THE ADMIRAL OF THE AIR
I saw defeat written upon his face, but there was no sign of fear. He
stood alone, unarmed, confronting me, and if he had fled when he saw
that his cause was lost I do him the justice to believe it was his
undaunted will which drove him to flight, that he might plan new havoc
for the world.
No chance remained for him. By the glare of the searchlights I saw the
last vestige of rout end at the Temple doors. Trapped and surrounded,
the Guard begged for quarter. This was accorded them; but instantly the
prisoners were lost to sight in the presence of the enormous multitudes
that came from London, swarming into the courts.
Sanson’s gaze shifted from my face to Esther’s, and, as if she felt the
man’s presence, she stirred, and her eyelids unclosed.
“Arnold!” she whispered.
“Yes, dear,” I answered, bending over her.
“I dreamed that—they had run up the annex thirty stories, Arnold, and
painted it shining white.”
“You must sleep and dream no more,” I told her. She murmured and her
eyelids closed. Again the kindly unconsciousness of sleep held her.
I placed her against the anchored airplane and turned to Sanson. He was
facing me with that strange and half-quizzical look that I remembered so
well. It had in it more of humanity than the expression of any other of
his moods.
“Arnold,” he said softly, “if I were an ignorant man I might be tempted
to believe that there is a God, sometimes.”
And that was his way also, to speak of other things in moments of
imminent alarm.
“Why?” I inquired.
“Because He is so merciful to His defectives, Arnold. To think that you,
with your missing five centimeters, should have defeated me!
“Come,” he continued, clapping his hand on my shoulder. “A truce for a
few minutes. A truce, for the sake of our old friendship. You are not to
blame for your share in this night’s ruin of civilization. You were the
victim of circumstances. And then—you are a defective and could not
understand. Arnold, I have never had any friend but you. And sometimes I
feel the need of one. Even the gods felt that, and I am far from a god,
though, later, perhaps....”
He broke off and resumed, after a short pause:
“Join me. Here is my frank proposal: join me, and, since indeed I would
not hold any woman against her will, if Esther chooses you she shall be
yours. This night has undone the labor of many years, but those that are
past are but as a drop of water in an ocean to those which are to come.
I have the secret of immortal life at last—not ghostly life in some
gold-decorated heaven, but life in the flesh. I will bestow the gift on
you—”
“Let it die with you,” I answered passionately.
He laughed.
“This night’s work, which seems so wonderful to you, is but an episode,”
he said. “Come with me to America, Arnold. In six months I can build up
my world anew. I shall be less scrupulous and humane in the future with
this miserable mob. No moron shall live, no defective go free. I have
resolved that. Man can rise only by crushing out weakness and setting
himself upon the necks of those who were born to serve. In six months
America will be mine; in twelve, the world. From this time onward it is
a battle to the death against all that retards the human race.”
His features flushed with the energy of his voice. I looked at him,
almost in admiration. I was dumfounded at the audacity of his designs.
Trapped here, a prisoner upon the fortress roof, his life already gone
when he was found, this man of sixty years planned his universal empire.
He was mad, beyond doubt, mad enough to dream impossible things and make
them his in his brain’s fertile kingdom; and it was such madness as
moves mountains.
“Sanson, I will do this much for you,” I said. “I will hide you from the
mob’s fury in a little room near this roof, so that you may not be torn
in pieces. I will assure you a fair trial at the hands of the new
government. That is all I can promise.”
Would this dream vanish in the realization of fact? I saw his face fall,
as if he had come to understand his position at last.
“Where is it?” he said presently. He spoke slowly, and in a bewildered
manner, as if he were still struggling with his dreams.
I took him by the arm and led him to the elevator entrance. “It is a
little room under the roof,” I said. “The elevator passes it, but it is
hardly more than a hole in the wall. One would not look for you there.”
I pressed the button, but of course the elevator did not ascend, since
the solar power was cut off.
Sanson withdrew his arm from mine. I saw him assume a listening
attitude. “Arnold!” he cried weakly, “they are coming! Listen!”
As I relaxed my guard, he dealt me a buffet that sent me flying down the
empty shaft.
I had a confused consciousness of falling through space, of clutching at
the shaft walls; and then I was upon my knees, bruised and staring up at
the light overhead.
Fortunately the elevator had stopped a few feet from the top. Still
dazed, I sprang to my feet and began scrambling up the ironwork. At last
I staggered out upon the roof once more. I saw a dozen Sansons, each of
whom carried Esther in his arms.
I tried to force reality into these visions, to snatch the living Sanson
from among that crowd of ghosts. But they had sprung into the dozen
airplanes that lay upon the swaying roof top. A touch of the starting
lever, a half turn of the wheel, and as my power of vision came back to
me I saw Sanson rise with Esther into the air. He held her on the seat
against him, the arm that encircled her controlling the wheel, and he
was gone into the heart of the giant moon that was just rising in the
east, blood-red behind her veil of clouds.
I stared after him. The airplane was rapidly diminishing in size. He had
outwitted me at the last, by one of those clumsy tricks he loved, such
as a schoolboy plays.
