THE RAY MIGRATES
Now, then, for some days was the _régime_ of air-boats, Chinnery’s
body still lying in its coffin in Buckingham Palace when twenty
boats lay in the Park, the Prince and Sturge themselves winding,
winding magnet-bobbins—without any very definite object! for it was
a fairly certain thing that Li Ku Yu must have Oyone’s air-boat; and
air-boat-making ceased suddenly in England on the fourth day, when
Pilcher and others who had been scouting over France in air-boats
reported that hundreds of thousands of magnets were being turned
out at every “forges et chantiers”—de la Seyne, de la Gironde, de
la Mediterranée—at Châlons-sur-Saône, at Rochefort, at Cherbourg:
whereupon the Prince set himself to make the ray.
He worked in those days under the eyes of the Princess Elizabeth:
for along one wall of his workshop ran a gallery aloft fronted with
big-bellied balusters of old stone, through which one could peep down
without being seen; and thence day after day, midnight after midnight,
in patient vigil, peeped the Princess down: for the Prince of Wales was
strange to her in those days—stiff, stiff, and still.
She suspected that he may have been told that she had visited Oyone
at “Ning Shou Kung,” suspected that he suspected that Oyone was free
through her: and there in the deepest unease, often when the palace was
deeply asleep, she sat peeping, peeping, keeping her eyes fixed upon
his flying activities, he finding time neither to eat nor sleep.
By this time England, that had sung so glad a song at the damming of
the flood, again knew, not only its doom, but almost the day of it.
Every hour air-boats and aeroplanes flew home with fresh news of the
hosts of Chinese now shrieking like fowl of ill-omen under the clouds,
undergoing air-training in every town and countryside from Ghent to
Guyenne.
Already there had been shots exchanged between air-boat and air-boat;
already three flocks of a dozen air-boats had appeared over London, and
dropped rice-greens into men’s eyes.
The destruction, then, was to be, not from below, but from the air,
not an eruption, but a rain; and western man, knowing nothing of the
Redlike Ray, understood that the Prince was powerless now to save.
He, for his part, reckoned from the reports sent him from Aldershot
that the rain would be during the night of Friday the 9th of May; and
he reckoned, by restless effort, to have the ray ready by the noon of
Tuesday, the 6th of May—in time to send a letter to Li Ku Yu.
But he and Sturge worked with a blackness of uncertainty in their
hearts. At least half of the apparatus they were making was being made,
not in reliance upon known truth, but in reliance upon likelihoods.
And by the noon of that fatal Tuesday Oyone’s steamer was speedily
approaching the English coast near Deal, in haste for Eulalia and the
Redlike Ray.
Oyone had started from France days before, on the very night of
Chinnery’s death, but had not steamed nine miles when she had been
sighted by the third-class cruiser _Pioneer_, with a twenty-knot speed;
and now—a chase.
Oyone’s yacht had finally escaped among the Scheldt channels, and she
had since been a shrinking prisoner on the sea, till now by dodgings
she saw the English cliffs; and instantly on landing was off by motor
for 19 Chapel Street, Whitechapel.
Before that hour, about noon, the Queen had come into the workshop to
see if the work was finished—not knowing what was being made, for her
son would tell no one, but knowing that it was something immensely
momentous. She laid her hand on his shirt-sleeve at the bench to
murmur: “Not finished?”
He did not look at her. “No, Mother.”
“I have brought you these delicious little sandwiches.”
His deafened sense caught “sandwiches,” and now for the first time in
his life he was intolerant of her. “Oh, Mother, for God’s sake!” he
said with a very intense fretfulness of nettle-rash; and now her paled
face went paler, and out mouse-mute she moved.
He nor Sturge ate; at six the work was not finished; at eight it was
not finished; at nine it was near completion; at nineteen past it was
finished.
Now the two faces were like ghost-faces down there in the light’s glow,
their frames in a tremblement resembling the make-and-break of electric
bells that tremble, as they flew about the room, mute but for a breath
tossed anon from one to the other, while Elizabeth wondered, peeping
through balusters above....
Now was the moment of testing. They had a little black cat at hand, so
after locking all doors, they set her on a chair and ran, the Prince
with two strings, to the remotest part of the room behind their black
box on the bench; and there, their backs toward the box, the Prince
pulled: the cap slipped down; a pencil of rays shot from the orifice
upon the cat.
Dumbly now they hung some moments, though their hearts in their bosoms
blabbed like tongues; and suddenly in those mute moments the cat mewed.
The Prince pulled the other string: toward her they flew; and, to their
sorrow, saw her washing her chops with her paw ... cynic.
“Puss, puss, come,” went Sturge, and she ran straight to him.
The Prince sat on her chair siffling through his teeth-edges, calm now,
but blanched like chalk.
At that moment Oyone’s motor was already in South-east London,
travelling fast toward the ray, her chauffeur a Japanese from the
Continent.
But it happened so that now, as the Prince sat there siffling his hymn,
a pressing visitor was announced, and presently the Chief Commissioner
was there, saying:
“The nurse who was observed carrying a black box has been unearthed,
Sir. The box is now actually on a chair in her third-floor back room
at No. 19 Chapel Street, East. Whether it is _the_ black box—it has a
cap——”
“It _is_ it!”—the Prince had sprung to his feet—“I’ll go myself.
’Phone, Sturge, to the stables.”
