nonsense!" but no one seemed to hear him. Perchance a man has never
been carried shoulder-high by other men on skis before. They would
establish a precedent, as Bob declared, and calling the parson and Dick
Fenton to his aid, set off bravely for the Palace.
"Where is my brother?" Benny asked them in an interlude. The doctor
answered that he had fainted when the gun announced the victory; but
that was an enigma to the engineer, and kept him quiet awhile. "When the
gun announced his victory. Good God! What victory?"
"I lost it," he stammered presently, "because the mist took me. It
seems I was nearer than I thought. Another ten minutes and I would have
done it."
Nobody listened to this. They were in the woods now, and went on in a
triumph characteristic of Andana. If the music were chiefly of horns
and bugles, it mattered little. Major Boodle, among others, had devoted
a master intellect to the acquisition of the "yoodle" in various keys,
and he practised it relentlessly. There was one fellow who had borrowed
a drum in the village, and beat a tattoo with real cleverness. A few
mild youths, who always carried revolvers when "on the Continent,"
produced those far from formidable weapons and shot down the branches
from the trees. But, in the main, the voice was the instrument, and was
to be heard in a stentorian cheer, or the less musical and more joyous
chant of victory.
Some hundreds of the spectators had gone up to Vermala, but many
thousands remained on the plateau and were discovered suddenly as the
odd procession emerged from the woods. The drift of cloud, which had
tricked the aviator into the belief that he had failed, was now but a
wall of vapour flanking the precipices across the valley, all the scene
stood out, revealed in magic glory.
Heaven knew whence all the flags had come. It was said that the bunting
erected by the _Daily Recorder_ had been pulled down by excited hands
and distributed among the people. Certainly, every other man carried a
flag and waved it perpetually. In their turn, the women waved
handkerchiefs while the children ran to and fro hardly understanding
what it was all about, and caring very little. Meanwhile, the band
blared incessantly, and down at the village the church bell tolled as
gaily as an ancient bell-ringer could persuade it to do.
The crowd had waited patiently for its hero to come down from the
heights, and directly it perceived the outposts of the procession, all
bonds were broken and a wild tumult ensued. A hundred hands fought for
the burden, and were repulsed with difficulty. A frenzy of cheers
succeeded the intermittent salvos. Men, and women too, fell in the snow
and were rolled over and over by the heedless feet of other runners. The
one desire was to see the man who had done this thing, and, if it might
be, to touch his hand. He, in turn, implored those who carried him to
make an end of it.
"Take me to the chalet," he said. And the doctor commanding, they
carried him there in triumph, and shut and barred the door against the
multitude.
* * * * * * *
Brother Jack had been sitting before the fire in their little
sitting-room when Benny came tumbling in. His face was very pale and
his eyes wide open. It was true that he had fainted when the signal-gun
announced his brother's victory, and the reaction of joy could be
detected in the quiver of his lips and his restless hands. Had he been
a Frenchman he would have kissed Benny on both cheeks prior to a
flourish of words in which platitudes of sentiment abounded. But as it
was, he just stood up and cried, "Hallo, Benny!" while Benny said,
"Hallo, Jack!" and came and slapped him on the shoulder. The others in
the room at this time were at the Abbe Villari, Harry Clavering and the
doctor, and these three stood apart that the brothers might talk.
"I thought you were done, Benny, old boy. I heard the engine down the
valley, and thought you'd miss us. How did you manage it? How did you
do it, old fellow?"
"That's what I'm asking myself, Jack. I must have done it, or these
people wouldn't be making such a noise. Luck, I suppose. I thought I
was a good ten miles from the place when I came down. Well, I suppose I
wasn't, and that's all."
Jack laughed. The colour was returning to his cheeks.
"It's not all by a long way, Benny. You flew right over our heads just
as though you were making a bee line. Not that it mattered. What you
had to do was to get back to the starting-point, and here you are. Come
and warm yourself, old boy. You're stiff with the cold."
Benny agreed to that.
