CHAPTER XXIV.\
THE DAY
1
Marusa, obviously, was flight leader. She knew the sailing marks. Max had quickly grasped the principle of those wonderful flying suits with their simple, fool-proof gear. A toss of a coin decided our order. Max followed Marusa—then I—and last, of necessity, Lonergan.
Max turned aside. Marusa threw her arms around me. She was deathly pale.
“My mother!” she whispered. “I can’t believe it.… Oh, God, I can’t believe it!”
Then she raised those beautiful, tearless eyes to me.
“In case there’s any hitch”—her conquest of herself was wonderful—“good-bye!” …
I have only the dimmest recollection of her actual departure. I don’t recall seeing her step into that strange, self-adjusting suit—there were six of them in the room. But I remember noticing the blue light spring up across the chasm—the sound of deep, unearthly booming as Lonergan turned on the power wave.…
Hazily, too, I sometimes get a fleeting picture of a winged thing gliding out and down… then flashing swiftly upward past me.
“She has pluck, that one!” Gaston Max’s hand was on my shoulder. “Her poor little life has been turned topsy-turvy.”
I couldn’t look at him for a moment—nor speak.
“For her, as for us,” he went on, “even now there is only the chance of the .75——”
Then, I turned.
He was holding a small apparatus in his hand which resembled a very compact headpiece.
“She threw it down,” he added simply, “before she went.”
The deep booming continued.
“We are wasting time, Woodville. Good-bye, my friend—until we meet again!”
He moved a lever in the rack below that long beam upon which the bat suits were suspended. The one beneath which he stood dropped and enveloped him… I saw him making the adjustments. The great, hideous thing slowly descended to the stone floor. The wings opened.
I saw the blue light beyond. I saw the spasmodic movement of Max’s feet against the steel rail.…
Out he swept—and down. Up, at rocket speed, he flashed past me.
That deep roar in the pit continued. Lonergan was keeping the power on for me.
I stepped toward the third suit. I stopped.
Beside the headpiece discarded by Marusa a second headpiece lay!
It was that which Max had found in the pocket of Nestor’s coat! …
A magnificent, theatrical gesture, you may say? Truly Gallic and in the best d’Artagnan manner? I agree on all four counts. But it must have been a high honour to have won the friendship of a M. d’Artagnan.
There was a sort of numbness claiming my brain. The unendurable throbbing—which, now, I knew to be produced by colossally powerful plants installed in Felsenweir—added to that subterranean booming, began to daze me.
Automatically, I moved again toward the third “bat.” …
Running footsteps sounded on stone stairs!
I hesitated—and was lost.
Mme. Yburg ran in!
2
At sight, and in spite of my frame of mind, I recognized a change in her.
The mantle of ice which she wore had been melted. Her natural pallor was intensified. Her eyes were like jewels in shadow.
As always, she was perfectly gowned, meticulously groomed—but the ghostlike psychic hands twitched nervously, fingers opening and closing. Remembering Marusa as last I had seen her, every line, every contour, every little mannerism spoke to me intimately. My heart went out to this distracted woman.
“Tell me, quickly… has Marusa gone?”
“Yes.”
Her hands became clenched so tightly that I knew the long, pointed nails must be buried in her palms.
“God! what madness! But at least she is protected.”
I picked up the headpieces. I had no wish to be cruel, even now, but the truth might save the world.
“I’m sorry, but you’re wrong! She has chosen to join… the many.”
Those brilliant eyes opened widely—unnaturally. For a moment I feared that Mme. Yburg was about to lose control—that all was lost.
But her nerves were more than masculine.
“Why,” she asked, her voice very low-pitched, “why did she do this?”
“Because she knows.”
Those slender white hands had not unclenched: they did not unclench now.
“You told her? And she believed you?”
“I did not tell her. I don’t know who did.”
She relaxed those clenched hands. And I saw, as I had expected to see, blood in her palms.
