small parties. In the neighbourhood of the General Post Office and of the Guildhall these numbers rapidly increased as the hour appointed forthe function drew near. At the same time there were similar musters in the immediate vicinity of the Houses of Parliament, the War Office, the Admiralty, and other public offices.
There was no apparent connection between these various groups, but in reality they were acting in complete unison. They had the same password—"the Phœnix"—and were directed from one and the same centre. In a word, one and all, these men were Friends of the Phœnix.
Towards afternoon, when Londoners began to look for the early editions of the evening papers, which were expected to contain a summarised report of the Vice-President's speech in the City, extraordinary rumours began to spread throughout the Capital; and in the Clubs, the restaurants, the railway stations, and in the streets groups of men and women engaged in eager and excited discussion. The impatience of the public became uncontrollable. Crowds besieged the news-vendors' shops, and clamoured at the railway bookstalls. Even the newspaper offices were invaded, and when, at length, copies of the evening journals were available, hosts of people struggled fiercely to secure them. Scenes of extraordinary tumult were witnessed. The newsboys, tearing through the streets on their bicycles, were waylaid. Men fought and scrambled for copies of the papers, and as placard after placard appeared, public excitement was augmented until it reached the verge of frenzy.
A COUP D'ÉTAT.REIGN OF WOMAN ENDS.RENSHAW RETURNS.
Wild cheers and shouts broke out when lines like these were read by gaping multitudes. People camehurrying to their doors and windows; drivers of cabs and omnibuses stopped their vehicles, staring, laughing, shouting, questioning, and adding to the general babel and bewilderment. The streets were blocked. The news ran through the town like flame, evoking everywhere unbounded enthusiasm and the wildest joy. The climax was reached when overhead were heard the wind-harps of a fleet of air-ships. Fifty or sixty of the official craft had been repaired and brought into the service of the Phœnix. Sweeping over every district of London, they scattered tens of thousands of cards bearing Renshaw's portrait, and containing the same three-lined announcement that figured on the placards of the leading newspapers. At the same time, throughout the populous provincial centres, as well as in the Capital, similar cards in enormous numbers passed from hand to hand, and were scattered lavishly in every public place.
But it was at Whitehall that the interest and excitement culminated. For there, riding through the streets, bare-headed and gravely acknowledging the plaudits of an enormous concourse, Renshaw himself was seen, passing on his way to the House of Commons, supported by General Hartwell and Sir Robert Herrick, and escorted by a jubilant army of the Friends of the Phœnix. The Friends already were in possession of all the Public Departments. Officials who withstood them or protested were quietly but summarily displaced.
Everywhere the plan of campaign had worked like clockwork and without a hitch; and nowhere was the bloodless revolution more complete than in the City itself. The Vice-President's expected speech had not been reported because it was never uttered. The Friends of the Phœnix, in strong force, had taken possession of the Post Office Station of the new Tube directly the train carrying the City's distinguished guests had passed into the tunnel. At the same moment, another body of the Friends had seized the Guildhall terminus. Only those in the secret knew of what was happening in the depths of the earth. The City went about its business, the banquet waited, but no guests arrived. At both ends of the avenue the approaches to the Tube were completely blocked. The force available to maintain the blockade was more than sufficient. A handful of resolute men could easily have prevented access to or from the level of the streets. The lifts, by preconcerted signal, had been disconnected; the narrow winding staircases from the subterranean stations were effectually blocked. No violence was used; none was necessary. Behind the barriers at the top and at the bottom of the staircases stood resolute men, determined and trustworthy Friends of the Phœnix, who turned a deaf ear to all appeals and protests. No one was allowed to go down; no one was permitted to come up. Questions, clamour, threats from the imprisoned Vice-President and her party availed nothing. It was necessary to isolate certain people for a certain time, and isolated they were.
Meanwhile, London learnt about the great and new situation. The Friends of the Phœnix carried out welcome change, and the nation got a firm grip on the to the letter the plans of their leaders, and Wilson Renshaw, saved from all perils, acclaimed throughout the Capital, was triumphantly restored to a position of power from which no enemy or rival could displace him.
