THE _REGINA_ GIVES UP HER SECRET
“And now I will unclasp a secret book,
And to your quick-conceiving discontent,
I’ll read you matter deep and dangerous.”
(+Shakespeare.+)
The day following, the three friends met at Dennis’s home, and at once
proceeded to the shed in which the stately _Regina_ was housed. On
entering, Dennis moved a switch and a revolving steel shutter slowly
descended from before one side of the shed, the whole of which was
lined with thick glass; at another movement a similar shutter slid from
above the glass roof, and a third movement caused this roof to fold
itself up and slide aside, leaving the top open to the sky throughout
its entire length.
Both the visitors uttered an exclamation of delight at sight of the
stately vessel, the lines of which sent them into raptures of pleasure
and wonderment.
“You are a lucky dog, Oakland, to have a creature like that all your
own!” said Gilbert, enthusiastically. “What is the material?”
“I don’t know,” replied Dennis; “no one knows beyond that it is some
untarnishable alloy, probably from the fact that no one can examine it.
See, I throw this hammer at it and you will see it de-atomise,” saying
which, with a fine disregard of tools, he lifted up a heavy steel
hammer and flung it at the vessel, but when it came within about a foot
of the side it suddenly vanished and there appeared a little puff of
faint, thin vapour—the gaseous atoms of the missile—which became mixed
with and lost in the air of the shed.
“There’s an enormous force there,” observed Ross, amazed. “What
generates it? Batteries?”
“No one knows,” answered Dennis, “that is one of the mysteries. If it
came from the engines or dynamos on the vessel, they would have been
run out or worn out ages ago; we should also hear motion of some kind,
but you will notice everything is silent as the grave. Listen!” and
they all remained mute and motionless for a few minutes, but not a
sound disturbed the vault-like quietude.
“Batteries would be equally out of the question,” remarked Gilbert;
“apart from the quantity needed to give a constant current of that
strength, they would require recharging and replenishing, and perpetual
motion has not yet been discovered.”
“That is so,” agreed Ross. “I think we must seek some other cause,
some means by which the force is spontaneously extracted from the air
or earth around. You know our airships have no engines to drive the
motors; we gather the necessary power for this direct from the air by
the aid of certain metals which, when alloyed in given proportions,
attract electricity to any desired volume and under perfect control,
and I think some such force is here. Have you tried any of the active
metals?”
“Yes, all; everything!” replied Dennis. “She is a strange anomaly; she
has engines and motors which are necessary for her flight in some way,
and yet there is a continuous current, as you see, which apparently
comes from nowhere. And one would think that if such a force is
self-generating, engines and motors would not be necessary. The whole
thing is a mystery; especially when you consider that one might almost
imagine her to be alive, or that some demon is on board who manipulates
the forces, for if any electric energy or metal comes in her vicinity,
she seems to get her blessed temper up and literally fights. At the
mere approach she crackles all over and throws out sparks of fire and
lightning that have more than once blasted the shed to the ground,
and everything has had to be strongly insulated, or there would be
an electric storm;” and Dennis drew their attention to the building,
saying, “You will notice all the tools are insulated and the whole
interior of the shed lined with sheets of thick glass cemented
together, the masonry and shutters being on the outside.”
After examining the building, Gilbert remarked,— “You mentioned last
night, Oakland, that the gravity of the ship and the earth were equal;
consequently she possesses no weight and could be floated off. Have you
tried strong blasts of air? Theoretically, a breath would waft her.”
“I have had fans and blowers, but the strange force around her stops
everything. I have even made fires underneath, thinking to sink her
by rarefying the air (and so causing her to settle as the air became
thinner), but she did not move. It is exasperating when one knows she
would divulge everything if one could but get aboard. She is also such
a source of danger and terrible care to have on one’s mind, that if you
cannot win her it is possible you may find some means of destroying
her; I really don’t mind which! But there she stands in the most
aggravating fashion, quietly defying everything and everybody,” and
Dennis’s annoyance was evident and excusable.
“As you say, Oakland,” remarked Ross, “she’s a tough nut to crack, full
of apparent anomalies and impossibilities and, while uncontrolled,
dangerous in the extreme. Have you tried to register the strength of
the current?”
“Yes, but it is unregisterable. Nothing, no matter how strongly
insulated, can pass the zone, in which there is no demarcation. The
dial shows no current at all till it reaches the protecting belt,
not even when moved by micrometer screws working in gear, and there
is a point when nothing is recorded; the next turn forward, even of a
two-millionth of an inch, and the whole apparatus is vapour. I have
used some scores in this way, but these are expensive experiments.
“I have thought several times of encasing myself in an exceedingly
effective insulating suit and making a dash for the ladder, or dropping
on deck from above, for then I might get below to the safe, but when
I tested the suit first, filled with sawdust, by dropping it from the
roof, it never reached the deck but became vapour, so I was glad I had
experimented with a dummy.”
