CHAPTER XIX. FACE TO FACE AGAIN.

SMILING and self-possessed as Olga appeared when she gained the roof of the palace, she had passed through a perfect purgatory of conflicting and agonising emotions since the news of the arrival of the Ithuriel had reached her in her room. Her tremendous and, but for the fact of her strange, hopeless love, incomprehensible blunder in setting Alan and Alexis free, instead of either killing them or keeping them in life-long captivity, had already borne terrible fruit; but this visit, made at the very moment when her plans were apparently crowned with success, seemed to threaten nothing less than the complete ruin of all her schemes.

She knew instinctively that the city must be surrounded by an overwhelming force of Aerian ships, for a single one to venture thus into the midst of her own squadron, and, judging by her own tactics, she expected nothing less than immediate annihilation as the alternative to surrender. But even more bitter than this was the thought of meeting, not only as a freeman, but as the commander of the Aerian navy, the man who but a few days ago had been her docile, unresisting slave, robbed of the highest attribute of his manhood by the Circe-spell that she had cast over him, and which she now knew was broken for ever.

And, more than this, she must now meet as an implacable enemy the man whom, in spite of herself, she still loved with[203] all the passion of her fiery nature, and who, now that he was free again, could but look upon her not only with hatred, but with disgust. This, so far as her own feelings were concerned, was the miserable end of her scheming, but there was no help for it. She had deliberately sown the wind, and now the time was approaching for her to reap the whirlwind.

She thought of her dream in St. Petersburg, and a new and awful meaning was made apparent to her in those few minutes of mental torture before she went to meet her well-beloved enemy face to face. She saw herself mistress of a conquered world, seated on a lonely throne, wailing over her own broken heart in the midst of a desolation that she had brought upon the earth—for nothing.

This, it seemed, was to be the penalty of the unspeakable crime she had committed to gain possession of the air-ship, a hopeless love that should turn all the fruits of conquest, if she ever won them, into the bitter ashes of the Dead Sea apples in her mouth, a love not only unrequited, but repaid with righteous horror and almost divine disgust.

And yet, despite all this, her marvellous fortitude and royal pride came to her aid to help her to bear herself bravely before her enemies, and so, with a smile on her lips and a hell of raging passions in her bosom, she ascended to take her part in the debate, big with the destiny of a world, that was being held on the palace roof.

As Alan turned and confronted her in all the strength and splendour of the manhood that not even her almost superhuman arts had been able to tarnish or weaken, and looked at her with the stern, steady gaze without one sign of recognition in the eyes that shone blue-black beneath his straight-drawn brows, her heart stood still and seemed turned to ice in her breast, and for one brief moment her foot faltered and the light died out of her eyes and the colour from her cheeks.

Then she caught the Sultan’s gaze turned inquiringly upon her; her indomitable spirit rose to the emergency, and her self-possession returned. Passing Alan by with a slight[204] inclination of her head which did not conceal the mocking smile which curled her dainty lips, she went to Khalid and, holding out her hand, said in steady, musical tones which, do what he would to resist it, sent a thrill to Alan’s heart—

“Where is the message that my faithless servant brings from the tyrants of the world?”

The Sultan gave it to her, and as she read it Lossenski stood silent like the rest, but with head bowed down in shame and sorrow. When she reached the last word of the despatch the crimson deepened on her cheeks and her hands closed convulsively on the paper. Then with a quick movement she tore it in twain, flung the two fragments to the ground, and then, looking up with eyes blazing with passion, she cried—

“I should be a slave to obey! Lossenski, signal to the squadron to rise. Boris, train a gun on that ship and blow her to pieces if a man moves on board of her. Out of the way there, Alan Arnold. If you lift a hand I will shoot you like a dog!”

As she spoke she snatched a pistol out of her belt and had almost levelled it at Alan’s heart, when, like a flash of lightning, his rapier leapt from its sheath, and as the pistol came up it was dashed from her hand.

“I could have killed you with less trouble,” he said, in quick stern accents, raising the glittering blue blade to a level with her eyes, and keeping it outstretched towards her. “Have you forgotten what I told you, or that I am no longer under your vile spell? If those orders are obeyed I will kill you now, though you do wear a woman’s shape. The city is surrounded, and if one vessel rises from the earth, Alexandria will be in ruins in an hour. Now, give the signal for its destruction if you dare, and let the earth be rid of you!”

