FROM CHAOS TO ARCADIE.
During the three months of incessant strife and carnage which deluged
the plains and valleys of Europe with blood after the fall of Berlin,
the Terrorists took no part whatever in the war. At long intervals an
air-ship was seen from the earth flying at full speed through the
upper regions of the atmosphere, now over Europe, now over America,
and now over Australia or the Cape of Good Hope; but if they held any
communication with the earth they did so secretly, and only paid the
briefest of visits, the objects of which could only be guessed at.
When one was sighted the fact was mentioned in the newspapers, and
vague speculations were indulged in; but there was soon little room
left for these in the public attention, especially in Britain, for as
the news of disaster after disaster came pouring in, and the hosts of
the League drew nearer and nearer to the western shores of Europe,
all eyes were turned more and more anxiously across "the silver
streak" which now alone separated the peaceful hills and valleys of
England and Scotland from the destroying war-storm which had so
swiftly desolated the fields of Europe, and all hearts were heavy
with apprehension of coming sorrows.
The rapidity of their movements had naturally led to the supposition
that several of the air-ships had taken the air for some unknown
purpose, but in reality there were only two of them afloat during
nearly the whole of the three mouths.
Of these, one was the _Orion_, on board of which Tremayne was
visiting the various centres of the Brotherhood throughout the
English-speaking world, making everything ready for the carrying out
at the proper time of the great project to which he had devoted
himself since the memorable night at Alanmere, when he had seen the
vision of the world's Armageddon. The other was under the command of
Michael Roburoff, who was busy in America and Canada perfecting the
preparations for checkmating the designs of the American Ring, which
were described in a former chapter.
The remainder of the members of the Inner Circle and those of the
Outer Circle, living in Aeria, were quietly pursuing the most
peaceful avocations, building houses and water-mills, clearing fields
and laying out gardens, fishing in the lake and streams, and hunting
in the forests as though they had never heard of the horrors of war,
and had no part or share in the Titanic strife whose final issue they
would soon have to go forth and decide.
One of the hardest workers in the colony was the Admiral of the
aërial fleet. Morning after morning he shut himself up in his
laboratory for three or four hours experimenting with explosives of
various kinds, and especially on a new form of fire-shell which he
had invented, and which he was now busy perfecting in preparation for
the next, and, as he hoped, final conflict that he would have to wage
with the forces of despotism and barbarism.
The afternoons he spent supervising the erection of the mills, and
the construction of new machinery, and in exploring the mountain
sides in search of mineral wealth, of which he was delighted to find
abundant promise that was afterwards realised beyond his
expectations.
On these exploring expeditions he was frequently accompanied by
Natasha and Radna and her husband. Sometimes Arnold would be enticed
away from his chemicals, and his designs on the lives of his enemies,
and after breakfasting soon after sunrise would go off for a long
day's ramble to some unknown part of their wonderful domain, in
which, like children in a fairyland, they were always discovering
some new wonders and beauties. And, indeed, no children could have
been happier or freer from care than they were during this delightful
interval in the tragedy in which they were so soon to play such
conspicuous parts. The two wedded lovers, with the dark past put far
behind them for ever, found perfect happiness in each other's
society, and so left, it is almost needless to add, Arnold and
Natasha pretty much to their own devices. Indeed, Natasha had more
than once declared that she would have to get the Princess to join
the party, as Radna had proved herself a hopeless failure as a
chaperone.
Every one in the valley by this time looked upon Arnold and Natasha
as lovers, though their rank in the Brotherhood was so high that no
one ventured to speak of them as betrothed save by implication. How
Natas regarded them was known only to himself. He, of course, saw
their intimacy, and since he said nothing he doubtless looked upon it
with approval; but whether he regarded it as an intimacy of friends
or of lovers, remained a mystery even to Natasha herself, for he
never by any chance made an allusion to it.
As for Arnold, he had scrupulously observed the compact tacitly made
between them on the first and only occasion that he had ever spoken
words of love to her. They were the best of friends, the closest
companions, and their intercourse with each other was absolutely
frank and unrestrained, just as it would have been between two close
friends of the same sex; but they understood each other perfectly,
and by no word or deed did either cross the line that divides
friendship from love.
She trusted him absolutely in all things, and he took this trust as a
sacred pledge between them that until his part of their compact had
been performed, love was a forbidden subject, not even to be
approached.
So perfectly did Natasha play her part that though he spent hours and
hours alone with her on their exploring expeditions, and in rowing
and sailing on the lake, and though he spent many another hour in
solitude, weighing her every word and action, he was utterly unable
to truthfully congratulate himself on having made the slightest
progress towards gaining that love without which, even if he held her
to the compact in the day of victory, victory itself would be robbed
of its crowning glory and dearest prize.
