A WOOING IN MID AIR.
After breakfast on the Friday morning, Natasha and Arnold were
standing in the bows of the _Ariel_, admiring the magnificent
panorama that lay stretched out five thousand feet below them.
The air-ship had by this time covered a little over 2000 miles of her
voyage, and was now speeding smoothly and swiftly along over the
south-western shore of the Red Sea, a few miles southward of the
sixteenth parallel of latitude. Eastward the bright blue waves of the
sea were flashing behind them in the cloudless morning sun; the high
mountains of the African coast rose to right and left and in front of
them; and through the breaks in the chain they could see the huge
masses of Abyssinia to the southward, and the vast plains that
stretched away westward across the Blue and White Niles, away to the
confines of the Libyan Desert.
"What a glorious world!" exclaimed Natasha, after gazing for many
silent minutes with entranced eyes over the limitless landscape. "And
to think that, after all, all this is but a little corner of it!"
"It is yours, Natasha, if you will have it," replied Arnold quietly,
yet with a note in his voice that warned her that the moment which
she had expected and yet dreaded, had already come. There was no use
in avoiding the inevitable for a time. It would be better if they
understood each other at once; and so she looked round at him with
eyebrows elevated in well-simulated surprise, and said--
"Mine! What do you mean, my friend?"
There was an almost imperceptible emphasis on the last word that
brought the blood to Arnold's cheek, and he answered, with a ring in
his voice that gave unmistakable evidence of the effort that he was
making to restrain the passion that inspired his words--
"I mean just what I say. All the kingdoms of the world, and the glory
of them, from pole to pole, and from east to west, shall be yours,
and shall obey your lightest wish. I have conquered the air, and
therefore the earth and sea. In two months from now I shall have an
aërial navy afloat that will command the world, and I--is it not
needless to tell you, Natasha, why I glory in the possession of that
power? Surely you must know that it is because I love you more than
all that a subject world can give me, and because it makes it
possible for me, if not to win you, at least not to be unworthy to
attempt the task?"
It was a distinctly unconventional declaration--such a one, indeed,
as no woman had ever heard since Alexander the Great had whispered in
the ears of Lais his dreams of universal empire, but there was a
straightforward earnestness about it which convinced her beyond
question that it came from no ordinary man, but from one who saw the
task before him clearly, and had made up his mind to achieve it.
For a moment her heart beat faster than it had ever yet done at the
bidding of a man's voice, and there was a bright flush on her cheeks,
and a softer light in her eyes, as she replied in a more serious tone
than Arnold had ever heard her use--
"My friend, you have forgotten something. You and I are not a man and
a woman in the relationship that exists between us. We are two
factors in a work such as has never been undertaken since the world
began; two units in a mighty problem whose solution is the happiness
or the ruin of the whole human race. It is not for us to speak of
individual love while these tremendous issues hang undecided in the
balance.
"One does not speak of love in the heat of war, and you and I and
those who are with us are at war with the powers of the earth, and
higher things than the happiness of individuals are at stake. You
know my training has been one of hate and not of love, and till the
hate is quenched I must not know what love is.
"Remember your oath--the oath which I have taken as well as you--'_As
long as I live those ends shall be my ends, and no human
considerations shall weigh with me where those ends are concerned._'
Is not this love of which you speak a human consideration that might
clash with the purposes of the Brotherhood whose ends you and I have
solemnly sworn to hold supreme above all earthly things?
"My father has told me that when love takes possession of a human
soul, reason abdicates her throne, and great aims become impossible.
No, no; that great power which you hold in your hands was not given
you just to win the love of a woman, and I tell you frankly that you
will never win mine with it.
"More than this, if I saw you using it for such an end, I would take
care that you did not use it for long. No man ever had such an awful
responsibility laid upon him as the possession of this power lays
upon you. It is yours to make or mar the future of the human race, of
which I am but a unit. It is not the power that will ever win either
my respect or my love, but the wisdom and the justice with which it
may be used."