“And of you, my gallant Knight of the Air, who draws his sword upon a woman!” she almost hissed at him in her fury. “Yes, I dare and I will. Lossenski”—

In another moment the fate of the world would have been changed; but, before the order could be repeated, the Sultan[205] strode forward and placed himself between Alan and Olga with outstretched arms—

“No, Tsarina! that order shall not be given on my palace or in my hearing. You have forgotten our agreement and my oath. I have sworn on the Koran that there shall be no war between Islam and Aeria for a year, and by the glory of Allah there shall be none!

“What have I and my people done that you should bring this destruction upon them? Your servant shall be shot if he opens his lips, and if you must fight, go into the desert and do it; but that will end our alliance, for you will have broken the peace to which I have sworn, and made me a liar. It is enough! Let us talk like reasonable beings, and not quarrel like children.”

Olga was conquered for the time being, and she saw it. Few as had been the moments of the Sultan’s speech, they were enough to allow her agile intellect to get the better of her anger, and to convince her that it would have led her to suicide in another minute.

Her manner changed with a swiftness that was almost miraculous. Her long, thick lashes fell, hiding the still burning fires of her eyes. Her attitude changed from one of defiance to one of deference, and as she stepped back a pace or two, she said in a totally altered voice—

“Your Majesty has justly rebuked me. My anger overcame my reason for the moment. My hatred of these tyrants of the air is not a thing of to-day or of yesterday, as you know, but the legacy of generations of wrong and robbery, and the arrogance of this man, who but a few days ago was my slave, and now ventures to dictate terms of war or peace to me, was more than my patience or my temper could bear. I have done wrong, and in atonement I will promise, on the honour of a Romanoff, to be bound absolutely by such engagement as your Majesty may make until the period of your truce is expired.”

So saying, she retired to a distant part of the terrace, beckoning Lossenski to follow her. Throwing herself on a[206] seat in full view but out of earshot of the group she had left, she bade him tell her the story of the loss of the Vindaya, and how he came to be the bearer of the message of the Council of Aeria to her.

Lossenski told the story simply and truthfully, and as he finished, the Grand Vizier approached, and after an obeisance, made with Oriental reverence, said—

“Tsarina, my master commands me to inform you that he has settled all matters with the Prince of the Air save one, and to settle that he craves your assistance. Will it please you to come and speak with him?”

“I will come,” said Olga, rising and following him with the words of Lossenski fresh in her ears.

“Tsarina Olga,” said the Sultan, coming to meet her as she approached the group amidst which Alan was still standing, “I have come to an agreement with Alan Arnold upon all points but one, and that one only you can decide.

“He asserts that six years ago he took you and your brother as guests on board the air-ship, which you now call the Revenge, that you drugged the wine drunk by him and his comrades, and, sparing only him and his friend Alexis Masarov, you poisoned the rest of the crew, and threw them out on to the snows of Norway, after which you kept him and Alexis under your influence by means of a drug, which deprived them of their will-power and forced them to reveal the secrets of the air-ship to you and assist you in building your fleet.”

“And has your Majesty given credence to such a monstrous story, or do you only wish to hear me give it the contradiction which its absurdity and falsity deserve? If the former, the sooner I and my ships leave your city, never to return save as enemies, the better. If the latter, you shall soon be satisfied.”

Olga spoke with an air of angered innocence which completely deceived the Sultan, anxious as he was to find the extraordinary story false, and he hastily replied—

“It is the latter that I desire, of course. I was obliged to[207] say that if you were unable to deny the accusation it would be impossible for me to continue an alliance with one who had been guilty of a crime which my faith and the customs of my race denounce as vile beyond all human measure. But I refused to believe it against you until your own lips had confessed it, or undeniable evidence had proved it, and therefore I have asked you to come and let us know the truth.”

“I thank you, Sultan Khalid, for your confidence and your chivalry,” she said, looking up into his eyes with a glance that rendered all denial from her once and for ever unnecessary. “You shall hear me deny the foul falsehood to my traducer’s face.”

