 Frontispiece: "You, Who Have Been The Evil Genius Of The World!" |
OLGA ROMANOFF
OR
The Syren of the Skies
A SEQUEL TO
"THE ANGEL OF THE REVOLUTION"
BY
GEORGE GRIFFITH
Frontispiece: "You, Who Have Been The Evil Genius Of The World!" |
OLGA ROMANOFF
OR
The Syren of the Skies
A SEQUEL TO
"THE ANGEL OF THE REVOLUTION"
BY
GEORGE GRIFFITH
In view of recent events in Russia it is necessary to state that Olga Romanoff was published before they happened. For the obviously necessary alterations in the text the reader is referred to the ninth edition of The Angel of the Revolution
TO
HIRAM STEVENS MAXIM
THE FIRST MAN WHO HAS FLOWN
BY MECHANICAL MEANS
AND SO APPROACHED MOST NEARLY
TO THE LONG-SOUGHT IDEAL
OF
AERIAL NAVIGATION
THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE INSCRIBED
BY
THE AUTHOR
CONTENTS.
Chap.
- THE SURRENDER OF THE WORLD-THRONE
- A CROWNLESS KING
- TSARINA OLGA
- A SON OF THE GODS
- A VISION FROM THE CLOUDS
- DEED AND DREAM
- THE SPELL OF CIRCE
- THE NEW TERROR
- THE FLIGHT OF THE "REVENGE"
- STRANGE TIDINGS TO AERIA
- THE SNAKE IN EDEN
- THE BATTLE OF KERGUELEN
- THE SYREN'S STRONGHOLD
- FROM THE SEA TO THE AIR
- OLGA IN COUNCIL
- KHALID THE MAGNIFICENT
- AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE
- A MOMENTOUS COMMISSION
- FACE TO FACE AGAIN
- THE CALL TO ARMS
- THE HOME-COMING
- THE EVE OF BATTLE
- THE FIRST BLOW
- WAR AT ITS WORST
- A MESSAGE FROM MARS
- SENTENCE OF DEATH
- ALMA SPEAKS
- THE SIGN IN THE SKY
- THE TRUCE OF GOD
- THE SHADOW OF DEATH
- THE LAST BATTLE
- THE SHE-WOLF TO HER LAIR
EPILOGUE
THE PROPHECY OF NATAS.
These are the last words of Israel di Murska, known in the days of strife as Natas, the Master of the Terror, given to the Children of Deliverance dwelling in the land of Aeria, in the twenty-fifth year of the Peace, which, in the reckoning of the West, is the year nineteen hundred and thirty.
MY life is lived, and the wings of the Angel of Death overshadow me as I write; but before the last summons comes, I must obey the spirit within me that bids me tell of the things that I have seen, in order that the story of them shall not die, nor be disguised by false reports, as the years multiply and the mists gather over the graves of those who, with me, have seen and wrought them.
For this reason the words that I write shall be read publicly in the ears of you and your children and your children's children, until they shall see a sign in heaven to tell them that the end is at hand. No man among you shall take away from that which I have written, nor yet add anything to it; and every fifth year, at the Festival of Deliverance, which is held on the Anniversary of Victory,1 this writing of mine shall be read, that those who shall hear it with understanding may lay its warnings to heart, and that the lessons of the Great Deliverance may never be forgotten among you.
1 The 8th of December, on which day, in the year 1904, the armies of the Anglo Saxon Federation and the aerial navy of the Terrorists defeated and almost annihilated the hosts of the Franco-Slavonian League, then besieging London under the command of Alexander Romanoff, last of the Tsars of Russia, and so made possible the universal disarmament which took place the following year.-- The Angel of the Revolution, chap. xlvi.
It was in the days before the beginning of peace that I, Natas the Jew, cast down and broken by the hand of the Tyrant, conceived and created that which was known as the Terror. The kings of the earth and their servants trembled before my invisible presence, for my arm was long and my hand was heavy; yet no man knew where or when I should strike -- only that the blow would be death to him on whom it should fall, and that nowhere on earth should he find a safe refuge from it.
In those days the earth was ruled by force and cunning, and the nations were armed camps set one against the other. Millions of men, who had no quarrel with their neighbours, stood waiting for the word of their rulers to blast the fair fields of earth with the fires of war, and to make desolate the homes of those who had done them no wrong.
In the third year of the twentieth century, Richard Arnold, the Englishman, conquered the empire of the air, and made the first ship that flew as a bird does, of its own strength and motion. He joined the Brotherhood of Freedom, then known among men as the Terrorists, of whom I, Natas, was the Master, and then he built the aerial fleet which, in the day of Armageddon, gave us the victory over the tyrants of the earth.
At the same time, Alan Tremayne, a noble of the English people, into whose soul I had caused my spirit to enter in order that he might serve me and bring the day of deliverance nearer, caused all the nations of the Anglo-Saxon race to join hands, from the West unto the East, in a league of common blood and kindred; and they, in the appointed hour, stood between the sons and daughters of men and those who would have enslaved them afresh.
The chief of these was Alexander Romanoff, last of the Tsars, or Tyrants, of Russia, whose armies, leagued with those of France, Italy, Spain, and certain lesser Powers, and assisted by a great fleet of war-balloons that could fly, though slowly, wherever they were directed, swept like a destroying pestilence from the western frontiers of Russia to the eastern shores of Britain; and when they had gained the mastery of Europe, invaded England and laid siege to London.
But here their path of conquest was brought to an end, for Alan Tremayne and his brothers of the Terror called upon the men of Anglo-Saxondom to save their Motherland from her enemies, and they rose in their wrath, millions strong, and fell upon them by land and sea, and would have destroyed them utterly, as I had bidden them do, but that Natasha, who was my daughter and was known in those days as the Angel of the Revolution, pleaded for the remnant of them, and they were spared.
But the Russians we slew without mercy to the last man of those who had stood in arms against us, saving only the Tyrant and his princes and the leaders of his armies. These we took prisoners and sent, with their wives and their children to die in their own prison-land in Siberia, as they had sent thousands of innocent men and women to die before them.
This was my judgment upon them for the wrong that they had done to me and mine, for in the hour of victory I spared not those who had not known how to spare. Now they are dead, and their graves are nameless. Their name is a byword among men, for they were strong and they used their strength to do evil.
So we made an end of tyranny among the nations, and when the world-war was at length brought to an end, we disbanded all the armies that were upon land and sank the warships that were left upon the sea, that men might no more fight with each other. War, that had been called honourable since the world began, we made a crime of blood-guiltiness, for which the life of him who sought to commit it should pay; and as a crime, you, the children of those who have delivered the nations from it, shall for ever hold it to be.
We leave you the command of the air, and that is the command of the world; but should it come to pass -- as in the progress of knowledge it may well do -- that others in the world outside Aeria shall learn to navigate the air as you do, you shall go forth to battle with them and destroy them utterly, for we have made it known through all the earth that he who seeks to build a second navy of the air shall be accounted an enemy of peace, whose purpose it is to bring war upon the earth again.
Forget not that the blood-lust is but tamed, not quenched, in the souls of men, and that long years must pass before it is purged from the world for ever. We have given peace on earth, and to you, our children, we bequeath the sacred trust of keeping it. We have won our world-empire by force, and by force you must maintain it.
In the day of battle we shed the blood of millions without ruth to win it, and so far the end has justified the means we used. Since the sun set upon Armageddon, and the right to make war was taken from the rulers of the nations, we have governed a realm of peace and prosperity which every year has seen better and happier than that which went before.
No man has dared to draw the sword upon his brother, or by force or fraud to take that which was not his by right. The soil of earth has been given back to the use of her sons and their wealth has already multiplied a hundredfold on every hand. Kings have ruled with wisdom and justice, and senates have ceased their wranglings to soberly seek out and promote the welfare of their own countries, and to win the respect and friendship of others.
Yet many of these are the same men who, but a few years ago, rent each other like wild beasts in savage strife for the meanest ends; who betrayed their brothers and slaughtered their neighbours, that the rich might be richer, and the strong stronger, in the pitiless battle for wealth and power. They have become peaceful and honest with each other, because we have compelled them to be so, and because they know that the penalty of wrong-doing in high places is destruction swift and certain as the stroke of the hand of Fate itself.
They know that no man stands so high that our hand cannot cast him down to the dust, and that no spot of earth is so secret and so distant that the transgressor of our laws can find in it a refuge from our vengeance. We stand between the few strong and cunning who would oppress, and the many weak and simple who could not resist them; and when we are gone, you will hear the voice of duty calling you to take our places.
When you stand where we do now, remember who you are and the tremendous trust that is laid upon you. You are the children of the chosen out of many nations, masters of the world, and, under Heaven, the arbiters of human destiny. You shall rule the world as we have ruled it for a hundred years from now. If in that time men shall not have learnt the ways of wisdom and justice, you may be sure that they will never learn them, and deserve only to be left to their own foolishness. Since the world began, the path of life has never lain so fair and straight before the sons of men as it does now, and never was it so easy to do the right and so hard to do the wrong.
