THE CHARIOT OF FLIGHT
Tom Ratler had prospered. He was in favor with God and man. The Mayor
liked him. Mr. Briggs, the Mayor’s secretary liked him, especially
well, he was so attentive to that gentleman’s social monologues,
and his graphic pictures of coming crises. His uninterrupted assent
to all Mr. Briggs predicted gave him an enviable preferment, and
Mr. Briggs’ own pugnacious instincts, and his muscular prowess
made him a natural admirer of Tom’s fine physique, and his manly
courage and aplomb. Tom understood most of Mr. Briggs’ discourses,
but his apparent acquiescence sprang less from endorsement,
than indifference, and his sense of obligation. He was indeed
impressed favorably by much of Mr. Briggs’ talk, lately, since his
ravished eyes had fallen on the pleasant face and alluring form
of Jessie Longtinsky, whose enforced—as he fondly was pleased to
think—imprisonment, amid the murky, cloudy and black walls of a
murder-breathing, dark, conniving, and impious nihilism, made him
more and more anxious for the opportunity of freeing her, and placing
her more conveniently near himself.
And among Tom’s friends and patrons none exceeded in admiration the
Mayor’s mother. Her benignant eyes shone upon him through her bright
spectacles, almost with the fondness of his own dear mother’s, and he
became so assiduous, painstaking, and thoughtful, over her comfort
and safety in the big family auto, that the old lady experienced
a wonderful happiness in seeing him, and being with him; his
cheerful ringing voice brought gladness to her heart, and amid the
growing evils of the day—for Mrs. Benziger was one of Mr. Briggs’
sympathetic listeners—she felt that her son had a good strong bulwark
of defense in Tom, when the dark hour came, when, as Mr. Briggs had
often told her, “the streets of the city would be filled with the
cries and shot of an intestinal conflict.”
Tom Ratler had frankly admitted to his friend, Ned Links, that he
was mortally wounded, that he was in love with a “fairy” on the
East Side, and that happiness for him could only be attained by
the undivided possession of the beautiful darling, whom he must
and would capture. He did not tell his companion that he had met
her—this disturbing vision—quite frequently, that the passion had
been mutual, and that the accidental glance up to her at the window
of her home and her own appreciative view of himself, had conspired
into a complete reciprocity, and that the heart struggles of the
two partners to the contract, had been of the most excruciating and
distinctively exciting sort. To be sure, Tom was hilariously certain
that Jessie Longtinsky would be his; his mind leaped over obstacles
and his heart thoroughly approved its confidence, but to the tender
and filial soul of Jessie, the way ahead of them was dark with
parental objections, and the more deadly and hideous shadow of the
ravening jealousy of her lover Poniatowsky.
Tom had been made, by the exigencies of his own love, the most alert
and subtle sort of a detective, and when he and Mr. Briggs left
off their surveillance of the editorial chambers of The Beehive,
Tom nightly watched it, and thus discovered the new retreat of the
paper, and his idol. Love’s ingenuity had not lost any of its skill
in eluding detection or detention in the year 2000, and Jessica
was not more willing to meet Lorenzo, than Jessie, in spite of all
her maidenly terrors and shrinkings, was happy over the thought of
seeing Tom. For she truly loved him. He suddenly seemed to her the
impersonation of all the bright and happy things a man may be to a
woman, and she was, without any doubt, to Tom, the “best ever.”
So their meetings had been as numerous as they could make them, and
Tom was rapidly forming plans for doing away with them altogether
by marrying Jessie. These hopes Jessie deprecated because of
Poniatowsky. She hoped that Poniatowsky would be called away on
some errand of her father’s, or in some way disappear. And yet she
admitted to herself, that the man was fiercely enamored of her. She
trembled to think of his rage should he find out the true state of
things between her and Tom. He had apparently forgotten his first
suspicions in that regard, and although he fretted and grew moody
over Jessie’s coldness, he was successfully deceived by the lovers as
to their meetings. Jessie in her household duties found it necessary
to market for the house on the west side of the city, and here, away
from observation of her own people, her neighbors, and the prowling
steps of her father’s confederates, she saw Tom, and as they agreed
to meet very early in the mornings, nothing happened as yet either
in Tom’s work, or the meddlesome gossip of her friends, to interfere
with these sweet engagements.
Now it had come to pass that Ned Links had deserted his
employment—lucrative at it was—in the Suicidarium, and the buxom and
languorous lady whom Tom had first met there as one of the visualized
angels of the future world, to which the suicides were directed, had
deserted her employment at the same place. Ned had done this, through
Tom’s own disgust with the business, and because Tom had discovered
for him an extraordinary opportunity as the motorist of a dirigible
balloon. It had become in New York, at that distant time, a summer
sport to traverse the skies at night with illuminated balloons. On
the most auspicious evenings the spectacle thus created in the air
was extraordinary, and the elements of a new expensive entertainment
added another wonderment to the extravagance and exhilaration of the
city’s tempestuous life. Many of these balloons were used by the
public, and what were termed “aeronauticals,” were popular excursions
through the atmospheric regions over the city, and the surrounding
country. The balloons could be hired, carrying parties of not more
than six, and they were taken at stations called “levitories.” These
were large—usually square—enclosures, in which the balloons were
stalled. Here they were inflated, repaired, and prepared for use.
They were known also as Zeppelins, from the count of that name who
had in Germany, at the beginning of the twentieth century, made
his excursion in the air in this manner. An attached car suspended
behind the operator of the balloon (himself in the elevated “pilot”)
accommodated the travellers, an apparatus of revolving fans propelled
it, and a steering gear of simple efficacy turned and wheeled it
through the invisible thoroughfares of the air.