But he had a message for the nation, and for all nations, and the speech in which he delivered it thrilled the white man's world. He warned thepeoples of Europe and America of a coming conflict, which would dwarf to insignificance all the international struggles, however stupendous, hitherto known to history. The white peoples, he declared, must abandon their mutual rivalries and ambitions. The sexes in civilised countries must check their suicidal competition for supremacy. Each and all must prepare, with united and unbroken front, to face the common foe. They were threatened with annihilation. Not so long ago the British nation alone had embraced 360 millions of the coloured races of the globe. Vast numbers of these had passed under other sceptres; but the change had only served to accelerate the rising of the dominated natives, who, far and wide, had learned to realise the overwhelming strength with which the weight of numbers had endowed them. No longer would the Black Man submit to their absolute dominion. No longer would the Yellow and the Tawny accept as their predestined masters the little band of pale-faced rulers by whom they had so long been held in subjection. The revolt was imminent. The Mahdi had proclaimed a holy war. The Crescent would be in the van, and North and South, and East and West, the coloured races would rise against, and seek to overwhelm, the recreant children of the Cross.
CHAPTER XX.
LINKED LIVES.
Linton Herrick, losing not a day nor an hour in London, had carried the great news to Zenobia. Much that wired and wireless messages could not convey, he, as one of the inner circle, was in a position to explain. But the triumph of the Friends of the Phœnix and the restoration of Wilson Renshaw did not exhaust the subject of their conversation. Linton was charged with an impressive and confidential message from Renshaw himself. The restored Minister entreated the daughter of the dead President to resort to no act of public reparation; he besought her to let the dead past hold its dead. The story of her father's crime need never be given in its fulness to a censorious world. Against his enemy the rescued rival nourished no resentful bitterness. His feeling, rather, was one of sorrow that the temptations of power and ambition and the weakness of human nature had wrought the moral ruin of a man in whom he had discerned many admirable and striking qualities.
Zenobia Jardine was greatly moved. She recognised the nobility of Renshaw's attitude, but she still had misgivings as to her own path of duty. The messages reached her at a time when she was torn with conflicting feelings, bewildered by new sensations, impressed with new aspects of human life, agitated by complex thoughts and emotions to whichhitherto she had been a stranger. It was a crisis in her life. Subtle but masterful influences were at work upon her inmost being. Scales had failed, as it were, from her eyes, and her soul looked out upon possibilities of which in her unenlightened days she had never even dreamed. Love, duty, religion—each and all had acquired for her a deep and wonderful significance, and in her heart she feared to be presented with the problem of choice. Could these things be reconciled in the light of the revelation that had come to her? Would they be her armour and her strength wherewith she could go forward to some great predestined goal; or, if she chose the one, must she of necessity eschew the rest? One thing she knew for certain when she again held Linton's hand and looked into his face. This was the man she loved and always would love—stranger still, it seemed as if he were a man she alwayshadloved. But she knew now of his daring, his fidelity, his narrow escape from death, and realised his clear, though unspoken devotion to herself.
And he, for his part, had known no peace until he found himself at her side again. Renshaw had placed at his disposal theAlbatross, one of the swiftest of the Government air-ships, and another engineer had succeeded to the place of poor Wilton. Westwards he had rushed on the wings of theAlbatross, leaving the lights of London, its crowded streets, its shouting and excited multitudes, far behind.
And now, side by side, he and Zenobia and Peter, her dog, engaged in dog-like explorations on the route, went slowly across the quaint bridge with its low-roofed shops that spans the Avon, and passed through the streets of ancient Bath.
"What would you do? What is your advice?" thegirl asked, turning to him suddenly. They had been silent for some time, but each knew well what occupied the other's thoughts. "Respect Renshaw's wishes," was Linton's firm reply.
"But the will—the confession is in the will," said Zenobia.
"The will need not be proved. With or without it, what your father left belongs to you, his sole next of kin."
She looked down thoughtfully. "It is your advice?" she asked, quietly.
"Yes, mine as well as his."