Stung to fresh fury by the knowledge that Alan had sought to expose her in her true nature to the man whom she sought to make her slave in his place, she strode forward to within three paces of where he was standing, and, drawing herself up to the full height of her royal stature, she faced him with pale cheeks and blazing eyes, her beauty so transfigured by anger that the Moslems standing about her instinctively shrank back, awe-stricken by such an incarnation of wrath and loveliness as no man of them had ever dreamed of before. Even Alan himself forgot his hate and disgust for the moment in the contemplation of her almost miraculous beauty and the indescribable dignity with which her anger invested her, and waited in silence that was almost respectful for the tempest of wrath and reproach which he saw was about to be let loose on him.

Her lips trembled mutely for a moment or two before any sound came from them, but when she spoke her tone was low and clear, though almost hoarse with passion, and shaken by the manifest effort she made to keep it under control.

“So this is the return that your chivalry makes for my generosity in giving you life and liberty when you were lost to the world; when I might have killed you, as I see now that I should have done, without a single soul among your people knowing anything of your fate!

[208]

“I expected that you would take up arms against me, for your people and mine are enemies to the death; and I knew, too, that the love which I had spurned would not be long in turning to active hate. But you excelled my expectations—you, one of the Princes of the Air, the scion of a race that holds itself above all the other races of the earth, the son of a man who but a few years ago was lord and master of the world! You come in the guise of open and honourable warfare to smirch with your foul lies the fame of a woman for whose sake you made yourself a traitor to your people and a murderer of your own comrades. A pretty story, forsooth, to tell in the ears of my friends and allies. Do you take them for children or fools that you expect them to believe it?

“Imagine such a miracle, your Majesty,” she continued, turning, with the clear ring of a mocking laugh in her voice, to the Sultan, “imagine this Alan Arnold, son of the President of Aeria, with his friend and lieutenant, Alexis Masarov, and a crew of eight Aerians on board their flagship, armed with the most tremendous means of destruction ever invented by human genius, and each man of them, moreover, possessing in his own person the power of life and death, as he himself has proved before your own eyes.

“These kings among men invite two casual acquaintances for a trip to the clouds, and these two guests, a youth of twenty and a girl not seventeen, unarmed and without assistance, seize their ship, kill eight of their invincibly armed comrades, and lead the captain and his lieutenant away captive. And how? By means of some mysterious drugs, subtle and irresistible poisons, of which such a boy and girl could not possibly have known either the composition or the use, and which they would have been afraid to employ if they had done.

“But let me come to the facts as they are,” she went on, turning again to Alan, who stood literally dumfounded before her, amazed beyond power of thought or speech by the audacity of her words. “It is you who are the liar, the traitor, and the murderer. It is you who killed my brother before my eyes because he sought to protect me from your violence; and it is[209] you and your friend Alexis who, of your own free will, struck your comrades dead, threw them out of the air-ship upon the Norwegian snows, and then, in the hope of gaining my favour, took the Ithuriel to Vorobièvo, near Moscow, and delivered her into the hands of my friends.

“I have fifty men within call at this moment who will swear that this is true. Orloff Lossenski, you are one of them. Were you not at the villa at Vorobièvo when these two came with me in the Ithuriel and delivered her into your hands; and did you not find the corpse of my brother Serge in one of the state rooms with his neck bruised and blackened by the grip of his murderer?”

“Yes, Majesty,” replied Lossenski, stepping forward as he was addressed. “That is true, though they told us at the time that your brother had been killed in a struggle with their comrades.”

“And is it true,” continued Olga, “that they accompanied me into your villa and had supper with us as friends, and did not I forgive the death of my brother for the sake of the advantages which the possession of the air-ship, which they consented to surrender to us, would be to the cause of the revolution in Russia to which we were pledged?”

“That is also true, Majesty; and there are several here now with the squadron who can also testify to the fact.”

“And also,” interrupted Olga, “to the fact that these two traitors worked willingly to help us to secrete the air-ship, and finally to take her to Mount Terror, and there explained the working of her machinery to us and helped us to build other air-ships and submarine vessels, and commanded these in their attacks upon the commerce of our enemies. Is that true, also?”