“Fate told her. It could never be. I always knew!” …
The deep booming ceased. Lonergan had turned the power off.
Our glances met and clashed.
“How did you buy over Nicholson?”
“It was never attempted.”
I heard lumbering, metallic footsteps mounting the ladder from the control pit.
“What do you mean?”
“Nicholson, if that’s his name, is lying insensible down below.”
An aluminium figure appeared at the ladder head. Lonergan climbed out, stood still, and watched.
“This is John Lonergan,” I said.
He raised his vizor.
Mme. Yburg stared at him as one might stare at a ghost. Her pallor was positively alarming; then:
“How,” she inquired softly—and I could detect no hint of animus in her voice—“how did you intend to save yourself?”
From a glistening, sweat-daubed face Lonergan’s eyes shot a glance at me like that of a guilty schoolboy.
“How in blazes do I know!” he replied. “Nobody had thought of that but me! But I guess I’d have found a way.”
Then it was—but not until then—that I realized the truth:
Lonergan could never have followed us! We had overlooked this. He had known.…
My eyes grew oddly misty. Perhaps it was due to that intolerable throbbing. Suddenly, as though coming through a thick curtain, I heard Mme. Yburg’s voice.
“My friend”—she was addressing Lonergan—“where cleverness must have failed, it is after all self-sacrifice which has saved the world.”
“The world’s far from being saved!”
It was Lonergan’s growl which snatched me back to normal.
I looked at Mme. Yburg. Her face remained deathly white. But she was smiling—that smile which was at once an irritant and a caress!
“You may be wrong, Mr. Lonergan. I have followed an ideal—an ideal you could never grasp. To-night, my personal loss has made me one of the many. I know that my ideal had its roots in hell!”
“Fine,” said Lonergan. “But what do we do now?”
Mme. Yburg reached out one slender hand, with those deep nail wounds in its delicate palm, and touched the speaker’s mailed shoulder.
“Take this off. Be quick!”
Little as I could see of Lonergan’s glistening face, I saw enough of his expression to tell me that he had grasped the situation. He withdrew.
“My husband,” said Mme. Yburg, in a low, monotonous voice, “Count von Yburg, was killed in the final assault on Ypres. My own family has lived for generations on an estate near Cracow in Poland. Marusa inherits courage, my friend, pride and poise. She also has a heritage of vices on both sides which it must be your task to study!”
“But——”
She grasped my shoulders, looked into my eyes.
“Tell me you love her—really love her!”
“I love her sincerely. I loved her from the first moment I saw her.”
“That is physical love. She is very attractive.”
“I have learned to know and respect her. She is the only girl I have ever wanted to marry.”
“She has set her heart on you. These sudden passions are a part of her heritage. I have studied you, and I think you can make her happy—if you can handle her! Be good to her—you must be good to my Musa——”
The steely control nearly broke down. Her voice faltered on that pet name, which I had never heard but which now I treasured as a jewel.
Then, miraculously, she was self-possessed again.
“But let her feel the bridle from the very beginning. There will never be any trouble.”
Lonergan returned.
He wore a very fine silk vest, trousers with belt, socks, and shoes. He carried the aluminium suit.
Mme. Yburg gripped my shoulders, smiled again—and turned to him.
“I am taking your job on, Mr. Lonergan,” she explained. “Only temporarily…”
With a self-possession which must have disarmed the vilest prudery, she peeled off her smart frock. Then she proceeded to buckle on the aluminium suit of the flight controller. It was grotesquely big.
“I am lost in this!” she declared.
But at last:
“Take your chance quickly,” she said, and stepped on to the ladder. “She will be hovering—may even have flown back. If Anubis wakes I am powerless. So be quick!”
“There’s one hope!” I cried—“a gun is being moved——”
Lonergan clapped his hand over my mouth.
“Mr. Lonergan!” Mme. Yburg’s voice even now held no note of anger. “That gun would save me from the only other way!”
