"Good-bye, my champion. Good-bye until we meet in happier times."
And so she swept from the room, and the Guardsman in the corridor who
followed at her signal saw that the Queen was crying.
Lancaster served Mr. Brand as squire, assisting him while he changed
his civilian clothes for the gold harness and scarlet cloak of an
officer of the Guard, the only dress which would give him even a
moderate degree of safety in the streets of the town. Brand made not
the least pretence to a military bearing, but he was an athlete in
habit, and the harness fitted him well. He was thinking too intently
to be awkward or self-conscious in disguise, and when at last the
trooper brought a big, black stallion into the courtyard, he swung
into the saddle with the ease of a horseman. The Prince was less
suspicious at the sight of horsemanship.
"Now can you get me a strong lantern?"
Lord Lancaster ran into the Palace, and for a minute the master sat
curbing the black stallion, who danced polka movements, uneasy at the
delay.
Just before Lord Lancaster came back, a window opened far up in the
courtyard wall. Then a white handkerchief fluttered softly down like
a snowflake. The master rode forward and caught and fastened it to
the front of his helmet.
"Are you ready, sir?" cried Lancaster.
"God save the Queen," said Brand, and they rode out under the archway.
The Queen's ring passed them through the gates, and breaking into a
canter side by side, the horsemen swung round the east wing out into
the Mall.
The clocks were striking two as they traversed the spacious avenue,
now dark and silent.
"Do you still want to shoot me, sir?" asked Brand.
"Drop that '_sir_'," answered the young Prince. "It sounds absurd
from you. Call me Lancaster. Forget that nonsense I talked. She
trusts you. That's good enough for me."
Abreast of Marlborough House the horses shied violently passing the
body of a murdered woman. She lay in her white evening dress, her
fair face streaked with blood, and the jewels had been wrenched from
her hair and neck.
"That's Mrs. Osbourne," said the trooper, bending down; "I knew her,
poor soul."
Just beyond stood her carriage, the chauffeur murdered in his seat,
and close beside in the gutter lay some poor rioter who had ceased to
starve.
They rode on in silence to the end of that moonlit solitude, and were
passing the north edge of the Horse Guards Parade, still under the
spell of horror, when a cloud passed across the moon.
"What's that?" cried Lancaster.
Brand looked up, relieved at any interruption to his thoughts. "Only
a destroyer cruising--on patrol, I suppose, to keep order."
"Unless," said the trooper, "we're followed."
"An officer and a trooper of the Guard--nonsense!"
"Unless Prince Ali----"
"I see. He would warn the Government to expect my escape. So. This
destroyer may think we're chasing Mr. Brand to Tower Hill."
"She's following, anyway."
"We'll have to call her presently to help us." The master laughed,
drawing his cloak about him.
They were in Trafalgar Square now, skirting the edge of a crowd of
starving trades unionists, who were easing their feelings with a
Republican demonstration. London never dared to sleep in those first
nights of the peril.
"I wonder," said the master, as they rode past, "will history blame
me for that--thing--back there in the Mall?" His lips were
quivering. "Will history make me the murderer?"
"That depends," answered Lancaster, "on what history has to tell of
the war that's coming. I wouldn't like to be your ghost if the
thing's a failure."
"And if it succeeds, Lancaster, will they make a picture of me among
the conquerors, with Alexander, Semiramis, Tamerlane, the Mogul,
Napoleon--riding through a lane of stark corpses, and millions and
millions of the accusing dead?"
"Wouldn't you rather be there than in a procession to the gallows?"
"I'd rather have the gallows, Lancaster."
The Strand was in darkness, and every theatre was closed. Here and
there stood cars, derelict because the drivers had struck. The
public houses had been closed by order. Only the churches were open,
for although they could not be lighted, great congregations gathered
in these nights, for rest and consolation. Indeed, for that relief,
even delicate women and children were willing to leave their
lightless, desolate homes, and face the risk of being robbed or
murdered in the by-ways.
The police patrolled in companies, while now and again came the tramp
of marching men, volunteers or special constables, called out to
confront some distant riot; but no man went abroad unarmed, and few
women except under escort. There were not less than forty thousand
criminals at large in London, furtive as yet, rather than violent,
stealing enough food to prosper, while daily the desperation of the
poor added to their numbers, and their leaders grew more powerful and
more reckless.
In silence Brand and Lancaster rode on, turning now and again to
watch the aerial destroyer, which, beating to and fro in short
slants, was evidently keeping watch on their movements. The moon
caught her gleaming aeroplanes at every ratch. At any moment she
might call out with a request for instructions. Perhaps some doubt
restrained her lest these men were not Guardsmen, but fugitives
despite their horses and their harness. But, however carefully she
might have watched for the master of Lyonesse, however certain it
might be that he would head for a rendezvous with the yacht, a
mistake would endanger the new compact between Queen and Government.
Her Majesty's gentlemen of the Guard could not be insulted with
impunity.
