Tuesday's Serial: “The Messiah of the Cylinder” by Victor Rousseau (in Englsih) - the end.

 

CHAPTER XXVI - THE ADMIRAL OF THE AIR

I saw defeat written upon his face, but there was no sign of fear. He stood alone, unarmed, confronting me, and if he had fled when he saw that his cause was lost I do him the justice to believe it was his undaunted will which drove him to flight, that he might plan new havoc for the world.

No chance remained for him. By the glare of the searchlights I saw the last vestige of rout end at the Temple doors. Trapped and surrounded, the Guard begged for quarter. This was accorded them; but instantly the prisoners were lost to sight in the presence of the enormous multitudes that came from London, swarming into the courts.

Sanson’s gaze shifted from my face to Esther’s, and, as if she felt the man’s presence, she stirred, and her eyelids unclosed.

“Arnold!” she whispered.

“Yes, dear,” I answered, bending over her.

“I dreamed that—they had run up the annex thirty stories, Arnold, and painted it shining white.”

“You must sleep and dream no more,” I told her. She murmured and her eyelids closed. Again the kindly unconsciousness of sleep held her.

I placed her against the anchored airplane and turned to Sanson. He was facing me with that strange and half-quizzical look that I remembered so well. It had in it more of humanity than the expression of any other of his moods.

“Arnold,” he said softly, “if I were an ignorant man I might be tempted to believe that there is a God, sometimes.”

And that was his way also, to speak of other things in moments of imminent alarm.

“Why?” I inquired.

“Because He is so merciful to His defectives, Arnold. To think that you, with your missing five centimeters, should have defeated me!

“Come,” he continued, clapping his hand on my shoulder. “A truce for a few minutes. A truce, for the sake of our old friendship. You are not to blame for your share in this night’s ruin of civilization. You were the victim of circumstances. And then—you are a defective and could not understand. Arnold, I have never had any friend but you. And sometimes I feel the need of one. Even the gods felt that, and I am far from a god, though, later, perhaps....”

He broke off and resumed, after a short pause:

“Join me. Here is my frank proposal: join me, and, since indeed I would not hold any woman against her will, if Esther chooses you she shall be yours. This night has undone the labor of many years, but those that are past are but as a drop of water in an ocean to those which are to come. I have the secret of immortal life at last—not ghostly life in some gold-decorated heaven, but life in the flesh. I will bestow the gift on you—”

“Let it die with you,” I answered passionately.

He laughed.

“This night’s work, which seems so wonderful to you, is but an episode,” he said. “Come with me to America, Arnold. In six months I can build up my world anew. I shall be less scrupulous and humane in the future with this miserable mob. No moron shall live, no defective go free. I have resolved that. Man can rise only by crushing out weakness and setting himself upon the necks of those who were born to serve. In six months America will be mine; in twelve, the world. From this time onward it is a battle to the death against all that retards the human race.”

His features flushed with the energy of his voice. I looked at him, almost in admiration. I was dumfounded at the audacity of his designs. Trapped here, a prisoner upon the fortress roof, his life already gone when he was found, this man of sixty years planned his universal empire. He was mad, beyond doubt, mad enough to dream impossible things and make them his in his brain’s fertile kingdom; and it was such madness as moves mountains.

“Sanson, I will do this much for you,” I said. “I will hide you from the mob’s fury in a little room near this roof, so that you may not be torn in pieces. I will assure you a fair trial at the hands of the new government. That is all I can promise.”

Would this dream vanish in the realization of fact? I saw his face fall, as if he had come to understand his position at last.

“Where is it?” he said presently. He spoke slowly, and in a bewildered manner, as if he were still struggling with his dreams.

I took him by the arm and led him to the elevator entrance. “It is a little room under the roof,” I said. “The elevator passes it, but it is hardly more than a hole in the wall. One would not look for you there.”

I pressed the button, but of course the elevator did not ascend, since the solar power was cut off.

Sanson withdrew his arm from mine. I saw him assume a listening attitude. “Arnold!” he cried weakly, “they are coming! Listen!”

As I relaxed my guard, he dealt me a buffet that sent me flying down the empty shaft.

I had a confused consciousness of falling through space, of clutching at the shaft walls; and then I was upon my knees, bruised and staring up at the light overhead.

Fortunately the elevator had stopped a few feet from the top. Still dazed, I sprang to my feet and began scrambling up the ironwork. At last I staggered out upon the roof once more. I saw a dozen Sansons, each of whom carried Esther in his arms.

I tried to force reality into these visions, to snatch the living Sanson from among that crowd of ghosts. But they had sprung into the dozen airplanes that lay upon the swaying roof top. A touch of the starting lever, a half turn of the wheel, and as my power of vision came back to me I saw Sanson rise with Esther into the air. He held her on the seat against him, the arm that encircled her controlling the wheel, and he was gone into the heart of the giant moon that was just rising in the east, blood-red behind her veil of clouds.

I stared after him. The airplane was rapidly diminishing in size. He had outwitted me at the last, by one of those clumsy tricks he loved, such as a schoolboy plays.

