BREAKFAST passed off very pleasantly, and by the time it was over Serge
was upon much better terms with the two Aerians than he had been on the
previous day. He had taken Olga’s warning and appeal to heart, and he
had done so all the more easily for the reason that he felt somewhat
ashamed of himself for the ill-temper and bad manners of which he had
been guilty, and which their two new acquaintances had repaid with such
dignified courtesy and good humour.
His frankly-expressed apology was accepted with such perfect good
nature, unmixed with even a suspicion of condescension, that he felt at
ease with them at once, and even began to regret that his destiny made
it impossible for him to be their friend instead of their enemy.
The discussion of their plans for the day occupied the rest of
the meal. They had a whole twenty-four hours before them, for the
_Ithuriel_ would not be back from San Francisco, where she was going
when she passed the train, until ten o’clock on the following morning,
so it was arranged that they would begin the day with a sleigh drive--a
luxury which not even Aeria could afford,--then the two Aerians were to
see the sights of the city under the guidance of Olga and Serge, and
perform the chief of the duties that brought them to St. Petersburg.
After luncheon they were to have a couple of hours on the ice in the
park, into which the Yusupoff Gardens of the nineteenth century had
been expanded, after which they would see the ice palaces illuminated
at dusk, then dine, and finish the day at the opera. When the air-ship
arrived, a rapid flight was to be taken across Europe over the Alps
and back to Moscow, across Italy, Greece, and the Black Sea, which
would enable Alan and Alexis to deposit their guests with their Moscow
friends soon after nightfall.
The sleigh drive took the form of a race, on the plain stretching
towards Lake Ladoga, between the two troikas driven by Serge and Olga,
who had so managed matters that she had Alan for a companion, and who,
not a little to Serge’s disgust, won it, after a desperate struggle,
by a head. The race was a revelation to the two Aerians, and when Alan
handed Olga out of the sleigh after they had trotted quietly back to
the city, the interest which she had excited in him during the railway
journey had already begun to deepen into a sentiment much more pleasing
and dangerous.
The rest of the morning was devoted to driving about the city, and to
paying a visit to the ancient fortress of Peter and Paul, which alone
of all the fortress prisons of Russia had been preserved intact as
a fitting monument of fallen despotism and a warning to all future
generations. Once at least in his life every man in Aeria visited this
fortress, as good Moslems visit Mecca, and this was the duty which Alan
and Alexis were now performing.
In one of the horrible dungeons deep down in the foundations of the
fortress, under the waters of the Neva, they were shown a massive gold
plate riveted on to the rough, damp, stone wall. Its surface was kept
brightly polished, and it looked strangely incongruous with the gloom
and squalor of the cell. On it stood an inscription in platinum letters
let into the gold:
“_In this cell Israel di Murska, afterwards known as Natas, the Master
of the Terror, was imprisoned in the year 1881, previous to his exile
to Siberia by order of Alexander Romanoff the last of the Tyrants of
Russia._”
With feelings wide asunder as love and hate, or gratitude and revenge,
the descendant of Natas and the daughter of the Romanoffs stood in
front of this memorial plate, and read the simple and yet pregnant
words. Alan and Alexis both bent their heads as if in reverence for
a moment, but Olga and Serge gazed at it with heads erect and eyes
glowing with the fires of anger, in a silence that was broken by Alan
saying--
“Liberty surely never had a stranger temple than this, and yet this
dungeon is to us what the Tomb of the Prophet is to the Moslems. I
wonder what the Last of the Tsars would have thought if he could have
foreseen even a little part of all that sprang from the tragedy that
was begun in this dismal cell?”
“He would have killed him,” said Olga, carried away for the moment by
an irrepressible burst of passion, “and then there would have been no
Natas, no Terror, and no Terrorist air-fleet, and Alexander Romanoff
would have died master of the world instead of a chained felon in
Siberia! Your ancestor, Richard Arnold, would have starved in his
garret, or killed himself in despair, as many other geniuses did before
him, and”--
“And the world would have remained the slave-market of tyrants and the
shambles of murderous men. Let us thank God that Natas lived to do his
work!” said Alan in a tone of solemn reverence, wondering not a little
at Olga’s strange outburst, and yet not having the remotest idea of its
true cause.
Neither Olga nor Serge could reply to this speech. They would have
bitten their tongues through rather than say “Amen” to it, and
anything else they dare not have said. After a moment more of somewhat
constrained silence, Olga turned towards the door and said--
“Come! Let us go, the air of this place poisons me!”
When they got on the ice after lunch, Olga was not a little astonished
to find that, perfect as she and Serge were in skating, the two Aerians
were little inferior to them, despite the fact that they had just left
their tropical home for the first time.
“How is this?” said Olga to Alan, as, hand in hand, they went sweeping
over the ice in long, easy curves. “I suppose you manufacture your ice
for skating purposes in Aeria?”
“No,” he said. “Some of our mountains rise above the snow-line, and in
their upper valleys they have little lakes, so, when we want a skating
surface, we just pump the water up and flood them and let it freeze.