"Then I shall follow it."
When next they spoke it was upon another subject.
"This place strikes me oddly," said Linton, looking round as they went up the slopes of Victoria Park. "I have never been here before, and yet I have a curious feeling...."
She turned quickly. "How strange! I know what you are going to say."
"I believe you have the same feeling—as if we had been here before, you and I together, as if all that surrounds us were familiar."
"Is this the first time you have felt like this?" she asked eagerly.
"No, but I have never felt quite what I am feeling now." Again, with puzzled brow, he glanced round.
"Once," she went on, hesitatingly, "the first time we went up in theBladud, you remember that night ...?"
"Yes, yes, I felt it then," cried Linton, pausing.
"And the other night," Zenobia continued, seriously, "when I looked from a window down on the lights of Bath I had a strange sensation as if it were a scene which I had always known, and after that I had a dream in which that feeling was confirmed."
"Curious," said Linton.
"Do you believe in the theory of pre-existence?"she asked, abruptly, "do you think it possible that in some former state of being you and I or others can have met before?"
"It may be so," he answered gravely. "Wise men have held the theory. Who can limit the life of the ego—fix its beginning, or appoint its end?"
"If the breath of God is in us," said Zenobia solemnly, "all things must be possible. We, too, must be eternal. We may sleep and we may wake, but all the time we live. The soul does not belong to time, but to Eternity, and Eternity is an everlasting Now."
"Yes," said Linton, "why should not the spirit have an all-pervading presence:—
"Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,And the round ocean, and the living air,And the blue sky, and in the mind of man!"
While they were speaking thus gravely, they entered the Botanical Garden on the slope of the hill. Opposite the bench on which they sat down they noticed a sundial of curious construction. On the face of the dial, fixed at an angle, was an iron cross. They looked at the sacred emblem, at first vaguely, and then with growing attention. Below it was an inscription.
"What mysteries, what mysteries enfold us," murmured Zenobia. She turned to him with a smile and a sigh that were pathetic. "What, I wonder, is the true philosophy of life?" she whispered.
Linton sat silent for a moment. Then he leaned forward, and as he did so one hand closed upon and held her own. "I think we have it here in this inscription:—
"The hours are found around the Cross, and while 'tis fine,The time is measured by a moving line,But if the sky be clouded, mark the lossOf hours not ruled by shadows from the Cross."
"Ah! The Cross! The Cross!" sighed Zenobia.
Linton repeated the word in a pondering and half-puzzled tone, raising his hat with instinctive reverence. "I feel more than ever that this place is not new to me," he added, rising and looking round with wondering eyes.
"And I, too, have the same persistent sense of memory," half whispered Zenobia. "There is a tradition that perhaps explains my dream—do you know it?—that in the days of the Romans there was a heathen temple here, where we are sitting, and that an early convert to Christianity, a sculptor of great skill, erected a cross upon its threshold."
"And the sculptor was put to death! I have read it, or did I dream it?" He turned and looked down upon the city, as if seeking some clue or inspiration. "There was a priestess," he said slowly, "a priestess...."
Zenobia had risen to her feet. "A priestess of the Temple of Sul. Yes! she, too, was put to death. They buried her alive." She pressed the backs of her hands to her brow; her gaze assumed an almost tragic intensity. "She had listened to the sculptor. They found her kneeling by the Cross, and in the Temple of Sul the sacred fire had gone out...."
She paused. Each looked into the other's eyes. A flash of inspiration came to both of them.
"Your face," she said, "is the face of the sculptor in my dream."
Heavy clouds had been rapidly gathering overhead; the atmosphere had grown strangely oppressive. So full had they been of other thoughts that no reference had been made to the developments of natural phenomena which had lately caused so much dismay in the locality, and, indeed, throughout the country. It was known that the signs of disturbance already chronicled had gradually diminished, and for some days the volume of water rising from the thermalspring had been little more than normal. The emission of smoke or vapour arising from the fissure on Lansdown had entirely ceased. But at this moment the sombre clouds that had gathered over the city seemed to be heavily charged with electricity, and there was a peculiarity in the sultry atmosphere which suggested some threatening association with the abnormal signs that lately had caused so much alarm.