To a weaker man it would have been an impossible situation, this
constant and familiar companionship with a girl whose wonderful
beauty dazzled his eyes and fired his blood as he looked upon it, and
whose winning charm of manner and grace of speech and action seemed
to glorify her beauty until she seemed a being almost beyond the
reach of merely human love--rather one of those daughters of men whom
the sons of God looked upon in the early days of the world, and found
so fair that they forsook heaven itself to woo them.
Trained and disciplined as he had been in the sternest of all
schools, and strengthened as he was by the knowledge of the compact
that existed between them, there were moments when his self-control
was very sorely tried, moments when her hand would be clasped in his,
or rested on his shoulder as he helped her across a stream or down
some steep hillside, or when in the midst of some animated discussion
she would stop short and face him, and suddenly confound his logic
with a flash from her eyes and a smile on her lips that literally
forced him to put forth a muscular effort to prevent himself from
catching her in his arms and risking everything for just one kiss,
one taste of the forbidden fruit within his reach, and yet parted
from him by a sea of blood and flame that still lay between the world
and that empire of peace which he had promised to win for her sweet
sake.
Once, and once only, she had tried him almost too far. They had been
discussing the possibility of ruling the world without the ultimate
appeal to force, when the nations, weary at length of war, should
have consented to disarm, and she, carried away by her own eloquent
pleading for the ultimate triumph of peace and goodwill on earth, had
laid her hand upon his arm, and was looking up at him with her lovely
face aglow with the sweetest expression even he had ever seen upon
it.
Their eyes met, and there was a sudden silence between them. The
eloquent words died upon her lips, and a deep flush rose to her
cheeks and then faded instantly away, leaving her pale and with a
look almost of terror in her eyes. He took a quick step backwards,
and, turning away as though he feared to look any longer upon her
beauty, said in a low tone that trembled with the strength of his
repressed passion--
"Natasha, for God's sake remember that I am only made of flesh and
blood!"
In a moment she was by his side again, this time with her eyes
downcast and her proud little head bent as though in acknowledgment
of his reproof. Then she looked up again, and held out her hand and
said--
"Forgive me; I have done wrong! Let us be friends again!"
There was a gentle emphasis on the word "friends" that was
irresistible. He took her hand in silence, and after a pressure that
was almost imperceptibly returned, let it go again, and they walked
on together; but there was very little more said between them that
evening.
This had happened one afternoon towards the middle of September, and
two days later their delightful companionship came suddenly to an
end, and the bond that existed between them was severed in a moment
without warning, as a nerve thrilling with pleasure might be cut by
an unexpected blow with a knife.
On the 16th of September the _Orion_ returned from Australia. She
touched the earth shortly after mid-day, and before sunset the
_Azrael_, the vessel in which Michael Roburoff had gone to America,
also returned, but without her commander. Her lieutenant, however,
brought a despatch from him, which he delivered at once to Natas,
who, immediately on reading it, sent for Tremayne.
It evidently contained matters of great importance, for they remained
alone together discussing it for over an hour. At the end of that
time Tremayne left the Master's house and went to look for Arnold. He
found him just helping Natasha out of a skiff at a little
landing-stage that had been built out into the lake for boating
purposes. As soon as greetings had been exchanged, he said--
"Natasha, I have just left your father. He asked me, if I saw you, to
tell you that he wishes to speak to you at once."
"Certainly," said Natasha. "I hope you have not brought bad news home
from your travels. You are looking very serious about something," and
without waiting for an answer, she was gone to obey her father's
summons. As soon as she was out of earshot Tremayne put his arm
through Arnold's, and, drawing him away towards a secluded portion of
the shore of the lake, said--
"Arnold, old man, I have some very serious news for you. You must
prepare yourself for the severest strain that, I believe, could be
put on your loyalty and your honour."
"What is it? For Heaven's sake don't tell me that it has to do with
Natasha!" exclaimed Arnold, stopping short and facing round, white to
the lips with the sudden fear that possessed him. "You know"--
"Yes, I know everything," replied Tremayne, speaking almost as gently
as a woman would have done, "and I am sorry to say that it has to do
with her. I know what your hopes have been with regard to her, and no
man on earth could have wished to see those hopes fulfilled more
earnestly than I have done, but"--
"What do you mean, Tremayne? Speak out, and let me know the worst. If
you tell me that I am to give her up, I tell you that I am"--
"'That I am an English gentleman, and that I will break my heart
rather than my oath'--that is what you will tell me when I tell you
that you must not only give up your hopes of winning Natasha, but
that it is the Master's orders that you shall have the _Ithuriel_
ready to sail at midnight to take her to America to Michael Roburoff,
who has written to Natas to ask her for his wife."