I staggered toward the edge. I was minded to fling myself down on the stones below. One more victim of the day’s work would mean nothing, and doubtless David and Elizabeth believed that I had died long ago. I tottered upon the brink; but then a shadow glided toward me, and a small airplane stopped at my side. It was unshielded, and at the prow was a pair of the elongated jaws. Air-Admiral Hancock leaned out of it toward me.

“Where is Sanson?” he asked quietly. “He was here. He was seen here.”

I pointed into the west, where the parallelogram of light was diminishing to an irregular star. I leaped into the plane beside him. “Take me with you!” I cried. “He has stolen Esther—the goddess of the cylinder.”

Hancock said nothing but touched the lever. Instantly we shot upward and raced like a swallow across the void, skimming and dipping as the wind caught us and the heavy prow plunged through the unequal air-banks.

The buildings drew together beneath us. The shouts of the multitude grew faint and died. The luminous point in the west grew larger, and against the sky, now whitened by the rising moon, I saw the dark body between the glow lines, as one sees a ship at sea from a mountain top. Sanson was heading southward, perhaps with the intent of reaching France and rallying the forces of the Federation there. We mounted higher. The forests stretched beneath us. Always we mounted. I cast a glance at Hancock’s face. There was a look on it that boded ill for Sanson. I was trying to remember something that Jones had told me about him, but my own anxious thoughts beat down the elusive memory. I, too, felt that there would be no mercy for Sanson when the accounts were squared.

Would anyone have mercy? I saw the answer to that question swiftly, for, looking back, I saw two lanes of airships, strung out behind, like flying geese, converging toward our leadership. Battleplanes, scoutplanes, dark against the brightening heaven, came hot on the chase. They were in pursuit of the common enemy of the human race, and there was none among them, no man in London but had some outrage to avenge.

We mounted higher through the bitter cold. My hands were numb, but Hancock kept his wheel, seated there, a grim, immovable, resolute figure. Now we burst into the heart of a fierce, rocking snowstorm, which blotted out the fugitive; but by some instinct Hancock seemed to know his course, and he held it surely till we rose above the storm and saw the glow parallelogram nearer.

Sanson rose too. He must have sighted us and resolved to test his endurance against ours. We were in air so rarefied that I was choking for breath. The moon rode high; dawn was not far away. We were rushing toward the sea, which lay, a blur of inky blackness, underneath, edged by the white line of the chalk cliffs of the south shore. We were gaining steadily.

The giant jaws upon our aircraft gaped. I saw steel teeth within them

But Sanson did not mean to cross the Channel. I do not know what new scheme he had conceived; perhaps he meant to turn and seek some English city where he could defy the new order and reorganize the old. He wheeled; and the long line of the pursuing planes, struggling upward, wheeled together, trying to cut off his flight. He mounted still and struck out eastward. But, with a furious downward swoop Hancock drove in toward him. I could see Sanson sitting at the wheel, his arm still clasping Esther. He stopped in the air and waited for our approach.

“What do you want?” he shouted.

The tone of Hancock’s voice was implacable. “My son, Sanson,” he answered.

He wheeled away, and, as he turned placed his hand on a lever. The giant jaws upon our aircraft gaped. I saw steel teeth within them. We dashed for Sanson with terrific force. I shouted in horror, laying my fingers upon Hancock’s sleeve and pointing to Esther. But Hancock did not seem to hear or feel me, perhaps he had never known that I was there; all his mind seemed intent on the accomplishment of his deadly purpose. He drove home before his enemy could evade his course, and like a hawk we plunged, struck Sanson’s vessel amidships, and smashed through steel and glow shield.

One instant, in the dead interval of the stopped momentum, we rested motionless together, the gaping jaws choked with their meal and fast within the heart of Sanson’s plane. I flung myself across the side, grasped Esther, held her in my arms, and dragged her across our bows. Then Hancock leaped at Sanson’s throat.

Our airplane tipped, righted herself, and drifted away. I did not know how to steer or guide, but Hancock must automatically have locked the mechanism to the halt, for we drifted idly, balancing upon the wind. Watching, I saw the two struggling in Sanson’s plane.

She shuddered as she hung poised there, mortally gashed, yet fighting still for her dominion of the air. She quivered from prow to stern, and then, of her own accord, shot upward. Up she went till she was but a dark blot in the sky. Then from above something came falling toward the earth, plunged like a projectile, and disappeared.

I saw a tiny figure standing on the doomed airplane alone, and, infinitely small though it appeared, I knew that it was Sanson. I fancied I could see the man’s proud bearing; I thought his arms were folded across his breast. The moonlight gilded him, and others have told me that he seemed to ride through the air resplendent, as if transfigured by some demoniac power.

He stood like Lucifer, high above all the world, over his wrecked dominion. I picture his disdain, and the contempt for man with which he shrouded himself in that last moment. The world had broken him in the end, but his colossal spirit could never be quenched.

Then the air vessel plunged into the moon’s heart and vanished.

 

 

CHAPTER XXVII - THE NEW ORDER

Three months have passed. It is Easter Day, and we have only begun to struggle with the difficulties before us.