So, for a hundred years to come, you shall keep them in the path in which we have set them, and those that would wilfully turn aside from it you shall destroy without mercy, lest they lead others into misery and bring the evil days upon earth again.
At the twenty-fifth celebration of the Festival of Deliverance, you shall give back the sceptre of the world-empire into the hands of the children of those from whom we took it,-- because they wielded it for oppression, and not for mercy. At that time you shall make it known throughout the earth that men are once more free to do good or evil, according to their choice, and that as they choose well or ill so shall they live or die.
And woe to them in those days if, knowing the good, they shall turn aside to do evil! Beyond the clouds that gather over the sunset of my earthly life, I see a sign in heaven as of a flaming sword, whose hilt is in the hand of the Master of Destiny, and whose blade is outstretched over the habitations of men.
As they shall choose to do good or evil, so shall that sword pass away from them or fall upon them, and consume them utterly in the midst of their pride. And if they, knowing the good, shall elect to do evil, it shall be with them as of old the Prophet said of the men of Babylon the Great: Their cities shall be a desolation, a dry land and a wilderness; a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither shall any son of man pass thereby.
For from among the stars of heaven, whose lore I have learned and whose voices I have heard, there shall come the messenger of Fate, and his shape shall be that of a flaming fire, and his breath as the breath of a pestilence that men shall feel and die in the hour that it breathes upon them.
Out of the depths beyond the light of the sun he shall come, and your children of the fifth generation shall behold his approach. The sister-worlds shall see him pass with fear and trembling, wondering which of them he shall smite, but if he be not restrained or turned aside by the Hand which guides the stars in their courses, it shall go hard with this world and the men of it in the hour of his passing.
Then shall the highways of the earth be waste, and the wayfaring of men cease. Earth shall languish and mourn for her children that are no more, and Death shall reign amidst the silence, sole sovereign of many lands!
But you, so long as you continue to walk in the way of wisdom, shall live in peace until the end, whether it shall come then or in the ages that shall follow. And if it shall come then, you shall await it with fortitude, knowing that this life is but a single link in the chain of existence which stretches through infinity; and that, if you shall be found worthy, you shall be taught how a chosen few among your sons and daughters shall survive the ruin of the world, to be the parents of the new race, and replenish the earth and possess it.
Out of the Valley of the Shadow of Death I stretch forth my hands in blessing to you, the children of the coming
time, and pray that the peace which the men of the generation now passing away have won through strife and toil in
the fiery days of the Terror, may be yours and endure unbroken unto the end.
THE SURRENDER OF THE WORLD-THRONE. A HUNDRED years had passed since Natas, the Master of the Terror, had given into the hands of Richard Arnold
his charge to the future generations of the Aerians -- as the descendants of the Terrorists who had colonised the
mountain-walled valley of Aeria, in Central Africa, were now called; since the man, who had planned and
accomplished the greatest revolution in the history of the world, had given his last blessing to his companions-in-arms
and their children, and had "turned his face to the wall and died."
It was midday, on the 8th of December 2030, and the rulers of all the civilised States of the world were gathered
together in St. Paul's Cathedral to receive, from the hands of a descendant of Natas in the fourth generation, the
restoration of the right of independent national rule which, on the same spot a hundred and twenty-five years
before, had been taken from the sovereigns of Europe and vested in the Supreme Council of the Anglo-Saxon
Federation.
The period of tutelage had passed. Under the wise and firm rule of the Council and the domination of the Anglo-Saxon
race, the Golden Age had seemed to return to the world. For a hundred and twenty-five years there had
been peace on earth, broken only by the outbreak and speedy suppression of a few tribal wars among the more
savage races of Africa and Malaysia. Now the descendants of those who had been victors and vanquished in the
world-war of 1904, had met to give back and assume the freedom and the responsibility of national independence.
The vast cathedral was thronged, as it had been on the momentous day when Natas had pronounced his judgment
on the last of the Tyrants of Russia, and ended the old order of things in Europe. But it was filled by a very different
assembly to that which had stood within its walls on the morrow of Armageddon.
Then the stress and horror of a mighty conflict had set its stamp on every face. Hate had looked out of eyes in
which the tears were scarcely dry, and hungered fiercely for the blood of the oppressor. The clash of arms, the
stern command and the pitiless words of doom had sounded then in ears which but a few hours before had listened
to the roar of artillery and the thunder of battle. That had been the dawn of the morrow of strife; this was the zenith
of the noon of peace.
Now, in all the vast assembly, no hand held a weapon, no face was there which showed a sign of sorrow, fear, or
anger and in no heart, save only two among the thousands, was there a thought of hate or bitterness.
For three days past the Festival of Deliverance had been celebrated all over the civilised world, and now, in the
centre of the city which had come to be the capital, not only of the vast domains of Anglo-Saxondom, but of the
whole world, a solemn act of renunciation was to be performed, upon the issues of which the fate of all humanity
would hang; for the members of the Supreme Council had come through the skies from their seat of empire in
Aeria to abdicate the world-throne in obedience to the command of the dead Master, from whom their ancestors
had derived it.
At a table, drawn across the front of the chancel, sat the President and the twelve men who with him had up to this
hour shared the empire of the human race. Below the steps on the floor of the cathedral, sat, in a wide semicircle,
the rulers of the kingdoms and republics of the earth assembled to hear the last word of their over-lords, and to
receive from them the power and responsibility of maintaining or forfeiting, as the event should prove, the blessings which had
multiplied under the sovereignty of the Aerians.
The President of the Council was the direct descendant not only of Alan Tremayne, its first President, but also of
Richard Arnold and Natasha; for their eldest son, born in the first year of the Peace, had married the only daughter
of Tremayne, and their first-born son had been his father's father.
Although the average physique of civilised man had immensely improved under the new order of things, the
Aerians, descendants of the pick of the nations of Europe, were as far superior to the rest of the assembly as the
latter would have been to the men and women of the nineteenth century; but even amongst the members of the
Council, the splendid stature and regal dignity of Alan Arnold, the President, stamped him as a born ruler of men,
whose title rested upon something higher than election or inheritance.
At the last stroke of twelve, the President rose in his place, and, in the midst of an almost breathless silence, read
the message of Natas to the great congregation. This done, he laid the parchment down on the table and, beginning
from the outbreak of the world-war, rapidly and lucidly sketched out the vast and beneficent changes in the
government of society that its issues had made possible.
He traced the marvellous development of the new civilisation, which, in four generations, had raised men from a
state of half-barbarous strife and brutality to one of universal peace and prosperity; from inhuman and unsparing
competition to friendly co-operation in public, and generous rivalry in private concerns, from horrible contrasts of
wealth and misery to a social state in which the removal of all unnatural disabilities in the race of life had made them
impossible.
He showed how, in the evil times which, as all men hoped, had been left behind for ever, the strong and the
unscrupulous ruthlessly oppressed the weak and swindled the honest and the straightforward. Now dishonesty was
dishonourable in fact as well as in name; the game of life was played fairly, and its prizes fell to all who could win
them, by native genius or earnest endeavour.
There were no inequalities, save those which Nature herself had imposed upon all men from the beginning of time.
There were no tyrants and no slaves. That which a man's labour of hand or brain had won was his, and no man
might take toll of it. All useful work was held in honour, and there was no other road to fame or fortune save that of
profitable service to humanity.
"This," said the President in conclusion, "is the splendid heritage that we of the Supreme Council, which is now to
cease to exist as such, have received from our forefathers, who won it for us and for you on the field of the world's
Armageddon. We have preserved their traditions intact, and obeyed their commands to the letter; and now the hour
has come for us, in obedience to the last of those commands, to resign our authority and to hand over that heritage
to you, the rulers of the civilised world, to hold in trust for the peoples over whom you have been appointed to
reign.
"When I have done speaking I shall no longer be President of the Senate, which for a hundred and twenty-five
years has ruled the world from pole to pole and east to west. You and your parliaments are henceforth free to rule
as you will. We shall take no further part in the control of human affairs outside our domain, saving only in one
concern.
"In the days when our command was established, the only possible basis of all rule was force, and our supremacy
was based on the force that we could bring to bear upon those who might have ventured to oppose us or revolted
against our rule. We commanded, and we will still command, the air, and I should not be doing my duty, either to
my own people or to you, if I did not tell you that the Aerians not as the world-rulers that they have been, but as the
citizens of an independent State, mean to keep that power in their own hands at all costs.
"The empire of earth and sea, saving only the valley of Aeria, is yours to do with as you will. The empire of the air is ours,-- the heritage that we have received from the genius of that ancestor of mine who first conquered it.
"That we have not used it in the past to oppress you is the most perfect guarantee that we shall not do so in the
future, but let all the nations of the earth clearly understand, that we shall accept any attempt to dispute it with us as
a declaration of war upon us, and that those who make that attempt will either have to exterminate us or be
exterminated themselves. This is not a threat, but a solemn warning; and the responsibility of once more bringing
the curse of war and all its attendant desolation upon the earth, will lie heavily upon those who neglect it.