Besides this--I don’t think there is any harm in my telling you that we
have a sort of wheel-skate which runs quite as easily as steel does on
ice.”
“Ah,” said Olga, possessed by a sudden thought. “Then I suppose that
is why the streets of your splendid city are so broad, and white, and
smooth?”
Quietly as the words were spoken, Alan’s hand tightened upon hers as he
heard them with a grip that almost made her cry out with pain. It was
some moments before he recovered from his astonishment sufficiently to
ask her the meaning of her unexpected and amazing question. She greeted
his question with a saucy smile and a mocking, upward glance, and said
quietly--
“Simply because I have seen them!”
It was a bow drawn at a venture. She had suddenly determined to test
the truth of her vision and hazard a description from it of the unknown
land.
“You have seen them?” cried Alan, now more amazed than ever. “But,
pardon me, even at the risk of contradicting you I must tell you that
that is impossible. No one not a born Aerian has set eyes on Aeria for
more than a hundred years.”
“So you think perhaps,” she said in the same quiet, half-mocking tone.
“Well now, listen and tell me whether this description is entirely
incorrect. If it is correct you need say nothing, if it is not you can
tell me so.”
And then she began, while he listened in a silence of utter
stupefaction, and described the valley and city of Aeria as she had
seen them in her dream-vision. When she had finished he was silent for
several moments, and then said in a voice that told her that she had
really seen it as though with the eyes of flesh--
“What are you? A sorceress, or--No, you cannot be an Aerian girl in
disguise, for none ever leaves the country till she is married.”
“Then as I cannot be the latter,” said Olga, “you must, I suppose,
consider me the former. Now I shall take my revenge for your reticence
in the train yesterday, and tell you no more. We are quits to that
extent at least, and now we will go back to my brother, if you please.”
With this Alan was forced to be content. Indeed, he could not have
pursued the subject without breaking his oath, and so a few minutes
later it came about that Olga and Serge were skating together in an
unfrequented part of the lake, and here Olga took an opportunity that
she might not have again of telling him as much as she thought fit for
him to know of her plans for capturing the air-ship on the following
day.
“I needn’t tell you,” said she, “that this air-ship is worth everything
to us, and that therefore we must be ready to go to any extremities to
get possession of it. It is the first step to the command of the world,
for you heard Alan say to-day that she is the swiftest vessel in the
whole Aerian fleet.”
“But to do that we must first overcome the crew,” said Serge, looking
anxiously about to see if there was anyone within earshot. “How are we
going to do that--two of us against ten or a dozen, armed with powers
we know nothing about?”
“We must find means to drug them--to poison them, if necessary, during
to-morrow’s voyage,” came the reply, in a whisper that made his heart
stand still for the moment with utter horror.
“Good God! is that really necessary? It seems a horrible thing to do,
when they are trusting us and taking us as their guests,” he said in a
low, trembling tone.
“Yes,” she replied, with a well simulated shudder; “it is horrible, I
know, but it is necessary. Remember that we have solemnly sworn war to
the knife against this people, and that, armed as they are, all open
assault is impossible; therefore they must be struck in secret, or not
at all.
“Now listen. I have brought with me a flask which my grandfather gave
me a day or two before he died. It contains enough of a tasteless,
powerful narcotic to send twenty people to sleep so that nothing will
wake them for several hours. I will give you half of this to-night and
keep half myself, and one of us must find an opportunity to get the
crew to take it in their wine, or whatever they may drink, for they are
sure to have one or two meals while we are on board.
“To-night I will send instructions in cypher to the Lossenskis in
Vorobièvŏ to tell them that as many as possible of the Friends must be
ready for action by eight to-morrow night, and must wait, if necessary,
night after night till we come. If all goes well we shall select the
new crew of the _Ithuriel_ from them before we see two more sunrises.
In fact, by the time we return from our voyage we must have absolute
control of the vessel.
“Such an opportunity as this will never offer itself again, and I, for
my part, am determined to risk anything, not excepting life itself,
to take the best advantage of it. It would be madness to allow any
scruples to stand in our way when the Empire of the Air is almost
within our grasp.”
“And none shall, so far as I am concerned,” replied Serge in a low,
steady voice that showed that his horror at the deed they contemplated
had succumbed, at least for the moment, to the tremendous temptation
offered by the prospect of success.
“Spoken like a true Romanoff!” said Olga, looking up at him with a
sweet smile of approval. “As the deed is so shall the reward be. Now
we must get back to our friends. We will find a means to get an hour
together before to-night to arrange matters further, and we will have
Alan and Alexis to supper with us after the opera, and then I will
begin my share of the work. Once the air-ship is ours, we can hide
her in one of the ravines of the Caucasus, hold a council of war in
the villa at Vorobièvŏ, and set about the work of the Revolution in
regular fashion.”
The rest of the day was spent in accordance with the plans already
agreed on. Olga and Serge had tea together in their private room before
going to the theatre, and put the finishing touches to their plans for
the momentous venture of the following day; and Alan and Alexis, all
unsuspecting, accepted their invitation to supper after their return
from the opera-house.
