CHAPTER XXII THE EMPTY HOUSE

The fit of weakness passed swiftly to give place to a finer measure of courage than any which had inspired him hitherto.

The prize was lost. What then? He had been robbed of it, not by any failure of the machine he had created, but by the caprice of nature, against which he was powerless. Those who criticised him would be compelled to admit as much. And, all said and done, he had been the first man to cross Mont Blanc in an aeroplane, and no tongue could rob him of the credit.

These were early impressions, and not a little vague. He was bitterly cold and so cramped in every limb that when he rolled out of his seat at last he could not stand upright. Utterly exhausted in mind and body, he held as well as he could to the shell of the ship, and tried to drag himself to his feet. Then he remembered that there was a flask of brandy among his "stores," and finding it with maladroit hand, he took a heavy draught. The potent liquor revived him immediately. Circulation came back at last. He stood upright and looked about him.

He was on a steep slope of the snow, and there were woods above him. When he had searched them a little while with patient eyes, he began to think that they were not unfamiliar. A further scrutiny showed him a gabled building above the woods, and he could have sworn that it was the well-known hotel at Vermala. Turning to the valley below, he perceived a clump of pines emerging from the mists, and they fitted into the picture he had imagined. Yes, they would be the woods standing between Vermala and the plateau of Andana, and if they were, his chalet lay below them. But at that thought he shrugged his shoulders and laughed in an odd way. He would not think about a chance so preposterous.

His machine had escaped all damage in the swift descent, and lay across the bank; one wing just tipping the froth of the snow, the other poised high above the white ground. His difficulty was to reach solid ground, for the drifts were deep hereabouts, and he sank up to his knees at every step he took. It occurred to him that he must carry skis with him in future against such a mishap as this; and resolving to make a note of it, he began to examine the engine and propellers to see if all were well with them. This scrutiny still occupied him when he heard a loud shouting from the woods below, and picked up his ears as a hare that is warned.

There were cries in the wood, incoherent salvos as of a mob whose hearts might be in unison, but whose lungs were out of tune. Listening intently, Benny thought that he could distinguish the raucous voices of boys, the shrill piping of girls, and the deep baying of men excited abnormally. A moment later and a man emerged from the wood, and set out to cross the snow toward him, and this man was up to his waist in the drift immediately, while strong arms were thrust out to help him, and a roar of laughter proffered as his reward.

"Good God!" cried Benny, "it's the little priest!" And, in truth, it was.

The Abbé Villari, with his cassock tucked up to his waist, his arms waving wildly, hatless and with tousled hair, he had been first before them all. No runner at Stamford Bridge could have had much the better of him in that mad striving for the first prize in the race. And, worthy soul, the snow engulfed him immediately, and it remained for the parson, Harry Clavering, to drag him out and set him, sobered, upon his feet. Meanwhile, others had snatched the prize from him, and before them all the Admirable Crichton of Andana, Dr. Orange, the immaculate.

Benny steadied himself by the shell of his ship while he watched this advance; nor could his wit make anything of it. Why were all these people in such a hurry to thrash a dead horse? Had they come to tell what he knew so well, that his endeavour had failed, and that the prize must go to another? He could make nothing of it, and he stood and stared while men and women on skis debouched from the woods by twenty paths and came racing over the snow toward him.

Dr. Orange was quite out of breath when he reached the place, and he stood for a little while holding to the ship and trying to find words. Before he had recovered, Bob Otway, Dick Fenton, and Keith Rivers had joined him, and these were eloquent enough, though they spoke a strange tongue to Benny. In truth, their greeting was an incoherent salvo of wild words among which he distinguished such homely phrases as, "You've got them stiff"; "Bravo old Benny!" and "Perinder pays, by thunder!" An instant later and Bob had suggested that it was a case for "chairing"; and there being no chair handy, he and Rivers laid violent hands upon the astonished victor and lifted him bodily to their shoulders.

His protest went for nothing. He cried out that it was "damned nonsense!" but no one seemed to hear him. Perchance a man has never been carried shoulder-high by other men on skis before. They would establish a precedent, as Bob declared, and calling the parson and Dick Fenton to his aid, set off bravely for the Palace.