"Never was so cold in all my life, Jack. You could cut me up in
lengths, if you liked! I've had a hard time, old boy--a d----d hard
time! And now it's over, eh? Well, that's something; and if none of
you mind, I think I'll go to bed for a spell. Dr. Orange would prescribe
that, I know. Just a snooze, doctor, eh, and a drop of something warm!"
He turned and went up the little staircase to his bedroom. Jack and the
doctor following. The crowd was still gathered about the house, and
from time to time it cheered lustily; but when Dr. Orange went out and
said the aviator was resting, the people drew back respectfully, while
the gendarmes posted sentries before the chalet, and forbade anyone to
approach it. Among them was the little gendarme, Philip, waiting
impatiently for his chief's permission to go into Italy.
* * * * * * *
It had been arranged that the cheque for ten thousand pounds should be
handed over by Sir John Perinder, the proprietor of the _Daily
Recorder_, at a banquet to be given at the Palace Hotel at seven o'clock
that night. Lavish according to his habit, Sir John invited all the
residents at the hotel to be his guests, and prepared also a high table
at which the victor might meet his intimates.
Aided by the staff of the Palace, the great dining-room was quickly
prepared for this novel function. The flags of many nations adorned its
whitewashed walls; there were ridiculous streamers and words of welcome
both in French and English. Bizarre ornaments from the bazaar decorated
the long tables, but the high table itself carried the monster silver
cup with which the Aero Club of Switzerland commemorated the
achievement, and this was a veritable work of art.
Benny found this dinner one of the most uncomfortable entertainments at
which he had yet assisted. It is true that he was received by a round of
cheers when he entered the room, but he could not but remember that many
who now applauded had derided him but a week ago.
For himself, he would have been hard put to it to say just what he did
feel. That the whole world would tell the story of the flight
to-morrow, he knew full well. It would have been absurd to have put
aside so self-evident a fact. The nations would honour him, and his own
people welcome a British victory. Looking further afield, he perceived
that his social position had changed in a flash, and that he, who had
called himself a beggar that morning, was now a rich man, with every
prospect of adding enormously to his riches in the immediate future.
Already the cable had brought offers which dazed him by their
generosity. He was to fly at this meeting, to fly at that. A firm in
London offered him two thousand pounds just to show his machine.
Surely, this implied a permanence of fortune. And he had but begun to
use those amazing brains which God had given him.
Here were things to be remembered subtly as the waiters filled his glass
with champagne, and boisterous diners asked to drink wine with him. He
found the speeches tedious enough, and thought Sir John a dreadful
windbag. When the great moment came, and the cheque was handed over to
him, it seemed such a sorry strip of paper to stand for so much, and he
thrust it into his pocket carelessly, as though it were the
visiting-card of an acquaintance. None the less, he was conscious of it
being there during the rest of the dinner; and despite his desire not to
do so, he touched it more than once with his fingers to be quite sure
that he had not lost it.
His own speech amazed the company. No one expected an engineer to be
also an orator, and yet his simple words had the stamp of true oratory.
He spoke to the hearts of those who heard him, concealing none of his
aims and ambitions, and confessing how greatly he had desired success.
His honesty was inspiring. He believed that they would be glad to have
this news in England. It was natural that he should think of his own
country at such a moment. But he could give every credit to France, and
the brains of those Frenchmen who had carried this art to such lengths.
In conclusion, he hoped that his many friends at Andana would hold some
memory of him in their affections.
There were rousing cheers at this--the cheers of those who had grown
suddenly conscious of their own littleness, and knew that they had met a
man. When the dinner broke up, young and old swarmed about Benny again,
begging his experiences, proffering their books, congratulating him in
volatile phrases. To all he pleaded that he was dead tired and must get
to bed. The supreme day of his life had ended! He was about to say
"good-bye" to it.
It was eleven o'clock then, and few were abroad. The excursionists had
already returned to Sierre and the railway; the keepers of carnival had
surrendered to the snow and a bitter wind arisen at sundown. What should
have been an _al fresco_ fete upon the skating rink had become but a
collection of shivering impresarios gathered about ebbing fires. The
pathway to the Park Hotel was deserted, nor could you have counted
twenty people on the road to Vermala.