The happy chance came when Ned was able to invite his friend Tom to
take one of these aerial trips and to both the young men the thought
came instantly that the trip would be of incomparable charm if the
ladies of their hearts accompanied them. Thus alone, in the circling
heights of the star covered sky, their loves would take new delights.
It certainly was a pretty thought, and Tom pronounced it “stunning,”
which gave Ned much pleasure as he had an immeasurable estimate of
Tom’s opinion, and he knew that Tom had repulsed him after that
dreadful night at the Suicidarium. So it was done. Ned got the
permission to use one of the balloons at the “Zeppelin” to which he
was attached, and the time was settled, and Tom, after much timorous
reproaches from Jessie, and a sinking in her heart that it would
somehow turn out badly made the appointment. Miss Delia Mutchler
was a bit frightened at the thought, but quite incompetent to think
of anything else for weeks, and uttered such ecstatic tributes to
Ned’s generosity and goodness that that overjoyed gentleman found
it necessary to relieve his feelings by pointing out the fact that
his wages would permit them to be married sooner than had seemed
reasonable. And then he surrendered himself to such a masterful
exhibition of osculation as to extort from the usually insatiable
Delia the remark;
“Neddy you’re just a kissing machine, and it’s not me that’s going to
have my mouth blistered with your smacks;” and then, as the wrathful
Neddy started to his feet: “Well, a dozen more Neddy for good
measure, and I’ll not miss them, dearest.”
The party made their _rendez-vous_ at a Zeppelin in the Bronx, not
far from the edge of the Zoological Park. The little group stared
a few moments at the brick walls of the balloon-house. Gas jets,
stuck out of its walls, vaguely illuminated its leviathan size, but
some three stories above they descried the huge iron and wooden
doors which sloped together like a roof, when closed, opening by
counter weights, running on steel columns outside, a curious grim
construction which made Jessie shudder a little, as she drew Tom’s
arm closer to her side, and gave the nonchalant Delia a squeamish
feeling of a difficult adventure. As they came round to the front
entrance of the “barn,” a swirling humming noise, a throbbing
methodical rhythm, as of beating fans, struck their ears, and the
light from within flamed through the crevices of the doorway, and
through the two windows in front, and the peering visitors saw the
inner rooms filled with moving figures, while a voice giving orders,
elicited various responses among them as they here and there adjusted
ropes, wires, and rods.
The light within the enclosure came from hissing flaring gas flames,
and this light, almost all placed below, threw upward a pale
penumbral illumination over the enormous shape above, swaying heavily
with an imminent expression of suddenly losing patience, and freeing
itself with a monstrous spasm to leap to its wide home in the skies.
It was an enormous bulk; depending cables of rope and rods of steel
held two platforms, one arranged like a cushioned box, the other
holding the chair of the operator. Its monstrous size resembled some
colossal cigar, and around it, clasping it like giant bracelets
were five rings of electric lamps. Above and below the slopes which
defined its forward and backwards ends, were also placed four strong
lamps with reflectors. All of these lamps were fed from an electric
battery on the operator’s platform, and could be turned off and
on, with the lever of a switch. Thus designed the aerial boat swam
in the atmosphere like a shooting column of light, some translated
phosphorescent ascidian from the deep, and, when the lights on
some fabrics were variegated in colors, the strange shimmering and
scudding object, in the night, became a fantastic whisking prism.
None of these lamps were illuminated as the friends entered the
doorway, and the whole mass over their heads, inertly slumberous and
yet stirring with wheezing oscillations, looked dark and dangerous.
Ned had made arrangements for the service of an operator so that he
and Tom and their companions might enjoy uninterruptedly the pleasant
frolic. Everything was in readiness, the balloon filled, the fans
in working order, while the dead still night auspiciously augured a
successful trip. The balloon was released, slightly slipping upward
along steel guides with a rasping groan, and the passenger car was
attached, the operator took his place, and the party of merry-makers,
with little shrieks from Delia, and subdued exclamations of wonder
from Jessie gathered quickly in the comfortable roofless car with
its windowed sides, while almost at the same moment with a few gaspy
creaks the whole monster rose softly, and like a cloud was lifted
above the barn, through the wide open roof, and floated like a
gigantic thistle down into the amazing beauty of the night.
How wonderful it was; Suddenly the lamps upon the great drum over
their heads flashed upon the eyes of the voyagers, a shrill piping
whistle announced the flight, and upward with broad curves, swinging
right and left, the machine accomplished its magic circuit through
the sky. Higher and higher, the delicious warm air fanning their
cheeks, the infinite delicate splendor of the city beneath them,
and far and far away the veiled country-sides sprinkled and pricked
with lights. It was like passing into a world of unearthly things,
and the charmed Jessie and stunned Delia with Tom—the affair was
not so uncommon to Ned—were silenced into admiration of the strange
experience.
And, as they turned from side to side, watching the shifting features
below them, darts of moving lights swept from the same earth,
announcing the arrival into the fields of the air of new phantoms
like themselves. These increased in numbers. The time was propitious,
and ascending from the nether shades, like immense glowing insects
the luminous bodies stole in from all quarters crossing and
recrossing, dipping and bending, swooping here with awful speed, and
there as if becalmed, swept by the mild currents of the atmosphere,
alone, when, as it often happened, songs and music issued from the
balancing cars until—it seemed so to Jessie and Tom—they had become a
part of some heavenly realm.
For some time they kept in with the sporting crowd of vessels,
sailing up and down over the spread chromosphere of the great city so
far below. They slid upward upon invisible runners far aloft, then
turned and launched backward, and down, with such impetuosity as to
draw from the girls faint cries, and a whistling wonder from the lips
of Tom.