“It is, Majesty,” again replied Lossenski. “Shall I summon the crews of our ships that they also may testify to it lest my word should not be enough?”

“Is it your Majesty’s wish that they shall be called?” asked Olga, again turning to the Sultan, who all this time had been standing shifting his gaze from her face to Alan’s, and[210] from Alan’s back again to hers, horrified by the fearful accusations with which she had replied to the story, of the falsity of which he was already thoroughly convinced.

“They can be called if Alan Arnold desires it,” he said, in grave, deliberate tones. “But would it not be better that he should speak first? At present we have two words against one. Has he any proof that what you say is false?” he continued, looking inquiringly towards Alan.

“I have none but my own word and that of Alexis, up yonder in the skies, and him I cannot—and if I could, under the circumstances, I would not—call,” said Alan, who by this time had recovered his self-possession. “If your Majesty proposes to judge between us according to spoken testimony, I say at once that I will accept no such tests, for I well know that this woman could produce a hundred of her accomplices who would swear anything she bade them swear.

“She has given me the lie with equal skill and audacity. I can only give her the lie in return, if not as skilfully, at least as boldly, and with a knowledge that I am telling the truth. Your Majesty can believe her story or mine, as you choose. If you believe hers, I am willing to do you the justice of confessing that you will be judging according to the weight of testimony, such as it is, for that is certainly against me.”

“And so I must judge,” replied the Sultan coldly. “I cannot believe your story, for it seems to be impossible, while the Tsarina’s has every appearance of truth. Into your motives I have neither the right nor the wish to inquire, and all that is left for me to say is that what I have heard has finally decided me to espouse the cause of the Tsarina and her friends against those who have wronged and slandered her, be the cost to me and my people what it may.

“We shall keep the truce if you do, and in the day of strife let the God of Battles decide between us. My answer to your Council’s message shall be ready for you in half an hour. Farewell!”

So saying, Khalid the Magnificent turned his back upon Alan, and walked, followed by his Vizier and his ministers, to[211] the doorway leading to the interior of the palace. Olga, pausing for a moment to cast one glance of triumphant hatred at her discredited foe, beckoned to Lossenski, and followed the Sultan without a word.

Alan, amazed and enraged beyond measure by the unexpected turn that affairs had taken, and yet confident in his own knowledge of the truth, turned on his heel, and went back on board the Ithuriel, where he went into his own cabin and sat down to write his directions for enforcing the order of the Council with regard to the evacuation of the city by the Russian squadron.

He bitterly regretted that the orders of the Council did not permit him to destroy the Russian air-ships there and then while they lay at his mercy. But the orders were explicit, and forbade him even to pursue them after they had left Alexandria, unless they committed an act of hostility against him.

If he could have done so, he would have fought them at all hazards, and then, if he had conquered, he would have been able to enforce the general prohibition of the Council against building air-ships upon the Sultan; but as disobedience was not to be thought of, he could only carry out his orders, and hope that the judgment of the Council might prove in the end superior to his own.

At the end of the half-hour he was summoned to meet the Grand Vizier, who brought the reply of his master. This ran as follows:—

    In the Name of the Most Merciful God!

    Khalid, Commander of the Faithful, to Alan Arnold, President of Aeria.

    I have received your message from the hands of your son. I shall faithfully observe the terms of the truce I promised to him, and of which he has told you.

    As my city lies for the time being at the mercy of your fleet, I can only save my people and my guests from destruction by agreeing to your demands. The Russian air-ships shall leave Alexandria within an hour of the delivery of this to your son. But this is to tell you that I have made alliance with Olga Romanoff, rightful Tsarina of the Russias, and that when the year of truce has expired, I will no longer be a king merely in name and hold my power and dignity at your pleasure.

    [212]

    At the end of the year of truce there shall be war between you and me and your people and mine unless before then you shall recognise my independence in due form and my right to create such armaments as I think fit for the protection of my dominions against yourself or any other Power, and unless you consent to restore Olga Romanoff to the throne and dignity which is hers by right, and of which your ancestors robbed her in the days of the Terror.