The day, throughout, had been exceptionally hot for the time of year, but it seemed to Linton as if the mercury must now be mounting up by leaps and bounds. An unnatural, brooding stillness had spread over the whole town. The few people who were walking in the Park did so languidly and in silence; a heavy weight pressed irresistibly upon the spirit. All things, animate and inanimate, seemed to be subsiding, drooping, under the pressure of some gloomy and mysterious influence.
Peter, returning from sniffing explorations in the undergrowth of the gardens, came whining to his mistress's feet, as if seeking for the consolation of close companionship. Zenobia sat down and patted the dog affectionately.
"Peter is frightened," she said, "there must be a storm coming."
Linton looked around, but answered nothing. But he realised that the signs within and without were such as people who lived in tropical countries had more than once described to him.
Peter sniffed the air, and then gave voice to a long and piteous howl.
"We had better be going," said Linton, while Zenobia, still stooping, tried to soothe the dog.
When she looked up there was an expression on Linton's face that puzzled her. She rose quickly and laid her hand upon his arm, following his gaze upward and around.
"What does it mean?" she asked, breathlessly.
"If this were not England," he replied, with hesitation, "I should think it meant...."
As he spoke a low but formidable rumble became suddenly audible, coming not from above, but from below. Fraught with indescribable awe and menace, it produced an instantaneously petrifying effect. They stood rigid, holding to each other, waiting, listening for the coming climax. It came as in a flash. The rumble grew into a thunderous roar. A blue flame suddenly shot into the heavy clouds above them, and beneath their feet the solid earth rocked and swayed, again and yet again, as if with the rolling motion of a mighty wave.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE WRATH OF SUL.
The earthquake, in the twinkling of an eye, had changed the face of all nature around them, and while it did so it annihilated stereotyped manners and conventional restraints. To Zenobia it did not seem strange that Linton's arms should be folded protectingly about her, or that she should cling to him, face to face and heart to heart. The moment of the earth's convulsion had bridged a gulf and wrought a revelation. They knew themselves, beyond all doubt, for what they were, lovers and twin souls, pledged to each other by unspoken vows.
The dreadful shock had come and gone, but the external changes and terrors which the catastrophe had brought about could not be immediately realised. Presently they discovered that the ground had moved with them, and that they had been swept to a considerable distance from the plateau on which they had been standing. A great gap yawned where the sundial had stood. Peter had disappeared. They themselves had been saved from falling by the trunk of a giant tree—one of the few which had not been up-rooted—while below them, on the slope of the hill, new spaces were revealed where other trees had crashed down to the ground.
The air was full of a strange echoing din, caused by the collapse of buildings outside the limits of the park and in the town below. In the midst of these reverberating sounds, and in strange contrast, was heard the prolonged wail of terrified women and the shrill cry of a frightened child.
Gasping, and looking up the hill, they could see,rising from Lansdown, dense volumes of sulphurous smoke, through which shot vivid gleams of forking flame. Elsewhere a greyish veil began to spread across the land. A steaming, suffocating atmosphere choked their lungs.
"There may be another shock! We must escape for our very lives," Linton whispered hoarsely.
Zenobia, white to the lips, made a faint gesture of assent. "Hold my hand! We must find a way across the river," he said quickly.
Again she made an obedient sign; and Linton, guiding her, they moved cautiously forward in the strange grey twilight which began to enfold them.
Awe-inspiring sounds had been succeeded by a silence which was scarcely less terrible. A sense of horror half paralysed their faculties as they cautiously moved forward down the slope. Almost at their feet had opened a chasm which revealed many solid blocks of masonry, such as had been used of old in the construction of the Roman Baths. The rending of the earth had exposed to view a section of what looked like the foundations of an ancient and imposing temple. Between the massive walls, at the bottom of some steps, they observed a narrow cell or chamber, and as they stepped past the shadowy opening, Zenobia's foot came into contact with an ancient Roman lamp.