It had grown to be July since Tom had reached New York, and the
nights were warm, though in the serene upper airs with salty
emanations from the sea sweeping over them the temperature was soft
and cooling, and—here was the wonder of it—it was the glorious
Fourth. It was amazing to note the city like a curdled pond of light
with disks, streams, undulations, spots, and dark clots in it. If
they approached it nearer a faint hum came to their ears; when they
rose high the antennae of lights stretched indefinitely off in skeins
of lines and braids. Now and then they caught the roar of an earth
train of cars, sometimes the chirp of a bird passed them in the sky,
and sometimes they ran through a cloud of insects. The wonderful
instrument obeyed every whim of its pilot, and followed the aerial
heights and depths as a ship rises and falls on the liquid hills of
the ocean.
The new moon blinked at them when they first started out, and it
somehow seemed a companion in the clouds, its golden crescent leaving
them at last over the vaporous edge of the swinging earth. They
mounted higher, and they shivered with a strange cosmic cold, the
tiny pavement of cirrus dipped cloudlets seemed just above them, and
the weirdness kept them still with amazement.
They all laughed when Jessie whispered; “Don’t let us leave the earth
yet,” and Tom swept her a little closer to himself and told her, “It
wouldn’t matter where they went as long as SHE was with them, and he
guessed it might be a little safer for both of them, if he and she
started out for another star,” which allusion to Poniatowsky brought
Jessie’s cheeks nearer to Tom, and then their lips touched, in which
mutual consolation they both attained a philosophic indifference to
Fate.
“Lor! But this is dandy,” exclaimed the suppressed Delia at length,
“Those scoops at Coney, and the Ferris Wheel aren’t in it. It sorter
makes my head go round and it’s just shivering cold,” to which
complaint Ned resorted to such readjustments of his arms as might
correct this inconvenience.
Again they fled from these heights to the warmer zones, and again
skimmed over the broad city, that bubbled below, and now, in the
darkening night began its wondrous celebration of the nation’s birth
day. Along the lines of increasing splendor, in all its functions,
the great city in the year 2000, had developed a regard for the
spectacular possibilities of the Fourth that made that day the climax
of the year’s shows. A southern temperament had stolen into the
city’s blood. It was hard to say exactly how it happened, unless
the settlement of French, and the expanding influence of the Italian
fusions, had effected it, but in all things artistic and ceremonial,
this American city attained vaster designs of beauty. Even the _Mardi
Gras_ had started its grotesque and glittering processions within New
York. Some affirmed that the milder climate had aided the aesthetic
regeneration, and others ruefully regretted a change, which began to
put on the city the semblance of an extravagant dissipation.
The exaltation of the Fourth began about the middle of the century,
about 1950, when it was proposed to give it a new official dignity
in the calendar of the city’s holidays. It was felt by some agitated
patriots that the great anniversary grew clouded in its meaning, that
the sense of it could be supremely accentuated by taking advantage of
the growing instincts for display, and making of the day a memorable
splash of splendor in the year. Subscriptions were opened, throughout
the year, and the money thus given with a liberal largess from the
city’s treasury, was devoted to the placement of marvellous firework
exhibitions. The occasion was really remarkable. Night and day were
given over to its celebration. A gorgeous procession filled up the
forenoon of the day; at noon the bands of the city played at all
available points for two hours; then succeeded a free performance at
the theatres of a play, usually patriotic, or quite as frequently
classic and elevating, some Shakespearean drama being performed
at the enormous auditorium built by the city for free educational
drama. And at night, after a furious cannonading, at nine o’clock the
pyrotechnic ebullition began.
The growing habit of “ballooning” made the precautions necessary, to
regulate, on the night of the Fourth of July, these aerial revellers,
and so a certain time was instituted for the beginning of the show.
All private pyrotechnics were discouraged or forbidden, and the
city turned out at night, the crowds threading their ways to the
point of display. The regulations for the balloons were for them to
remain at the elevation of one thousand feet, or to congregate over
the centre of the city, for the firework stands were placed around
the city, further towards its confines, and here they were set off
from tall towers. This permitted the air voyagers the advantage of
centering their barks over the centre of the city from which view
point the splendor of the spectacle grew enormously. The picture
above, below, was one of festal power. The city was illuminated,
the bells of the churches were rung in chimes at seven, the shining
balloons congregated over the central parts of the city, or far
above the range of rockets and starry exploding bombs, and at nine
of the evening, began the stupendous assault upon the skies, of
the ascending battalions of terrestrial meteors. The affair became
noteworthy throughout the country, and although imitated in many of
the larger cities, the New York outburst easily excelled the rest.
Strangers poured into the city, and the bonifaces of the metropolis
found it profitable for them to swell with liberal donations the
public funds for this dazzling function.
Ned Link’s party, in the midst of congregated equipages, was
floating, immobile, over the great middle districts of the city,
waiting for the imminent splendors that would soon terminate the
inordinate and ambitious day. A shout from the aerial sightseers
announced the first glimmerings of blue stars, rising into the
skies about the edges of the huge town. They sprouted up around the
cliffy congeries of buildings. For once the electric fervor in the
air died out, and the propitious suppression allowed the power of
the fireworks full sway. The blue stars crept higher, higher; they
fenced the horizon with spouting, azure, soaring, and eclipsing
flashes. It seemed as if the voyagers were enclosed in some enchanted
and deepening circle of light. Then suddenly above these first
reconnaissances of fire, rose swiftly, and with firm gushes of
spreading flakes of color, the sheaves of sky-rockets. They made a
higher fence than the first blue stars, and set in the dark sky a
tiara of thickly sprinkled jewels, borne like a crown by the imposing
and noble city. These flaming messengers dashed upon the blackness
of the night, the faint hiss of their ascent just heard, while, with
wayward and ever graceful vagaries of motion the speeding sparks shot
outward, mingling in chains of dropping, glowing, ashes.