    If you do this there shall be peace between us, but if not, there shall be war, and we will fight until the God of Battles has decided between us, and given to you or to me the dominion of the world.

Alan’s brows contracted slightly as he read this defiant missive, but there was a half-pitying smile on his lips when he said to the Vizier as he handed him the instructions he had just written—

“I am deeply sorry—sorry for him and his people, and, indeed, for the whole human race—that he has been misled into writing words which in a year’s time will set the world in a blaze. Our reply to this will be written in blood and fire, and the smoking ruins of cities throughout the length and breadth of his dominions. But he has chosen, and he and you must abide by his choice. I cannot believe that he knows what he is doing, and if you are a faithful friend and servant you will counsel peace and moderation.”

“My master,” said the Vizier haughtily, “does not seek advice from his enemies; more than ever would it be impossible for him to do so when their lips are fresh-stained with lies.”

Alan’s hand instinctively sprang to the hilt of his rapier, and in another moment the Vizier’s life would have paid for the insult, but when the blade was half out of its sheath his self-control returned, and he thrust it back again, saying—

“You are an old man and an ambassador, so you are safe. You shall live so that you may some day find out for yourself where the truth in this matter lies. Who knows but that the Syren may before long put you or your master under her spell. If she does you will drink something from her hand, and when you have drunk it you will have no will but hers; you will obey her blindly, and the thoughts that you speak shall be only those she suggests to you.”

Later on that day, when the excitement of the hour had[213] passed, Musa al Ghazi remembered these words, and the strange acquiescence which he had given to Olga’s plans in the saloon of the Revenge. If he had remembered it while Alan was speaking, millions of innocent lives might possibly have been saved, and the curse of war averted from the world for many more generations, perhaps for ever. But he did not, and so events took their logical course. As it was, he made no direct reply to Alan’s words, but handed him another paper, saying—

“I have been commissioned also to give you this. The instructions agreed upon shall be obeyed, and now I have only to remind you that you are no longer my master’s guest.”

With that he saluted with frigid dignity and turned away towards the palace door.

Alan looked after him for a moment with a smile half of contempt and half of pity, then he opened the paper in his hand. As he expected, it was from Olga, and, beginning without any form of address, it ran thus—

    I shall obey your orders and leave the city, not because I will, but because I must, in order to save the Sultan and his people from destruction. I will also undertake to refrain from hostilities until the Sultan’s truce expires, provided you do not molest me. If you do, or if the Sultan is subjected to any unreasonable commands or acts of oppression, I will consider the truce at an end, and I will not only recommence my submarine attacks upon the world’s commerce, but I will send out my air-ships and scatter death and destruction far and wide over the earth, without mercy and without discrimination between enemies or neutrals; it is therefore for you to choose whether the issue between us shall be fought out when the time comes, and in fair and honourable warfare, or whether the dogs of war shall be let loose at once. I have still thirty air-ships, and as many submarine cruisers, and I can do what I say.

    Olga Romanoff.

“No doubt,” said Alan to himself. “I’m afraid we shall have to accept your terms. I didn’t think that even you would be capable of such a colossal crime as that; but now I know something like the full capacity of your wickedness, and if you threaten it you will do it.

“With those thirty ships, if you have as many as that, and I suppose you must have twenty-four or twenty-five at least, you could wreck half the great cities of the world in six[214] months, and we could do little or nothing to stop you. We have only eleven ships equal in speed to yours, and most of those must be kept in call of Aeria.

“I would give my life and my ship willingly for permission to fight it out here and now, and yet, after all, that would be frightful cruelty and injustice to the unoffending thousands who would lose their lives by the destruction of the city, so I suppose it must be peace for a year, and then—ah, what then?”

His soliloquy began on the terrace and ended on the deck of the Ithuriel. He gave the order to rise into the air, and the aerial cruiser soared slowly upwards, still flying the flag of truce as a signal to her consorts that the mission had been successfully accomplished. As he felt certain that the Sultan would carry out the directions agreed upon to the letter, he left the city without any misgivings, and in a few minutes the Ithuriel was floating alongside her consort the Isma, and Alan and Alexis had clasped hands once more.