Arnold heard him out in dazed, stupefied silence. It seemed too
monstrous, too horrible, to be true. The sudden blow had stunned him.
He tried to speak, but the words would not come. Tremayne, still
standing with his arm through his, felt his whole body trembling, as
though stricken with some sudden palsy. He led him on again, saying
in a sterner tone than before--
"Come, come! Play the man, and remember that the work nearest to your
hand is war, and not love. Remember the tremendous issues that are
gathering to their fulfilment, and the part that you have to play in
working them out. This is not a question of the happiness or the
hopes of one man or woman, but of millions, of the whole human race.
You, and you alone, hold in your hands the power to make the defeat
of the League certain."
"And I will use it, have no fear of that!" replied Arnold, stopping
again and passing his hand over his eyes like a man waking from an
evil dream. "What I have sworn to do I will do; I am not going back
from my oath. I will obey to the end, for she will do the same, and
what would she think of me if I failed! Leave me alone for a bit now,
old man. I must fight this thing out with myself, but the _Ithuriel_
shall be ready to start at twelve."
Tremayne saw that he was himself again, and that it was better that
he should do as he said; so with a word of farewell he turned away
and left him alone with his thoughts. Half-way back to the settlement
he met Natasha coming down towards the lake. She was deadly pale, but
she walked with a firm step, and carried her head as proudly erect as
ever. As they met she stopped him and said--
"Where is he?"
Tremayne's first thought was to try and persuade her to go back and
leave Arnold to himself, but a look at Natasha's white set face and
burning eyes warned him that she was not in a mood to take advice,
and so he told her, and without another word she went on swiftly down
the path that led to the lake.
The brief twilight of the tropics had passed before he reached a
grove of palms on the western shore of the lake, towards which he had
bent his steps when he left Tremayne. He walked with loose, aimless
strides, now quickly and now slowly, and now stopping to watch the
brightening moon shining upon the water.
He caught himself thinking what a lovely night it would be to take
Natasha for a row, and then his mind sprang back with a jerk to the
remembrance of the horrible journey that he was to begin at
midnight--to take Natasha to another man, and leave her with him as
his wife.
No, it could not be true. It was impossible that he should have
fought and triumphed as he had done, and all for this. To give up the
one woman he had ever loved in all his life, the woman he had
snatched from slavery and degradation when not another man on earth
could have done it.
What had this Roburoff done that she should be given to him for the
mere asking? Why had he not come in person like a man to woo and win
her if he could, and then he would have stood aside and bowed to her
choice. But this curt order to take her away to him as though she
were some piece of merchandise--no, if such things were possible,
better that he had never--
"Richard!"
He felt a light touch on his arm, and turned round sharply. Natasha
was standing beside him. He had been so engrossed by his dark
thoughts that he had not heard her light step on the soft sward, and
now he seemed to see her white face and great shining eyes looking up
at him in the moonlight as though there was some mist floating
between him and her. Suddenly the mist seemed to vanish. He saw tears
under the long dark lashes, and the sweet red lips parted in a faint
smile.
Lose her he might to-morrow, but for this one moment she was his and
no other man's, let those who would say nay. That instant she was
clasped helpless and unresisting in his arms, and her lips were
giving his back kiss for kiss. Wreck and chaos might come now for all
he cared. She loved him, and had given herself to him, if only for
that one moonlit hour.
After that he could plunge into the battle again, and slay and spare
not--yes, and he would slay without mercy. He would hurl his
lightnings from the skies, and where they struck there should be
death. If not love and life, then hate and death--it was not his
choice. Let those who had chosen see to that; but for the present
love and life were his, why should he not live? Then the mad, sweet
delirium passed, and saner thoughts came. He released her suddenly,
almost brusquely, and said with a harsh ring in his voice--
"Why did you come? Have you forgotten what so nearly happened the day
before yesterday?"
"No, I have not forgotten it. I have remembered it, and that is why I
came to tell you--what you know now."
Her face was rosy enough now, and she looked him straight in the eyes
as she spoke, proud to confess the mastery that he had won.
"Now listen," she went on, speaking in a low, quick, passionate tone.
"The will of the Master must be done. There is no appeal from that,
either for you or me. He can dispose of me as he chooses, and I shall
obey, as I warned you I should when you first told me that you would
win me if you could.
"Well, you have won me, so far as I can be won. I love you, and I
have come to tell you so before the shadow falls between us. And I
have come to tell you that what you have won shall belong to no one
else. I will obey my father to the letter, but the spirit is my
affair. Now kiss me again, dear, and say good-bye. We have had our
glimpse of heaven, and this is not the only life."
For one more brief moment she surrendered herself to him again. Their
lips met and parted, and in an instant she had slipped out of his
arms and was gone, leaving him dazed with her beauty and her
winsomeness.