The rocking flotilla in the summer air was encircled by the spouting
fires. Ever and anon some audacious blade of light seemed to hover
over them, and the descending sparks of the wooden bolt which had
risen with the rocket fell among them. Then there was a little
fright, and scared cries came from here and there to be succeeded the
next moments by shouts and exclamations of wonder, as fresh climbing
ladders of flame rose in the air. The third and most marvellous
stage of the show was reached when the enchanted margins of the wide
circle below them sent up the whizzing, whistling, bursting bombs.
The zenith seemed to rain stars, the pale orbs of the heavens were
extinguished, and a carpet of mixed lights was spread through the
sky, into which with sudden coruscations, at regular intervals,
sprang a sun-like meteor which scattered far and wide golden jets,
shafts of fiery fury that sped hither and thither eclipsing all their
colored companions, and looking like improvised suns, or perhaps
monstrous unfolding chrysanthemums of light, their sinuous petals
ejected from their centres, in writhing lines, each ended with a ball
of intenser gold.
Cheers broke from the hitherto stilled audience in the air, and it
was reechoed from the earth, where thousands stood in the blackness
far underneath; it seemed as if some elemental stage of creation
was going on around them, or as if the ruptured earth was vomiting
its interior fires upward from its burning depths, and they stayed
within the centre of its belching energy. It was indeed altogether
wonderful, and Tom and Jessie felt its scenic majesty, while the
less responsible Delia and the idle-hearted Ned, spent themselves
in gurgles and exclamations. Suddenly again it was inky black about
them; not a spark lingered in the tired air. It was the theatrical
prelude to the last astonishment. The dead silence accorded with the
emptiness of sky, and then without announcement, without sound, there
stole upward from the towers, the shrubby Bengal lights, blue, green,
and red, like funeral pyres on the horizon. They sprouted and fumed,
and cast a strange reverberant patchwork of colors on the black
background, and then behind them, so it seemed, a higher erection of
pale purple lights strove outward like quickening ghosts, speeding
high, quivering and falling down, towering at this point, and anon
declining into fringes of light simply. Then came a wizard mixture
of bombs and rockets, and weird shrieking sticks of flame, the whole
medley in flowery confusion embroidering the sky with arabesques and
patterns, and then the hastened climax ended all. The bridges of
the city crossing the enclosing channels of the Hudson and the East
river flashed into sight as pendulous girdles of flickering, dancing,
mobile gold. It was most superb. The transporting beauty of it, the
sudden elation of it, the compelling splendor and the fairy opulence!
Beneath its radiance the city shone, its multiplied structure rose
startlingly, its serrations along the edges looked like huge saw
teeth, and the reflecting roofs glistened liquidly, while, as the
illumination died away, with hiss and smoke and the wafted smells of
powder filled the air, the electric lights slowly raised their heads,
as it were, again, and the penumbral glows succeeded, and the great
display was a memory.
The aerial equipages moved away this way and that, their resuscitated
lamps gleaming as they scattered off like gigantic fire-flies, most
of them descending to the earth, and some bent on a night’s sport,
soaring up, while numbers from surrounding towns shot hither and
thither, back to their resting places in New Jersey, Connecticut, and
the north. A few distant lightning flashes shown on the gathered
clouds, and faint low rumbles told of thickening thunder storms.
“What do you say to a run to the end of the island—I mean Long
Island—then a dip out to sea, and back again by the Narrows. It’s a
good night and our lunch baskets are full?” It was Ned’s voice that
made the proposal and there was an instant’s silence. It appeared too
risky. The man at the motor yelled something back to them that he
would take them home if they wanted to return, or would he turn the
ship and give them a longer sail?
“Come,” reiterated Ned, “it’s a splendid night and so still and
then—the girls;” but it was just the girls who were driven into sharp
spasms over the novelty of doing it. Jessie was really anxious about
going back, and Delia was frankly frightened. Ned had telephoned back
to the man, and the balloon was headed for the Sound. It sailed low
and the steamers could be made out as streaks of light on the sooty
waters. The motion was delightful, the spread world, over which their
winnowing way like a bird’s flight led, was specked with villages
and towns and—well the expostulations were overcome; Tom promised it
would be “all right,” and Ned soothed Delia into a charmed consent.
Away they went, the churning fans shot them on, and the sea air soon
blew in their faces. The outlying edges of Brooklyn were being left,
and the spangled ground, diapered with lamps, caught up into clots
and then spilled over the flat plane in twinkling lines, came into
view indistinctly, for they were flying low. A moan and the machine
with a half sickening dip swept upward, and the air grew chillier,
the stars came nearer, and far away on the dark rim of the world
sheet lightnings played again, and a rattle in the rigging of the
boat, was premonitory of a coming squall, perhaps, though Ned said;
“Humbug! no storm to-night. Anyhow we can beat round the island, and
win out at the start, before the wind stirs a ripple on the ocean.”