“Not a bad way of getting rid of rubbish,” said Ross, laughing.
“Yes, but a little too dangerous,” replied Dennis, “especially if it
had been me instead of the sawdust,” and he laughed boisterously, when,
seeing the others looked slightly mystified, he stopped abruptly and
continued soberly,—“Do you think, Ainley, that you could do anything to
crack this nut if Eastern helped you?”
“We will try,” Ross replied, speaking also for his friend. “The secrets
of the pyramids and the sphinx have been laid bare, and maybe this
beautiful creature shall float again,” and his voice took upon itself
a more serious tone as he continued,—“Oakland, it is often said that
the whole current of lives and destinies of persons and countries may
be changed in a moment as if by chance, and, with your permission, we,
Gilbert and I, for we talked it over last night after you left us, will
give up our present work and devote the rest of our lives if need be to
cut this Gordian knot, and if we fail, we may pave the way for others
to bring this treasure under control again.”
Before Dennis could reply, Gilbert said, eagerly, “I will stand by my
friend Ross and you, Oakland, in this work all my life, if I may, and
if we do not succeed we can die at our unfinished work!”
“Thank you, my friends!” responded Dennis, somewhat overcome; “you
shall not regret it. Let it be so. I had not intended spending another
moment on her, but your enthusiastic devotion to science has warmed my
blood, and from this moment I will work with you and we will all devote
our lives to this one object, whether it demands little or the whole of
them, and our interests shall be united.”
All were deeply moved, and the whole of that and many subsequent days
were taken up in going through papers and books containing particulars
of the work done in previous years. Ever since the death of the
first Jervis Meredith, the succeeding generations had recorded all
the details of their work, and had dealt with the problem in such a
masterly manner as appeared to leave nothing to be tried that had
not been done already. After the three had gone through everything
together, weighing each step of progress carefully, the enigma became
more and more puzzling. For weeks they spent every moment working and
discussing, bringing all the latest science to bear on the previous
work; and month followed month till at the end of two years they had to
acknowledge themselves hopelessly vanquished, for there seemed nothing
more to try.
During this time several storms had occurred in the neighbourhood, and
they had witnessed the whole interior of the shed, to the insulating
glass casing, as one mass of awful lightning and electric discharge,
which had left the vessel serenely victorious. In one storm they were
watching through glasses at a safe distance, the peculiar form the
discharges took gave them an idea upon which they acted, after careful
discussion together.
Two months later the solution seemed solved; but was it?
Like three schoolboys they approached the airship in great trepidation;
up to a few minutes previously, for centuries everything brought
near its surface had been instantly volatilised, irrespective of
its substance and chemical composition; and in the first flush of
excitement, they had joyfully flung their hats at the ship and they had
struck the hitherto defiant Queen, now docile and manageable again,
for the hats were resting on the supporting stage on which they had
fallen—the first time for centuries that anything had passed that
awful zone of destruction. Would _they_ pass, or become vaporous?
Dennis insisted on being the first to venture, saying he could not
allow others to do that from which he shrank, and amidst great emotion
he grasped sleeves with both his friends, bade them good-bye, and
one second later he was standing on the ladder top, where no living
creature had expected to tread. The instant the anxious watchers saw
Dennis touch the ladder they rushed for it and ran up like a couple of
monkeys, reaching the platform almost as soon as he, and tingling with
excited enthusiasm, the three passed through the vessel to the safe.
Dennis knew from his papers where the keys were, and unlocking the
desk drawer, the key of which had been handed down to him through the
past generations as a sacred heirloom, he obtained the _Regina’s_
safe-keys, and soon the sheets of drawings and details were lying on
the table, all three almost devouring them in their eagerness, for
now the greatest secret of the world was about to be disclosed. Their
scientific matter-of-factness gave place to boyish and exuberant
delight which could not be repressed. They took the precaution to
reconstruct the protecting force to prevent intrusion—although the shed
had been locked before putting their discovery to the test—and then
they became so absorbed in the study of the minute descriptions of the
mechanism and forces now at their disposal that twelve hours passed
unheeded.
“This is stupendous!” at length exclaimed Gilbert. “There is enough
force here to destroy the world! And now we have gone through
everything and know the principle, it is easy enough to work it
blindfold, almost. But what’s the matter?” he asked, looking at Dennis,
who stood perfectly still, listening.
“I fancied I heard voices in the shed,” he replied, “but I am sure we
locked the door, I went back to see.”
“It would be awkward if any one came too near the ship,” said Ross;
“although every one knows the danger. I’ll just look outside.” He
stepped up to the observatory and was astonished to find the door down
and the shed crowded with people.