"Ah! I see you distrust me. You think that because I have the power
to be a despot, that therefore I may forget my oath and become one. I
forgive you for the thought, unworthy of you as it is, and also, I
hope, of me. No, Natasha; I am no skilled hand at love-making, for I
have never wooed any mistress but one before to-day, and she is won
only by plain honesty and hard service; just what I will devote to
the winning of you, whether you are to be won or not--but I must have
expressed myself clumsily indeed for you to have even thought of
treason to the Cause.
"You are no more devoted adherent of it than I am. You have suffered
in one way and I in another from the falsehood and rottenness of
present-day Society, but you do not hate it more utterly than I do,
and you would not go to greater lengths than I would to destroy it.
Yours is a hatred of emotion, and mine is a hatred of reason. I have
proved that, as Society is constituted, it is the worst and not the
best qualities of humanity that win wealth and power, and such
respect as the vulgar of all classes can give. But it is not such
power as this that I would lay at your feet, when I ask you to share
the world-empire with me. It is an empire of peace and not of war
that I shall offer to you."
"Then," said Natasha, taking a step towards him, and laying her hand
on his arm as she spoke, "when you have made war impossible to the
rivalry of nations and races, and have proclaimed peace on earth,
then I will give myself to you, body and soul, to do with as you
please, to kill or to keep alive, for then truly you will have done
that which all the generations of men before you have failed to do,
and it will be yours to ask and to have."
As she spoke these last words Natasha bowed her proudly-carried head
as though in submission to the dictum that her own lips had
pronounced; and Arnold, laying his hand on hers and holding it for a
moment unresisting in his own, said--
"I accept the condition, and as you have said so shall it be. You
shall hear no more words of love from my lips until the day that
peace shall be proclaimed on earth and war shall be no more; and when
that day comes, as it shall do, I will hold you to your words, and I
will claim you and take you, body and soul, as you have said, though
I break every other human tie save man's love for woman to possess
you."
Natasha looked him full in the eyes as he spoke these last words. She
had never heard such words before, and by their very strength and
audacity they compelled her respect and even her submission. Her
heart was still untamed and unconquered, and no man was its lord, yet
her eyes sank before the steady gaze of his, and in a low sweet voice
she answered--
"So be it! There never was a true woman yet who did not love to meet
her master. When that day comes I shall have met my master, and I
will do his bidding. Till then we are friends and comrades in a
common Cause to which both our lives are devoted. Is it not better
that it should be so?"
"Yes, I am content. I would not take the prize before I have won it.
Only answer me one question frankly, and then I have done till I may
speak again."
"What is that."
"Have I a rival--not among men, for of that I am careless--but in
your own heart?"
"No, none. I am heart-whole and heart-free. Win me if you can. It is
a fair challenge, and I will abide by the result, be it what it may."
"That is all I ask for. If I do not win you, may Heaven do so to me
that I shall have no want of the love of woman for ever!"
So saying, he raised her hand to his lips and kissed it, in token of
the compact that was made between them. Then, intuitively divining
that she wished to be alone, he turned away without another word, and
walked to the after end of the vessel.
Natasha remained where she was for a good half-hour, leaning on the
rail that surrounded the deck, and gazing out dreamily over the
splendid and ever-changing scene that lay spread out beneath her.
Truly it was a glorious world, as she had said, even now, cursed as
it was with war and the hateful atrocities of human selfishness, and
the sordid ambition of its despots.
What would it be like in the day when the sword should lie rusting on
the forgotten battle-field, and the cannon's mouth be choked with the
desert dust for ever? What was now a hell of warring passions would
then be a paradise of peaceful industry, and he who had the power, if
any man had, to turn that hell into the paradise that it might be,
had just told her that he loved her, and would create that paradise
for her sake.
Could he do it? Was not this marvellous creation of his genius, that
was bearing her in mid-air over land and sea, as woman had never
travelled before, a sufficient earnest of his power? Truly it was.
And to be won by such a man was no mean destiny, even for her, the
daughter of Natas, and the peerless Angel of the Revolution.