Benny had set out in the company of his brother Jack and the Abbe
Villari, and the three pursued their way in silence toward the house.
Usually, there would have been a beacon light to guide them, a lamp
shining from the window of Lily Delayne's chalet; but no such lamp shone
out to-night, and the gables shaped amid the snowflakes as the grey and
silent towers of some deserted citadel. When they drew a little nearer
they saw that the blinds were drawn, and that the whole chalet was in
darkness: a fact which the abbe explained by saying that the English
lady had left for Sierre earlier in the day, and that he did not believe
she would return. To this Benny made no other answer than to suggest
that she must have found the presence of so many strangers unwelcome,
and perhaps had done well to go.
But he rested a moment at the door of the chalet for all that, and when
he turned away neither of the others had the courage to mention the
matter again.
*CHAPTER XXIII*
*THE NIGHT MAIL*
Lily Delayne had left Andana at midday in an interlude when it was
possible to get sleighs from the stable.
They had told her that she would not be able to reach the valley at all
that day if she left it until the afternoon; and this fell in with her
own resolution, which was to go at once while she had the courage.
So she set out when the excitement was at its height, and no one else in
the village thought of anything but the mad Englishman. There were
thousands grouped upon the plateau when the sleigh came for her; every
commanding slope of snow was black with the people who stared into the
ether as though their eyes might win a far vision if they had but the
patience. She could hear the music of bands, the ebb and flow of
carnival and a murmur of voices which betoken a great throng at its
pleasures. When the sleigh came for her at length, Andre the driver,
complained bitterly that he should be compelled to go down to Sierre at
such a moment.
"It is a thing no man will ever see again," he said almost pathetically.
"Madame should have stayed until her countryman returned."
She made no comment, and when she had settled everything with the dour
maid, who was to return to Brigue, they began their drive, making their
way carefully through the press, and arousing no comment where so many
strangers were gathered. Andre, for his part, drew up more than once at
the roadside to show her just where the madman had flown and by what
height he would return.
"It was over there," he cried dramatically, indicating Mont Blanc with a
flourish of his long whip. "I saw him myself, madame--like the eagle we
see in the picture books. He was gone before a man could have counted
ten. If he comes again, it will be over the Weisshorn. Just think of
that--and we have lived to see it! He will come over the Weisshorn like
a flash of light, and to-morrow all the world will hear of it. Well, we
may not be too late after all, if we keep our eyes open. It is a pity,
though, that madame must go to-day."
She made no reply. Her eyes had followed vaguely the course of the
flight, and she had tried to realise the wonder of it. But her deeper
thoughts forbade her to do so. Had she been honest with herself, she
would have said that she was going away just because of this man's
victory--fleeing from his success, because she believed that it was her
duty to do so.
Here she proved once more that a woman's heart is impregnable to the
assaults of reason. Luton Delayne had not a shadow of claim upon her.
The world would say, "Well done!" if she carried her case to the courts
and ended forever the tragedy of the years. She intended to do nothing
of the kind. Behind her intention lay the traditions of centuries, the
habit of mind which the ancient Faith had fostered, and the resolution
of unnumbered millions of good women who had lived and suffered such a
life as this. At their bidding she fled from another and from his
victory. A certain resentment against the honours he had won possessed
her. He would be famous before the world to-morrow!
It was warmer in the depths of the valley, and the sun shone with great
power. Sierre, that odd little town where all Englishmen travelling to
the Simplon gather at some time or other, was deserted to the point of
wonder. Even the hall-porter at the Terminus Hotel had gone a little
way up the hillside in the hope of seeing something of the flight. The
officials at the railway station were gathered in the yard, staring
skywards until their necks ached. When Lily obtained a hearing at last,
they told her it would be almost impossible to go through to Italy
to-night by any ordinary train, and that all the places in the
sleeping-cars were booked. Far better, said the amiable old lady who
received her at the Terminus, far better to stay until to-morrow, when
the excitement would be over. Yes, she could have a bed. An English
family had left unexpectedly for Caux that morning, and its rooms were
vacant.