"A few more needful words and I have done. The message of the Master, which I have read to you, contains a
prophecy, as to the fulfilment of which neither I nor any man here may speak with certainty. It may be that he, with
clearer eyes than ours, saw some tremendous catastrophe impending over the world, a catastrophe which no
human means could avert, and beneath which human strength and genius could only bow with resignation.
"By what spirit he was inspired when he uttered the prophecy, it is not for us to say. But before you put it aside as
an old man's dream, let me ask you to remember, that he who uttered it was a man who was able to plan the
destruction of one civilisation, and to prepare the way for another and a better.
"Such a man, standing midway between the twin mysteries of life and death, might well see that which is hidden
from our grosser sight. But whether the prophecy itself shall prove true or false, it shall be well for you and for your
children's children if you and they shall receive the lesson that it teaches as true.
"If, in the days that are to come, the world shall be overwhelmed with a desolation that none shall escape, will it not
be better that the end shall come and find men doing good rather than evil? As you now set the peoples whom you
govern in the right or the wrong path, so shall they walk.
 "Not A Vestige Of Our Air-Ship Or Her Creators Remained" |
"Two days before she was ready to take the air, one of his men deserted. The traitor was never seen again, but the next night a Terrorist vessel descended from the clouds, and in a few minutes not a vestige of our air-ship or her creators remained. Only a blackened waste in the midst of the forest was left to show the scene of their labours. Within forty-eight hours, it was known all over the civilised world that Vladimir Romanoff and his associates had been killed by order of the Supreme Council, for endeavouring to build an air-ship in defiance of its commands.
"Such are the enemies against whom you will have to contend. They are still virtually the masters of the world, and the task before you is to wrest that mastery from them. It is no light task, but it is not impossible; for these Aerians are, after all, but men and women as you are, and what they have done, other men and women can surely do.
"The Great Secret cannot always remain theirs alone. While they actively controlled the nations, nothing could be done against them, for their hand was everywhere and their eyes saw everything. But now they have abdicated the throne of the world, and left the nations to rule themselves as they can. For a time things will go on in their present grooves, but that will not be for long.
"I, who am their bitterest enemy on earth, am forced to confess that the Terrorists have proved themselves to be the wisest as well as the strongest of despots. Under their rule the world has become a paradise -- for the canaille and the multitude. But they have curbed the mob as well as the king, and abolished the demagogue as well as the despot. Now the strong hand is lifted and the bridle loosed; and before many years have passed, the brute strength of the multitude will have begun to assert itself.
"The so-called kings of the earth, who rule now in a mockery of royalty, will speedily find that the real kings of the old days ruled because, in the last resource, they had armies and navies at their command and could enforce obedience. These are but the puppets of the popular will, and now that the moral and physical support of the Supreme Council and its aerial fleet is taken from them, they will see democracy run rampant, and, having no strength to stem the tide, they will have to float with it or be submerged by it.
"In another generation the voice of the majority, the blind, brute force of numbers, will rule everything on earth. What government there may be, will be a mere matter of counting heads. Individual freedom will by swift degrees vanish from the earth, and human society will become a huge machine grinding all men down to the same level until the monotony of life becomes unendurable.
"Hitherto all democracies in the history of the world have been ended by military despotisms, but now military despotism has been made impossible, and so democracy will run riot, until it plunges the world into social chaos.
"This may come in your time or in your children's, but it is the opportunity for which you must work and wait. Even now you will find in every nation, thousands of men and women who are chafing against the limitations imposed on individual aspirations and ambition; and as the rule of democracy spreads and becomes heavier, the number of these will increase, until at last revolt will become possible, nay, inevitable.
"Of this revolt you must make yourselves the guiding-spirits. The work will be long and arduous, but you have all your lives before you, and the reward of success will be glorious beyond all description.
"Not only will you restore the House of Romanoff to its ancient glories in yourselves and your children, but you will enthrone it in an even higher place than that which your ancestor had almost won for it, when these thrice-accursed Terrorists turned the tide of battle against him on the threshold of the conquest of the world.
"Do not shrink from the task, or despair because you are now only two against the world. Think of Natas and the mighty work that he did, and remember that he was once only one against the world which in the day of battle he fought and conquered.
"Above all things, never let your eyes wander from the land of the Aerians. That once conquered and the world is yours to do with as you will. To do that, you must first conquer the air as they have done. Aeria itself, by all reports, is such a paradise as the sun nowhere else shines upon. Some day, whether by force or cunning, it may be yours; and when it is, the world also will be yours to be your footstool and your plaything, and all the peoples of the earth shall be your servants to do your bidding.
"Yes, I can see, through the mists of the coming years and beyond the grave that opens at my feet, aerial navies, flying the Eagle of Russia and scaling the mighty battlements of Aeria, hurling their lightnings far and wide in the work of vengeance long delayed! Behind the battle, I see darkness that my weak eyes cannot pierce, but yours shall see clearly where mine are clouded with the falling mists of death.
"The shadows are closing round me, and the sands in the glass are almost run out. Yet one thing remains to be done. Since Alexander Romanoff died at the mines of Kara, no Tsar of Russia has been crowned. Now I, Paul Romanoff, his rightful heir, will crown myself after the fashion of my ancestors, and then I will crown you, the daughter of my murdered son, and you will place the diadem on your husband's brow when God has made you one!"
So saying, the old man rose from his seat, with his face flushed and his eyes aglow with the light of ecstasy. Olga and Serge rose to their feet, half in fear and half in wonder, as they looked upon his transfigured countenance.
He lifted the Imperial crown from the table, and then, drawing himself up to the full height of his majestic stature, raised it high above his head, and lowered it slowly down towards his brow.
The jewelled circlet of gold had almost touched the silver of his snowy hair when the light suddenly died out of his eyes, leaving the glaze of death behind it. He gasped once for breath, and then his mighty form shrank together and pitched forward in a huddled heap at their feet, flinging the crown with a dull crash to the floor, and sending it rolling away into a corner of the room.
"God grant that may not be an omen, Olga!" said Serge, covering his eyes with his hands to shut out the sudden horror of the sight.
"Omen or not, I will do his bidding to the end," said the girl slowly and solemnly. Then her pent-up passion of grief
burst forth in a long, wailing cry, and she flung herself down on the prostrate form of the only friend she had ever
known and loved, and laid her cheek upon his, and let the welling tears run from her eyes over those that had for
ever ceased to weep.
TSARINA OLGA. THREE days after his death, the body of Paul Romanoff was reduced to ashes in the Highgate Crematorium, a
magnificent building, in the sombre yet splendid architecture of ancient Egypt, which stood in the midst of what had
once been Highgate Cemetery, and what was now a beautiful garden, shaded by noble trees, and in summer
ablaze with myriads of flowers.
Not a grave or a headstone was to be seen, for burial in the earth had been abolished throughout the civilised world
for nearly a century. In the vast galleries of the central building, thousands of urns, containing the ashes of the
dead, reposed in niches inscribed with the name and date of death, but these mostly belonged to the poorer
classes, for the wealthy as a rule devoted a chamber in their own houses to this purpose.
The body was registered in the great Book of the Dead at the Crematorium as that of Paul Ivanitch, and the only
two mourners signed their names, "Serge Ivanitch and Olga Ivanitch, grand-children of the deceased." The reason
for this was, that for more than a century the name of Romanoff had been proscribed in all the nations of Europe. It
was believed that the Vladimir Romanoff who had been executed by the Supreme Council, for attempting to solve
the forbidden problem, was the last of his race, and Paul had taken great pains not to disturb this belief.
Long before his son had met with his end, he had called himself Paul Ivanitch, and settled in London and practised
his profession as a sculptor, in which he had won both fame and fortune. Olga had lived with him since her father's
death, and Serge, who at the time the narrative opens had just completed his studies at the Art University of Rome,
had passed as her brother.
They took the urn containing the ashes of the old man back with them to the house, which now belonged, with all its
contents, to Olga and Serge. On the morning after his death, a notice, accompanied by an abstract of his will, had
been inserted in The Official Gazette, the journal devoted exclusively to matters of law and government.
Paul Romanoff had, however, left two wills behind him, one which had to be made public in compliance with the law,
and one which was intended only for the eyes of Olga and Serge. This second will reposed, with the crown of
Russia, in the secret recess in the wall of the octagonal chamber; and the instructions endorsed upon it stated that
it was to be opened by Serge in the presence of Olga, after they had brought his ashes back to the house and had
been legally confirmed in their possession of his property.