But we are working with a faith that will overcome all obstacles. All the world is at work, for the same impulse was felt simultaneously in every land. The Mormon airplanes never arrived, because, practically at the same hour, America rose in revolt against her masters. And the Sanson régime has been swept away forever.

We were rescued from our airplane by the airscouts who had followed us, and brought back to London. Our friends, who had thought us dead, were overjoyed at our return. It was a wonderful reunion, with not a shadow to mar it, for Paul had passed uninjured through the fighting and was there to welcome us. And gradually, when she awoke, we broke the news of everything to Esther.

The amazing thing about it was that she was much more calm in learning the truth than we were in telling it. She accepted our statements almost as commonplaces of history.

I call to mind the second huge public gathering on the day after the Revolution, when the dread of massacre had proved unfounded. The populace had been taught to believe that the Russians were blood-thirsty savages, instead of which we discovered child-like enthusiasts. It was a shock to most of us to discover that they considered themselves Crusaders, upon a mission to restore Christ to the world. I recall vividly the great red crosses on the breasts of their white uniforms, the icon banners that are still flapping everywhere; then the people’s wonder and terror at the horses; lastly the young Tsar’s entrance into the capital, to attend the reconsecration of the Temple, and the amazing influence of kingship upon a crowd that had never known reverence or loyalty, except through fear.

Then the universal joy at the release of all the inmates of the defectives and moron shops, the tears and shouts that accompanied the restoration to their families, of those who had been believed lost forever; husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters, friends and friends. No one was afraid to be glad. It was as if a dark cloud had rolled away and disclosed the sun.

And the astonishment and enthusiasm as the people listened to the teachings of Christianity. After three months there are still crowds at all the street corners, hearing the doctrines and the story of Christ from priests and missionaries.

And Bishop Alfred: at the consecration, when, stepping forward to declare himself, he found, to his surprise and dismay, that the secret of his surname, which he had vowed never to reveal until that day, had passed forever from his own memory. And how proudly he redeemed himself with his ancient title, Alfred London.

There is so much to do, and only a tithe of it has been begun. Indeed, it would have been impossible, but for the agreement that the old national boundaries should be restored, and each State work out its problems independently. Then there was the question as to the composition of the new government, and it was resolved that the committee should avail themselves to the utmost of the established order, eliminating all cruelties. Thus, for the present, because no better scheme can come forth, ready-made, from human brains, the socialized State will continue. It would be impossible to go back to the old days of competition, and we shall never return to those days of squalor, poverty, and destitution, recognizing that, if ever revolution was justified, our fathers’ was against the commercial greed of a materialistic world.

The hardest part of this problem will be to steer a course between the corruption of Social Democracy and the tyranny of Social Autocracy. But we have an ideal in the separation of wealth from power, the latter to be the attribute of the few who are born and fit to rule, the former the possession of the bulk of the nation. Whatever our judges, their office will be for life, and they will be appointed and not elected.

In time custom will crystallize into laws again; but, since the existing laws were too cruel to survive, and the old are too arbitrary and antiquated to be renewed, we choose to exist law-free rather than live by paper schemes.

But if we are tolerant and lax, so that we resemble more a benevolent anarchy than an organized State, we have set our faces like flint against two things. First of these comes divorce. It will be recognized under no circumstances whatever; and so far is this from being considered tyrannous that the vast bulk of the people never desired it. In the old days it was the shameful privilege of a small caste alone—that same caste that, by abandoning its duties and responsibilities and cutting free from the Catholic conception of civilization, brought down the old order. We are convinced that the permanence of the marriage bond is the foundation of every society of free people.

The second is eugenics. Looking back, we see how this madness over-ran the world until, within a century from the time of its inception, it had enslaved humanity. The theory of Galton, that because the university-trained son of a distinguished man became distinguished, while the illiterate son of a burglar died unknown, ability is inherited, may have appealed powerfully to our ancestors, but to us it is symptomatic of that inability to reason which we think characterized the twentieth century. Eugenics was the natural product of a time which, steeped in materialism, laughed at the belief in a human soul, or its concomitant, that each soul needed to work out its earthly pilgrimage in a body adapted to its abilities. But even from the material viewpoint we see that the movement was fallacious. We know that the proportion of those afflicted with inherited maladaptations has remained constant through history; moreover, since there was no human norm, the demands of the eugenists increased continually, till they had bound nine-tenths of the world to their hideous Juggernaut car.

So the first act after our victory was to burn the Bureaux of Prints and Indexes and Pedigrees and Relationships. That was our only vandalism.

But more than everything we hold to Christianity as the foundation of our State. We see now that the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were the worst since pagan times. Our ancestors read, without qualms, of negroes burned at the stake, of equatorial nations massacred, not in excess of misplaced zeal, as heretics, but only for—rubber! We know that without Christian ethics human nature is back in the days of Rome, Bagdad, and Carthage. We hope that there will be established, as in the olden days, Christian orders of young men, who shall serve three years in them before they come of age, bound by the triple vow, to fight these renascent wrongs wherever they can be found.