"Where is my brother?" Benny asked them in an interlude. The doctor answered that he had fainted when the gun announced the victory; but that was an enigma to the engineer, and kept him quiet awhile. "When the gun announced his victory. Good God! What victory?"

"I lost it," he stammered presently, "because the mist took me. It seems I was nearer than I thought. Another ten minutes and I would have done it."

Nobody listened to this. They were in the woods now, and went on in a triumph characteristic of Andana. If the music were chiefly of horns and bugles, it mattered little. Major Boodle, among others, had devoted a master intellect to the acquisition of the "yoodle" in various keys, and he practised it relentlessly. There was one fellow who had borrowed a drum in the village, and beat a tattoo with real cleverness. A few mild youths, who always carried revolvers when "on the Continent," produced those far from formidable weapons and shot down the branches from the trees. But, in the main, the voice was the instrument, and was to be heard in a stentorian cheer, or the less musical and more joyous chant of victory.

Some hundreds of the spectators had gone up to Vermala, but many thousands remained on the plateau and were discovered suddenly as the odd procession emerged from the woods. The drift of cloud, which had tricked the aviator into the belief that he had failed, was now but a wall of vapour flanking the precipices across the valley, all the scene stood out, revealed in magic glory.

Heaven knew whence all the flags had come. It was said that the bunting erected by the Daily Recorder had been pulled down by excited hands and distributed among the people. Certainly, every other man carried a flag and waved it perpetually. In their turn, the women waved handkerchiefs while the children ran to and fro hardly understanding what it was all about, and caring very little. Meanwhile, the band blared incessantly, and down at the village the church bell tolled as gaily as an ancient bell-ringer could persuade it to do.

The crowd had waited patiently for its hero to come down from the heights, and directly it perceived the outposts of the procession, all bonds were broken and a wild tumult ensued. A hundred hands fought for the burden, and were repulsed with difficulty. A frenzy of cheers succeeded the intermittent salvos. Men, and women too, fell in the snow and were rolled over and over by the heedless feet of other runners. The one desire was to see the man who had done this thing, and, if it might be, to touch his hand. He, in turn, implored those who carried him to make an end of it.

"Take me to the chalet," he said. And the doctor commanding, they carried him there in triumph, and shut and barred the door against the multitude.

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Brother Jack had been sitting before the fire in their little sitting-room when Benny came tumbling in. His face was very pale and his eyes wide open. It was true that he had fainted when the signal-gun announced his brother's victory, and the reaction of joy could be detected in the quiver of his lips and his restless hands. Had he been a Frenchman he would have kissed Benny on both cheeks prior to a flourish of words in which platitudes of sentiment abounded. But as it was, he just stood up and cried, "Hallo, Benny!" while Benny said, "Hallo, Jack!" and came and slapped him on the shoulder. The others in the room at this time were at the Abbé Villari, Harry Clavering and the doctor, and these three stood apart that the brothers might talk.

"I thought you were done, Benny, old boy. I heard the engine down the valley, and thought you'd miss us. How did you manage it? How did you do it, old fellow?"

"That's what I'm asking myself, Jack. I must have done it, or these people wouldn't be making such a noise. Luck, I suppose. I thought I was a good ten miles from the place when I came down. Well, I suppose I wasn't, and that's all."

Jack laughed. The colour was returning to his cheeks.

"It's not all by a long way, Benny. You flew right over our heads just as though you were making a bee line. Not that it mattered. What you had to do was to get back to the starting-point, and here you are. Come and warm yourself, old boy. You're stiff with the cold."

Benny agreed to that.

"Never was so cold in all my life, Jack. You could cut me up in lengths, if you liked! I've had a hard time, old boy—a d——d hard time! And now it's over, eh? Well, that's something; and if none of you mind, I think I'll go to bed for a spell. Dr. Orange would prescribe that, I know. Just a snooze, doctor, eh, and a drop of something warm!"

He turned and went up the little staircase to his bedroom. Jack and the doctor following. The crowd was still gathered about the house, and from time to time it cheered lustily; but when Dr. Orange went out and said the aviator was resting, the people drew back respectfully, while the gendarmes posted sentries before the chalet, and forbade anyone to approach it. Among them was the little gendarme, Philip, waiting impatiently for his chief's permission to go into Italy.