Consequently, on the evening of the 11th, the two shut themselves into the room, and Olga, who since her
grandfather's death had worn the key of the recess on a chain round her neck, unlocked the secret door and gave
the will to Serge. As she did so, a sudden fancy seized her. She took the crown from its resting-place, and,
standing in front of a long mirror which occupied one of the eight sides of the room from roof to floor, poised it
above the lustrous coils of her hair with both hands, and said, half to Serge and half to herself--
"What age could not accomplish, youth shall do! By my own right, and with my own hands, I am crowned Tsarina
Empress of the Russias in Europe and Asia. As the great Catherine was, so will I be -- and more, for I will be
Mistress of the West and the East. I will have kings for my vassals and
senates for my servants, and I will rule as no other woman has ruled before me since Semiramis!"
As she uttered the daring words, whose fulfilment seemed beyond the dreams of the wildest imagination, she placed
the crown upon her brow and stood, clothed in imperial purple from head to foot, the very incarnation of loveliness
and royal majesty. Serge looked up as she spoke, and gazed for a moment entranced upon her. Then he threw
himself upon his knees before her, and, raising the hem of her robe to his lips, said in a voice half choked with love
and passion--
"And I, who am also of the imperial blood, will be the first to salute you Tsarina and mistress! You have taken me as
your lover, let me also be the first of your subjects. I will serve you as woman never was served before. You shall be
my mistress -- my goddess, and your words shall be my laws before all other laws. If you bid me do evil, it shall be
to me as good, and I will do it. I will kill or leave alive according to your pleasure, and I will hold my own life as
cheap as any other in your service; for I love you, and my life is yours!"
Olga looked down upon him with the light of triumph in her eyes. No woman ever breathed to whom such words
would not have been sweet; but to her they were doubly sweet, because they were a spontaneous tribute to the
power of her beauty and the strength of her royal nature, and an earnest of her future sway over other men.
More than this, too, they had been won without an effort, from the lips of the man whom she had always been taught
to look upon as higher than other men, in virtue of his descent from her own ancestry, and the blood-right that he
shared with her to that throne which it was to be their joint life-task to re-establish.
If she did not love him, it was rather because ambition and the inborn lust of power engrossed her whole being,
than from any lack of worthiness on his part. Of all the men she had ever seen, none compared with him in strength
and manliness save one -- and he, bitter beyond expression as the thought was to her, was so far above her as she
was now, that he seemed to belong to another world and to another order of beings.
As their eyes met, a thrill that was almost akin to love passed through her soul, and, acting on the impulse of the
moment, she took the crown from her own head and held it above his as he knelt at her feet, and said--
"Not as my subject or my servant, but as my co-ruler and helpmate, you shall keep that oath of yours, Serge
Nicholaivitch. We have exchanged our vows, and in a few days I shall be your wife. We will wed as equals; and so
now I crown you, as it is my right to do. Rise, my lord the Tsar, and take your crown!"
Serge put up his hands and took the crown from hers at the moment that she placed it on his brow. He rose to his
feet, holding it on his head as he said solemnly--
"So be it, and may the God of our fathers help me to wear it worthily with you, and to restore to it the glory that has
been taken from it by our enemies!"
Then he laid it reverently down on the table and turned to Olga, who was still standing before the mirror looking at
her own lovely image, as though in a dream of future glory. He took her unresisting in his arms, and kissed her
passionately again and again, bringing the bright blood to her cheeks and the light of a kindred passion to her
eyes, and murmuring between the kisses--
"But you, darling, are worth all the crowns of earth, and I am still your slave, because your beauty and your
sweetness make me so."
"Then slave you shall be!" she said, giving him back kiss for kiss, well knowing that with every pressure of her
intoxicating lips she riveted the chains of his bondage closer upon his soul.
To an outside observer, what had taken place would have seemed but little better than boy-and-girl's play, the
phantasy of two young and ardent souls dreaming a romantic and impossible dream of power and glory that had
vanished, never to be brought back again. And yet, if such a one had been
able to look forward though more than a single lustrum, he would have seen that, in the mysterious revolutions of
human affairs, it is usually the seemingly impossible that becomes possible, and the most unexpected that comes to
pass.
The secret will of Paul Romanoff, to the study of which the two lovers addressed themselves when they awoke from
the dream of love and empire into which Olga's phantasy had plunged them both, would, if it had been made public,
have given a by no means indefinite shape to such vague dreams of world-revolution as were inspired in thoughtful
minds, even in the thirty-first year of the twenty-first century.
It was a voluminous document of many pages, embodying the result of nearly eighty years of tireless scheming and
patient research in the field of science as well as in that of politics. Paul Romanoff had lived his life with but one
object, and that was, to prepare the way for the accomplishment of a revolution which should culminate in the
subversion of the state of society inaugurated by the Terrorists, and the re-establishment, at any rate in the east of
Europe, of autocratic rule in the person of a scion of the House of Romanoff. All that he had been able to do
towards the attainment of this seemingly impossible project was crystallised in the document bequeathed to Olga
and Serge.
It was divided into three sections. The first of these was mostly of a personal nature, and contained details which it
would serve no purpose of use or interest to reproduce here. It will therefore suffice to say, that it contained a list of
the names and addresses of four hundred men and women scattered throughout Europe and America, each of
whom was the descendant of some prince or noble, some great landowner or millionaire, who had suffered
degradation or ruin at the hands of the Terrorists during the reorganisation of society, after the final triumph of the
Anglo-Saxon Federation in 1904.
The second section of the will was of a purely scientific and technical character. It was a theoretical arsenal of
weapons for the arming of those who, if they were to succeed at all, could only do so by bringing back that which it
had cost such an awful expenditure of blood and suffering to banish from the earth in the days of the Terror. The
designs of Paul Romanoff, and the vast aspirations of those to whom he had bequeathed the crown of the great
Catherine, could have but one result if they ever passed from the realm of fancy to that of deeds.
If the clock was to be put back, only the armed hand could do it, and that hand must be so armed that it could strike
at first secretly, and yet with paralysing effect. The few would have to array themselves against the many, and if
they triumphed, it would have to be by the possession of some such means of terrorism and irresistible destruction
as those who had accomplished the revolution of 1904 had wielded in their aerial fleet.
By far the most important part of this section of the will consisted of plans and diagrams of various descriptions of
airships and submarine vessels, accompanied by minute directions for building and working them. Most of these
were from the hand of Vladimir Romanoff, Olga's father; but of infinitely more importance even than all these was a
detailed description, on the last page but two of the section, of the solution of a problem which had been attempted
in the last decade of the nineteenth century, but which was still unsolved so far as the world at large was
concerned.
This was the direct transformation of the solar energy locked up in coal into electrical energy, without loss either by
waste or transference. How vast and yet easily controlled a power this would be in the hands of those who were
able to wield it, may be guessed from the fact that, in the present day, less than ten per cent. of the latent energy of
coal is developed as electrical power even in the most perfect systems of conversion.
All the rest is wasted between the furnace of the steam-engine and the dynamo. It was to electrical power, obtained
direct from coal and petroleum, that Vladimir Romanoff trusted
for the motive force of his air-ships and submarine vessels, and which he had already employed with experimental
success as regards the former, when his career was cut short by the swift and pitiless execution of the sentence of
the Supreme Council.
The remainder of this section was occupied by a list of chemical formulæ for the most powerful explosives then
known to science, and minute instructions for their preparation. At the bottom of the page which contained these,
there was a little strip of parchment, fastened by one end to the binding of the other sheets, and covered with very
small writing.
Olga's eyes, wandering down over the maze of figures which crowded the page, reached it before Serge's did. One
quick glance told her that it was something very different to the rest. She laid one hand carelessly over it, and with
the other softly caressed Serge's crisp, golden curls. As he looked round in response to the caress, their eyes met,
and she said in her sweet, low, witching voice--
"Dearest, I have a favour to ask of you."
"Not a favour to ask, but a command to give, you mean. Speak, and you are obeyed. Have I not sworn obedience?"
he replied, laying his hand upon her shoulder and drawing her lovely face closer to his as he spoke.
"No, it is only a favour," she said, with such a smile as Antony might have seen on the lips of Cleopatra. "I want you
to leave me alone for a little time -- for half an hour -- and then come back and finish reading this with me. You
know my brain is not as strong as yours, and I feel a little bewildered with all the wonderful things that there are in
this legacy of my father's father.
"Before we go any further, I should like, to read it all through again by myself, so as to understand it thoroughly. So
suppose you go to your smoking-room for a little, and leave me to do so. I shall not take very long, and then we will
go over the rest together."
"But we have only a couple more pages to read, sweet one, and then I will go over it all again with you, and explain
anything that you have not understood."
As he spoke, Serge's eyes never wavered for a moment from hers. Could he but have broken their spell, he might
have seen that she was hiding something from him under her little, white hand and shapely arm. She brought her
red, smiling lips still nearer to his as she almost whispered in reply--
"Well, it is only a girl's whim, after all, but still I am a girl. Come, now, I will give you a kiss for twenty minutes'
solitude, and when you come back, and we have finished our task, you shall have as many more as you like."
The sweet, tempting lips came closer still, and the witching spell of her great dusky eyes grew stronger as she
spoke. How was he to know what was hanging in the balance in that fateful moment? He was but a hot-blooded
youth of twenty, and he worshipped this lovely, girlish temptress, who had not yet seen seventeen summers, with an
adoration that blinded him to all else but her and her intoxicating beauty.