Of these things neither of them was fully conscious at the moment. They were mental photographs, vivid experiences unconsciously stored in memory and fraught with a strange confirmatory significance not yet to be appreciated.
Hand in hand, picking their steps apprehensively, they made their way between the fallen trees down to the broad avenue leading to the lower gate of the Park. Here, at the gate, for the first time they encountered evidence of death and disaster in the town itself. Houses had collapsed on every side; distracting moans and piteous cries from unseen sufferers assailedtheir ears. For a moment they paused before a monumental heap of stone and timber, impelled to render help in answer to these vague but terrible appeals.
"We can do nothing," groaned Linton, in answer to Zenobia's questioning pause. "Come," and he led her quickly round the wreckage of the houses.
Stumbling, half running, they made their way by a devious route down towards the heart of the town. In Queen Square there was a frightened crowd. Women and children, weeping and sobbing, were kneeling on the roadway with hands upraised in prayer. Men came running towards them shouting unintelligible warnings ... questions. Terrified faces appeared at many upper windows. They saw a frenzied girl leap from the parapet of a tottering house and disappear behind a heap of ruins.
In the lower streets the destruction wrought was less noticeable, but a new terror was revealed. The sound of rushing waters reached their ears, and every moment white-faced men and women tore past them, crying in shrill tones: "The Spring! the Spring!" Then they saw eddying streams of steaming, orange-tinted water creep round street corners, overflow the gutters, and spread into the road. The water rose so rapidly that they had to turn aside and once more take to higher ground. They found themselves crossing Milsom Street, and as they did so a loud explosion sounded at the upper end, accompanied with an over-powering smell of gas. Screams rent the air, and another crowd of men and women, some of them carrying children in their arms, came rushing helter-skelter down the street.
None of the houses at the lower end had fallen, but several were bulging forward and appeared to be deserted. And here already the predatory instinct was at work. Linton caught the arm of a filthy-looking tramp just as he raised an iron bar to smash the plate glass window of a jeweller's shop. He hurled the thiefaside, then grasping Zenobia's hand again he dragged her forward, making for the nearest bridge.
But once again their way was barred. From a great crack in the roadway a fountain—a geyser—of the yellow, steaming water suddenly leaped into the air. To avoid it they were compelled to make another circuit. They hurried down some narrow streets and reached the open space in front of the theatre. Fighting their way through excited and gesticulating groups of people, they passed the hospital, and, turning to the right, reached the front of the Grand Pump Room Hotel. Limping and enfeebled invalids, who could scarcely move unaided, were streaming from the the building, appealing eagerly for guidance to a way of escape from the perils that surrounded them. Tremulous but unheeded questions were heard on every side as Linton and Zenobia crossed the road and reached the Colonnade. To their right, from the doorways of the Grand Pump Room itself, another flood of tinted steaming water was pouring rapidly over the broad pavement and stealing into the Abbey Church. By keeping close to the opposite wall they escaped the stream, and leaving the great Church, which so far seemed intact, upon their right, they soon reached the space in front of the Guildhall. Only a little distance and they would gain the bridge!
"This way!" cried Zenobia, as Linton, who knew nothing of the town, stopped in hesitation. But as she spoke, the pavement, barely ten yards away, bulged suddenly, then split apart, and with a violent rush another geyser burst into the street. They drew back just in time, and hurried breathlessly towards the Station Road. On their left rose the tall building of the Empire Hotel; behind them was the Abbey. A sudden shout impelled them to look back. A third geyser had opened in the middle of the roadway, and in an instant columns of steaming water were spouting high into the air.
"Quick! Quick!" urged Linton. His voice wasscarcely audible, for as they approached the river a mighty roar was coming from the weir, dominating the multitudinous sounds of terror which filled the air on every side.