Calling the others up, the three stood and watched, and, gently opening
the door a mere chink, they heard every word spoken below.
The crowd was greatly excited, and one man, Richard Howett, the chief
personage in the town, said,—
“My friends, it is with extreme regret that we learn of the deaths of
our townsman, Dennis Oakland, and his two friends, Ross Ainley and
Gilbert Eastern, all men of high standing and renown. It needs no proof
to convince us that they have shared the fate of all the foolhardy
people who previously have ventured too near this magnificent but fatal
vessel, for they were seen to be working here yesterday and have not
returned. The door was locked on the inside and you see there are no
hiding-places, and they could not return except by means of the door
which we have just broken down, so that the calamitous fate they have
met is most deplorable.”
Here the three listeners chuckled, unconscious of which the speaker
continued,—“As soon as the news of a possible disaster reached me, I
obtained the permission of the authorities to break open the place and
blow up the vessel, as a danger and menace no longer to be tolerated.”
“That has been tried many a time, and no explosive has ever been able
to touch it,” objected some one in the crowd. “When I worked for Dennis
Oakland, some five or six years ago, he himself tried to blow up the
ship, but he only brought the shed down.”
“What explosive did he use?” asked the first speaker.
“We bored under the ship and he used rystosol, which blew the whole
place down and the foundations also, but the vessel stayed where she
was, hanging on air, and none of us would work at it again.”
“That is strange; nothing has ever been known to withstand it. However,
we will try a very heavy charge. All of you except three volunteers go
outside to a safe distance.”
As they made a movement for the door, and about twenty volunteers
stepped forward instead of the three asked for, Dennis, remembering one
of the early experiments of his ancestor, told his friends to look out
for some fun and instantly altered the de-atomising force to one of
protection only, so that any one touching the vessel would receive an
electric shock of sufficient strength to teach him caution, but not to
prove injurious. He then moved a switch, gently at first, as he was not
sure if the power really was as much under control as the instructions
stated. Very slowly all the people in the shed became lighter; one man,
his former workman, taking a stride towards Richard Howett, stepped
right over his head, landing with one foot on the _Regina’s_ outer
deck. With a yell of fright he slid down her sloping sides, but long
before he could reach the ground he was so light as to be floating
about like a butterfly. In a panic the whole company made a dash for
the doorway, but ere they could reach it Dennis made them sufficiently
light to float about in the room a few feet above, their vain efforts
to jerk themselves downwards low enough to pass out causing them to
look like living corks bobbing up and down in water, and to the
three watchers it was indescribably funny to see the consternation
on the faces of the floating citizens, who could not comprehend the
situation. After they had taken the edge off their mirth, the three all
stepped on the outer deck, which they insulated—for any part of the
vessel and surroundings could be insulated or brought in circuit at
will—and the sudden sight of the supposed victims in the very zone of
death caused several of the floating people to give an exclamation of
terror, thinking they were spirits. Dennis saw this and addressed them,
tragically,—
“Ye floating spirits, what would ye! Come ye to this abode of death
to attend our apotheosis? Why come ye to disturb our repose?—Gently,
gently, my friends!” he interjected, as he wafted off, with a wave of
his hand, a few of the people who were drawn towards him with the air
disturbed by his movements. Then the laughter of his two companions
broke the spell, and many of the people laughed and cried, for all were
hysterical and frightened, and some called on him in terror to spare
their lives.
“We’ve gone far enough, Dennis!” remonstrated Gilbert. “Let them down
gently, or they’ll faint with fear!”
