BY the 30th of July the work in the caverns was so far advanced that
the Council was able to authorise the departure of Alan and his
companions for the outside world. The great vertical sluice-door, a
huge sheet of steel forty feet long, twenty wide, and eighteen inches
thick, and footed with a great indiarubber pad, was in its place,
suspended at the top of the steel-lined grooves, which had been sunk
three feet into each of the rock walls of the chasm into which the
water-tunnel from the lake opened.
On the morning of the 30th it was sent down into its final position.
The momentous experiment proved completely successful. The huge mass
of metal descended slowly over the mouth of the tunnel into the black,
swift stream at the bottom of the chasm. As its enormous weight crushed
the indiarubber pad down into all the inequalities of the floor the
outrush of the waters instantly stopped, and the channel ran dry save
for the fierce jets of water which spouted out over the top of the
plate.
The crevices through which these came were easily plugged, and when
this was done it was found that the waters of the lake were rising at
the rate of three feet an hour. This proved that, whether the lake had
another outlet or not, the damming of the subterranean channels would
be quite sufficient to flood the whole valley.
The gate was then raised again, and the waters permitted to flow as
before. The triple doors at the entrance to the cavern were already
in position when this was done, as the task of placing them had
necessarily been much easier than the construction of the water-gate.
Nothing but details now remained to be completed, and there was
therefore no reason for any further postponement of Alan’s mission.
Alexis had also succeeded in carrying his point, and getting permission
to accompany Alan in the _Isma_. He had had no difficulty in satisfying
the Council that the risk would be enormously diminished by sending
two air-ships instead of one, for while Alan descended to the earth to
convey his message to a hostile city, he would be able to remain in the
air, dominating it with his guns, and ready to lay it in ruins if the
flag of truce were not respected.
But the two friends had gained even more than this, for in answer to
their earnest pleadings, in which it may be suspected they were not
altogether unsupported by those as vitally concerned as themselves,
a joint family council had decided that, under the unparalleled
circumstances of the case, there was no valid reason for refusing
consent to their immediate union with the two faithful brides who had
waited so long and so patiently for their lords.
Therefore, on the morning of the 31st, it came to pass that they stood
upon the spot sanctified by the ashes of their great ancestors, and
took each other for man and wife, for life or death, as the hazard of
the world’s fate might decide, in the presence of a vast congregation
of those who stood with feet already touching the brink of the valley
of the shadow of death.
No bridal so strange or solemn had ever been celebrated in the world
before. It was human love and hope and genius, serene and confident
in the presence of the most awful catastrophe that had ever befallen
humanity, defying the fate that was about to overwhelm a world in
destruction.
That evening, as the sun was touching the tops of the western
mountains, the last preparations for the voyage were completed, the
last farewells exchanged, and the _Isma_ and the _Avenger_, now renamed
the _Alma_ by the hands of her name-mother, rose into the air amid
salvoes of aerial artillery, and winged their way northward over the
Ridge.
As they sped out over the plains of Northern Africa the sun sank,
and out of the north-western heavens shone the luminous haze of the
Fire-Cloud, which had now grown in visible magnitude until the two
fan-like wings which spread out from its central nucleus spanned an arc
of twenty degrees in the heavens.
As the two air-ships sped on their northward course towards Alexandria,
where Alan had decided to make his first attempt to stay the progress
of the world-war, the two pairs of new-wedded lovers watched with
anxious eyes from the decks of their flying craft the terrible portent
in the skies whose meaning they above all others on earth were so well
qualified to read.
There could be no doubt now, even apart from all the elaborate
calculations which had been made, that the prediction of the Martian
astronomers was far more likely to be fulfilled than contradicted by
the event.
Yet, so great was the happiness they found in this strange fulfilment
of the faint hopes of years of almost hopeless waiting that, even
as they journeyed on through the night with this threatening sign
of approaching ruin pouring its angry light out of the skies, their
talk was still rather of love and life and hope than of the death and
desolation which they knew to be overhanging their race with such
remorseless certainty.
