delights of spurning the earth and sharing, even for an hour, your Empire of the Air?”
“Why not?” replied Alan, with a laugh. “What harm would be done by taking you for a trip beyond the clouds? We are not so selfish as all that; and if the novel experience would give you any pleasure, we have a perfect right to ask you to enjoy it. Will you come?”
“Surely there is scarcely any need for me to say ‘yes.’ Why, do you know, I believe I would give five years of my life for as many hours on board that air-ship of yours,” said Olga; “and if you will do as you say, you will make me your debtor for ever. Indeed, how could a poor earth-dweller such as I am repay a favour like that.”
“Ah, if only you were an Aerian, I should not have much difficulty in telling you how you could do that,” retorted Alan, with almost boyish candour. “As it is, I am afraid I must be satisfied for my reward with the pleasure of knowing that I have given you a pleasurable experience.”
“Your Majesty has put that so prettily, that it almost atones for the sense of hopeless inferiority which, I need hardly tell you, is just a trifle bitter to my feminine pride,” said Olga, in the same half-bantering tone she had used all along.
Before a reply had risen to Alan’s lips, the conversation was interrupted by the air-ship suddenly swooping down from the clouds to the level of the windows of the train, which was now flying along over a wide, treeless plain at a speed of fully two hundred miles an hour.
As the search-lights of the aerial vessel flashed along the windows of the cars, the blinds, which had been drawn down at nightfall, were sprung up again by the passengers, who were all eager to get a glimpse of one of the marvellous vessels which so rarely came within close view of the dwellers upon earth.
The air-ship, on which all eyes were now bent with such intense curiosity, was a beautifully-proportioned vessel, built chiefly of some unknown metal, which shone with a brilliant, pale-blue lustre. Her hull was about two hundred feet from stem to stern, not counting a long, ramlike projection which stretched some twenty-five feet in front of the stem, with its point level with the keel, or rather, with the three keels,—the centre one shallow and the two others very deep,—which were obviously shaped so as to enable the craft either to stand upright on land or to sail upon the water if desired.
From each of her sides spread out two great wings, not unlike palm-leaves in shape, measuring some hundred feet from point to point, and about twice the width of the vessel’s deck, which was, as nearly as could be judged, twenty feet amidships.
These wings were made of some white, lustrous material, which shone with a somewhat more metallic sheen than silk would have done, and were divided into a vast number of sections by transverse ribs. These sections vibrated and undulated rhythmically from front to rear with enormous rapidity, and evidently not only sustained the vessel in the air, but also aided in her propulsion.
Three seemingly solid discs, which glittered brilliantly in the light from the train, marked the positions of the air-ship’s propellers, of which one revolved on a shaft in a straight line with the centre of the deck, while the shafts of the other two were inclined outwards at a slight angle from the middle line. From the deck rose three slender, raking masts, apparently placed there for ornament rather than use, unless indeed they were employed for signalling purposes.
The whole deck was covered completely from end to end by a curved roof of glass, and formed a spacious chamber pervaded by a soft, diffused light, the origin of which was invisible, and which showed about half a dozen figures clad in the graceful costume of the Aerians, and all wearing the headdress with golden wings. From under the domed, crystal roof projected ten long, slender guns,—two over the bows, two over the stern, and three over each side, at equal intervals.
Such was the wonderful craft which swept down from the darkness of the wintry sky, in full view of the passengers in the cars, and lighted up the snowy landscape for three or four miles ahead and astern with the dazzling rays of her two search-lights.
Although, as has been said, the express was moving at quite two hundred miles an hour, the air-ship swept up alongside it with as much apparent ease as though it had been stationary. Amid the murmurs of irrepressible admiration which greeted it from the passengers, it glided smoothly nearer and nearer, until the side of one of its wings was within ten feet of the car windows.
Alan and Alexis stood up and saluted their comrades on the deck, then a few rapid, unintelligible signals made with the hand passed between them, a parting salute was waved from the air-ship to the express; and then, with a speed that seemed to rival that of the lightning-bolt, the cruiser of the air darted forward and upward, and in ten seconds was lost beyond the clouds.
“Well, now that you have seen one of our aerial fleet at close quarters,” said Alan, turning to Olga and Serge, “what do you think of her?”
“A miracle!” they both exclaimed in one breath; and then Olga went on, her voice trembling with an irresistible agitation—
“I can hardly believe that such a marvel is the creation of merely human genius. There is something appalling in the very idea of the awful power lying in the hands of those who can create and command such a vessel as that. You Aerians may well look down on us poor earth-dwellers, for truly you have made yourselves as gods.”
She spoke earnestly, and for once with absolute honesty, for the vision of the air-ship had awed her completely for the time being. Alan appeared for the moment as a god in her eyes, until she saw his lips curve in a very human smile, and heard his voice say, without the slightest assumption of superiority in its tone—
“No, not as gods; but only as men who have developed under the most favourable circumstances possible, and who have known how to make the best of their advantages.”
“God or man,” said Olga in her soul, while her lips were smiling acknowledgment of his modesty, “by this time to-morrow you shall be my slave, and I will be mistress both of you and your air-ship!”
Chapter VI.
Deed and Dream.
When Olga went to her room that night in St. Petersburg, instead of going to bed, she unpacked from her valise a series of articles which seemed strange possessions for a young girl of not quite seventeen to travel with on her wedding journey.
First came a tiny spirit furnace from which, by the aid of an arrangement something like the modern blow-pipe, an intense heat could be obtained. Then a delicate pair of scales, a glass pestle and mortar, and a couple of glass liquid-measures, and lastly, half a dozen little phials filled with variously-coloured liquids, and as many little packets of powders, that looked like herbs ground very finely.
When she had placed these out on the table, after having carefully locked the door of her room, and seen that the windows were completely shuttered and curtained, she drew from the bosom of her dress a gold chain, at the end of which was fastened, together with the key of the secret recess in the wall of the turret chamber of the house at Hampstead, a small bag of silk, out of which she took a little roll of parchment,—the slip which she had abstracted from Paul Romanoff’s secret will after she had persuaded Serge, with her false kisses, to leave her alone for a while.
She seated herself at the table, drew the electric reading-lamp which stood on it close to her, laid the slip down in front of her, keeping it unrolled by means of a couple of little weights, and studied it intently for several minutes. Then she made a series of calculations on another sheet of paper, and compared the result carefully with some figures on the slip.
She made them three times over before she was satisfied that they were absolutely correct, and then, with all the care and deliberation of a chemical analyst performing a delicate and important experiment, she proceeded to weigh out tiny quantities of the powders, and to mix them very carefully in the little glass mortar. This done, she emptied the mixture into a little platinum crucible, which she placed on the furnace, at