In this appalling crisis earth and air and water seemed united as in a ruthless conspiracy for the destruction of humanity. In the presence of these vast, mysterious, and irresistible forces, man, the boasted master, lord of creation, was subdued and helpless. The effect produced on the inhabitants of the city was that with which the struggling atoms of the race, accustomed only to a calm and ordered system, ever encounter nature in her moods of unfamiliar violence. In tempests of the deep, in the awful hurricane, when winds and seas mix and contend in a Titanic conflict, nature ignores the puppets tossing on the helpless ship, or half drowned on the surging raft. What is man in presence of the waterspout that towers from the ocean to the clouds? How shall he face the unfathomable whirlpool that yawns for the frail boat in which he is compelled to trust? Whither shall we fly, when, as now, the earth vomits forth from unimaginable caverns the scalding water floods that she has stored within her depths throughout uncounted centuries? None can stand unmoved when the hills smoke and the earth trembles; when darkness, a darkness that may be felt, spreads in a sinister and all-pervading veil over a world that seems abandoned to the powers of evil? Powdery ashes were falling everywhere upon the doomed city. From Lansdown a vast vaporous column, a dreadful blend of water, bitumen, and sulphur, rose high into the clouds. As the great column branched and spread, assuming the form of an enormous pine-tree, the darkness deepened, save where, above the hill itself, red-coloured flames slashed hither and thither through the cloud at frequent intervals. Terrific explosions accompanied these manifestations; and Linton, as he half carried Zenobia towards the river, was possessed with the fearthat the great hill might be completely riven and pour forth streams of boiling water or of lava, that would not only submerge the town itself but destroy all life within a radius of many miles.
Conceivably, indeed, it might be the beginning of the end—the end, at least, of England; for what were the British Isles but the summit of some vast mountain whose foundations were buried deep in the unfathomed sea? It had been forgotten that Great Britain with Ireland and its Giant's Causeway, afforded incontrovertible evidence of volcanic origin. These islands, with the Hebrides, the Faroe Islets, and, finally, Iceland, in fact constituted a vast volcanic chain, with Mount Hecla as its seismic terminus—a focus more active than Vesuvius itself. And here, at the other end of the chain, was Bath, where for thousands of years the waters of Sul had maintained a disregarded warning of that inevitable convulsion which, at last and in the fulness of time, had come to pass.
In the midst of these flashing thoughts and fears that darted through his brain, Linton was possessed with the conviction that their only possible hope of safety lay in crossing the river, the surging roar of which each moment became more audible and threatening. Others in great numbers were animated with the same belief. Linton and Zenobia, indeed, found themselves involved in a madly-rushing crowd of panic-stricken men and women. Swept this way and that, they were in danger of being hurled to the ground and trodden underfoot by thousands of hurrying fellow creatures bent on self-preservation and on nothing else.
Still supporting Zenobia with one arm and fighting his way forward step by step, Linton presently managed to turn the angle of the tall hotel. On their right the river, swollen enormously by the inrush from the hidden springs, had almost reached the level of the parapet. Boiling floods had poured, and stillpoured, into the Avon, blending with the normal stream; and the soul-subduing terror of the scene was augmented by the great clouds of steam that rose from the surface of the hurtling river.
With desperate exertions, still supporting his half-fainting companion, Linton reached the turning towards the bridge. The narrow entrance was choked with a dense and struggling crowd, through which half a dozen men, lashing frantically at rearing horses, strove recklessly to force a passage. Screams and oaths blended with the angry roaring of the weir. The struggling people swayed hither and thither in dense compact masses, while a body of firemen from the station close at hand, seized the heads of several horses and forced them back to give the foot passengers some slight chance of escape.
Individual efforts were futile in the midst of this confused and fighting crowd. By the impetus and weight of numbers, however, Linton and Zenobia, holding closely to each other, were swept as in a human eddy on to the bridge itself. The same contributory force of numbers, close packed between the windows of the shops, carried them rapidly towards the other side. Again and again there was a crash of glass as the terrific pressure forced in one or other of the windows; but far more ominous was the angry, roaring voice of the invisible river beneath them. Rising higher and yet higher every moment, it buffeted the bridge with unceasing and increasing violence, the torrent whirling round the piers and buttresses, fiercely impatient for greater destruction, as it tore upon its way towards the thundering weir.