Having found truth once more, we are not greatly troubled by doctrines. The critical investigation which destroyed the Protestant theory of the Bible’s literal inspiration has only strengthened the older claim of the universal Church to be herself the repository of truth. Not rejecting the claims of criticism, we feel the living truth of Christianity so far to transcend its theological garb that, if the formula has been misstated, many would revise it. The consensus of opinion is, however, that the minds which drew up the Apostles’ and Nicene creeds arrived as nearly as possible at a correct formula.

But the Visible Church is humble in her hour of success. She feels no triumph. Reverently, penitently, at the huge consecration meeting in the Temple her leaders asked for guidance and inspiration. At present sectarianism inspires in us the same horror that schism inspired centuries ago. The first act was to reunite the ancient Greek and English churches by omitting from the Creed that clause beginning “proceeding from,” which had, it was felt, no significance that was essential. The next will be to negotiate with the Vatican for union. But the stupendous difficulties of this reconciliation are acknowledged.

The Age of Faith is coming back to the world, and, as in that splendid twelfth century, when it was in its zenith, there is a sense of youth in us. We feel that we are upon the threshold of a new epoch, uniting the triumphs of every preceding age. It is an age of joy, and will be vitalized by that art which, since the Reformation, has been sundered from human life. Its first achievement will be the magnificent cathedral that is to rise upon the site of the old Ant Temple. It will be a new world indeed. We know each age has its own cruelties and wrongs: the Inquisition of the sixteenth century; religious massacres in the seventeenth; in the nineteenth factory slavery and the prisons with their silent cells. We do not hope greatly to lessen this sum of suffering. There will be injustice always, new wrongs will arise, new evils that must be fought; but we believe the Christian norm will always remain with us as a corrective.

Tomorrow bands of axemen are to leave London to settle Kent and Surrey. Paul and Elizabeth are to go, and later Esther and I intend to follow them. David will join us when he can be spared from his work in the government.

It is Easter Day, and in the consecrated Temple I hear the anthem rise:

“Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast:

“Not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness: but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

“Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more: death hath no more dominion over him.”

The crowds in the great courts are kneeling. I kneel with Esther among them. We know that the sacrifice has leavened the world with truth that shall never pass away.

Tuesday's Serial: “The Messiah of the Cylinder” by Victor Rousseau (in Englsih) - XV

 

CHAPTER XXIV - LEMBKEN

The maneuvers of our party had been so skilfully planned and carried out so surely that the Temple fell into our hands almost immediately. Entering upon that side which faced the Airscouts’ Fortress, our men had surprised and overpowered the guards posted about the elevators, and driven them in flight toward the Science Wing, into which Sanson withdrew to rally them about him.

The Council Hall and offices beneath it were occupied as quickly. Including the Airscouts’ Fortress, we had thus three-fourths of the quadrilateral in our possession; but the Guard held the Science Wing in strength, and, of course, the surrounding wall, armed with the Ray artillery and commanding everything within it.

The change of fortune was so swift that I could hardly grasp its significance immediately. Carrying Esther, and surrounded by a frenzied mob, I was dragged from the bridge to the corridor of the elevators, between Elizabeth and David, pent up among five hundred men, some carrying Ray rods and trying to force their way through the Temple in the direction of the Science Wing, others returning, realizing the impossibility of pushing through the crowds, and others, merely spectators, unarmed, who had gone mad with delirious joy. The confusion was indescribable, and, to make it worse, these people seemed to look to me for leadership, while I was caught in the throng and helpless. Precious moments were passing.

Into the mob burst a man heading a little group of revolutionists.

“Follow me!” he shouted. “To the Science Wing! Capture the bridges! Follow me!”

As he spoke the Temple lights went out. I was not yet clear of the bridge. Inch by inch I struggled onward, but in the darkness the confusion was still more undisciplined; and while the oncoming party still fought for a foothold I heard a rending, straining sound behind me, a crash of wood, and a mighty fall that set the whole building echoing. Shouts, oaths, and groans came from below; the span on which we stood shook from the concussion.

There was no need to ask what had occurred. Sanson had cut down the farther half of the bridge, securing himself against attack from the upper floor of the Temple.

Then a voice, bellowing with rage and ferocity, arose:

“Follow me! Seize the elevators! To Lembken! To the People’s House!”

The mob broke and dissolved, carrying me with it into the corridor. I saw the leader with the Assyrian beard heading the rush for the elevator shafts. He carried all with him. But the shafts were empty; the elevators had been drawn up. There followed howls of fury.

“Lembken!” shrieked the mob. “Out with him! Out with the defective!”

It was queer, that word; but one impulse animated all. They plunged after their leader, scrambling up the ironwork of the interior, and clinging there like flies as they worked their way upward. The little band of disciplined men alone stood still, and their chief turned to me with a wry look.

“We are too late,” he said. “Sanson has got his men together. We shall have to storm the Wing from below. Half our men have joined in that mad attack on Lembken, who is helpless, whereas Sanson—”

He shrugged his shoulders in despair. Then David turned to me.