Lily decided to accept this wise advice, but prudence restrained her
from sending a telegram to Luton. She spent the afternoon in wandering
about the little town and listening to the wild tales of the gossips at
the street corners, each of whom had some new version of the flight.
The excellent telephone service in Switzerland spread the news rapidly
enough, and it was soon known that the aviator had reached Mont Blanc,
that he had descended safely, and gone on towards Zermatt amid scenes of
almost frantic enthusiasm. Later on, there was a sudden bustle in the
streets, men running hither and thither, and an exodus from the station
and from every cafe. Someone said that the machine had been seen high
over the northern slopes; but Lily herself could make nothing of it, and
when she returned for a cup of afternoon tea the excitement had subsided
as quickly as it arose, and all was quiet in the town again.
This was merely a lull, as events proved, and she quickly perceived the
wisdom of the advice offered by the landlady. No sooner was it known
that the Englishman had succeeded than the sleighs began to return to
the station. One would not have believed that there were so many horses
in the Rhone Valley, and this was to say nothing of the thousands of
excursionists who came down on foot besieging the railway station, and
filling every cafe to the point of riot. Lily was glad that she had
abandoned all idea of a journey to Locarno until to-morrow, and she went
to bed early, avoiding her loquacious countrymen in the corridor of the
hotel, and trying to believe that she was little interested in their
excited stories of the day. When she arose next morning, it was snowing
hard, and the wind had attained some force. She did not dare to venture
out, and kept her own room until after dinner, when the news reached her
that there was a delay upon the line at Brigue, and it was doubtful if
the evening express could reach Milan at all that night.
Everyone seemed sure of this--the hall-porter, who spoke English like a
German, and the amiable landlady, who spoke French like an Italian.
Exactly what had happened no one could say with certainty, and the
stories were so contradictory that Lily put on her hat about nine
o'clock and went over to the station to hear the news for herself.
It was snowing heavily and the wind bitterly cold. She found a little
group of officials upon the dimly-lighted platform and two or three
English people, who, like herself, had been on the point of going into
Italy. One of these was no other than Harry Clavering, who recognised
her immediately, and came forward with both hands outstretched. She
remembered that he had been the first of the guests at Andana to offer
friendship upon her arrival, and she thought it an odd coincidence that
she should meet him here at such an hour.
"They told me you had returned to England," he exclaimed, "but you never
said good-bye to anyone. We did not even have an opportunity to snowball
you. Why, everyone who goes away from Andana is snowballed. The more
snow you get down your neck, the more popular you are. I was nearly
smothered to-day. Yes, they were very kind to me. But it was a real
disappointment to us all that you should go without a word."
She told him that urgent private business had summoned her to Italy, and
expressed her pleasure to meet him.
"The hotel is full of English people," she said, "therefore one knows
nobody. Of course, you have heard the news? The express runs no
further than Brigue to-night--there is some trouble on the line. We
should have gone by the slow train earlier in the day, it appears; but I
am always so shy of slow trains in Italy. Now they will not promise to
take us until to-morrow, and perhaps not then. I have just been
speaking to the station-master about it, and learned the truth so far as
he is capable of telling it. Poor man, one would think the end of the
world was at hand."
Harry Clavering did not seem at all upset.
"It is quite unusual," he explained, trotting by her side as she began
to pace the long platform; "the express runs usually with the regularity
of a clock, though some clocks, by the way, strike at all the stations.
I expect there has been a heavy fall of snow and one of the galleries is
giving trouble; or there may have been a slight accident. They tell me
that the gale last night was very severe on the other side. Was it not
lucky that your friend, Mr. Benson, won the prize when he did? He would
never have done it to-day."
She did not fail to notice that he spoke of "her friend, Mr. Benson,"
and she wondered that he had done so. Some women would have disclaimed
the association; but Lily Delayne held the little hypocrisies of life in
some contempt, and rarely stooped to them. So she accepted the charge,
and found herself talking of Benny's victory.
