AT Königsberg, which was reached in nine hours after leaving London,
that is to say, soon after seven o’clock in the evening, the Eastern
express divided: five of the cars went northward to St. Petersburg,
carrying those passengers who were going to participate in the Winter
Festival, while the other five which made up the train went on to
Moscow and the East.
During the twenty minutes’ stop at Berlin, Olga had found an
opportunity of having a few words in private with Serge, and had
succeeded in persuading him, much against his will, of the necessity of
postponing their marriage, and therefore their visit to Moscow, for the
execution of a daring and suddenly-conceived plan which she had thought
out, but which she had then no time to explain to him.
Serge, though very loath to postpone even for a day or two the
consummation of his hopes and the hour which should make Olga
irrevocably his, so far as human laws could bind her to him, was so far
under the domination of her imperious will that, as soon as he saw that
she had determined to have her own way, he yielded with the best grace
he could.
Olga chided him gently and yet earnestly for his outbreak of temper
towards Alan, and told him plainly that, where such tremendous
issues were concerned as those which were involved in the struggle
which sooner or later they must wage with the Aerians, no personal
considerations whatever could be permitted a moment’s serious thought.
If she could sacrifice her own feelings, and disguise her hatred of the
tyrants of the world under the mask of friendliness, for the sake of
the ends to which both their lives were devoted, surely he, if he were
at all worthy of her love, could so far trust her as to restrain the
unreasoning jealousy of which he had already been guilty.
Either, she told him, he must trust to her absolutely for the present,
or he must take the management of affairs into his own hands; and,
as she said in conclusion, he must find some influence stronger than
hers in their dealings with him who would one day be the ruler of
Aeria, and, therefore, the real master of the world, should it ever be
possible to dispute the empire of Earth with the Aerians.
From the influence which she exercised over himself, Serge knew only
too well that he could not hope to rival her in this regard where a man
was concerned, and so he perforce agreed to her proposal, and for the
present left the conduct of affairs in her hands.
A telephonic message was therefore sent from Königsberg to the friends
who expected them at Vorobièvŏ, near Moscow, to tell them of the
change in their plans; and when the train once more glided out over the
frozen plains of the North, the four were once more seated together in
the brilliantly-lighted car, which flashed like a meteor through the
gathering darkness of the winter’s night.
About half an hour after they had passed what had once been the
jealously-guarded Russian frontier, a dazzling gleam of light suddenly
blazed down from the black darkness overhead, and Olga, who was sitting
by one of the windows of the car, bent forward and said--
“Look there! What is that? There is a bright light shining down out of
the clouds on the train.”
Alan saw the flash across the window, and, without even troubling to
look up at its source, said--
“Oh, I suppose that’ll be the air-ship that was ordered to meet us at
St. Petersburg. You know, we usually have one of them in attendance,
when we trust ourselves alone among our possible enemies of the outer
world.”
The last sentence was spoken with a quiet irony, which brought home
both to Olga and Serge the not very pleasant conviction that their
previous conversation had by no means been forgotten. Serge, perhaps
fearing to give utterance to his thoughts, remained silent, but Olga
looked at Alan with a half-saucy smile, and said almost mockingly--
“Your Majesties of Aeria may well esteem yourselves impregnable, while
you have such a bodyguard as that at your beck and call. I suppose that
air-ship would not have the slightest difficulty in blowing this train,
and all it contains, off the face of the earth at a moment’s notice, if
it had orders to do so?”
“Not the slightest,” said Alan quietly. “But in proof of the fact that
it has no such hostile intentions, you shall, if you please, take
a voyage beyond the clouds in it the day after to-morrow, from St.
Petersburg.”
“What!” said Olga, her cheeks flushing and her eyes lighting up at the
very idea of such an experience. “Do you really mean to say that you
would permit a daughter of the earth, as I am told you call the women
who have not the good fortune to be born in Aeria, to go on board one
of those wonderful air-ships of yours, and taste the forbidden delights
of spurning the earth and sharing, even for an hour, your Empire of the
Air?”
“Why not?” replied Alan, with a laugh. “What harm would be done by
taking you for a trip beyond the clouds? We are not so selfish as all
that; and if the novel experience would give you any pleasure, we have
a perfect right to ask you to enjoy it. Will you come?”
“Surely there is scarcely any need for me to say ‘yes.’ Why, do you
know, I believe I would give five years of my life for as many hours on
board that air-ship of yours,” said Olga; “and if you will do as you
say, you will make me your debtor for ever. Indeed, how could a poor
earth-dweller such as I am repay a favour like that.”