“You must bring them back, Arnold,” he said. “They will obey and follow you. Leave Esther—”

He saw the look on my face, and began to plead with me. “It is your duty, Arnold,” he cried. “All will be lost unless you can draw off our men from the Palace. I will protect her with my life.” He bent down and looked into Esther’s face, and an expression of amazement came upon his own. It occurred to me afterward that he had never believed that Esther really lived. But at the time only the thought of this flickered through my brain, and it yielded to more urgent ones.

“They will follow you!” cried David.

I hesitated no longer. I placed Esther’s unconscious body in Elizabeth’s arms, and, without stopping to glance at her, lest it sap my resolution, I plunged into the shaft and began to scramble upward.

Somehow I reached the summit. I fell upon my hands within the Palace. The mob was swarming everywhere, in every room, it seemed, and through the gardens. I ran out under the dome. The winter sun shone through a gray fog, a blood-red ball of fire.

The yelling mob swept through the groves. Its fury was unleashed, and the remembered wrongs of years impelled it to universal destruction. I saw at the first glance that these men were beyond the power of argument. With their bare hands they tore up palms and tossed them down into the courts through jagged holes in the transparent walls. They tore the panes out of their settings, twisting the thin, un-splintering glass until it writhed everywhere, coiled, crystal snakes among the uprooted flowers. They spared nothing. The yellow orange spheres gleamed in the rank grass. The scent of orange flowers was choking.

I ran among them, calling on them to follow me back, for the sake of our cause, to join their comrades, hard pressed by Sanson. Most of them did not seem to hear me; some raised their heads from their work, stared at me for a moment, and resumed their wild task of ruin. It came to me then that I was unknown to them. Not one in a hundred of these men had seen my face more than a moment or two upon the altar platform.

I turned and ran through the Palace rooms, still calling, and still unheeded. The mob was sweeping onward like an avalanche. They had torn the costly hangings from the walls. From the blue rooms, mull rooms, red rooms, purple rooms, all the baroque, fantastic, and depraved trappings of Lembken’s gleaning were heaped into great rolls at which the furious army hacked and tore. In one place it was venting its rage upon a heap of masquerade clothing. Pieces were flung from man to man, and some, tearing great rents in garments, thrust their heads through them and continued in the pursuit, with skirts about their shoulders and leopard skins about their bodies. A tun of wine had overturned and spilled, and the contents crept like a rivulet along the floor, seeping from room to room. The conduit that fed the artificial brooks, being slashed, poured out a muddy stream that dogged our heels, befouling the slashed rugs and tattered coverlets. And ever the cries became more furious.

The mob was yelling with one universal voice. Palm trees were hurled from man to man, clods of earth clung to walls, mud spattered everything. I followed, breathless, imploring, pleading in vain. No one paid me the least attention. Some, indeed, scowled at me, but the spirit of destruction, seizing them before the words were framed on their lips, hurled them along. They swept me with them. At the head was the giant, bellowing in frantic wrath. The mob followed him, hypnotized; and he, armed with a spiked stanchion which he must have wrenched from some portion of the wall supports, dashed the weapon in furious assault against each door, and shattered it, leading the chase down every corridor of the bewildering place, returning, hot on the scent, dog-like, and the great arms thrashing the club from side to side.

The Palace was enormous. We had not covered half of it, and we had seen no one. But, as we ran, shouts came from another party behind us, roars mingled with shrieks, and, keening above all clamor, I heard that bloodhound cry that breaks from human throats when the death hunt draws near to its finale.

With an answering roar our mob turned and sprang toward its victims, smashing down doors and wrenching weapons from legs of tables and woodwork of the walls. The quarry was found. Like bolting hares they turned and scuttled into the small, hidden room, where they cowered, women and negro eunuchs, still dressed in the masquerade of the revels that Lembken had held that night even while his empire was breaking from his hand. Horned women, women in dominoes, in striped and spotted hides, Elizabethans wearing hooped skirts and huge, starched neck frills, Victorian girls with parasols and corseted bodies, a motley, cowering crew, less abject only than the cringing blacks, eyed their pursuers with terror-stricken looks that sought their eyes for pity and found only hatred.

The giant leaped out before his followers and whirled his spiked club. “Where is Lembken?” he roared. “Where are his men?” All the while his eyes searched the women’s faces; but he did not find her whom he sought.

“There are no men,” a frightened woman gasped. “There were never any but Lembken. We have never seen any others in our lives.”

He had lied to me, then, when he spoke of his friends. How long would he have endured me there before the poisoned cup came to me? I felt my own hate and wrath become implacable as that of the mob.

The giant leaped out before his followers. “Where is Lembken?” he roared. “Where are the men?”

The giant clutched at a cringing negro boy and pulled him from his knees. “Where is he?” he shouted.

The boy was tongue-tied with fear. But a girl stepped forth bravely. “That way!” she said, pointing toward a door.

The mob whirled through in a torrent, following the Assyrian-bearded giant. I heard their shouts grow fainter. The women bolted, scattering through the dismantled rooms, seeking some other refuge. But one of them stopped and then came toward me quickly.

“She lied! He is there,” she whispered, pointing toward a wall. “Kill him, but whisper my name in his ear before he dies.”