He drew her yielding form to him until he could feel her heart beating against his, and as their lips met, the
promised kiss came from hers to his. He returned it threefold, and then his arm slipped from her shoulder to her
waist, and he lifted her like a child from her chair, and carried her, half laughing and half protesting, to the door,
claimed and took another kiss before he released her, and then put her down and left her alone without another
word.
"Alas, poor Serge!" she said, as the door closed behind him; "you are not the first man who has lost the empire of
the world for a woman's kiss. Before, I saw that you were my equal and helpmate, now you and all other men -- yes,
not even excepting he who seems so far above me now -- shall be my slaves and do my bidding, so blindly that they
shall not even know they are doing it.
"Yes, the weapons of war are worth much, but what are they in comparison with the souls of the men who will have to use them!"
In half an hour Serge came back to finish the reading of
the will with her. The little slip of paper had been removed so skilfully that it would have been impossible for him to
have even guessed that it had ever been attached to the parchment or that it was now lying hidden in the bosom of
the girl who would have killed him without the slightest scruple to gain the unsuspected possession of it.
A SON OF THE GODS. ON the day but one following the reading of Paul Romanoff's secret will, Olga and Serge set out for St. Petersburg,
to convey his ashes to their last resting-place in the Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul in the Fortress of
Petropaulovski, where reposed the dust of the Tyrants of Russia, from Peter the Great to Alexander II. of Russia,
now only remembered as the chief characters in the dark tragedy of the days before the Revolution.
The intense love of the Russians for their country had survived the tremendous change that had passed over the
face of society, and it was still the custom to bring the ashes of those who claimed noble descent and deposit them
in one of their national churches, even when they had died in distant countries.
The station from which they started was a splendid structure of marble, glass, and aluminium steel, standing in the
midst of a vast, abundantly-wooded garden, which occupied the region that had once been made hideous by the
slums and sweating-dens of Southwark. The ground floor was occupied by waiting-rooms, dining-saloons,
conservatories, and winter-gardens, for the convenience and enjoyment of travellers; and from these lifts rose to the
upper storey, where the platforms and lines lay under an immense crystal arch.
Twelve lines ran out of the station, divided into three sets
of four each. Of these, the centre set was entirely devoted to continental traffic, and the lines of this system
stretched without a break from London to Pekin.
The cars ran suspended on a single rail upheld by light, graceful arches of a practically unbreakable alloy of
aluminium, steel, and zinc, while about a fifth of their weight was borne by another single insulating rail of forged
glass,-- the rediscovery of the lost art of making which had opened up immense possibilities to the engineers of the
twenty-first century.
Along this lower line the train ran, not on wheels, but on lubricated bearings, which glided over it with no more
friction than that of a steel skate on ice. On the upper rail ran double-flanged wheels with ball-bearings, and this line
also conducted the electric current from which the motive-power was derived.
The two inner lines of each set were devoted to long-distance, express traffic, and the two outer to intermediate
transit, corresponding to the ordinary trains of the present day. Thus, for example, the train by which Olga and
Serge were about to travel, stopped only at Brussels, Berlin, Königsberg, Moscow, Nijni Novgorod, Tomsk,
Tobolsk, Irkutsk, and Pekin, which was reached by a line running through the Salenga valley and across the great
desert of Shamoo, while from Irkutsk another branch of the line ran north-eastward via Yakutsk to the East Cape,
where the Behring Bridge united the systems of the Old World and the New.
The usual speed of the expresses was a hundred and fifty miles an hour, rising to two hundred on the long runs;
and that of the ordinary trains, from a hundred to a hundred and fifty. Higher speeds could of course be attained on
emergencies, but these had been found to be quite sufficient for all practical purposes.
The cars were not unlike the Pullmans of the present day, save that they were wider and roomier, and were built not
of wood and iron, but of aluminium and forged glass. Their interiors were, of course, absolutely impervious to wind
and dust, even at the highest speed of the train, although a perfect system of ventilation kept their atmosphere
perfectly fresh.
The long-distance trains were fitted up exactly as moving hotels, and the traveller, from London to Pekin or
Montreal, was not under the slightest necessity of leaving the train, unless he chose to do so, from end to end of the
journey.
One more advantage of railway travelling in the twenty-first century may be mentioned here. It was entirely free,
both for passengers and baggage. Easy and rapid transit being considered an absolute necessity of a high state of
civilisation, just as armies and navies had once been thought to be, every self-supporting person paid a small
travelling tax, in return for which he or she was entitled to the freedom of all the lines in the area of the Federation.
In addition to this tax, the municipality of every city or town through which the lines passed, set apart a portion of
their rent-tax for the maintenance of the railways, in return for the advantages they derived from them.
Under this reasonable condition of affairs, therefore, all that an intending traveller had to do was to signify the date
of his departure and his destination to the superintendent of the nearest station, and send his heavier baggage on
in advance by one of the trains devoted to the carriage of freight. A place was then allotted to him, and all he had to
do was to go and take possession of it.
The Continental Station was comfortably full of passengers when Olga and Serge reached it, about fifteen minutes
before the departure of the Eastern express; for people were leaving the Capital of the World in thousands just then,
to spend Christmas and New Year with friends in the other cities of Europe, and especially to attend the great
Winter Festival that was held every year in St. Petersburg in celebration of the anniversary of Russian freedom.
Ten minutes before the express started, they ascended in one of the lifts to the platform, and went to find their
seats. As they walked along the train, Olga suddenly stopped and said, almost with a gasp--
"Look, Serge! There are two Aerians, and one of them is"--
"Who?" said Serge, almost roughly. "I didn't know you had any acquaintances among the Masters of the World."
The son of the Romanoffs hated the very name of the Aerians, so bitterly that even the mere suspicion that his
idolised betrothed should have so much as spoken to one of them was enough to rouse his anger.
"No, I haven't," she replied quietly, ignoring the sudden change in his manner; "but both you and I have very good
reason for wishing to make their distinguished acquaintance. I recognise one of these because he sat beside Alan
Arnold, the President of the Council, in St. Paul's, when they were foolish enough to relinquish the throne of the
world in obedience to an old man's whim.
"The taller of the two standing there by the pillar is the younger counterpart of the President, and if his looks don't
belie him, he can be no one but the son of Alan Arnold, and therefore the future ruler of Aeria, and the present or
future possessor of the Great Secret. Do you see now why it is necessary that we should-- well, I will say, make
friends of those two handsome lads?"
Olga spoke rapidly and in Russian, a tongue then scarcely ever heard and very little understood even among
educated people, who, whatever their nationality, made English their language of general intercourse. The words
"handsome lads" had grated harshly upon Serge's ears, but he saw the force of Olga's question at once, and strove
hard to stifle the waking demon of jealousy that had been roused more by her tone and the quick bright flush on her
cheek than by her words, as he answered--
"Forgive me, darling, for speaking roughly! Their hundred years of peace have not tamed my Russian blood
enough to let me look upon my enemies without anger. Of course, you are right; and if they are going by the
express, as they seem to be, we should be friendly enough by the time we reach Königsberg."
"I am glad you agree with me," said Olga, "for the destinies of the world may turn on the events of the next few
hours. Ah, the Fates are kind! Look! There is Alderman1 Heatherstone talking to them. I suppose he
has come to see them off; for no doubt they have been the guests of the City during the Festival. Come, he will very
soon make us known to each other."
A couple of minutes later the Alderman, who had been an old friend of Paul Ivanitch, the famous sculptor, had
cordially greeted them and introduced them to the two Aerians, whose names he gave as Alan Arnoldson, the son
of the President of the late Supreme Council, and Alexis Masarov, a descendant of the Alexis Mazanoff who had
played such a conspicuous part in the war of the Terror. They were just starting on the tour of the world, and were
bound for St. Petersburg to witness the Winter Festival.
Olga had been more than justified in speaking of them as she had done. Both in face and form, they were the very
ideal of youthful manhood. Both of them stood over six feet in the long, soft, white leather boots which rose above
their knees meeting their close-fitting, grey tunics of silk-embroidered cloth, confined at the waist by belts curiously
fashioned of flat links of several different metals, and fastened in front by heavy buckles of gold studded with great,
flashing gems.
From their broad shoulders hung travelling-cloaks of fine, blue cloth, lined with silver fur and kept in place across
the breast by silver chains and clasps of a strange, blue metal whose lustre seemed to come from within like that of
a diamond or a sapphire.
On their heads they wore no other covering than their own thick, curling hair, which they wore somewhat in the
picturesque style of the fourteenth century, and a plain, broad band of the gleaming blue metal, from which rose
above the temples a pair of marvellously-chased, golden wings about four inches high -- the insignia of the Empire
of the Air, and the sign which distinguished the Aerians from all the other peoples of the earth.