Situated as they were, it would of course have been impossible, even
if it had been in any way desirable, for Arnold and Natasha to have
kept their compact secret from their fellow-travellers, who were at
the same time their most intimate friends.
There was not, however, the remotest reason for attempting to do so.
Although with regard to the rest of the world the members of the
Brotherhood were necessarily obliged to live lives of constant
dissimulation, among themselves they had no secrets from each other.
Thus, for instance, it was perfectly well known that Tremayne, during
those periods of his double life in which he acted as Chief of the
Inner Circle, regarded the daughter of Natas with feelings much
warmer than those of friendship or brotherhood in a common cause, and
until Arnold and his wonderful creation appeared on the scene, he was
looked upon as the man who, if any man could, would some day win the
heart of their idolised Angel.
Of the other love that was the passion of his other life, no one save
Natasha, and perhaps Natas himself, knew anything; and even if they
had known, they would not have considered it possible for any other
woman to have held a man's heart against the peerless charms of
Natasha. In fact they would have looked upon such rivalry as mere
presumption that it was not at all necessary for their incomparable
young Queen of the Terror to take into serious account.
In Arnold, however, they saw a worthy rival even to the Chief
himself, for there was a sort of halo of romance, even in their eyes,
about this serious, quiet-spoken young genius, who had come suddenly
forth from the unknown obscurity of his past life to arm the
Brotherhood with a power which revolutionised their tactics and
virtually placed the world at their mercy. In a few months he had
become alike their hero and their supreme hope, so far as all active
operations went; and now that with his own hand he had snatched
Natasha from a fate of unutterable misery, and so signally punished
her persecutors, it seemed to be only in the fitness of things that
he should love her, win her for his own, if won she was to be by any
man.
This, at any rate, was the line of thought which led the Princess and
Colston each to express their unqualified satisfaction with the state
of affairs arrived at in the compact that had been made between
Natasha and Arnold--"armed neutrality," as the former smilingly
described to the Princess while she was telling her of the strange
wooing of her now avowed lover. Natasha was no woman to be wooed and
won in the ordinary way, and it was fitting that she should be the
guerdon of such an achievement as no man had ever undertaken before,
since the world began.
The voyage across Africa progressed pleasantly and almost
uneventfully for the thirty-six hours after the crossing of the Red
Sea. After passing over the mountains of the coast, the _Ariel_ had
travelled at a uniform height of about 3000 feet over a magnificent
country of hill and valley, forest and prairie, occasionally being
obliged to rise another thousand feet or so to cross some of the
ridges of mountain chains which rose into peaks and mountain knots,
some of which touched the snow-line.
Several times the air-ship was sighted by the people of the various
countries over which she passed, and crowds swarmed out of the
villages and towns, gesticulating wildly, and firing guns and beating
drums to scare the flying demon away.
Once or twice they heard bullets singing through the air, but of
these they took little heed, beyond quickening the speed of the
air-ship for the time, knowing that there was not a chance in a
hundred thousand of the _Ariel_ being hit, and that even if she were
the bullet would glance harmlessly off her smooth hull of hardened
aluminium.
Once only they descended in a delightful little valley among the
mountains, which appeared to be totally uninhabited, and here they
renewed their store of fresh water, and laid in one of fruit, as well
as taking advantage of the opportunity to stretch their legs on
_terra firma_.
This was on the Saturday morning; and when they again rose into the
air to continue their voyage, they saw that they had crossed the
great mountain mass that divides the Sahara from the little-known
regions of Equatorial Africa, and that in front of them to the
south-west lay, as far as the eye could reach, a boundless expanse of
dense forest and jungle and swamp, a gloomy and forbidding-looking
region which it would be well-nigh impossible to traverse on foot.
Early in the afternoon the four voyagers were gathered in the
deck-saloon, closely examining a somewhat rudely-drawn chart that was
spread out on the table. It was the map that formed part of the
manuscript which had been found in the car of Louis Holt's miniature
balloon, and sketched out his route from Zanzibar to Aeria, and the
country lying round so far as he had been able to observe it.