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It had been arranged that the cheque for ten thousand pounds should be handed over by Sir John Perinder, the proprietor of the Daily Recorder, at a banquet to be given at the Palace Hotel at seven o'clock that night. Lavish according to his habit, Sir John invited all the residents at the hotel to be his guests, and prepared also a high table at which the victor might meet his intimates.

Aided by the staff of the Palace, the great dining-room was quickly prepared for this novel function. The flags of many nations adorned its whitewashed walls; there were ridiculous streamers and words of welcome both in French and English. Bizarre ornaments from the bazaar decorated the long tables, but the high table itself carried the monster silver cup with which the Aero Club of Switzerland commemorated the achievement, and this was a veritable work of art.

Benny found this dinner one of the most uncomfortable entertainments at which he had yet assisted. It is true that he was received by a round of cheers when he entered the room, but he could not but remember that many who now applauded had derided him but a week ago.

For himself, he would have been hard put to it to say just what he did feel. That the whole world would tell the story of the flight to-morrow, he knew full well. It would have been absurd to have put aside so self-evident a fact. The nations would honour him, and his own people welcome a British victory. Looking further afield, he perceived that his social position had changed in a flash, and that he, who had called himself a beggar that morning, was now a rich man, with every prospect of adding enormously to his riches in the immediate future. Already the cable had brought offers which dazed him by their generosity. He was to fly at this meeting, to fly at that. A firm in London offered him two thousand pounds just to show his machine. Surely, this implied a permanence of fortune. And he had but begun to use those amazing brains which God had given him.

Here were things to be remembered subtly as the waiters filled his glass with champagne, and boisterous diners asked to drink wine with him. He found the speeches tedious enough, and thought Sir John a dreadful windbag. When the great moment came, and the cheque was handed over to him, it seemed such a sorry strip of paper to stand for so much, and he thrust it into his pocket carelessly, as though it were the visiting-card of an acquaintance. None the less, he was conscious of it being there during the rest of the dinner; and despite his desire not to do so, he touched it more than once with his fingers to be quite sure that he had not lost it.

His own speech amazed the company. No one expected an engineer to be also an orator, and yet his simple words had the stamp of true oratory. He spoke to the hearts of those who heard him, concealing none of his aims and ambitions, and confessing how greatly he had desired success. His honesty was inspiring. He believed that they would be glad to have this news in England. It was natural that he should think of his own country at such a moment. But he could give every credit to France, and the brains of those Frenchmen who had carried this art to such lengths. In conclusion, he hoped that his many friends at Andana would hold some memory of him in their affections.

There were rousing cheers at this—the cheers of those who had grown suddenly conscious of their own littleness, and knew that they had met a man. When the dinner broke up, young and old swarmed about Benny again, begging his experiences, proffering their books, congratulating him in volatile phrases. To all he pleaded that he was dead tired and must get to bed. The supreme day of his life had ended! He was about to say "good-bye" to it.

It was eleven o'clock then, and few were abroad. The excursionists had already returned to Sierre and the railway; the keepers of carnival had surrendered to the snow and a bitter wind arisen at sundown. What should have been an al fresco fête upon the skating rink had become but a collection of shivering impresarios gathered about ebbing fires. The pathway to the Park Hotel was deserted, nor could you have counted twenty people on the road to Vermala.

Benny had set out in the company of his brother Jack and the Abbé Villari, and the three pursued their way in silence toward the house. Usually, there would have been a beacon light to guide them, a lamp shining from the window of Lily Delayne's chalet; but no such lamp shone out to-night, and the gables shaped amid the snowflakes as the grey and silent towers of some deserted citadel. When they drew a little nearer they saw that the blinds were drawn, and that the whole chalet was in darkness: a fact which the abbé explained by saying that the English lady had left for Sierre earlier in the day, and that he did not believe she would return. To this Benny made no other answer than to suggest that she must have found the presence of so many strangers unwelcome, and perhaps had done well to go.

But he rested a moment at the door of the chalet for all that, and when he turned away neither of the others had the courage to mention the matter again.