"Shall we gallop?" asked Lancaster.
"No, slower if anything or they'll think we're running away."
So reining to a trot, they went along the Fleet Viaduct, with a
passing glance at some sudden riot running wild down in Farringdon
Street. They skirted the south side of St. Paul's, and traversed
Cannon Street. But then, instead of turning off towards London
Bridge, they plunged down the hill by the Monument into the cobbled
alley of Lower Thames Street. The destroyer must have seen that they
were actually bound for the Tower, for now she whistled thrice.
"They think we're chasing Brand!" cried Lancaster, and waving his arm
signalled the destroyer to follow.
Ahead by the Billingsgate Market lay a fish van overturned, entirely
blocking the thoroughfares. So they plunged up hill among lanes and
alleys, passing over the body of a murdered policeman, until they
emerged by an old church where the congregation was singing the
Litany, and came out upon the open space of Tower Hill.
"Give me the lantern," said Brand, as they swept down towards the
Tower Gate at a gallop. "I'm going to signal my yacht."
"Then the destroyer will fire--she's close behind!"
"We must take the risk."
He drew rein, and flashed the strong light thrice across the sky.
The destroyer fired a warning shot, but again Mr. Brand flashed the
signal, and presently yet again.
"By George!" muttered Lancaster. "We're done for now!"
"Lancaster," said the master, "is there any officer of the Guard at
all like me in appearance?"
"There's Captain Talbot, his gear exactly fits you."
"Good. The destroyer will steer close down now. Ride up to her, say
Captain Talbot sends you, that Brand's at the Palace, and we've used
his secret signal to lure the yacht. The destroyer's to wait out of
sight until Captain Talbot gives orders to attack."
The trooper dashed away up the slope.
"When I raise my hand," the master shouted after him, "ride straight
for my yacht."
The warship was slanting down, she sheered barely clear of the
housetops, and then hung poised above the trees by the Tower moat.
And now drawing rein after a furious gallop, the trooper faced the
suspended warship, so close that his horse reared up in terror.
"Captain Talbot's compliments," he yelled. "Help us to capture
Brand's yacht. Lie low and wait!"
"Where's Mr. Brand?" cried the destroyer circling round the terrified
horse like an eagle round a mosquito, the faintest airs from the
river just whispering under her aeroplanes, and barely strong enough
to give her steerage way.
"Brand is in chains at the Palace!" the trooper yelled so that his
voice broke in a wail. "Lie low and help us, we're luring the yacht
down with Brand's private signal. Captain Talbot will give the order
to fire!"
But now the destroyer was so low between the buildings that she lost
the air and grounded. It would take her three minutes to rise clear
again from the earth, and meanwhile she lay helpless on her keel
springs.
"Can't you put out those lights?" yelled the trooper. He was
jubilant, for he had put the destroyer out of action.
Nobody knows what the destroyer thought, back there behind the trees
of the moat enclosure, but the Captain of the _Mary Rose_ spoke
afterwards as to the descent of the yacht. She had been at a height
of five miles in the air when the electric lantern flashed the
summons upwards. At the signal she simply dropped like a stone. The
air roared round her like the deepening blast of a furnace; the
friction of the wind was actually making her sides red hot when she
slowed to a speed of ninety miles an hour.
She saw the lurking destroyer, she saw the whole starboard division
of the British Fleet swoop down out of the north, and knew that not a
ship would care to fire for fear of a resulting explosion which would
wreck the Tower of London.
She saw the solitary horseman flashing the lantern signal again and
again. She knew that she might be trapped to destruction, yet
grudged the brakes which in the last two miles of air must be clapped
on full to prevent her being dashed to pieces on Tower Hill. Down
she fell like a meteor out of heaven, slowed, jarred her brake,
jumped on the sharp recoil a hundred feet, then gently lowered her
torpedo-shaped steel hull until with a feathery lightness she touched
the pavement, and sent her drawbridge gangway clanging down.
Already the destroyer, alert for action, rose from behind the trees,
flashed out her vivid searchlight upon the yacht, and in that glare
confirmed her worst suspicions. His golden harness glowing, his
black horse rearing and fighting the air, Brand lifted his arm as
though to stay the destroyer's fire from blasting him.
Lancaster, obedient to the signal, spurred down the hill at full
gallop. He reached the gangway, charged straight up the slope, and
crouching down rode in through the open port.
Even before the master could follow, the destroyer lashed out with
her machine guns.
For a moment the yacht was lost to sight in a cloud of fire and
steel, but in the very midst of it, Lancaster ran down the slope of
the gangway, wrenched Brand from under his dying horse, and dragged
him back into shelter. As the yacht's gangway crashed home the
destroyer passed overhead launching torpedoes.
The _Mary Rose_ swung as she lifted, crashing right through the
destroyer's fragile hull. The magazine exploded into the great
hydrogen cylinder above; but Brand's yacht went on unscathed through
a sphere of flame, on into space, with wreckage and mangled bodies
streaming behind her.