I looked at the girl and recognized Coral, the maid who had supplanted Amaranth. I turned quickly toward the wall, and my eyes discovered the hidden door, flush with the wall. I burst it open and ran through.

I raced along a winding passage, hearing the mob’s cries far away as they ran on the false scent they had taken up. I emerged suddenly upon a little platform fronting a part of the crystal wall that was still standing in the rear of the Palace. The mob had not yet found the approaches to this secret refuge.

A glass gateway within the wall stood open, and outside, at rest in the air, I saw the dark airplane, with Hancock at the wheel. And at the gate, hesitating to set his feet upon the narrow plank that led to safety, was Lembken. His arms were filled with bundles, and on his shoulder a monkey perched, mouthing and gibbering. At his side kneeled a young girl, with hands clasped, urging Lembken to flight.

The old man heard me and turned around. I saw Hancock start forward, raise a Ray rod, and aim it at me. But Lembken stood in the way, and he could not fire.

The girl leaped at me, clutching me by the arms with surprising strength, and crying to Lembken to fly. But the obese old man only stared into my face. Fear seemed to have paralyzed him. He did not remember me, but my presence seemed to awaken some association in his mind, and, as I watched, I saw it flash into consciousness.

“Jacquette!” he screamed in a tremulous falsetto. “I have forgotten her. I must go back for her.”

He scrambled past me, and the girl, releasing me, ran after him. I followed. On we ran, till Lembken turned into a tiny room, once meant to be a hiding place, no doubt, but now doorless and bare. Again I heard the shouting. The mob was drawing near.

On a perch beside the entrance sat the gaudy macaw, head on one side, preening her plumage.

“The people’s friend!” she cackled. “The people’s friend! Friend—friend—friend—friend—frien—”

With a cry of delight Lembken snatched at her. She fluttered to his shoulder. He turned, and, with monkey and bird against his sagging cheeks, he began to make his way along the passage. As he ran I saw another corridor at right angles to this, and, at the end, daylight and the waste of uprooted palms. The mob was sweeping past. They saw him; they howled and dashed to cut off his flight.

Lembken saw them, doubled back, dashing in panic from room to room. The mob was everywhere about him, searching for him, blocking all exits; their howls were a continuous sound.

They were upon him. Lembken fell on his knees and pulled a Ray rod from his robes. With shaking, nerveless fingers he forced up the guard. He held it to his breast; but it fell from his hand.

“Kill me!” he muttered to the girl.

She flung her arms about him; and thus the mob found them.

The giant leaped at them. His bellowings shook the walls. He sprang for Lembken, caught him by the throat, and forced his head upward. I saw the loose spike in his hand. The monkey chattered, the parrot stretched out her neck and snapped, shrieking her phrases. Between the men the frail girl wrestled, dashing her weak fists into the giant’s face.

The roaring mob choked the narrow corridor on either side. “Death to him!” they shrieked. “Death! Death!”

The old man caught the words upon his tongue and screamed.

“Not death!” he yelped. “I’m Lembken. I can’t die. I never thought of death—dying—going nowhere—nowhere—nothing—I want to live—”

He cowered behind the girl, thrusting her between himself and his enemy. So furious were her struggles that she forced the giant away. She dashed her fists into his eyes again and again, until he turned on her and gripped her by the wrists, twisting her backward. He looked into her face for the first time.

“Let him go!” she screamed. “Don’t hurt him. He is old—he is old—he has done no harm—he is the people’s friend—he has told me so—I love him—”

The giant dropped her wrists and staggered back. His horror-painted face became a tragic mask. He moaned, and his hands groped impotently in the air for something that he failed to find. It was not the blood in his eyes that blinded him. For this was she whom he had sought, torn from his home, the last to share Lembken’s favor, the child whom I had seen dragged from the Council Hall, her innocent child’s heart loyal in his last hour to the only lover she knew.

It wrung my heart, the pity of it: this blossom of love that sprang from that festering, rank soil of human baseness.

The next instant the mob swept over us. They seized their prey and stamped out the life beneath their feet. I saw the quivering body tossed high in the air and dashed from wall to wall, trampled on, hacked, and torn. I saw it poised against the crystal walls, saw the dark airplane swoop to safety amid a hail of Ray fire; and then the air was filled with zig-zag flashes of blinding light.

 

CHAPTER XXV - THE COMING OF THE CROSS

I stood with a small group of our men beneath the dome, where Lembken’s gardens had been. The havoc that had been wrought is almost indescribable. The beauty molded by the most cunning hands in Europe had been obliterated in one short hour. The gardens were a waste of uprooted trees and trampled earth, while from the broken conduit a dozen muddy streams were pouring like high waterfalls upon the courts below. The Palace was a mass of wreckage, in which the mob still moved, shouting for fire to finish the work of destruction.

I had been recognized at last, and we were searching for our men among the rabble, gathering the nucleus of a force to render aid to our party, hard-pressed, below. I had managed to achieve something at last: I had detailed a dozen men with Ray rods to guard the women. That was all I could accomplish.