Wafting and blowing away a few more who came too close, Dennis resumed,
this time speaking in his usual tones,—
“My friends, do not be alarmed! We are not ghosts, but real flesh
and blood and very much alive—excuse me!”—as he blew off a couple
clinging together for protection. “My friends and I have discovered the
long-lost secret of my ship, the _Regina_, now _our_ ship, for my two
friends, Ross Ainley and Gilbert Eastern, join me in the ownership from
this moment, and in order to prove to you that we really have found the
secrets, the chief of which is the one and only scientific method of
adding to and overcoming or depriving of gravity, we thought we could
not do better than give you an actual demonstration of the fact, in
return for your kindness in breaking down my door—our door, I should
say—in order to favour us with this visit, the object of which is now
frustrated, though you may be sure we appreciate your good intentions
none the less. You will perceive—pardon me!” as he sent a few more
away with a wave of his hand—“you will perceive that you have been
made lighter, and were it not for the retaining walls of the shed,
you would float away and for ever remain as far off the ground as you
are now, and if weighted down you would inevitably rise on the weight
being removed; also if you were made lighter still you would float
upwards through the roof. For some reasons this would be an advantage,
for in this age of aërial navigation it would be pleasant to know that
in case of disaster you could never come crashing to earth, but would
only fall through the air till you arrived at your equilibrium, or
correct specific gravity, and the lower air would make your descent
like that of a high diver in water, and you would have always a deep,
soft cushion of air to fall upon on which you could take no hurt. Some
of you, however, have business on the ground, and as some sage once
suggested, if the ground will not come to you, you must perforce come
to the ground—steady!”—as another citizen floated too near. “I notice
several of you have already lost your tempers, which is bad for the
nerves; you see we are quite placid and cool, though you have damaged
much of our property, and had we not appeared in time, you would have
blown the whole building to dust. For this you must forgive our joke;
we do not bear malice, neither must you, and those who are not prepared
to take this as a jest—and you can see it is perfectly harmless—I
propose to float upwards just within the walls, with their heads only
above the top till they are willing to see it in that light. I see
several are looking alarmed, but I can assure all those who want to
go up that they will come to no hurt; they cannot fall, and will be so
light that they could not injure themselves, even wilfully, by bumping
against the walls. To those who are convinced of the _Regina’s_ power,
we will restore their former weight, and after we have had an hour to
prepare the vessel, they shall be conducted by us through the ship,
where no foot has trodden for centuries till yesterday, and they will
see that after this lapse of time everything is as perfect and dustless
as if just new, for the protecting force that has caused the death
of several people has preserved the vessel from damp, heat, and even
dust. We want that hour to cord the way, for the mechanism cannot be
shown you and whoever goes beyond the cords will pay the penalty with
his life. We do not anticipate throwing the vessel open to general
inspection again and you only shall have this privilege. Now, all who
desire to forgive and forget, please raise a hand!” Dennis looked
round and proceeded: “I am much pleased to see there is not a single
dissentient, and that smiles have replaced frowns. In a few seconds’
time you will be restored to your personal comfort and weight.” Here
Dennis nodded to Gilbert, who entered the vessel and slowly removed the
switch back to zero; as gradually did the people fall.
When they knew there was no danger and that they had not been suddenly
transformed into angels—which many had often expressed a desire to
become—they could see the humorous side; who could not? for who
could remain serious and see sixty or seventy people of all ages and
conditions bobbing up and down light as feathers, actually blowing one
another away? Even before they reached the ground tears of laughter
were on all faces as they struggled to congratulate the three owners,
in the best of good humour. After the preparation they went round
the vessel and saw what even in that enlightened age were hitherto
inconceivable wonders, and finally the vessel was cleared, the outside
protected as before, in proof of which several missiles were hurled
within the zone and all present saw them vaporised. Willing hands
helped to fix up the door as before, and the shed was closed and locked
securely to shelter the gigantic Queen, still a deadly enigma to all
in the world except three persons, but to them a kind and gracious
mistress, ready and willing at any moment to do their bidding and to
carry them to the utmost confines of creation, to open out wonders and
mysteries hitherto beyond mortal ken.
Weary as they were, they sat talking the matter over for several hours,
and then retired to rest, feeling that life was indeed worth living and
work a blessed privilege.
Needless to say, the instant the people had got outside the shed news
began to travel far and fast; before nightfall it was telepathed all
over the world, and airships by scores came to Derwent; the sky was
full of them, almost every stratum of atmosphere having hundreds of
ships jostling one another, each hoping to catch a glimpse of their
wonderful rival; but the _Regina_, in her protected and armoured shed,
was safe from all observation and theft. The door, which had only been
partially fastened when the crowd broke in, was now thoroughly secure
and in electric circuit.
Twice the same night Dennis’s house was broken into and the three
friends were roused by the alarms, which at the same time frightened
the would-be thieves, who no doubt thought the papers might have been
brought away for examination, notwithstanding the self-evident fact
that no place in the world could be more secure than the _Regina_ safe.
The following day a deputation from the Government with the State
authority and seal waited upon Dennis and asked for the _Regina_
and her secrets to be handed over to the Government. On this being
refused, they demanded it, then threatened, trying to bluster the
secrets out of the discoverers by force and threats, but at every
outburst they were referred to and shown a copy of the warrant of
absolute protection granted by H.M. King Edward VII., of blessed
memory, and his Parliament, centuries before. Eventually the deputation
had to return foiled, for not even the Government could go beyond that
warrant.
Untold wealth and high positions were offered, but what is wealth when
all have enough and none can be oppressed? No, the _Regina_ should not
be bought, she was too precious to be sold; she should be the sweet,
lovely and gracious Queen to the end, and _give_ her power for the
cause of science, for the good of the whole human race; she should
benefit the people and lead them to the contemplation of higher and
nobler things, and be really and truly in everything their Queen—not
for any personal gain to her supporters, but to unfold before all men,
as only she could, the wonders of creation which would otherwise be
hidden.