They had lived and loved, and their love had found fruition. What
more could they have asked of Fate than this, even if they could have
prolonged their lives indefinitely by a mere effort of will? As Alan
had said to Alma at the moment of their re-betrothal in the palm-grove,
they were immortal now, and for them the death of a world was but an
accident on the onward progress of an evolution in which such souls as
theirs, veritable sparks of the divine fire itself, were the dominating
factors.
As the Fire-Cloud paled in the West, and the eastern heavens brightened
with the fore-glow of the coming dawn, the captains of the two vessels
were roused by the signals from the conning-towers which told them that
Alexandria was in sight.
As soon as he got on deck Alan signalled to the _Isma_ to come close
alongside. As she did so and the morning greetings were exchanged, Alma
appeared on deck, and suggested that Alexis and Isma should come and
have breakfast on board the flagship, so that the two captains could
discuss their final plans before descending to the city.
The invitation was of course accepted, and an hour later the _Alma_
commenced her descent towards the Sultan’s palace, above which, from a
lofty flagstaff, the banner of Islam was floating lazily in the early
morning breeze. She flew no other ensign save a broad white flag of
truce that streamed out from the signal-mast at her stern.
The whole city seemed asleep, secure in the conquests that had already
been won. A single air-ship floated two thousand feet above the palace,
and as he approached her Alan, keeping her well under his guns, flew
from his mainmast the signal--“We come in peace. Will you respect the
flag?”
The Moslem captain saw at a glance that a single shell would annihilate
his vessel, and that the _Alma_ was perfectly protected by her consort,
circling two thousand feet above him, so he signalled, “Yes, come
alongside.” The _Alma_ descended and swung round until she came on a
level with the Moslem vessel, then she ran alongside within speaking
distance, the doors of the deck-chambers were opened, and Alan, after
exchanging salutes, asked her captain whether the Sultan was in his
capital.
“Yes,” replied the Moslem. “He is down yonder in his palace awaiting
the coming of the Tsarina, for they are to join hands to-day and reign
lord and mistress of the world they have conquered.”
“Is the world, then, conquered?” asked Alan, with a smile on his lips
and a note of scornful pity in his voice.
“Yes,” said the Moslem. “East and west, north and south, the world is
ours, saving only your own little land, and for that, I suppose, you
have come to make terms of peace.”
“I have not come to make terms of peace for Aeria, but for the world,”
replied Alan gravely. “But of that I must speak with your master. When
will he be able to give me an audience?”
“That I cannot say,” was the reply, “or even that he will hear you
at all. But, pardon! I did not know that the angels of Paradise
accompanied the Aerians on their voyages. Descend in peace, my master
will receive you.”
As he was speaking Alma, crowned with her crystal wings, and radiant
with a beauty which, to the Moslem’s eyes, seemed something superhuman,
had come from the after part of the vessel to Alan’s side. It was the
first time that he had ever seen a woman of Aeria; and, with the innate
chivalry of his race, he paid his involuntary homage to her as he would
have done to an incarnation of one of the poetic dreams of his faith.
Then salutes were exchanged again between the two captains and the
_Alma_ sank swiftly downwards until she hovered twenty feet above the
terrace on which Alan had first spoken with the Sultan on the night
that he captured the _Vindaya_.
The approach of the Aerian warship had already summoned a party of
guards to the roof, and after a brief parley a message was carried to
the Sultan from Alan. A few minutes later Khalid stepped out of the
doorway leading from the interior of the palace, magnificently attired
as though for some great ceremonial.
He looked up and saw Alan standing with Alma by his side on the
after-deck of his ship. He saw, too, that the flag of truce was flying
from the stern and that the guns were laid alongside instead of being
pointed down upon the city. He raised his hand in salute and said--
“I see you come in the guise of peace. If that is so you are welcome.”
“It is peace if your Majesty will have it so,” replied Alan, returning
his salute, and at the same time making a sign for the _Alma_ to
descend to the roof of the palace. As her keels touched the floor of
the terrace, the steps fell from the after doorway, and he came down,
leaving Alma standing on deck by the open door.