He called again to the sky skipper, and the scudding fans took on
a swifter motion, as a slight droning hum broke out from them, and
with a start the ship scudded like some fleeing bird over the land,
past Hempstead plains, a little web of light, past the wrinkled
shores of Northport, on—, on—, over the spark dotted outlines of Lake
Ronkonkoma, and swerving again to the hoarse shores over Patchogue,
to domiciled Moriches, over Eastport and West Hampton, with midnight
ringing out from its tall steeples; closer to the ground by the
Shinnecock Hills, where the roosters sent up to them their morning
cheer; again across the island to Orient, sleeping in the dark with a
returning dash on the wings of the wind to Riverhead, where Chalmers
lived and died; again with a turn that made their heads spin across
Peconic Bay, over Shelter Island and Sag Harbor to East Hampton, and
Amagansett, yet dreaming on its watery hills, the rest and haven of
artists, and then, with a tearing gait that made the machinery rip
and whistle, and shook them as they dashed against the inrushing
winds, to Montauk Point, where wharves, lined in lights, told the
sharp story of change, for now the steamers from Europe made this
their “touchdown,” and the emigrant and tourist was whisked across
Long Island to New York.
It was time to turn back, it was no longer certain that the night
would remain clear; the rumblings had increased, and from the caverns
of the east and south sprang forks of lightning. The girls were now a
little appalled, and Tom felt that they must make a run for it. Ned
told the driver to keep out to sea, and along the shore, and with the
wind behind them they went forward furiously.
But, quicker than they, came the hurrying storm, and the piled
clouds seemed to stand in their way like black buttresses, spitting
fire. The gloom encircled them; they suddenly tossed and spun like
a top in a whirlpool of currents. There was consternation, and, for
a moment only, indecision, then Ned roared through the “phone” to
lighten up and ascend, and the next instant with wheeze and crack,
the gray hulk pushed upward through what seemed a sort of atmospheric
funnel, while buffeting winds slapped the voyagers in the face, and
the rocking balloon, pitched hither and thither, sometimes actually
whirled around in circles, that threatened to rupture and destroy
her. But with a sort of obstinate energy it pushed its way through
seething clouds, amid a crashing report of thunder and the tracery
gleamings of lightning.
The rain splashed upon them in bucketfulls, and plugs on the floor
of the basket were removed to let the deluge escape; but the ascent
continued, while the little party crouched and clung together in a
very real terror. At a moment when deliverance seemed impossible, and
the darkness closed in upon them closer, while the billows of air
spun their craft around and jerked it here and there, and the ominous
chafing of the cables promised some sudden separation of the wheeling
and shivering carriage in which they rode, and a stern chilling frost
made itself felt in the rattling hail—at that very moment, when Tom’s
stout heart quailed, and the girls had fainted, and Ned clung to the
reeling seats, the nose of the ship issued into ether above all the
disturbance, and the staunch vehicle floated again on even keel in a
splendid radiance of stars. It was a miracle of change. They looked
down upon a surface like the surges of an angry ocean, a vortex of
colliding vapors, rent with seams of light, and belching thunders.
The stunned travellers aroused themselves, and Tom and Ned set about
resuscitating their frightened friends, when suddenly a heavy dark
object shot to their feet, and on the floor of the cage they saw
with horror, the crimped and curled form of the stricken pilot of
the balloon. They had almost forgotten him in their own excitement,
although Ned had noticed that he was swaying at his post. He might
indeed have missed falling on the lower compartment, and dropped
instead plump to the earth, had not a tilted position of the balloon
actually brought him above the under car. There he lay unconscious.
It was a desperate position, the soaring machine unguided, forcing
its way on undirected, and the man at their feet who had controlled
its wheel, tossed from his seat, overcome and possibly dying. A cry
broke from the terror stricken group.
Ned cast a sharp glance overhead, and saw that the platform of the
pilot was unharmed. _But it was empty._ Could he reach it? Tom bent
over the unconscious motorist and found him injured, but alive. He
moaned in pain and cried out as his limp form was moved. It was too
evident that some bones were broken, and Tom seized some of the
blankets and rugs, made an improvised bed, and then gave the sinking
man some of the wine they had fortunately provided themselves with,
as Ned knew the cold they might encounter.
All were now startled into attention by their singular predicament
and all looked to Ned for the next move. They were not long left
in doubt as to his intentions. He told them he must ascend to the
deserted platform. It was a hard, it seemed an impossible attempt,
but there was nothing else for it. As it was, they were drifting on a
pathless ocean, and actually headed away from the mainland. Tom and
Ned both knew the situation meant their eventual destruction, and
both grew pale with dread, and the poor women strained every nerve to
keep their consciousness.
Could he climb to the deserted seat by the cables and attachments of
the car? The conditions were favorable. The air was quiet, and the
unjostled framework permitted perhaps the dangerous enterprise. And
yet—there appeared to be one chance. The travelling car was swung
on chains from the central body of the balloon, and quite detached
from the platform of the pilot, that occupied a forward place, and
was itself fastened by iron rods to the gas-tank. There was but one
connection from the car to the steering platform, and that hardly
promised assistance. It was the chain that carried the telephone
wire from one to the other. The chain was moderately stout. It looked
serviceable; but was it? It could be tested. Then one other thought
suggested itself to the anxious scrutiny of Ned, standing stiffly
there in the strange exigency of a peril that was to him much more
like death than the painted shows which he had watched, wherein
indeed so many foolish hearts had quit the world.
This other way of possible rescue was to creep up along the heavier
cables holding the car, to the body of the equipage, insert himself
among the binding cordage around the cylinder of the balloon, twist
somehow through them to the part of the body immediately over the
platform, and drop there to the pilot. There was his own strength and
skill to be considered, and the measure of both required by the two
methods. This gave him pause, and Tom quickly realized the dilemma,
and estimated the balancing possibilities.