“Ah, if only you were an Aerian, I should not have much difficulty in
telling you how you could do that,” retorted Alan, with almost boyish
candour. “As it is, I am afraid I must be satisfied for my reward with
the pleasure of knowing that I have given you a pleasurable experience.”
“Your Majesty has put that so prettily, that it almost atones for
the sense of hopeless inferiority which, I need hardly tell you, is
just a trifle bitter to my feminine pride,” said Olga, in the same
half-bantering tone she had used all along.
Before a reply had risen to Alan’s lips, the conversation was
interrupted by the air-ship suddenly swooping down from the clouds to
the level of the windows of the train, which was now flying along over
a wide, treeless plain at a speed of fully two hundred miles an hour.
As the search-lights of the aerial vessel flashed along the windows
of the cars, the blinds, which had been drawn down at nightfall, were
sprung up again by the passengers, who were all eager to get a glimpse
of one of the marvellous vessels which so rarely came within close view
of the dwellers upon earth.
The air-ship, on which all eyes were now bent with such intense
curiosity, was a beautifully-proportioned vessel, built chiefly of some
unknown metal, which shone with a brilliant, pale-blue lustre. Her hull
was about two hundred feet from stem to stern, not counting a long,
ramlike projection which stretched some twenty-five feet in front of
the stem, with its point level with the keel, or rather, with the three
keels,--the centre one shallow and the two others very deep,--which
were obviously shaped so as to enable the craft either to stand upright
on land or to sail upon the water if desired.
From each of her sides spread out two great wings, not unlike
palm-leaves in shape, measuring some hundred feet from point to point,
and about twice the width of the vessel’s deck, which was, as nearly as
could be judged, twenty feet amidships.
These wings were made of some white, lustrous material, which shone
with a somewhat more metallic sheen than silk would have done, and
were divided into a vast number of sections by transverse ribs. These
sections vibrated and undulated rhythmically from front to rear with
enormous rapidity, and evidently not only sustained the vessel in the
air, but also aided in her propulsion.
Three seemingly solid discs, which glittered brilliantly in the light
from the train, marked the positions of the air-ship’s propellers, of
which one revolved on a shaft in a straight line with the centre of
the deck, while the shafts of the other two were inclined outwards at
a slight angle from the middle line. From the deck rose three slender,
raking masts, apparently placed there for ornament rather than use,
unless indeed they were employed for signalling purposes.
The whole deck was covered completely from end to end by a curved roof
of glass, and formed a spacious chamber pervaded by a soft, diffused
light, the origin of which was invisible, and which showed about half
a dozen figures clad in the graceful costume of the Aerians, and all
wearing the headdress with golden wings. From under the domed, crystal
roof projected ten long, slender guns,--two over the bows, two over the
stern, and three over each side, at equal intervals.
Such was the wonderful craft which swept down from the darkness of the
wintry sky, in full view of the passengers in the cars, and lighted up
the snowy landscape for three or four miles ahead and astern with the
dazzling rays of her two search-lights.
Although, as has been said, the express was moving at quite two
hundred miles an hour, the air-ship swept up alongside it with as
much apparent ease as though it had been stationary. Amid the murmurs
of irrepressible admiration which greeted it from the passengers, it
glided smoothly nearer and nearer, until the side of one of its wings
was within ten feet of the car windows.
Alan and Alexis stood up and saluted their comrades on the deck, then
a few rapid, unintelligible signals made with the hand passed between
them, a parting salute was waved from the air-ship to the express; and
then, with a speed that seemed to rival that of the lightning-bolt, the
cruiser of the air darted forward and upward, and in ten seconds was
lost beyond the clouds.
“Well, now that you have seen one of our aerial fleet at close
quarters,” said Alan, turning to Olga and Serge, “what do you think of
her?”
“A miracle!” they both exclaimed in one breath; and then Olga went on,
her voice trembling with an irresistible agitation--
“I can hardly believe that such a marvel is the creation of merely
human genius. There is something appalling in the very idea of the
awful power lying in the hands of those who can create and command
such a vessel as that. You Aerians may well look down on us poor
earth-dwellers, for truly you have made yourselves as gods.”
She spoke earnestly, and for once with absolute honesty, for the
vision of the air-ship had awed her completely for the time being.
Alan appeared for the moment as a god in her eyes, until she saw his
lips curve in a very human smile, and heard his voice say, without the
slightest assumption of superiority in its tone--
“No, not as gods; but only as men who have developed under the most
favourable circumstances possible, and who have known how to make the
best of their advantages.”
“God or man,” said Olga in her soul, while her lips were smiling
acknowledgment of his modesty, “by this time to-morrow you shall be my
slave, and I will be mistress both of you and your air-ship!”