"Is he not a very remarkable man?" she said. "I guessed it the first
day I saw him, though that did not appear to be the common opinion. The
Englishman is so often judged by the partialities of his critics that
many such mistakes are made. Surely, of all the people in Europe, we
are the slowest to discover those who do us most honour. Now don't you
agree with that, Mr. Clavering?"
"With every word of it, my dear lady. Our study of mankind finds us
rare dunces. I think most of us would be ploughed if our degrees
depended upon it. We are shrewd judges of results, but children in
estimating the mind by which results are achieved. And we have ceased,
alas! to be pioneers. Even Mr. Benson cannot claim to have invented the
aeroplane. He is but an imitator, though a very clever one, I admit."
He perceived that she was interested, and went on to tell her all that
had been said of Benny during the day. Totally destitute of the
commercial mind himself, and wofully ignorant of finance, he repeated
Sir Gordon Snagg's loquacious prophecies. It would be odd if Mr. Benson
did not make a hundred thousand pounds in the course of the year, and
that, surely, was a very big sum for such a man. Why, he would never
know what to do with it. Then there would be all the fame
attending--just fame, and well earned. Already a message had come from
the King, and the French President had conferred the Grand Cordon upon
the victor. It was said that Mr. Benson had received offers which would
carry him to every quarter of the globe. He was to leave Switzerland
immediately, it was understood, going straight to London, where a great
reception had been prepared for him by Sir John Perinder.
Lily heard him with an occasional word of comment, but did not question
him further. Presently the great express came steaming into the
station; the gongs rang musically, and the English people flocked across
the rails to take their places. This was the northern-bound train. But
the night express for Milan followed it almost at once, and a rare
confusion followed. Everyone bawled the news to everyone else who would
listen. There had been an accident at Domo d'Ossola, and the line was
quite blocked; they had to transfer the passengers to the southern-bound
train, which was held up beyond the tunnel; it had not been a serious
accident, and nobody was hurt. When the trains departed at length, the
flare from their furnaces could be seen for many miles, the great
funnels vomiting flame, and the wind carrying the sparks high above the
valley. Then, as by magic, the little station appeared to settle down
to sleep; the officials vanished; the English people returned to their
hotel; the red and green lanterns stood sentinels of the night.
It was just after ten o'clock when Lily re-entered the corridor of the
Terminus. She had no desire to go to bed, and when the parson begged
permission to smoke his "lastly" with her, she assented very willingly.
This kindly, gentle soul, the world appeared to have cast him out also,
for he was without kith or kin, a lonely bachelor in this wilderness of
mountains, desiring nothing so much as the good of mankind, but deprived
by the subtleties of the ecclesiastical system from any performance
which would have done him credit before the people. Naturally, he
delighted in the society of a beautiful woman, who stood to him for a
type of all that was highest and holiest in the human story. At a look
from her he would have revealed the most sacred truths of his life--for
so are men led to the confessional; but the opportunity passed, and he
spoke again of things he believed to be commonplace.
"By the way," he said, "do you remember the strange affair at Vermala?"
She looked up astonished.
"Yes, indeed; and what of it?"
"Well, I chanced to meet one of the gendarmes this morning, a mere boy,
whom they call Philip Gaillarde. He tells me that the affair is no
longer a mystery. It was his brother who was killed on the Zaat--I
believe by an Englishman who has been in trouble. The young man had
just obtained leave from his superiors to go into Italy--I think he must
have started by the morning train. He says that the assassin is near
Locarno on Lake Maggiore. He has gone there to-day to arrest him."
Lily made what reply she could, but she did not speak again of it. The
night had been very cold, and now that they were under shelter again she
began to fear that she had taken a chill. A shivering fit was succeeded
by a little faintness, which caused the parson great concern. He
advised her to go to bed immediately, and she welcomed the suggestion.
Philip Gaillarde in Italy! What, then, had prevented her going that
morning? An excuse of the trains. She knew that it was not so, but
rather the hope that she might yet see a man who loved her, and say
"farewell" to him.
*CHAPTER XXIV*
*THE DOCTOR INTERVENES*
The world is as little interested in the harvest another reaps of his
success as in the dinner he ate yesterday.