Both men strained their eyes to follow the chain up to its fastenings
on the platform, but into the darkness the links of steel slipped
away, and they could not see their continuity more than a few feet.
“Let’s pull it, and find out how it holds,” whispered Tom, and the
women stood up behind them listening too, and watching with blanched
faces. For them the ordeal was breaking, but while Delia moaned,
Jessie was silent. Tom and Ned pulled, at first easily, and then more
strongly, until they pressed almost their full strength on the chain.
It held. Ned was the first to speak;
“Yes. This is the way. I’ll try it Tom. It’s this or nothing. All the
control is up on that platform, and we can do nothing here. Give me a
drink and up I go and—Goodbye.”
The whisky flask was produced, and Ned took a fillip, but he had
scarcely handed the glass back to Tom, when the motionless figure of
the man at their feet stirred, and a voice spoke;
“Play out the chain its whole length, and slip off the edge of the
car; let one man hold the slack, and then you’ll get a straight pull
and go up hand over hand to the pilot. The chain will stand it. I
know,” and with a groan the voice ceased, and Tom and Ned without
looking at the sufferer, prepared to obey his instructions. First
Tom rubbed Ned’s hands until they burned; Ned in spite of the cold,
stripped off his coat, but underneath was a cardigan, which might
suffice to keep out the creeping chill. Tom told the girls to take
their seats, and then he opened the door of one side of the enclosing
framework of the car, and Ned seized the coiled chain at a sufficient
distance to allow him to drop about vertically underneath the pilot
while Tom caught the links beyond him, and they approached to the
dreadful edge of the softly swaying car. No word was spoken, and Ned
hung his legs off into space, slowly moving outward while Tom firmly
held the chain, and so lowered him. It was well done, and Ned hanging
in mid-air seemed like a long plumb-bob, just faintly visible. Then
the voice spoke again, the voice of the maimed man on the floor;
“You can touch up those lights from the car. There’s a wire at
this end of the car, that is tied to the lever of the switch. That
will give you more light. I turned them off when the squall struck
us.” But Tom was afraid to move to do this. The sudden afflux of
light where all had been previously half dark might so startle the
suspended man, that he would lose his steadfastness and fall. And
yet Tom felt the value of the suggestion, as the light flowing down
from the lamps above, would give Ned courage, and make the task less
awful, besides the material benefit of showing him better what he
was doing. Wavering for an instant as to what he should do, his ears
heard Ned’s voice calling him to him; “Pull me back! back! quick!”
Tom caught the chain, and gently, without any shock, hauled Ned back
to the car, on which the brave boy scrambled.
“What was it?” asked the wondering Tom.
“It’s too cold for my fingers. They’ll stiffen and drop me. The chain
is like ice. You’ve got some gloves here, cut off the fingers, and
put them on mine. All I want is the tips. My hand is good for the
job.”
Tom had a pair of old kid gloves in his pocket, and these were
quickly cut and fixed upon the ends of Ned’s fingers, and once again
the two approached to the edge of the car, and Ned prepared to
launch himself into the darkling air. But before this Tom had told
him of the communication of the wire to the lever of the lamps, and
Ned assented to have it pulled. The test was made, and indeed the
circle of lights above, on the lower sides of the great body of the
balloon, flashed into action, and the descending light softly bathed
the anxious group, and glinted on the hanging chain, and lost itself
in the dark abysses below, where yet the reverberations of the storm
lingered, and the shattered clouds pulsated with occasional strokes
of lightning.
Ned slid off, slowly allowed by Tom to reach a straight position
under the pilot and when this was done, the pull up began, and hand
over hand he ascended. Tom watched him with his heart in his mouth,
but with such a glow of delight in his splendid courage! Up—up—he
went. He was nearing the pilot and Tom could scarcely keep his voice,
it seemed so certain he would reach it, and succeed. But, no! he
stopped, and Tom could see that Ned had raised his head, Oh! so very
slowly—and peeked over to the platform, almost on the level of his
face; Tom thought he heard a cry, and then—my God!—the chain fell,
past him, its end dangling in the fathomless atmosphere, while its
weight dragging on the unspent portion in the car rattled the links
about Tom’s feet.
Tom’s eyes had followed the chain in its fall, but though he peered
over the sickening side below him, in the cones of light thrown by
the electric lamps, he caught no sight of the hurled body of his
companion. Had Ned been able to have held on to the chain, the
flight downward and the sharp arrest at its end would have wrenched
him away and shot him pitilessly to the earth. Tom dreaded to raise
his head, for one moment he pressed his hands over his face, and a
queer tearing shiver passed through his body, and then—
In that moment the girls had gathered about Tom. They had understood
the attempt Ned was to make, and instead now of crouching against
each other in a sort of swooning, convulsed embrace, they had watched
with eager strained eyes the whole effort. They had seen the loosened
chain, the cautiously disappearing body of their friend over the
boarded margin of the car, they had even held their gaze fixed upon
Ned there in the cold boundless air, and had followed him inch by
inch as he rose above them towards that haven of safely—the pilot.
Nor were they the only watchers. The poor fellow who had felt the
slip, as of a push to eternity, from his high perch, he too had
lifted his eyes, and forgot his broken leg as he noted each instant
of the perilous, blood curdling creep, up the glistening links of
the chain. He had even drawn himself up to Tom, and so the little
population of that speck of earth, winging its way through the
infinite void, caught there with one shuddering hope of returning to
the dear sunlight and the fair plains of the world, fixed upon Ned
their hopes and prayers, and Ned—!