“Will not your companion honour my palace by touching its roof with her
foot?” said Khalid, looking up at Alma as he exchanged greetings with
Alan.
“My companion, Sultan, is the wife of the man whom you turned your back
upon on this very spot as a liar, a traitor, and a murderer,” said
Alan, looking him straight in the eyes. “How, then, could she honour
your palace by setting foot on its roof?”
For a moment the Sultan was abashed into silence by the directness of
the rebuke, and then his Oriental subtlety and quickness of thought
came to his aid, and, bending his head with royal dignity, he said--
“The angels do not mate with such men as that. The Tsarina must have
been misled by appearances, perhaps, indeed, carried away by her
hereditary hatred of your people. It is impossible that any but a true
man could have won the love of such a woman. You tell me that you come
as friends and not as enemies, so, for the hour, let there be peace,
not war, between us. While you are my guests my city is yours, and
all that it contains. I pledge my honour for your safety, so let the
Daughter of the Air descend that I may hear from her lips the music of
her voice.”
Turning aside, half to hide a smile at the Oriental metaphor of the
Sultan’s speech, Alan went to the foot of the steps and held out his
hand to Alma. As she alighted on the terrace he led her towards him,
saying--
“This is my wife. Yesterday morning she was Alma Tremayne, a daughter
in the fifth generation of the first President of the Federation. Her
ancestor and yours made terms of peace after the War of the Terror. It
is, therefore, more fitting that you should hear from her lips than
from mine the message that we bring.”
“My ears are waiting,” said Khalid, bending low over the hand that Alma
held out to him as Alan spoke. “It would be a strange message that
would not be welcome from such lips.”
From one whom she could have looked upon as an equal such language
as this would have jarred sorely upon Alma, accustomed as she was to
the frank directness of her own people’s speech. But from Khalid she
tolerated it as she would have tolerated the extravagance of a child,
and as he raised his head again she looked at him with eyes that
dazzled him afresh, intoxicated as he already was with her, to him,
strange and almost unearthly beauty, and said in a voice such as he had
never heard before--
“Thank you, Sultan, for your welcome, but surely there is little need
for me to tell you what message we bring. Last night you saw it written
in letters of fire across the heavens. Has not the voice of God spoken
bidding you and your people to cease the cruel warfare that you are
waging upon the world and to prepare for the end of which that is a
sign?”
As she spoke she raised her hand and pointed to where the shape of the
Fire-Cloud now hung in the sky like a white mist paling before the
light of the rising sun.
“You rejected our first warning, as perhaps was natural, but now that
you have seen the confirmation of it shining among the stars, surely
you will no longer reject it.”
The last words were spoken in a gentle, pleading tone, which no man
could have heard without being moved by them.
“Daughter of the Air,” replied the Sultan, following her hand with his
eyes, “I have seen, and in a measure I believe, your message, though
my interpretation of it may be other than yours. If the end of the
world is at hand, the Commander of the Faithful will know how to meet
it as a true believer should. It is not impossible that there may be
peace between us yet in the last hours of earthly life, for I would not
willingly make war on a people that has daughters such as you.”
“Not for our sake, Sultan, but for the sake of all who have survived
this terrible warfare of yours we are come to plead with you for
peace,” said Alma. “This is no time for hate and strife and bloodshed.
There will be horrors enough upon earth before long without any made
by the fury of man. It is in your power to give peace to the world and
breathing space to meet its end. Why will you not give it?”
“You forget it is not I alone who can give peace,” replied Khalid. “If
that were so”--
Before he could speak another word a salvo of aerial artillery shook
the air above the city. All looked up towards the northern sky, whence
the sound proceeded, and saw a squadron of twenty silvery-hulled
air-ships flying the Moslem and Russian flags, and escorting in two
divisions a warship, from whose flagstaff flew the imperial standard
of Russia, and whose shining hull of azurine proclaimed her the lost
_Ithuriel_.