It was a question of time, and the time must needs be brief. The bridge must go. Half way across, beneath the feet of the scrambling, sobbing crowd, the roadway split and cracked. There was a sudden lurch that sent Linton and Zenobia, with a dozen others, into the open doorway of a right-hand shop. Like all the rest of the bridge buildings, it was but one storeyhigh, and at the end of the short passage a narrow stairway gave access through a trapdoor to the leads. Linton, breathing heavily from his exertions, gasping a few words of encouragement to Zenobia, pondered in a flash the possibilities of the position. Those who had been swept into the deserted shop with them were making frantic and futile efforts to force their way back into the endless crowd that still streamed across the bridge in such maddened haste. But a place once lost in that dense multitude never could be recovered. In truth, there was no choice, and in a moment his resolve was taken.
"The roof," he whispered, half to himself, "the roof!" Mounting the steps, he swept back the trapdoor, and, reaching down his hand, drew Zenobia after him. They emerged upon the flat roof of the shop. Only a dwarf party wall divided it from the rest.
Below, on their left, the rushing and tumbling tide of humanity pressed forward to the Bathwick side. Below, on their right, they beheld the terrifying river, curdled in foam and throwing off increasing clouds of heavy steam. They scrambled forward quickly, passing on from roof to roof. Behind them came the sudden sound of rending masonry. A dreadful scream, a wild cry of despair from the multitude, pierced the powdery air. The bridge was slowly yielding to the enormous pressure of the swollen river; but Linton and Zenobia had safely reached the other side. Raising the trap door of the last shop in the row they descended rapidly and gained the road. Here the congested throng spread out across the wider space, and hurried onward to Great Pulteney Street.
As they paused there came a sound—terrible, arresting, never-to-be-forgotten—the united wail of despairing voices, rising above the crash of the collapsing bridge as it carried with it, down into the boiling flood, hundreds of helpless and entangled fugitives. Zenobia, clinging convulsively to her protector, drew sobbing breaths at those appalling sounds. Butfor his supporting arms she would have sunk fainting to the ground.
"Courage," he whispered. "Courage still."
For the moment he himself believed that on this side of the river they were safe. But at that instant they felt again beneath their feet the quaking of the ground—a long and undulating throb. They reeled against a wall and stood there panting, until a quickened sense of peril impelled them once again to hasten forward. Turning up Edward Street, and leaving the church upon their left, they climbed the hill, until exhaustion compelled them to sink down upon a roadside bench and ease their labouring lungs.
Thick grey smoke, heavy with choking particles and powdery ashes, was spreading everywhere; and from this higher ground, looking back towards the fiery summit of the volcanic hill, they could see cloud after cloud of fire-torn vapour mounting with spiral motion towards the darkened heavens.
Wearied though they were, they struggled to their feet, and once more set their faces towards the hill. Linton fully realised that the area of disturbance was far wider than he had at first supposed. Safety, if attainable at all, could only be secured by placing many miles between themselves and the volcanic district. It was no time for weighing small considerations. Silently he decided what to do.
They reached the house in which the President had spent and ended the last days of his life. The hall door was wide open; darkness and silence reigned in the interior. The servants, obviously, had fled. Linton shouted, but no answer came. It was clear to him that the engineer of theAlbatrosswas in full flight with the rest.
Bidding Zenobia rest a minute in the hall, he opened the glass doors on the inner side and ran down the steps into the garden. There lay theAlbatross, ready, as he knew, for an immediate aerial journey. His own knowledge of the mechanism of an air-ship, though notcomplete, was now sufficient, or, at any rate, it must be trusted. The boat was rather smaller than theBladud, and in some respects contained improvements. A swift examination of the machinery satisfied him that theAlbatrosswas fit for flight.
Hurrying up the steps he called Zenobia. She came to him obediently and instantly, calmness restored to her, and in her look a ready submission to all that he thought best.
"Will you trust yourself to me?" he asked very tenderly, taking her hand. "The boat is ready. I think you will be safe."
"I trust you in all things," she answered. "I am ready."
