CHAPTER V. A VISION FROM THE CLOUDS.

AT K?nigsberg, which was reached in nine hours after leaving London, that is to say, soon after seven o’clock in the evening, the Eastern express divided: five of the cars went northward to St. Petersburg, carrying those passengers who were going to participate in the Winter Festival, while the other five which made up the train went on to Moscow and the East.

During the twenty minutes’ stop at Berlin, Olga had found an opportunity of having a few words in private with Serge, and had succeeded in persuading him, much against his will, of the necessity of postponing their marriage, and therefore their visit to Moscow, for the execution of a daring and suddenly-conceived plan which she had thought out, but which she had then no time to explain to him.

Serge, though very loath to postpone even for a day or two the consummation of his hopes and the hour which should make Olga irrevocably his, so far as human laws could bind her to him, was so far under the domination of her imperious will that, as soon as he saw that she had determined to have her own way, he yielded with the best grace he could.

Olga chided him gently and yet earnestly for his outbreak of temper towards Alan, and told him plainly that, where such tremendous issues were concerned as those which were involved in the struggle which sooner or later they must wage with the Aerians, no personal considerations whatever could be permitted[48] a moment’s serious thought. If she could sacrifice her own feelings, and disguise her hatred of the tyrants of the world under the mask of friendliness, for the sake of the ends to which both their lives were devoted, surely he, if he were at all worthy of her love, could so far trust her as to restrain the unreasoning jealousy of which he had already been guilty.

Either, she told him, he must trust to her absolutely for the present, or he must take the management of affairs into his own hands; and, as she said in conclusion, he must find some influence stronger than hers in their dealings with him who would one day be the ruler of Aeria, and, therefore, the real master of the world, should it ever be possible to dispute the empire of Earth with the Aerians.

From the influence which she exercised over himself, Serge knew only too well that he could not hope to rival her in this regard where a man was concerned, and so he perforce agreed to her proposal, and for the present left the conduct of affairs in her hands.

A telephonic message was therefore sent from K?nigsberg to the friends who expected them at Vorobièvo?, near Moscow, to tell them of the change in their plans; and when the train once more glided out over the frozen plains of the North, the four were once more seated together in the brilliantly-lighted car, which flashed like a meteor through the gathering darkness of the winter’s night.

About half an hour after they had passed what had once been the jealously-guarded Russian frontier, a dazzling gleam of light suddenly blazed down from the black darkness overhead, and Olga, who was sitting by one of the windows of the car, bent forward and said—

“Look there! What is that? There is a bright light shining down out of the clouds on the train.”

Alan saw the flash across the window, and, without even troubling to look up at its source, said—

“Oh, I suppose that’ll be the air-ship that was ordered to meet us at St. Petersburg. You know, we usually have one of[49] them in attendance, when we trust ourselves alone among our possible enemies of the outer world.”

The last sentence was spoken with a quiet irony, which brought home both to Olga and Serge the not very pleasant conviction that their previous conversation had by no means been forgotten. Serge, perhaps fearing to give utterance to his thoughts, remained silent, but Olga looked at Alan with a half-saucy smile, and said almost mockingly—

“Your Majesties of Aeria may well esteem yourselves impregnable, while you have such a bodyguard as that at your beck and call. I suppose that air-ship would not have the slightest difficulty in blowing this train, and all it contains, off the face of the earth at a moment’s notice, if it had orders to do so?”

“Not the slightest,” said Alan quietly. “But in proof of the fact that it has no such hostile intentions, you shall, if you please, take a voyage beyond the clouds in it the day after to-morrow, from St. Petersburg.”

“What!” said Olga, her cheeks flushing and her eyes lighting up at the very idea of such an experience. “Do you really mean to say that you would permit a daughter of the earth, as I am told you call the women who have not the good fortune to be born in Aeria, to go on board one of those wonderful air-ships of yours, and taste the forbidden 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[50] 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[51] 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[52] 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!”