"This gives us, after all, very little idea of the distance we have
yet to go," said Arnold; "for though Holt has got his latitude
presumably right, we have very little clue to his longitude, for he
says himself that his watch was stopped in a thunder-storm, and that
in the same storm he lost all count of the distance he had travelled.
Added to that, he admits that he was blown about for twelve days in
one direction and another, so that all we really know is that
somewhere across this fearful wilderness beneath us we shall find
Aeria, but where is still a problem."
"What is your own idea?" asked Colston.
"Not a very clear one, I must confess. At this elevation we can see
about sixty miles as the atmosphere is now, and as far as we can see
to the south-west there is nothing but the same kind of country that
we have under us. We have travelled rather more than 2700 miles since
we left the Hindu Kush, and according to my reckoning Aeria lies
somewhere between 3000 and 3200 miles south-west of where we started
from on Thursday morning. That means that we are within between three
and five hundred miles of Aeria, unless, indeed, our calculations are
wholly at fault, and at that rate, as we only have about four and a
half hours' daylight left, we shall not get there to-day at our
present speed."
"Couldn't we go a bit faster?" put in Natasha. "You know I and the
Princess are dying to see this mysterious unknown country that only
two other people have ever seen."
"You have but to say so, Natasha, and it is already done," replied
Arnold, signalling at the same moment to the engine-room by means of
a similar arrangement of electric buttons to that which was in the
wheel-house. "Only you must remember that you must not go out on deck
now, or you will be blown away like a feather into space."
While he was speaking the three propellers had begun to revolve at
full speed, and the _Ariel_ darted forward with a velocity that
caused the mountains she had just crossed to sink rapidly on the
horizon.
All the afternoon the _Ariel_ flew at full speed over the seemingly
interminable wilderness of swamp and jungle, until, when the
equatorial sun was within a few degrees of the horizon, one of the
crew, who had been stationed in the conning tower at the bows,
signalled to call the attention of the man in the wheel-house.
Arnold, who was in the after-saloon at the time, heard the signal,
and hurried forward to the look-out. He gave one quick glance ahead,
signalled "half-speed" to the engine-room, and then went aft again to
the saloon, and said--
"Aeria is in sight!"
Immediately everyone hastened to the deck saloon, from the windows of
which could be seen a huge mass of mountains looming dark and
distinct against the crimsoning western sky.
It rose like some vast precipitous island out of the sea of forest
that lay about its base; and above the mighty rock-walls that seemed
to rise sheer from the surrounding plain at least a dozen peaks
towered into the sky, two of their summits covered with eternal snow,
and shining like points of rosy fire in the almost level rays of the
sun.
As nearly as Arnold could judge in the deceptive state of the
atmosphere, they were still between thirty and forty miles from it,
and as it would not be safe to approach its lofty cliffs at a high
rate of speed in the half light that would so soon merge into
darkness, he said to his companions--
"We shall have to find a resting-place up among the cliffs on this
side to-night, for we have lost the moon, and unless it were
absolutely necessary to cross the mountains in the dark, I should not
care to do so with the ladies on board. Besides, there is no hurry
now that we are here, and we shall get a much finer first impression
of our new kingdom if we cross at sunrise. What do you think?"
All agreed that this would be the best plan, and so the _Ariel_ ran
up to within a mile of the rocks, and then the forward engine was
connected with the dynamo, and the searchlight, which had so
disconcerted the Cossacks on the Tobolsk road, was turned on to the
cliffs, which they carefully explored, until they found a little
plateau covered with luxuriant vegetation and well watered, about two
thousand feet above the plain below.
Here it was decided to come to a halt for the night, and to reserve
the exploration of Aeria for the morning, and so the fan-wheels were
sent aloft, and the _Ariel_, after hovering for a few minutes over
the verdant little plain seeking for a suitable spot to alight in,
sank gently to the earth after her flight of more than three thousand
miles.