As Olga shook hands with Alan, she looked up into his dark-blue eyes, with a glance such as he had never received
from a woman before -- a glance in which he seemed instinctively to read at once love and hate, frank admiration
and equally undisguised defiance. Their eyes held each other for a moment of mutual fascination which neither
could resist, and then the dark-fringed lids fell over hers, and a faint flush rose to her cheeks as she replied to his
words of salutation--
"Surely the pleasure will rather be on our side, with travelling companions from the other world! For my own part, I
seem to remind myself somewhat of one of the daughters of men whom the Sons of the Gods"--
She stopped short in the middle of her daring speech, and looked up at him again as much as to say--
"So much for the present. Let the Fates finish it!" and then, appearing to correct himself, she went on, with a half-
saucy, half-deprecating smile on her dangerously-mobile lips--
" You know what I mean; not exactly that, but something of the sort."
"More true, I fancy, of the daughter of men than of the supposed Sons of the Gods," retorted Alan, with a laugh,
half startled by her words, and wholly charmed by the indescribable fascination of the way in which she said them;
"for the daughters of men were so fair that the Sons of the Gods lost heaven itself for their sakes."
"Even so!" said Olga, looking him full in the eyes, and at that moment the signal sounded for them to take their
places in the cars.
A couple of minutes after they had taken their seats, the train drew out of the station with an imperceptible, gliding
motion, so smooth and frictionless that it seemed rather as though the people standing on the platform were sliding
backwards than that the train was moving forward. The speed increased rapidly, but so evenly that, almost before
they were well aware of it, the passengers were flying over the snow-covered landscape, under the bright, heatless
sun and pale, steel-blue sky of a perfect winter's morning, at a hundred miles an hour, the speed ever increasing as
they sped onward.
The line followed the general direction of the present route to Dover, which was reached in about half an hour.
Without pausing for a moment in its rapid flight, the express swept out from the land over the Channel Bridge, which
spanned the Straits from Dover to Calais at a height of 200 feet above the water.
Travelling at a speed of three miles a minute, seven minutes sufficed for the express to leap, as it were, from land to
land. As they swept along in mid-air over the waves, Olga pointed down to them and said to Alan, who was sitting in
the armchair next her own--
"Imagine the time when people had to take a couple of hours getting across here in a little, dirty, smoky steamboat,
mingling their sorrows and their sea-sickness in one common misery! I really think this Channel Bridge is worthy
even of your admiration. Come now, you have not admired anything yet"--
"Pardon me," said Alan, with a look and a laugh that set Serge's teeth gritting against each other, and brought the
ready blood to Olga's cheeks; "on the contrary, I have been absorbed in admiration ever since we started."
"But not apparently of our engineering triumphs," replied Olga frankly, taking the compliment to herself, and
seeming in no way displeased with it. "It would seem that the polite art of flattery is studied to some purpose in
Aeria."
"There you are quite wrong," returned Alan, still speaking in the same half-jocular, half-serious vein. "Before all
things, we Aerians are taught to tell the absolute truth under all circumstance, no matter whether it pleases or
offends; so, you see, what is usually known as flattery could hardly be one of our arts, since, as often as not, it is a
lie told in the guise of truth, for the sake of serving some hidden and perhaps dishonest end."
The blow so unconsciously delivered struck straight home, and the flush died from Olga's cheek, leaving her for the
moment so white that her companion anxiously asked if she was unwell.
"No," she said, recovering her self-possession under the impulse of sudden anger at the weakness she had
betrayed. "It is nothing. This is the first time for a year or so that I have travelled by one of these very fast trains,
and the speed made me a little giddy just for the instant. I am quite well, really, so please go on.
"You know, that wonderful fairyland of yours is a subject of everlasting interest and curiosity to us poor outsiders
who are denied a glimpse of its glories, and it is so very rarely that one of us enjoys the privilege that is mine just
now, that I hope you will indulge my feminine curiosity as far as your good nature is able to temper your reserve."
As she uttered her request, Alan's smiling face suddenly became grave almost to sternness. The laughing light died
out of his eyes, and she saw them darken in a fashion that at once convinced her that she had begun by making a
serious mistake.
He looked up at her, with a shadow in his eyes and a slight frown on his brow. He spoke slowly and steadily, but
with a manifest reluctance which he seemed to take little or no trouble to conceal.
"I am sorry that you have asked me to talk on what is a forbidden subject to every Aerian, save when he is speaking
with one of his own nation. I see you have been looking at these two golden wings on the band round my head. I will
tell you what they mean, and then you will understand why I cannot say all that I know you would like me to say.
"They are to us what the toga virilis was to the Romans of old, the insignia of manhood and responsibility. When a
youth of Aeria reaches the age of twenty he is entitled to wear these wings as a sign that he is invested with all the
rights and duties of a citizen of the nation which has conquered and commands the Empire of the Air.
"One of these duties is, that in all the more serious relations of life he shall remain apart from all the peoples of the
world save his own, and shall say nothing that will do anything to lift the veil which it has pleased our forefathers in
their wisdom to draw round the realm of Aeria. Before we assume the citizenship of which these wings are the
symbol we never visit the outside world save to make air voyages, for the purpose of learning the physical facts of
the earth's shape and the geography of land and sea.
"Immediately after we have assumed it we do as Alexis and I are now doing -- travel for a year or so through the
different countries of the outside world, in order to get our knowledge of men and things as they exist beyond the
limits of our own country.
"The fact that we do so,-- under a pledge solemnly and publicly given, of never revealing anything which could lead
even to a possibility of other peoples of the earth overtaking us in the progress which we have made in the arts and
sciences,-- is my excuse for refusing to tell you what your very natural curiosity has asked."
Olga saw instantly that she had struck a false note, and was not slow to make good her mistake. She laid her hand
upon his arm, with that pretty gesture which Serge knew so well, and watched now with much bitter feelings, and
said, in a tone that betrayed no trace of the consuming passion within her--
"Forgive me! Of course, you will see that I did not know I was trenching on forbidden grounds. I can well
understand why such secrets as yours must be, should be kept. You have been masters of the world for more than
a century, and even now, although you have formally abdicated the throne of the world, it would be absurd to deny
that you still hold the destinies of humanity in your hands.
"The secrets which guard so tremendous a power as that may well be religiously kept and held more sacred than
anything else on earth. Still, you have mistaken me if you thought I asked for any of these. All I really wanted was,
that you should tell me something that would give me just a glimpse of what human life is like in that enchanted land of
yours"--
Alan laid his hands upon hers, which was still resting upon his arm, and interrupted her even more earnestly than before.
"Even that I cannot tell you. With us, the man who gives a pledge and breaks it, even in the spirit though not in the
letter, is not considered worthy to live, and therefore I must be silent."
Instead of answering with her lips, Olga turned her hand palm upwards, and clasped his with a pressure which he
returned before he very well knew what he was doing; and while the magic of her clasp was still stealing along his
nerves, Serge broke in, with a harsh ring in his voice--
"But pardon me for interrupting what seems a very pleasant conversation with my-- my sister, I should like to ask,
with all due deference to the infinitely superior wisdom of the rulers of Aeria, whether it is not rather a risky thing for
you to travel thus about the world, possessing secrets which any man or woman would almost be willing to die even
to know for a few minutes, when, after all, you are but human even as the rest of humanity are?
"You, for instance, are only two among millions; how would you protect yourselves against the superior force of
numbers? Supposing you were taken unawares under circumstances which make your superior knowledge
unavailing, You know, human nature is the same yesterday to-day, and to-morrow, despite the superficial varnish of
civilisation.
"The passions of men are only curbed, not dead. There may be men on earth to-day who, to gain such knowledge
as you possess, would even resort to the tortures used by the Inquisition in the sixteenth century. Suppose you
found yourself in the power of such men as that, what then? Would you still preserve your secret intact, do you
think?"
Alan heard him to the end without moving a muscle of his face, and without even withdrawing his hand from Olga's
clasp. But at the last sentence he snatched it suddenly away, half-turned in his seat, and faced him. Then, looking
him straight in the eyes, he said in a tone as cold and measured as might have been used by a judge sentencing a
criminal to death--
"We do not fear anything of the sort, simply because each one of us holds the power of life and death in his hands.
If you laid a hand on me now in anger, or with an intent to do me harm, you would be struck dead before you could
raise a finger in your own defence.
"Do you think that we, who are as far in advance of you as you are in advance of the men of a hundred years ago,
would trust ourselves amongst those who might be our enemies were we not amply protected against you? Tell me,
have you ever read a book, written nearly two hundred years ago in the Victorian Age, called The Coming Race?"
"Yes," said Serge, thinking, as he spoke, of the possibilities contained in the secret will of Paul Romanoff, "I have
read it, and so has Olga. What of it?"
"Well," said Alan quietly, without moving his eyes from those of Serge. "I had better tell you at once that we have
realised, to all intents and purposes, the dream that Lytton dreamt when he wrote that book. I can tell you so much
without breaking the pledge of which I have spoken. All that the Vril-Ya did in his dream we have accomplished in
reality, and more than that.