I staggered toward the edge. I was minded to fling myself down on the
stones below. One more victim of the day’s work would mean nothing, and
doubtless David and Elizabeth believed that I had died long ago. I
tottered upon the brink; but then a shadow glided toward me, and a small
airplane stopped at my side. It was unshielded, and at the prow was a
pair of the elongated jaws. Air-Admiral Hancock leaned out of it toward
me.
“Where is Sanson?” he asked quietly. “He was here. He was seen here.”
I pointed into the west, where the parallelogram of light was
diminishing to an irregular star. I leaped into the plane beside him.
“Take me with you!” I cried. “He has stolen Esther—the goddess of the
cylinder.”
Hancock said nothing but touched the lever. Instantly we shot upward and
raced like a swallow across the void, skimming and dipping as the wind
caught us and the heavy prow plunged through the unequal air-banks.
The buildings drew together beneath us. The shouts of the multitude grew
faint and died. The luminous point in the west grew larger, and against
the sky, now whitened by the rising moon, I saw the dark body between
the glow lines, as one sees a ship at sea from a mountain top. Sanson
was heading southward, perhaps with the intent of reaching France and
rallying the forces of the Federation there. We mounted higher. The
forests stretched beneath us. Always we mounted. I cast a glance at
Hancock’s face. There was a look on it that boded ill for Sanson. I was
trying to remember something that Jones had told me about him, but my
own anxious thoughts beat down the elusive memory. I, too, felt that
there would be no mercy for Sanson when the accounts were squared.
Would anyone have mercy? I saw the answer to that question swiftly, for,
looking back, I saw two lanes of airships, strung out behind, like
flying geese, converging toward our leadership. Battleplanes,
scoutplanes, dark against the brightening heaven, came hot on the chase.
They were in pursuit of the common enemy of the human race, and there
was none among them, no man in London but had some outrage to avenge.
We mounted higher through the bitter cold. My hands were numb, but
Hancock kept his wheel, seated there, a grim, immovable, resolute
figure. Now we burst into the heart of a fierce, rocking snowstorm,
which blotted out the fugitive; but by some instinct Hancock seemed to
know his course, and he held it surely till we rose above the storm and
saw the glow parallelogram nearer.
Sanson rose too. He must have sighted us and resolved to test his
endurance against ours. We were in air so rarefied that I was choking
for breath. The moon rode high; dawn was not far away. We were rushing
toward the sea, which lay, a blur of inky blackness, underneath, edged
by the white line of the chalk cliffs of the south shore. We were
gaining steadily.
[Illustration:
The giant jaws upon our aircraft gaped. I saw steel teeth within them
]
But Sanson did not mean to cross the Channel. I do not know what new
scheme he had conceived; perhaps he meant to turn and seek some English
city where he could defy the new order and reorganize the old. He
wheeled; and the long line of the pursuing planes, struggling upward,
wheeled together, trying to cut off his flight. He mounted still and
struck out eastward. But, with a furious downward swoop Hancock drove in
toward him. I could see Sanson sitting at the wheel, his arm still
clasping Esther. He stopped in the air and waited for our approach.
“What do you want?” he shouted.
The tone of Hancock’s voice was implacable. “My son, Sanson,” he
answered.
He wheeled away, and, as he turned placed his hand on a lever. The giant
jaws upon our aircraft gaped. I saw steel teeth within them. We dashed
for Sanson with terrific force. I shouted in horror, laying my fingers
upon Hancock’s sleeve and pointing to Esther. But Hancock did not seem
to hear or feel me, perhaps he had never known that I was there; all his
mind seemed intent on the accomplishment of his deadly purpose. He drove
home before his enemy could evade his course, and like a hawk we
plunged, struck Sanson’s vessel amidships, and smashed through steel and
glow shield.
One instant, in the dead interval of the stopped momentum, we rested
motionless together, the gaping jaws choked with their meal and fast
within the heart of Sanson’s plane. I flung myself across the side,
grasped Esther, held her in my arms, and dragged her across our bows.
Then Hancock leaped at Sanson’s throat.
Our airplane tipped, righted herself, and drifted away. I did not know
how to steer or guide, but Hancock must automatically have locked the
mechanism to the halt, for we drifted idly, balancing upon the wind.
Watching, I saw the two struggling in Sanson’s plane.
She shuddered as she hung poised there, mortally gashed, yet fighting
still for her dominion of the air. She quivered from prow to stern, and
then, of her own accord, shot upward. Up she went till she was but a
dark blot in the sky. Then from above something came falling toward the
earth, plunged like a projectile, and disappeared.
I saw a tiny figure standing on the doomed airplane alone, and,
infinitely small though it appeared, I knew that it was Sanson. I
fancied I could see the man’s proud bearing; I thought his arms were
folded across his breast. The moonlight gilded him, and others have told
me that he seemed to ride through the air resplendent, as if
transfigured by some demoniac power.
He stood like Lucifer, high above all the world, over his wrecked
dominion. I picture his disdain, and the contempt for man with which he
shrouded himself in that last moment. The world had broken him in the
end, but his colossal spirit could never be quenched.
Then the air vessel plunged into the moon’s heart and vanished.