ESCAPE!
Quick as thought, at sound of the imperative summons and sight of the
levelled weapons, Gabriel swept up most of the papers and crammed them
into the breast of his loose flannel shirt, then dashed the lamp to the
floor, extinguishing it. The room grew dark, for now the fire had burned
down to hardly more than glowing coals.
There was no panic; the men did not curse, neither did the women scream.
As though the tactic had already been agreed on, Craig tipped the table
up, making a kind of barricade; and over it Grantham's revolver,
snatched from his belt, spat viciously.
It all happened in a moment.
The foremost spy grunted, coughed and plunged forward. As he fell, he
fired his terrible weapon.
The bullet--a small, thin metal shell, filled with a secret chemical and
liquid oxygen--went wild. It struck the wall, some feet to the left of
the fireplace, and instantly the wood burst into vivid flame. Flesh
would crisp to nothing, solid stone would crumble, metal would gutter
and run down, under that awful incandescence.
Again Grantham's revolver barked, while Bevard tugged at his own, which
had unaccountably got stuck in its holster. But this second shot missed.
And even as Grantham's bullet snicked a long splinter from the
door-jamb, the second spy fired.
Brevard's choking cry died as the gushing flame enveloped him. He
staggered, flung up both arms and fell stone dead, the life seared clean
out of him, as a lamp sears a moth.
Gasping, blinded, the others scattered; and for the third time--while
the room now glowed with this unquenchable blossoming of flame--Grantham
shot.
The spy's body burst into a sheaf of fire. Up past the lintel streamed
the burning swirl. Mute and annihilated, his charred body dropped beside
that of his mate.
The total time from challenge to complete victory had not exceeded ten
seconds.
"I exploded some of his cartridges!" choked Grantham. shielding his wife
from the glare, while Gabriel protected Catherine.
"His--his cartridge belt!" gasped Craig.
"Yes! And now, out--out of here!"
"Brevard? We must save his body!" cried Gabriel, pointing.
"Impossible!" shouted Grantham. "That hellish compound will burn for
hours! And in three minutes this whole place will be a roaring furnace!
Out of here--out--away! We must save the hangar, at all hazards!"
Against their will, but absolutely unable to approach the now
wildly-roaring fire on the floor that marked the spot where Brevard had
fallen in the Battle with Plutocracy, the comrades quickly retreated.
Raging fire now hemmed them on three sides. Their only avenue of escape
was through the eastern windows, eight or ten feet above the ground.
Hastily snatching up such of the plans and papers as he had not already
secured--and some of these already were beginning to smoke and turn
brown, in the infernal heat--Gabriel shielded Catherine's retreat. The
others followed.
Craig and Grantham first jumped from the windows, then caught Mrs.
Grantham and Catherine as Gabriel helped them to escape. He himself was
the last to leave the room, now a raging furnace. Together they all ran
from the building, and none too soon; for suddenly the roof collapsed, a
tremendous burst of crackling flames and sheaved sparks leaped high
above the tree-tops, and the walls came crashing in.
In the welter of incandescence, where now only the stone chimney
stood--and this, too, was already cracking and swaying--Brevard had
found his tomb, together with the two Air Trust spies. All that
pleasant, necessary place was now a mass of white-hot ruin; all those
books and pictures now had turned to ash.
The five remaining comrades paused by the hangar, and looked mournfully
back at the still-leaping volcano of destruction.
"Poor Brevard! Poor old chap!" said Craig. He peered at the women.
Neither one was crying--they were not that type--but both were pale.
"I don't feel that way," said Gabriel. "Brevard is not to be pitied.
He's to be envied! He died in the noblest war we can conceive--the war
for the human race! And his last act was to take part in a battle that
stamped out two vipers, Air Trust spies, who would have joyed to burn us
all alive!"
[Illustration: The spy's body burst into a sheaf of fire.]
"Thank God, I got the Hell-hounds!" muttered Craig. "Two less of Slade's
infamous army, anyhow." Though Gabriel knew it not, the first one to
fall was the same who had battled with him in the trap at Rochester, the
same who had trailed him when he, Gabriel, had left the Federal pen. So
one score, at least, was settled.
"They're gone, anyhow," said Gabriel, "and five of us still live--and
I've still got the plans and all. Moreover, the monoplanes are safe. The
quicker we get away from here, now, the better. Away, and to our last
remaining refuge near Port Colborne, on the shores of Lake Erie. Other
Air Trust forces may be here, before morning. We must get away!"