The ground about the Temple was already strewn with blackened, twisted figures. From the conical Ray guns on the enclosing walls swept sheets of blinding flame, a soundless cannonade that pecked at the interstices in the walls of the Temple and of the Airscouts’ Fortress, seeking for some unpainted spot between the blocks of stone, some small, abraded surface where the cold Rays might find lodgment. I heard the crumbling of disintegrating mortar and saw fragments of stone flying from cornice and pediment. Soon gaps would open and the whole splendid pile tumble into a heap of shapeless ruins.

The Rays flashed to and fro like brilliant lightning. I was half blinded; all I could discern was that Sanson still held the Science Wing, from whose windows the Guard were picking off our men beneath them. I surmised from the shouting that we were attacking the Wing from the ground floor of the Temple.

We had gathered most of our men together, and we plunged for the elevator shafts and scrambled down. My pulses hammered with fear as I entered the corridor below. But there stood David, and Elizabeth kneeled beside him, with Esther’s head in her lap. She looked at me and smiled with so brave an effort that I realized her own anxiety. Somewhere in the deadly tumult Paul was fighting, unless, indeed, he lay among those shapeless masses that strewed the courts.

Our men swept by me and poured along the corridor toward the bridge.

“I have fulfilled my promise, Arnold,” said David. “Now I must take Elizabeth within the shelter of the Airscouts’ Fortress, and you will follow with Esther. Then each of us must do his best to rally parties to the assault. All is not going well, Arnold. Our Ray rods are emptying fast, and the storage batteries within the Airscouts’ Fortress have been destroyed, so that we cannot recharge them; the attack upon the lower level of the Wing has failed. Sanson has placed a Ray gun there. All hangs upon the battleplanes, and they have not returned.”

He put his arm about his daughter and hurried her toward the bridge, while I picked up Esther, still plunged in that first sleep, and followed him. I saw him lead Elizabeth to safety, but as I was about to follow, a sheet of purple light swept past me, tearing a stanchion from the bridge and knocking down a part of the brick house on the wall above, where Lembken had taken me that night of our first meeting.

A gun was playing on the bridge. It was impossible to cross at present. I drew back, waiting.

Then a babel of cries broke out on the opposite side, so fierce and wild that, grasping Esther more tightly, I rushed to a window at the further end of the corridor, commanding a view of the exterior courts. The long bridges were packed with our men, making a mad sortie to scale the enclosing walls. Streaks of light, pitiably thin, flashed from their Ray rods, and, with exultant shouts, the Guard sprang forward to meet them. They were dragging lighter Ray guns behind them. For an instant it seemed as if the revolutionists would scale the walls before the heavy Ray artillery could be reaimed at them. The foremost files of the opposing forces clashed and surged and swayed in a rain of meteor flashes. The blackened corpses heaped the bridges, hung, toppled over, and went to swell the heaps below. Then, with a renewed outburst of shouting, the Guard drove back the attack and placed their guns.

The blinding flashes swept the bridges, playing like ribands of silvery blue along the course of their discharge. Everywhere along the bridges swarmed the stampede of flight, checked where the Rays caught the fugitives and twisted them into charred lumps, sweeping away the superstructure also, and the bridge rails. I saw one bridge go down, as a deflected Ray wrenched it from its piers. It spewed its burden upon the stones below, and from among the dead, little figures leaped up and began to run for refuge toward the Council Wing; and there a blast from a Ray gun found them, and the heavy doors crumbled upon them, and wood and men were ground into the same pulpy blackness. The Ray had found the weak spots of the great buildings, and from the Temple top huge stones came crashing down, rebounding along the courts and splintering into fragments. Clouds of dust rose up like smoke from conflagrations.

The flowing tide of the Guard’s victory rolled on unchecked. Their shouts were frightful. They held the courts, now piled with debris from the buildings above them. I ran with Esther back toward the bridge, crossed it, and gained the shelter of the Airscouts’ Fortress. Before me was a flight of stone steps; I ran up, shouting. Nobody answered me. I gained the summit and found myself alone there.

Looking down from the roof I saw that the Guard were swarming in the Temple. They had regained that; they had driven our men from the Airscouts’ Fortress, on which I stood, trapped, since it was impossible to cross the courts. Where were our forces? I saw the locust cloud of attack break against the doors of the offices beneath the Council Hall. That was our last stronghold. The Ray flashes played on the walls, but they held fast.

Then out of the south a flock of giant birds came wheeling. They swooped toward us and resolved themselves into the airplane fleet. They dipped their luminous wings and circled around us, and a mazy pattern of light shot downward upon the ranks of the Guard.

The battleplanes had settled their differences, and three-fourths of them had returned to fight for us.

I saw the Guard race back for their sheltering walls. The Ray artillery shot upward to meet the challenge of the battleplanes. To and fro overhead wheeled the great shining birds in soundless duel. The conflict appeared the more frightful because of this silence. Only those at the guns knew what was happening.

But presently, as the flock wheeled, I saw one tower like a shot pheasant and then tumble. It plunged into the court and lay, a shapeless mass, upon the stones. The Ray gun had found its defenseless parts as it maneuvered. A second battleplane came hurtling down. It struck the Temple wall, seemed to cling there like a bat, and, fluttering like a dying thing, plunged to the stones beside its shattered mate.