But before that word “stables” the Princess Elizabeth was away flying,
wild and white, and quickly was at the Queen’s knees, entreating
her: “Teddy has discovered that girl—all is up with my life—has had
out men seeking her—and oh, I know—I know—in ways unknown to Your
Majesty—that he will surely marry, if he once finds her—as he _must_
now—unless—Mother—you graciously intervene. Go yourself—you and I—only
it must be _instantly_—he has telephoned—if you bring her here, he will
never find—everywhere else he will now——”
“Come,” said Her Majesty.
Wraps on heads, hand in hand, they ran.
Just outside the palace-front they chanced upon a cab, dashed down the
Mall; and as they dashed past the Admiralty, the Prince dashed after in
a brougham, Oyone at that moment motoring past the Elephant, between
which and Blackfriars Bridge three people were injured by the speed of
her wheels.
Now, the Prince’s cylinders had more horse-power than his mother’s,
and all along the expanse of the Mall he rapidly overtook her, even
though she, on cautiously looking, thought she saw him coming, and
incited her driver to his highest speed, pleading, “You know me—the
Queen—please—please——”
But once out in the Strand throng, the two were on a more equal
footing, both being forced to forge slower through the misty and muddy
multitudes; and beyond the Charing Cross Hotel the Queen just escaped
what befel the Prince—a fallen horse, round which the crowd thickened
like a boil in the blood’s circulation; and no side-street was there....
Nor was he aware that there was any race or very special necessity for
haste, or he would certainly have turned back, or driven through the
screams of men and women. But he waited.
So the mother got well ahead, dashing into Chapel Street six minutes
in advance of the son—a shudder now in Elizabeth’s nerves lest Her
Majesty, on observing the street-name and house-number, should remember
that this was the very address of the Six Million donor as given by Sir
Robert Barrington. But her Majesty had other troubles, as they dashed
into the drab caravanserai.
Eulalia sat by her table and lamp, letting her eyes rest on a _Pippa
Passes_ that had passed in her pocket through European bloodshed,
through her Chinese nightmare, through the air, when—a thumping at her
door—the door flung open—and before her the Queen—and peering over the
Queen’s shoulder the Princess Elizabeth’s speculative spectacles....
“I am here to take you away”—from the Queen—“no time to explain—for the
good of the State—your country, to which you owe everything—will you
come?”
A stare!
“Will you come?”
“I—suppose so, Ma’am”—with a glance toward a soap-box containing
underclothes.
“What’s in the box? Clothes? Leave those! Come——”
“My canary——”
“Bring that—quickly——” popping upon Eulalia’s head a forage-cap which
she saw while Eulalia was taking the cage; which done, Eulalia cast a
parting look round, spied her “Taska’s” black box, caught that up, and
with the ray and her packet of letters under her right arm, the cage
hanging in her left, the forage-cap cocked awry over her right eye,
they were gone, like straws caught on cyclonic storms.
By which time the Prince, having passed Aldgate, was pretty near.
And down at the house-door there was delay—through Oyone, just come:
for when the Queen reached the door, it was to hear her chauffeur
screaming to Oyone’s chauffeur: “Are you drunk, or what?” the latter
having shocked end-on upon the Royal cab’s engine.
And as Her Majesty stepped into her cab, and then Eulalia, out jumped
Oyone from her motor, and saw the face of Elizabeth, just stepping
in, in the off-shine of a wall-lamp; and she ran to Elizabeth saying:
“_You?_ I have wished to speak——”
But as Elizabeth turned to her, the Queen’s face was out with “_Make
haste!_ Who is this?”—and Oyone, with a starting heart, recognised the
Queen, instantly thinking: “_She_ here? What for? the ray?”
The cab moved before she had had an instant’s chance to peer within and
see Eulalia and the ray; but before the Queen’s head was withdrawn,
Oyone had cut a face of venom and disdain at her.
If, now, the Royal cab had run west, it must have met the Prince, but
it ran east, then north, then west, the Princess’s glasses, meantime,
throwing ogles of distrust at the black box, not half liking the idea
of being blown into “flies’ feet,” even with the Queen for companion.
Meantime, Oyone flew inward with wings, up the stair—resolved, if the
box was absent, to follow the Royal cab, and, if necessary, lay dead....
Without ceremony she rushed into Eulalia’s chamber—plied a hundred
eyes—not there—and down she rushed....
Causing the Prince’s heart to start! who was just near enough now
to the house-door to see her heels pitching into her carriage; and,
instantly convinced that she had the ray, he and Sturge were after her,
as her car turned eastward, whither she had seen the Queen’s car speed.
Now, she in rushing out of doors had noticed his motor and him looking
out of it a second before _his_ recognition of _her_ had leapt into a
conscious recognition: so, seeing him follow to capture her, she leant
out, sent two rapid shots at his car, and dashed off, scattering the
throng from her path.
The Prince’s car ran into wall on the right, and was smashed, his
chauffeur’s right arm fractured; and he pursued on foot, till Oyone’s
motor disappeared, then ceased.
When he and Sturge spurted up to the “third-floor-back,” it was to
discover nothing—a nurse’s coif, tips of little slippers peeping,
_Pippa Passes_, a poor cupboard, a nightdress nicely folded, a photo of
the Prince in silver ... more fay than ray....
And Oyone herself failed to discover the Royal cab, which arrived
safely at the palace.