Alan grasped the perilous situation in an instant, and was just about
to tell Alma to go back on board their own ship when the Sultan,
divining his intention, took a step forward and said--
“Do you think that Khalid cannot protect his guests or that his ally
will not respect the hospitality of his house? You are safe. If a hair
of your head were harmed the Tsarina and I would be enemies and she
would come to her death instead of her bridal, for that is what brings
her here. There is truce between us for this day at least, and she
shall not break it.”
As he ceased speaking the twenty air-ships opened out into a long line
and remained suspended five hundred feet above the palace, while the
_Revenge_ continued her downward flight and alighted at the farther end
of the terrace from where they were standing.
The after door of the deck-chamber opened as she touched the marble
pavement, the steps dropped down, and Olga descended, attired as usual
in a plain robe of royal purple, over which hung a travelling mantle
of pearl-grey cloth as fine and soft as silk and lined with the then
almost priceless fur of the silver fox.
Her head was uncovered save for a plain golden fillet, from which rose
a pair of slender silver wings so thickly encrusted with diamonds
that they seemed entirely fashioned of the flashing gems. The golden
fillet shone out brightly yellow against the lustrous black of her
thickly-coiled hair, and the diamond wings blazed and scintillated in
the sunlight with every movement of her head.
As she descended the steps she was followed by Orloff Lossenski and
a guard of honour of twelve of her officers, splendidly dressed, and
armed to the teeth, who, as soon as they landed, drew their swords,
which were now only used as ornamental insignia of rank, and ranged
themselves in two lines, one on either side of her.
Before the _Revenge_ had alighted the Sultan had made a sign to one of
the sentries, who blew a long, clear blast on a silver bugle, which
was instantly answered by a hundred others from various parts of the
city. At the sound the Moslem metropolis seemed to wake from sleep into
universal activity.
Thousands of soldiers in brilliant uniforms poured into the empty
streets, the Moslem and Russian flags ran up to a thousand flagstaffs,
squadron after squadron of aerial cruisers soared up from the earth and
saluted with salvoes of artillery, which shook the very firmament and
brought Alexis down to within three thousand feet of the palace roof
in the belief that Alan and Alma had fallen victims to some treachery,
and that the time had come for him to avenge them by laying the city in
ruins, as he had promised to do in such an event.
A single glance through his field-glasses showed him the true state of
affairs, so he contented himself with keeping his crew at quarters with
every gun trained on a Russian or a Moslem air-ship and ready to spread
death and ruin far and wide should any harm happen to the _Alma_ or her
crew.
While this was taking place the Sultan’s bodyguard had filed out on to
the terrace resplendent with gorgeous uniforms and glittering weapons,
and between the two long lines that they formed Khalid advanced to
meet his bride, leaving Alan and Alma interested and not unanxious
spectators of the strange and unexpected scene.
They met half-way down the double line, and as Olga held out the hand
over which Khalid bowed low as he raised it to his lips, she said, with
a glance of undisguised hate towards Alan and Alma and a mocking smile
on her lips--
“Your Majesty’s generosity is unbounded! I see that you have invited
to our wedding-feast the only enemies with whom we have yet to measure
swords!”
“They have not come as enemies, Tsarina,” replied Khalid, as he raised
his head and looked with but half-restrained ardour on the beauty that
was so soon to be his. “Nor yet have they come at my invitation. Alan
Arnold and his wife”--
“His what!” interrupted Olga, her cheeks burning and her eyes flashing
with a sudden blaze of uncontrollable anger.
“His wife, Tsarina,” replied Khalid, somewhat coldly. “The son of
Natasha and Richard Arnold has mated with the daughter of Alan
Tremayne, and they have come in the fifth generation to warn you, the
daughter of the House of Romanoff, and me, the son of the line of
Mohammed Reshad, to cease our warfare upon the nations and prepare for
the universal end which, they tell us, is at hand.”