The Guard was winning. The enclosing walls stood fast. Our last hope seemed to be gone. The sun was dipping into the west.

I dared not carry Esther through that fire-swept zone. It was my plan, should Sanson’s men reoccupy the Airscouts’ Fortress, to seek refuge within the little, half-secret room where Jones had hidden us. Meanwhile I waited on the roof, behind the glow-painted shield of a single empty airplane that was resting there. Twilight fell, and the soundless fight went on. The battleplanes were circling higher, and their fire was utterly ineffective. I judged, from its growing infrequency, that their solar batteries were becoming emptied. Meanwhile our men, pent in the council offices, waited for the finale.

Hourly our situation grew more desperate. Another battleplane went down. The game was in Sanson’s hands after all. Our only chance had been in the surprise, and the mad rush to the People’s House and the confusion in the Temple had spoiled all plans and allowed our enemy to concentrate his men. Where was he, I wondered.

Suddenly shouts broke out again from the walls, and were caught up and echoed back from the Council Hall. Southward, high in the sky, pin-points of light appeared, like vagrant stars, which became larger, wheeled, extended.

The Guard cheered frantically. I heard the cry “America!”

If this was the Mormon fleet, come to aid Lembken, there was no doubt with which side it would join. Perhaps the Guard knew already that Sanson had outwitted Lembken and outbid him for its support.

The airfleet shot upward, drew together, and a single light, detaching itself, flew like a rocket upward, moving in the direction of the oncoming battleplanes, which seemed to hang poised above, like a new group of Pleiades. The rocket’s apparent speed dwindled, until it seemed to move as slowly as any star. I saw a second light shoot downward, detaching itself from those clustered orbs, to meet it. I held my breath, as all must have done, for not a Ray was fired, nor was there any sound as the fate of the world hung upon those nearing points. They circled about each other, a binary star; they moved together; and suddenly they plunged downward, the whole oncoming fleet following them, and the roar of a thousand throats rang from the Council Hall:

“The Russians! The Russians! The Tsar! The Tsar!”

The lights grew larger and resolved themselves into the glow parallelograms again, and the great fleet of battleplanes descended toward the wall. Again the pattern of light interplayed with the answering fire from the Ray artillery of the Guard.

The new squadron was armed with Rays almost as strong, taken in Stockholm, and worked by Swedish gunners. Searchlights and glow rays blended in heliotrope and pink and blue, playing about the walls, carrying the most murderous death that man had ever devised. And it appeared incredible that death lay hidden within that warp and woof of color that intercrossed through space, blending and twisting, and forming a thousand patterns upon the night. Once a battleplane, caught as she wheeled, came crashing down; but the next moment the persistent Ray found an unprotected place in the walls at last, and hammered at it, dislodging mortar and stones, till, with a mighty roar, a tower fell toppling into the court, leaving a great breach in the Guard’s fortress.

Instantly two battleplanes lit like great birds, and behind their shields a score of men swarmed out, carrying swords and Ray shields, interlocked. The line swept onward, to encounter the Ray rods of the defense. I saw it crumple and twist. But other battleplanes had alighted along the breach, and everywhere small groups were forming between the Ray guns, which could not be aimed before they were attacked, the gunners sabered, and the great conical machines made useless. The valor which had overthrown the Federation’s troops before Tula was not helpless here.

But from each wing a blast of fire caught the downward swooping battleplanes and crumpled them. No attack could live before that devastating crossfire. I saw the groups of swordsmen wither, fall back, until the bodies heaped before them, on which they planted their glow shields, formed an impregnable rampart. But the artillery was retaken, the battleplanes, surprised and broken in the ebb-tide of defeat, were piled in indistinguishable heaps within the courts. The Guard turned the artillery upon the stubborn line that mounted the breach. Once more the fortune of the day was turning.

Upon the walls the Guard were swarming toward the defenders. Out of their midst the Ray artillery belched

I saw the ragged figures of our men run from the Council Hall across the courts. Then the Guard about Sanson in the Science Wing streamed forth to meet them. The Ray rods flashed, and the ghastly murder began once more.

Upon the walls the Guard were swarming toward the defenders. Out of their midst the Ray artillery belched. It found the chinks among the shields, and a sheet of white flame swept through the Russians’ ranks. Their wall of interlocked shields had carried them into death’s jaws, but now the jaws were closing. I closed my eyes in anguish.

I opened them in darkness.

There was no flash from the conical guns, which glittered in impotence upon the walls. For an instant I did not understand. The next I knew. Jones had cut the supply cables in the Vosges Mountains. He had kept his promise, and in the moment of defeat.

The same mad exultation seized all. I heard the new note of victory as our men from the Council Hall bore back the defeated remnants of Sanson’s army. I saw the Russians leap from behind their shields and swarm into the fortress; saw the flash of their swords against the spurting fire of the Ray rods; saw the defeated Guard fly through the courts, to meet death there.

Then I stood face to face with Sanson.