Tom pulled himself together, the horrible fancy of Ned falling,
falling, falling, through that hideous depth, and plunging a
dashed mass of bones on the hard earth, had almost turned him into
a faint—slowly he too raised his eyes again upward, to where a
second—it seemed to him an age—before, he had caught the scared stare
of dear Ned. He looked and there—was Ned scrambling on the pilot;
without a word Tom hauled in the hanging chain, and when its end
appeared, he saw a BROKEN LINK. Ned had seen it too—seen it before
its treacherous sundering had come, and it was in that awful glance
that Tom caught his stare, and the sudden stoppage of his ascent.
But quicker than Tom could watch, quicker than the fickle iron could
part, Ned had snatched with one hand a stanchion on the pilot and, as
the chain left him, twitching and rustling against his body, he hung
to the support, and for one minute swayed in the vast gulf, unable to
rise.
The next, with all the terrified impulse of his good strength, he
hauled himself up, and with the disengaged hand seized another rod
on the pilot and thus anchored, managed to pull his body up on the
floor. He was pretty well done up. The strain had been awful. He
felt the cold too, though the exertion had done something to rouse
the currents of his blood and, luckily enough, the party had been
well provided with food. Once on the pilot Ned felt the danger of
succumbing to the reaction. His senses were dizzy, and it was hard
for him to think. A mental effort as powerful in its way as the
muscular one which had brought him there was necessary, and Ned made
it. And then things came easier. He knew the work, and seized the
levers.
But where were they? Was New York to the north, south, east or west.
In their wild ascent from the storm clouds and the drifting of the
ship, direction had been lost, and at the height it was impossible
to make out the configuration of the surfaces beneath them. Here was
a new perplexity. The propellers kept up their interminable beating,
and the aerial boat still fanned its way amid the stars. Ned stopped
the machinery, and made some preparations for his own comfort. His
friends who had glued their ravished eyes upon him were hailing him
faintly, and he could hear Tom’s voice above them;
“Ned throw us a line, and we’ll pack a few things together and your
coat, and—Simpson says, turn the ship around—and beat north.”
Ned had already consulted the Barometer and found out their
elevation—2500 feet. They must drop. He looked around him in the
pilot and found an assortment of lines, tools, and fortunately the
compass stand, which had been knocked down, with its dial unbroken.
The telephone connexion with the car had been ruptured by the fall of
the carrying chain, and Ned wondered if he could get a line to the
car. It was less easy to call to his companions than it was for them
to speak to him. He concluded to spare his breath. Rummaging about
he found an air-line-thrower, a small affair modeled after the life
saving machines. It did not take long for him to rig this in position
and fire a line over the car; Tom caught it, tied it fast, and he and
the girls set about making up a parcel of comforting things, among
which wine and whisky were not forgotten. It was soon got ready, and
waving to Ned—the parties on either side of the air gulf could see
each other by reason of the electric lamps—the burden of delights
was launched into the space, and Ned pulled it in. Ned got his coat,
and after a replenishment that gave him strength and courage, again
turned to the serious matter of getting back to New York.
The balloon had fallen some thousand feet, but beneath them nothing
but darkness reigned, even the glasses showed nothing, and Ned peered
through them a long time. It was warmer and altogether the marooned
party felt greatly encouraged. Tom turned his attention to Simpson
again, and succeeded in making the poor fellow more comfortable
while he got from him his idea as to where they might then be, and
how he came to fall out of the pilot. Simpson said that when the
squall struck them, he had been blinded by the lightning, and in the
flight up through the fitful howling tempest, he had been seized
with a chill; after that he knew nothing, till he found himself
stunned on the floor of the car; as to where they were he was certain
that the balloon had been sheered to sea, and that every minute was
taking them over the ocean and away from the city. Ned had turned
the vehicle, and was running slowly, watching intently, for the
manifestations of life below them, the compass pointed north, and in
that direction they were now sailing.
“Oh, I see lights way down;” it was the soft voice of Jessie, and the
eyes of her companions followed hers, and there indeed a long string
of pin point lights emerged in the night, and they grew stronger,
larger, steadier. It was one of the enormous steamers that brought
Europe to New York in three days. Ned had already detected the
leviathan, and he found out the balloon was sinking. Was it falling
in the track of the steamer? Was it falling on it? A second later and
the hoarse whistle of the huge barge below them sounded excitedly,
then they all could hear voices, orders, cries, a confused tumult
of sound, while the hoarse whistle swelled into a fierce revolting
protest; its harsh, straining, shivering huskiness seemed to hit the
very side of their car, and then more voices rose, volleys of calls;
the voyagers could hear the sough of the engines, they caught the
smells of smoke and habitation, and then the whole colossus sprang
into sight, a wavy broken terrace and pyramid of lights.
It was evident that the apparition of the descending aeronauts had
started all the activities of the great steamer, while it also became
clear that the cabins and berths were being emptied, and that the
rumor of the falling balloon had penetrated throughout the vessel,
for the storm of exclamations and outcries, not free from shouts
of alarm, showed that the floating population below them was all
aroused. Then through the commotion and buzz came the heavy calls of
the megaphone;
“Hold hard there. Keep on the centre. Fall abaft the stacks. Mind
all,” and then succeeded a sound of terrific scrambling, then crash
upon crash as the great mass of the balloon bodily drifted and fell
on the deck of the steamer. The occupants of the disabled “Chariot
of Flight” had not been without danger. As the balloon came down to
the deck of the steamer, which had ceased its motion, the car struck
the upper works of the vessel first, and, with a slow settling
oscillation, rubbed along the decks and finally hung fast. Before
this Tom had extricated his charges easily, leaping out of the car
first himself, and helping them. Then he succeeded in dragging
Simpson over the edge, and with help from the crowding crew of the
steamer got him away. Ned had soon jumped to the deck, and none too
soon, as the overhanging bulk then descended, thudding the deck,
splintering rods, pins, rails, seats, nettings, and cracking with a
few subsiding thumps the deck itself. When Ned saw the inevitable
collision he had opened the valves, and thus hastened the descent.