The seemingly innocent and pleasant little supper, which passed off so
merrily in the private sitting-room occupied by Olga and Serge, had
but one incident which calls for description here, and even that was
unnoticed not only by the two guests, but by Serge himself.
Just before midnight, Olga proposed that, in accordance with the
ancient custom of Russia, they should drink a glass of punch, brewed
in the Russian style; and as she volunteered to brew it herself, it is
needless to say that the invitation was at once accepted.
The apparatus stood upon a little table in one corner of the room. For
a single minute her back was turned to the three sitting at the table
in the centre; her share in the conversation was not interrupted for
an instant, and no one saw a couple of drops of sparkling, blue liquid
fall into each of three of the glasses from the little flask that she
held concealed in the palm of her hand, and when she turned round
with the little silver tray on which the glasses stood, the flask was
resting at the bottom of her dress-pocket.
She handed a glass to each of them, and then took her own up from the
side-table where she had left it. She went to her place, and, holding
her glass up, said simply--
“Here’s to that which each of us has nearest at heart!” and drank.
All followed suit, and as the clock chimed twelve a few minutes later,
the two Aerians took their leave, and left Olga and Serge alone.
“You said you would begin your share of the work to-night,” said he, as
soon as they were alone. “Have you done so?”
“If you do your work to-morrow as successfully as I have done mine
to-night,” replied Olga, looking steadily into his eyes as she spoke,
“the Empire of the Air will no longer be theirs.”
Serge returned her glance in silence. He wanted to speak, but some
superior power seemed to have laid a spell upon his will, and as long
as Olga’s burning eyes were fixed on his, his tongue was paralysed,
nay, more than this, his mind even refused to shape the sentences that
he would have liked to speak. Olga held him mute before her for several
minutes, and then she said quietly, still keeping her eyes fixed on
his--
“Now speak, and tell me what you would do if I told you that I
preferred Alan as a lover to you, and that I would rather a thousand
times be his slave and plaything than your wife.”
“I should say that you are the mistress of my destiny, that I have no
law but your will, and that it is for you to give me joy or pain, as
seems good to you.”
Serge spoke the unnatural words in a calm, passionless tone, rather
as though he were speaking in a sort of hypnotic trance than in full
command of his senses. A strange, subtle influence had been stealing
through his veins and over his nerves ever since he had drunk the
liquor which Olga had prepared.
He seemed perfectly incapable of resisting any suggestion that
might have been made to him. His will was paralysed, but even the
consciousness of this fact was fading from his mind. All his passions
were absolutely in abeyance. Even his love for Olga failed to inspire
him with any jealous resentment of words which half an hour before
would have goaded him to frenzy. He heard them as though they concerned
someone else.
The ruin of his life’s hopes, which they implied so distinctly, had
no meaning for him; so far as his volition was concerned he was an
automaton, ready to obey without question the dictates of her imperious
will.
“That will do,” said Olga, in the tone of a mistress addressing a
servant. “Now go to bed and sleep well, and remember the work that lies
before you to-morrow.”
“I will,” said Serge, and without another word, without attempting to
take his customary good-night kiss, he walked out of the room, leaving
her to the enjoyment of her victory and the contemplation of triumphs
that now seemed almost certain to her.
Punctual to its appointed time, the air-ship appeared in mid-air over
the city a few minutes before ten the next morning. It sank slowly and
gracefully to within a hundred feet of the ground over the garden of
the hotel in which the two Aerians and their new friends were staying.
Signals were rapidly exchanged as before between Alan and one of the
crew standing on the afterpart of the deck. Then it sank down on to one
of the snow-covered lawns of the garden, a door opened in the glass
covering of the deck, a short, light, folding ladder with hand-rails
dropped out of it to the ground, and Alan, springing up three or four
of the steps, held out his hand to Olga, saying--
“Come along! we shall have a crowd round us in another minute.”
This was true, for the appearance of the air-ship had already attracted
hundreds of people in the streets, and many of them had already made
their way into the gardens of the hotel in order to get a closer view
of her.
Olga, feeling not a little like a queen ascending a throne, ran lightly
up the steps, followed by Serge and Alexis. The moment they got on to
the deck the ladder was drawn up, the glass door slid noiselessly to,
and Alan at once presented them to his friends on deck.
While the introductions were taking place, the wings of the air-ship
began to vibrate and undulate with a wavy motion from forward aft, at
first slowly, and then more and more swiftly, her propeller whirled
round, and the wonderful craft rose without a jar or a tremor from the
earth. Then the propellers began to revolve faster and faster, and
she shot forward and upward over the trees amid the admiring murmurs
of the crowds in the streets about the hotel. But little did those
light-hearted sightseers dream, any more than did the captain and
crew of the _Ithuriel_, that this aerial pleasure-cruise was destined
to mark the beginning of a tragedy that would involve the whole of
civilised humanity in a catastrophe so colossal that the like of it had
never been seen or even dreamt of on earth before. From the wit of a
woman and the weakness of a man were now to be evolved the elements of
destruction that ere long should lay the world in ruins.