"Our empire is not bounded by the roofs of subterranean caverns, but only by the limits of the planet's atmosphere.
We can soar beyond the clouds and dive beneath the seas. We have realised what he called the Vril force as a
sober, scientific fact; and if I thought that you, for instance, were my enemy, I could strike you dead without so
much as laying a hand on you. And if a dozen like you tried to overcome me by superior brute force, they would
all meet with the same fate.
"I'm afraid this sounds somewhat like boasting," he continued
in a more gentle tone, and dropping his eyes to the floor of the car, "but the turn the conversation has taken
obliged me to say what I have done. Suppose we give it another turn and change the subject. We have
unintentionally got upon rather uncomfortable ground."
Serge and Olga were not slow to take the pointed hint, and of the talk drifted into general and more harmless
channels.
A VISION FROM THE CLOUDS. AT Königsberg, 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
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 Königsberg to the friends who expected them at Vorobiévô,
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 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 tomorrow, 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 airships 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
difficulty in telling you how you could do that," retorted Alan with almost boyish candour. "As it is, I am afraid I
must be satisfied for my reward with the pleasure of knowing that I have given you a pleasurable experience."
"Your Majesty has put that so prettily, that it almost atones for the sense of hopeless inferiority which, I need hardly
tell you, is just a trifle bitter to my feminine pride," said Olga, in the same half-bantering tone she had used all along,
Before a reply had risen to Alan's lips, the conversation was interrupted by the air-ship suddenly swooping down
from the clouds to the level of the windows of the train, which was now flying along over a wide, treeless plain at a
speed of fully two hundred miles an hour.
As the search-lights of the aerial vessel flashed along the windows of the cars, the blinds, which had been drawn
down at nightfall, were sprung up again by the passengers, who were all eager to get a glimpse of one of the
marvellous vessels which so rarely came within close view of the dwellers upon earth.
The air-ship, on which all eyes were now bent with such intense curiosity, was a beautifully-proportioned vessel
built chiefly of some unknown metal, which shone with a brilliant pale-blue lustre. Her hull was about two hundred
feet from stem to stern, not counting a long, ramlike projection which stretched some twenty-five feet in front of the
stem, with its point level with the keel, or rather, with the three keels,-- the centre one shallow and the two others
very deep,-- which were obviously shaped so as to enable the craft either to stand upright on land or to sail upon
the water if desired.
From each of her sides spread out two great wings, not unlike palm-leaves in shape, measuring some hundred feet
from point to point, and about twice the width of the vessel's deck which was, as nearly as could be judged, twenty
feet amidships.
These wings were made of some white lustrous material, which shone with a somewhat more metallic sheen than
silk would have done, and were divided into a vast number of sections by transverse ribs. These sections vibrated
and undulated rhythmically from front to rear with enormous rapidity, and evidently not only sustained the vessel in
the air, but also aided in her propulsion.
Three seemingly solid discs, which glittered brilliantly in the light from the train, marked the positions of the air-ship's
propellers, of which one revolved on a shaft in a straight line with the centre of the deck, while the shafts of
the other two were inclined outwards at a slight angle from the middle line. From the deck rose three slender, raking
masts, apparently placed there for ornament rather than use, unless indeed they were employed for signalling
purposes.
The whole deck was covered completely from end to end by a curved roof of glass, and formed a spacious
chamber pervaded by a soft, diffused light, the origin of which was invisible, and which showed about half a dozen
figures clad in the graceful costume of the Aerians, and all wearing the headdress with golden wings. From under
the domed, crystal roof projected ten long, slender guns,-- two over the bows, two over the stern, and three over
each side, at equal intervals.
Such was the wonderful craft which swept down from the darkness of the wintry sky, in full view of the passengers
in the cars, and lighted up the snowy landscape for three or four miles ahead and astern with the dazzling rays of
her two searchlights.
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 airship to the express; and then, with a speed
that seemed to rival that of the lightning-bolt, the cruiser of the air darted forward and upward, and in ten seconds
was lost beyond the clouds.
"Well, now that you have seen one of our aerial fleet at
close quarters," said Alan, turning to Olga and Serge, "what do you think of her?"
"A miracle!" they both exclaimed in one breath; and then Olga went on, her voice trembling with an irresistible
agitation--
"I can hardly believe that such a marvel is the creation of merely human genius. There is something appalling in the
very idea of the awful power lying in the hands of those who can create and command such a vessel as that. You
Aerians may well look down on us poor earth-dwellers, for truly you have made yourselves as gods."
She spoke earnestly, and for once with absolute honesty, for the vision of the air-ship had awed her completely for
the time being. Alan appeared for the moment as a god in her eyes, until she saw his lips curve in a very human
smile, and heard his voice say, without the slightest assumption of superiority in its tone--
"No, not as gods; but only as men who have developed under the most favourable circumstances possible, and who
have known how to make the best of their advantages."
1The good old word had now regained its ancient and uncorrupted meaning.
 "As She Gazed Upon It, The Fires Died Away" |
She looked down with fierce exultation upon the scene of carnage and destruction; and as she gazed upon it, the fires died away, the roar of the explosions began to sound like echoes in the distance, and when the landscape of her dreamland took definite shape again, the air-ship was hovering, over a vast, oval valley, walled in by mighty mountain masses, surmounted by towering peaks, on some of which crests of everlasting snow and ice shone undissolved in the rays of the tropical sun.
The valley itself was of such incomparable and fairy-like beauty, that it seemed to belong rather to the realm of imagination than to the world of reality. A great lake lay in the centre, its emerald shores lined with groves of palms and orange-trees, and fringed with verdant islets spangled with many coloured flowers.
On the northern shore of the lake lay a splendid city of marble palaces, surrounded by shady gardens, and divided from each other by broad, straight streets, smooth as ivory and spotless as snow, and lined with double rows of wide-spreading trees, which cast a pleasant shade along their sides
In the midst of a vast square, in the centre of the city, rose an immense building of marble of perfect whiteness surmounted by a great golden dome, which in turn was crowned by the silver shape of a woman with great spreading wings, which blazed and scintillated in the sunlight as though they had been fashioned of sheets of crystal, pure and translucent as diamonds.
All over the valley, villas and palaces of marble were scattered in cool ravines and on shaded, wooded slopes; and as far as her eye could reach, vast expanses of garden and emerald pastures, and golden corn fields stretched away over hill and vale, until the most remote were met by the cool, dark forests which clothed the middle slopes of the all-encircling mountains, and themselves gave place higher up to dark, frowning precipices, vast walls of living rock, rising thousands of feet sheer upwards, and ending in the mighty peaks which stood like eternal sentinels guarding this enchanted realm.
If she had had her will, she would have gazed for ever upon this delightful scene; but the spirit of the dream was not to be controlled, and it faded from her sight just as the picture of death and desolation had done. As it faded away, Alan, who had now come back to her side, laid his hand upon her shoulder and, looking at her with mournful eyes, said wearily--
"That was your first and last glimpse of heaven. Now comes the judgment!"
As he spoke, the air-ship soared upwards again, and was instantly enveloped in a cloud of impenetrable darkness. She sped on and on in utter silence through the gloom, which was so dense that it seemed to cast the rays of the ship's electric lights back upon her as she floated amidst it. Presently the deathlike silence was broken by a low, weird sound, that seemed like a wail of universal agony rising up from the earth beneath.
Then, far ahead and high up in the sky, appeared a faint light, which grew and brightened until the darkness melted away before it; and Olga saw the air-ship floating near enough to the earth for her to see that all its vegetation was withered and yellow, and the beds of its streams almost dry, with only little, thin rivulets trickling sluggishly along them.
Millions of people seemed wandering listlessly and aimlessly about the streets of the cities and the parched fields of the open country, ever and anon stretching their hands as though in appeal up to the dark, moonless sky, in which the fearful shape of light and fiery mist was growing every moment brighter and vaster.
It grew and grew until it arched half the horizon with its tremendous curve; and then out of the midst of it came a huge, dazzling globe of fire, from the rim of which shot forth great flames of every colour, some of which seemed to descend to the surface of the earth like long fiery tongues that licked up the seething lakes in wreathing clouds of steam, which hissed and roared as they rose like ascending cataracts.
She looked down between them at the earth. The myriads of figures were there still, but now they lay prone and lifeless on the ground, as though the last agony of mankind were past. The light of the blazing globe grew more and more dazzling, and the heat more and more intense. The speed of the air-ship slackened visibly, although the wings and propellers were working at their utmost speed, and it was falling rapidly, as though there was no longer any air to support it.
She gasped for breath in the choking, burning atmosphere of the deck chamber, and then a swift, vivid wave of light seemed to sweep through her brain, and she woke with a choking gasp of terror, with the chimes of her watch ringing sweetly in her ears, telling her that the vision had been but a dream of a night had passed.
Wide awake in an instant, she got out of bed and turned on the electric lamp. As the room had been perfectly warmed all night by the electric conduction-stoves, which were then in almost universal use, she only stopped to throw a fur-lined cloak round her shoulders before she went to remove the cap of the crucible.