Khalid spoke, as Olga thought, half in jest and half in earnest, so she
continued in the same mocking tone in which she had first spoken--
“Then if that is so, if all human enmities are soon to be purged by the
all-destroying fires, we may as well meet in peace for the moment. Will
your Majesty honour me by presenting me to your uninvited guests?”
“Uninvited, but still my guests, Tsarina,” replied Khalid gravely, “and
therefore I need not ask you”--
“No, Sultan,” said Olga, interrupting him, “you need ask me nothing.
You need not fear that I shall not respect the hospitality of your
house, even when extended to them.”
As she spoke she gave him her hand again and he led her between the
silent, rigid ranks of his guards to where Alan and Alma were standing.
Since men and women had learned to love and hate there had been no
such strange meeting between two women as that which now took place
between Alma and Olga. It was the first time that Olga had ever seen a
woman of the race to which Alan belonged, and Alma, for the first time
confronted with a daughter of the “earth-folk,” saw in Olga Romanoff
at once the most beautiful woman outside the confines of Aeria and the
incarnation of everything that she had been trained to look upon as
evil.
While the Sultan was speaking the words of presentation their eyes met,
and Alma thought of that sentence in Alan’s letter to his father, “She
is as beautiful as an angel and as merciless as a fiend,” while Olga
looked back to the time when she first heard Alma’s name and hated
her for the sake of him who now stood beside her, her lover and her
husband--the man _she_ had held in bondage for years without winning
one voluntary caress from him.
Alma’s first emotion was one of wonder. Hitherto, she had seen nothing
beautiful that was not at the same time good, for in Aeria the
conceptions of beauty and goodness were inseparable. But here was a
woman of almost perfect physical loveliness, after her own type, who
was beyond all doubt guilty of the most colossal crime that a human
soul had conceived or a human hand had carried out since men first
learned to sin.
The world, which ten years before had been a paradise of peace,
prosperity, and enlightened progress, was now a wilderness of misery
and an inferno of strife, fast lapsing back into barbarism--and all
this was her doing.
As this thought came to Alma’s mind, standing out distinct among all
the others that were forcing themselves upon her, wonder gave place to
unspeakable horror, and as Olga approached, with the light of hate
still burning in her eyes and the same mocking smile upon her lips, she
instinctively shrank back as though to avoid contact with some unclean
thing. As she did so her hand slipped through Alan’s arm and a visible
shudder ran through her form.
Marvellous as Olga’s power of self-control and dissimulation was, she
failed entirely to restrain the passion which such a reception aroused
within her. It was the first time in her life that she had ever stood
in the presence of a woman untainted by a spot of sin or shame, and
this woman recoiled from her in visible loathing, beautiful and mighty
as she was, at the very zenith of her conquering career and on the
morning of her promised union with the man who, as she believed, would
before many days share the empire of the world with her.
Hardened as she was, the mute rebuke cut her to the quick. The flush
on her cheeks died out and left her so pale for the moment that her
face looked almost ghastly with its grey lips and black burning eyes.
This daughter of a higher race had at a single glance pierced the
splendid mask which covered the fearful deformity of her true nature.
She thought of the night long ago in the bedroom at St. Petersburg when
by the light of the unearthly flame hovering above her poison-still she
had seen her image in the mirror.
Then pride and anger came to her rescue. The blood returned to her
cheeks and lips, she drew herself up to the full height of her queenly
stature, and as the Sultan spoke the words of presentation she slightly
inclined her head, and then raising it again said, in low, even tones,
whose wonderful music sent a chill to Alma’s heart--
“This is a pleasant surprise, Alan Arnold. I little thought that after
our last parting we should meet again, save in battle, much less did I
think that you would honour my bridal by bringing your own bride to it.
Still, as the Sultan tells me, there is truce for to-day, and, so far
as to my enemy, you are welcome.”
“We have not come as guests to your bridal, Tsarina,” said Alan
coldly and gravely, “nor have we come to make truce as between mortal
enemies. The enmities of men and nations are but as child’s-play now.
We have come to proclaim the Truce of God against the hour of His final
judgment.”