It also robbed the balloon of all possibility of motion, and so,
at last, the long cylinder lay on the upper decks of the steamer,
its axis parallel with that of the big liner. Taken altogether the
outcome of the affair was a matter of congratulation.
The captain took Ned and Tom to his cabin, and heard their story. He
was very grave at first, and muttered some remarks about “a piece
of damned hoodlumism,” but he softened at length, after learning no
extensive damage had been done, and seeing the forlorn state of mind
of the poor fellows, who now looked forward to some rasping rebukes,
and no little loss of prestige. Tom was a little moody over it, but
Ned more philosophically resigned himself, and began calculating the
damages. They turned out to be considerable, and this was depressing,
and then to Tom the outcome was in a measure disgraceful, and the
whole aspect of the diversion might seem reprehensible. They should
have returned after the fireworks, and not attempted the long
unnecessary trip. It was altogether disagreeable and discomforting.
Jessie and Delia felt shamefaced about it, and their position on the
steamer was unpleasant. It turned out that the balloonists had gotten
far out to seaward, in the line of the incoming steamers, and that
they were, when the balloon gave out, heading for Sandy Hook. That
morning the steamer entered the harbor, and the strange outlines of
the recumbent balloon on its decks was hailed with wonder by the
ships, tugs and ferry boats of the bay.
But the early morning breakfasters in the restaurants, and later the
sober faced citizens, at their morning meal, found the entertaining
tale in the papers, all served up hot and racy, sent before the
strangely loaded steamer, by “_wireless_” to the eager journals. None
perused the strange story more wonderingly than the Mayor and Mr.
Briggs, and none with the rage and threatening menaces of Poniatowsky
and Longtinsky. Some settlements and readjustments were inevitable.
“Damnation! I knew it,” howled Poniatowsky into the dismayed face of
Longtinsky, “that poodled-faced Ratler has been playing his tricks
here. That’s plain. And you’ve been fooled, led by the ear like a
stuck pig. Damn it, I’ll kill both of them. Why—”
“Pony you’re crazy. I tell you that the girl has been led into this
naturally enough. They went up on the Fourth to see the show, and
then they went off for a lark. Not her fault, I know Jessie has been
overpersuaded. Don’t lose your wits. Kill Tom Ratler;—yes to—with
him—kill the Mayor, kill Helen Lorimer,” and the disfigured face
darkened with hate, “they’re all your enemies—mine too—but Jessie
is yours, all yours then. Can’t you put two and two together. We’re
in this for keeps. The trial comes off in a little more than three
months. Don’t spill the mill now. Things are working our way. The
Beehive is at work. If we can make our strike before Helen Lorimer
gets the turn on us, and stands for more to our people than we do—all
a damned bluff, a game of hoodwink—why then—then—we’ll get out of
this.”
“Mean it?” and the furious deceived lover seized Longtinsky at his
burly neck and gave that discomforted gentleman another sharp fright,
after his frequent fashion.
“Mean it; of course I do. You know that. We’re swimming together,
Pony, for the same shore, we neither of us can go on alone”—and yet
while he said it, the soothing speaker felt that the time must
soon come when he could disentangle himself from this tiresome and
dangerous alliance; an alliance good enough for his purposes now, but
later, FORCIBLY to be dissolved.
Longtinsky persuaded—with difficulty—Pony to let him talk alone with
Jessie, promising to put a better guard on her goings and comings
and this time he was hard and bitter with his daughter. Jessie
was genuinely contrite, and her marketings on the west side were
summarily stopped, but the love she felt for Tom was as bright as
ever, as strong, as sure, and so, with Juliet’s, “as boundless as the
sea.”
Tom was himself in some dispraise, and worried with misgivings. Of
course there were explanations, and they were accepted, though Tom
felt himself resting in a shadow, and it tormented him. He looked
eagerly for the time to come when he might redeem himself.
Ned’s employers found a most unexpected source of profit in the
misadventure, more than enough to compensate for the damages
incurred. This came about through the merited publicity given to
Ned’s heroism. The exploit was well told in a dozen different ways,
and it so enhanced Ned’s reputation that he became a lion, and
the crowds that now resorted to the Zeppelin, whence the unhappy
experience began, were almost emulous to take the excursions with
so famous and brave an aeronaut. The receipts climbed up, and the
happy owners of the balloon and of Ned, forgave him all, made him a
feature, and pocketed their swelling revenues, without disparagement,
even with many secret self felicitations that it happened as it did.
Delia’s admiration for her beau—the comely Ned—became almost
delirious, and as she basked in his reflected glory, she assumed new
airs, and, as they too became her, Ned was himself more inextricably
entangled in his love, his reputation, and the assured bliss of a
hastened marriage.
From it all Tom and Jessie had the most to regret. Jessie’s
reprimands had been harsh, and she was now effectively guarded, for
the infuriated Poniatowsky took upon himself a careful watch, his
moody and sullen spirit hovering with a murderous menace over the
least effort of Jessie’s to see her lover. Not indeed that they did
not hear from each other, nor that they did not see each other. Their
loves became more indomitable and absorbing, it became that “madness
most discreet,” which found ways and means that even a Poniatowsky
and a Longtinsky could not circumvent or challenge. And as for the
man who suffered the only physical injury, poor Simpson mended and
got well.