She peered anxiously into the vessel, and saw about two fluid ounces of a dark, glittering liquid, from the surface of which the light of the lamp was reflected as though from a mirror. With hands that trembled slightly, in spite of the great effort she made to keep her nerves in check, she poured the precious fluid into one of the glass measures that she had used the night before.
Seen through the glass, its colour was a deep, brilliant blue and, like the white liquid first prepared, shone as though with an inherent, light-giving power of its own. She held it up admiringly to the light, and said to herself, with the same cruel smile that had curved her lips when she had contemplated the other fluid--
"How beautiful it is! It might be made of sapphires dissolved in some potent essence. In reality, it is an elixir capable of dissolving the souls of men. Ah, my proud Masters of the World, we shall soon see how much your boasted powers avail you against this and a woman's wit and hatred!
"And you, my splendid Alan, before to-morrow night you shall be at my feet! Two drops of this, and that proud, strong soul of yours shall melt away like a snowflake under warm rain, and you shall be my slave and do my bidding, and never know that you are not as free as you are now.
"The days have gone by when men sought the Elixir of Life, but Paul Romanoff sought and found the Elixir of Death,-- death of the body or of the soul, as the possessor of it shall will; and he is gone, and I, alone of all the children of men, possess it!"1
1Such a poison as this is no figment of the imagination. It has been known to Oriental adepts in poisoning for many centuries, and the Borghias were certainly familiar with it. A kindred drug was used by the Russian agents who kidnapped the late Prince Alexander of Bulgaria, though in his case the injury was permanent. It reduced him from one of the most able and daring princes in Europe to a mental and moral cripple, who was perfectly content to live in the obscurity to which his enemies had consigned him.
She set the measure down on the table, and took out of her valise a similar little flask to the one which held the white liquid. In this she carefully poured the contents of the measure, screwed the cap on as before, and hung it with the other on the chain round her neck. Then, woman-like, she turned to the mirror, threw back her cloak a little, and gazed at the reflection of the two flasks, which shone like two great gems upon her white skin.
"There is such a necklace as woman never wore before, since woman first delighted in gems,-- a necklace that all the jewels in the world could not buy. How pretty they look!"
So saying, she turned away from the mirror and carefully put away all traces of the work she had been engaged in, then she threw off her cloak and turned the lamp out and got into bed again, to wait until the attendant called her at eight o'clock as she had directed.
She did not go to sleep again, but lay with wide-open eyes looking at the darkness, and conjuring out of it visions of love and war, and the world-wide empire which she believed to be now almost within her grasp. In all these visions, two figures stood out prominently -- those of Serge and Alan, her lover that had been and the lover that was to be,-- if only the elixir did its work as its discoverer had said it would.
As such thoughts as these passed through her brain, a new and perhaps a nobler conception of her mission of revenge took possession of her. In the past, Natasha had won the love of the man whose genius had made possible, nay, irresistible, the triumph of that revolution which had subverted the throne of her ancestors, and sent the last of the Tsars of Russia to die like a felon in chains amidst the snows of Siberia.
What more magnificent vengeance could she, the last surviving daughter of the Romanoffs, win than the enslavement of the man descended not only from Natasha and Richard Arnold, but also from that Alan Tremayne whose name he bore, and who, as first President of the Anglo-Saxon Federation, had ensured the victory of the Western races over the Eastern?
The empire of freedom and peace, which Richard Arnold had won for Natasha's sake, this son of the line of Natas should convert, at her bidding, into an empire such as she longed to rule over, an empire in which men should be her slaves and women her handmaidens. For her sake the wave of Destiny should flow back again; she would be the Semiramis of a new despotism.
What was the freedom or the happiness of the mass of mankind to her? If she could raise herself above them, and put her foot upon their necks, why should she not do so? By force the leaders of the Terror had overthrown the despotisms of the Old World; why should not she employ the self-same force to seat herself, with the man she loved in spite of all her hereditary hatred, upon the throne of the world, and reign with him in that glorious land whose beauties had been revealed to her in the vision which surely had been something more than a dream?
Thus thinking and dreaming, and illumining the darkness with her own visions of glories to come, she lay in a kind of ecstasy, until a knock at the door warned her that the time for dreaming had passed and the hour for action had arrived.
A brief half-hour sufficed for her toilet, and she entered the room of the hotel, in which Serge was awaiting her, dressed to perfection in her plain, clinging robe of royal purple, and self-composed as though she had passed the night in the most innocent and dreamless of slumbers. She submitted to his greeting kiss with as good a grace as possible, and yet with an inward shrinking which almost amounted to loathing, born of the visions which were still floating in her mind.
She shuddered almost invisibly as he released her from his embrace, and then the bright blood rose to her cheeks, and a sudden light shone in her eyes, as the thought possessed her, that not many hours would pass before a far nobler lover would take her in his arms, and would press sweeter kisses upon her lips,-- the lips which had sworn fealty and devotion to the enemies of his race.
Serge, with the true egotism of the lover, took the blush to himself, and said, with a laugh of boyish frankness--
"Travelling and Russian air seem to agree with your Majesty. Evidently you have slept well your first night on Russian soil. I was half afraid that what happened yesterday, and your conversation with that golden-winged braggart from Aeria, would have sufficiently disturbed you to give you a more or less sleepless night, but you look as fresh and as lovely as though you had slept in the most perfect peace at home."
The anger that these unthinking words awoke in her soul, brought back the bright flush to Olga's cheeks and the light into her eyes, and again Serge mistook the sign, as indeed he might well have done; and so he entirely mistook the meaning of her words when she replied, with a laugh, of the true significance of which he had not the remotest conception--
"On the contrary, how was it possible that I could have anything but the sweetest sleep and the most pleasant dreams, after such a delightful journey and the making of such pleasant acquaintances? Do you not think the Fates have favoured us beyond our wildest expectations, in thus bringing our enemies so unconsciously across our path at the very outset of our campaign against them?
"But really, these Aerians are delightful fellows. No, don't frown at me like that, because you know as well as I do, that in that chivalrous good-nature of theirs lies our best hope of success."
As she spoke she went up to him, and laid her two hands upon his shoulder, and went on looking up into his eyes with a seductive softness in hers.
"I am afraid I made you terribly jealous yesterday; but really, Serge, you must remember that in diplomacy, and diplomacy alone, lies our only chance of advantage in the circumstances which the kindly Fates appear to have specially created for our benefit.
"The time for you to act will come later on, and when it comes, I know you will acquit yourself like the true Romanoff that you are; but for the present -- well, you know these Aerians are men, and where diplomacy alone is in the question it is better that a woman should deal with them. You will trust me for the present,-- won't you, Serge?"
For all answer, he took her face between his hands, put her head back, and kissed her, saying as he released her--
"Yes, darling; I will trust you not only now, but for ever. You are wiser than I am in these things. Do as you please; I will obey."
As he spoke, the door opened, and an attendant came in with two little cups of coffee on a silver salver. He placed it on the table, told them that breakfast would be ready for them in the morning-room in ten minutes, and retired. As they sipped their coffee, Olga said to Serge--
"Now, we shall meet our enemies at breakfast, and I want you to be a great deal more cordial and friendly than you were yesterday. Our own feelings concern ourselves alone, but in our outward conduct we owe something to the sacred cause which we both have at heart. You can imagine how great a sacrifice I am making in my relations with those whom I have been taught to hate from my cradle.
"I can see as well as you do, perhaps better, that this future ruler of Aeria admires me in his own boyish way. If I can bring myself to appear complaisant, surely it is not too much to ask you to look upon it with indifference, or even with interest,-- a brotherly interest, you know; for you must remember that he knows me only as your sister.
"Now, I want you to ask them to come and have breakfast with us at our table, and to exert yourself to appear agreeable to them, even as I shall; and above all things, promise me that you will fall in with any suggestions that I may make as regards our trip in this wonderful air-ship which we are to make to-morrow.
"There is no time now to explain to you what I mean, but I swear to you, by the blood that flows in both our veins, that if I can only carry through, without any let or hindrance, the plans that I have already formed -- that before forty-eight hours have passed that air-ship shall no longer be under Alan Arnoldson's command."
He looked at her for a moment with almost incredulous admiration. She returned his inquiring glance with a steady, unwavering gaze, which made suspicion impossible. All his life he had grown up to look upon her as sharing with him the one hope that was left of restoring the ancient fortunes of their family. More than this they had been lovers ever since either of them knew the meaning of love.
How then could he have dreamt that behind so fair an appearance lay as dark and treacherous a design as the brain of an ambitious woman had ever conceived? Intoxicated by her beauty and the memory of his lifelong love, he took a couple of steps towards her, took her unresisting into his arms again, and said passionately--
"Give me another kiss, darling, and on your lips I will swear to trust you always and do your bidding even to the death."
She returned his kiss with a passion so admirably simulated that his resolve was thrice strengthened by it, and then she released herself gently from his embrace, saying--