A frightful shock awaited them when, entering the hangar--eager now to
escape at once from the scene of the tragedy--they beheld their
aeroplanes.
By the ruddy light which shone in through the wide doors, from the fire,
they saw long strips and tatters of canvas hanging from the 'planes.
"Smashed! Broken! Wrecked!" cried Gabriel, starting back aghast.
The others stared. Only too true; the monoplanes were practically
destroyed. Not only had the spies, before attacking the refuge, slashed
the 'planes to rags, but they had also partly dismantled the motors.
Bits of machinery lay scattered on the floor of the hangar.
Stunned and unable to gather speech or coherent thought, the five
Socialists stood staring. Then, after a moment, Craig made shift to
exclaim bitterly:
"A good job, all right! The curs must have got in at the window, and
spent an hour in this work. Whatever happened, they didn't intend we
should have any means of retreat--for of course it's out of the question
for anybody to get away from here through the forest over the ridges
and down the cliffs!"
"They meant to trap us, this way, that's certain," added Gabriel. "There
surely will be others of the same breed, here before morning. They must
not find us here!"
"But Gabriel, how shall we escape?" asked Catherine, her face illumined
by the leaping flames of the bungalow.
"How! In their own machine! The machine that Slade and the Air Trust
secret-service gave them, to come here and catch or murder us!"
"By the Almighty! So we will!" cried Grantham. "Come on, let's find it!"
The little party hurried off toward the landing-ground, a cleared and
levelled space further up the mountainside. The light of the burning
bungalow helped show them their path; and Craig had also taken an
electric flash-lamp from the hangar. With this he led the way.
"Right! There it is!" suddenly exclaimed Gabriel, pointing. Craig
painted a brush of electric light over the vague outlines of the Air
Trust machine, a steel racer of the latest kind.
"A Floriot biplane," said he. "Will hold two and a passenger. Familiar
type. I guess all of us, here, can operate it."
They all--even the women--could. For you must understand that after the
Great Massacres had foreshown the only possible trend the Movement could
take, practically all the leaders in the work had studied aeronautics,
also chemistry, as most essential branches of knowledge in the
inevitable war.
"Two, and a passenger," repeated Gabriel, as though echoing Craig's
words. "Who goes first?"
"You!" said Grantham. "You and Catherine, with Craig to bring the
machine back. You're needed, now, at the front--imperatively needed.
Freda and I," gesturing at his wife, "will hold the fort, here--will
keep watch over our dead, over poor old Brevard, the first to fall in
this great, final battle!"
A spirited argument followed. Gabriel insisted on being left for the
second trip. A compromise was made by having him get the two women out
of danger, at once, leaving Craig and Grantham on the mountain.
"I'll send Hazen or Keyes back with the 'plane, for you," said he, as he
climbed into the driving seat, after the passengers had been stowed.
"That will be tomorrow night. Of course, we daren't fly by day. And
mind," he added, adjusting his spark and throttle, "mind you meet me
with this very same machine, safe and sound, at the Lake Erie refuge!"
"Why this same machine?" inquired Craig.
"Why? Because I intend to use this, and no other, in the final attack.
Could poetic justice be finer than that the Air Trust works be destroyed
with the help of one of their own 'planes?"
No more was said, save brief good-byes. Those were times when
demonstrativeness, whether in life or death, was at a discount. A
hand-clasp and a few last instructions as to the time and place of
meeting, sufficed. Then Gabriel pressed the button of the self-starter
and opened the throttle.
With a sudden gusty chatter, the engine caught. A great wind sprang up,
from the roaring, whirling blades. The Floriot rolled easily forward,
speeded up, and gathered headway.
Gabriel suddenly rotated the rising-plane. The great gull soared,
careened and took the air with majestic power. The watchers on the
mountain-side saw its hooded lights, that glowed upon its compass and
barometric-gauge, slowly spiralling upward, ever upward, as Gabriel
climbed with his two passengers.
Then the lights sped forward, northward, in a long tangent, and, as they
swiftly diminished to mere specks, the echo of a farewell hail drifted
downward from the black and star-dusted emptiness above.
Craig turned to Grantham, when the last gleam of light had faded in a
swift trajectory.
"God grant they reach the last remaining refuge safely!" said he, with
deep emotion. "And may their flight be quick and sure! For the fate of
the world, its hope and its salvation from infinite enslavement, are
whirling through the trackless wastes of air, to-night!"