He led her down the steps into the garden and helped her to her seat on the stern-bench of theAlbatross.
"You can steer?" he asked.
"Yes, if you direct me."
"All's ready, then. Keep her before the wind. Now, up and away!"
He himself stepped into the boat and immediately switched on the motive power, adjusting the gear to suit the plans he had already formed.
TheAlbatrossrose steadily into the air, then, gathering speed in a few rapid circles, began like some huge bird to wing her flight from the dread scene of the catastrophe.
Behind them as they sped upon their way arose another violent detonation. Suddenly the clouded air was rent with vivid lightning, and this revealed the falling pinnacles of the Abbey Church. Then, as the thunder crashed above their heads, Linton beheld a vast and fiery chasm open in the labouring hill. Out of its lurid depths the waters of Sul leaped upwards in a mighty column, a fountain, as it were, of liquid fire.
Then darkness settled on the scene, and all was still.
The End.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
The Devil's Peepshow.
By the Author of "A Time of Terror."
Morning Post.—"The Devil's Peepshowis a remarkable book.... Its interest is never in doubt.... The causeries of this little company afford just those opportunities for political criticisms and shrewd moralising in which the author is singularly felicitous.... But the political lessons are not framed in epigram alone.... The delightful and erudite essay on the 'Weird of the Wanderer' is, perhaps, the best thing in the book, and strikes the undercurrent of mysticism with fine suggestiveness.... Whoever the author is, he is a man of nice penetration, and a philosopher worth listening to."
Westminster Review. "Love and politics in equal proportions form the main ingredients ofThe Devil's Peepshow, ... and the lurid title ... serves as a fitting preliminary to the series of sensational episodes that make up this story with an unmistakable purpose."
Liverpool Daily Post. "The volume is as thrilling as its predecessor.... The central theme of the story, that of a strong man of high qualities and noble ambitions, who falls a victim to the lures of an enchantress, is well developed. The author has force of style."
Irish Times.—"The most impressive passages are those regarding the unfortunate position of some of the middle classes."
Yorkshire Dally Post.—" ... it is a very up-to-date story of London Society during the season 1906, in which all the prominent politicians and personages of the day take part.... The novel is, however, no mere sensational melodrama, for the author makes it the medium for expressing very freely his ideas on politics and religion, which are by no means complimentary to the present Government, whose individual members he ridicules unsparingly and not without power ... the very strength of the contrast gives it relish."
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
A TIME OF TERROR
(Second Edition).
Evening Standard.—"A politico-social romance of London and England—prophetic, of course, sensational and thrilling."
Scotchman.—"Truly a time of terror, and the anonymous author has a clever enough pen with which to expose the vices—some of them real enough—of the opening years of the twentieth century."
Outlook.—"The story of a man's revenge against a nation, our own. After war and internal anarchy, the capture of the Kaiser and the death of the avenger ends with a national thanksgiving. Very eventful."
The Tribune.—"Whatever the cause, the occurrences are certainly terrible; ... beside the lurid vision, enormous in range and horrifying in nature, the accumulated sensations of a score of 'shilling shockers' pale into insignificance.... The book is written with much spirit."
Yorkshire Post.—"The details are worked out so cleverly that there is a thrill on nearly every page. This is the work, one would say, of a practised writer, and the lover of sensational literature should not omit to read it."
Literary World.—"This is a well-written, and in many respects a powerful story.... There are many sensational scenes, and plentiful satire of the social and political world of to-day."
Aberdeen Free Press.—"The unaffectedly hair-raising title is indeed a fitting preliminary to a series of as startling episodes as have stirred the body corporate of English fiction for many a day.... The whole book is, it is true, sensationalism, but it is sensationalism with a purpose.... Some passages contain a fine plea for the Christian faith. It is a most original book, and at its lowest value an excellent entertainment."
Newcastle Daily Journal.—"A Time of Terroris original in conception and vividly effective in development. Its author is sure to be heard of again, and a later work from his pen will be eagerly awaited."
Third (Sixpenny) Edition now on Sale.
HURST & BLACKETT, Ltd.