Lonergan’s hand was removed, and:
“Then there is another way?” he challenged.
“Yes! Next to Anubis, I shall be in charge at dawn.… Good-bye. Hurry!”
She climbed down the ladder.…
Lonergan held out one clenched fist.
“Heads or tails?”
“Heads!”
He opened his hand.
I saw a worn English penny. It displayed the head of King Edward VII.
“Always was a fortunate gambler,” Lonergan growled—“and then some.… Hello!”
The deep booming had begun again. Mme. Yburg had turned the power on.
“Go to it, Woodville! I’ll be right behind you. Pray kind heaven Anubis stays asleep till we land!” …
3
The sensations of that flight—which I dare to predict no man will experience again for at least a generation—were indescribably pleasant.
Pushing off—one’s heels against the metal bar—was definitely sickly. The blue light ahead alone promised safety. There followed a deathly fall, a pause—then, a swift uplift of breathless ecstasy. It resembled those dreams of childhood in which we fly, untrammelled, across vast tracts of country.
That mysterious power zone reached, into which these invisible elevators shot the traveller, control became a matter almost of mood—so sensitive was the mechanism. I enjoyed all that glorious mastery of the air which so often I had envied in the sea gull.
Upon an impalpable wave I floated as a canoe floats lightly upon water. There was a gentle swaying, a nearly imperceptible tidal urge. A movement of either hand, slightest inclination of my body to right or left, swung me to port or starboard. To raise my feet was to dive; to press down my toes resulted in an instant climb.
A mile below me I saw Felsenweir as I had seen it reflected on that circular table in the laboratory. I could clearly see moving figures in surrounding and approaching roads.
I pressed the control under my right hand.…
Inexperience betrayed me. At a speed that cannot have been less than eighty miles an hour I was hurled through space!
Raising my hand as eagerly as I had lowered it, I found myself floating serenely again.
At which moment Marusa’s agonized appeal reached me.
“Brian!” I heard, eerily—“Brian! Answer me! … Where are you?” …
“Marusa!” I cried.
“Brian dear! Oh, thank God!”
“Gaston Max speaking! Where are you?”
“I’m all right, old man!”
“Heaven be praised, my friend! I am glad. I withdraw…”
One thing became evident. Confidences were impossible between travellers on the energy waves!
“Listen, Brian! Make for the Old Castle—Hohen-Baden. You can’t miss it. You know it. I’ll head you off. When you see me, follow on.”
“All right, darling.”
I studied the landscape far below. Gingerly, I moved around several points. I set my course. With extreme care this time, I pressed down the control.…
And then, with such a sense of self-reproach as I cannot hope to convey, I remembered the man who had made all this possible.
“Lonergan!” I cried—“Lonergan…”
Loudly—he must have been very near—came his reply:
“I’m headed same way.”
Ahead I saw two batlike shapes. Marusa’s voice reached me:
“Swing round behind me, Brian. When you see I’m floating, watch. We’ll be over the cemetery! When I drop, wait for M. Max to follow. Then come over. You’ll see the green light below you. Just let yourself drop. Can Mr. Lonergan hear?”
“I heard!” Lonergan’s voice replied.
4
My mile drop through space into the ancient vault of the Felsenweirs occupies a niche of its own in these memoirs. If the sensation of rocketesque ascent had been thrilling, this of a deadweight crash was appalling.
I knew we were in the hands of the flight controller on duty—and at the mercy of anyone having access to the Felsenweir power house.
And, as I fell, I could not rid my mind of an idea that somebody had cut off the energy wave!
Then came check—second check—third check… my descent grew slower. But, still falling at great speed, I flashed down into a black pit. Some hint entered my mind of a metal-clad figure on a platform… there were switches… it was not unlike a limelight perch in a theatre.…
I was stationary… I was going up… then I felt the grapnel made fast—felt myself hauled clear.
Reaching down, I tugged at the release.…
With the scene of reunion which followed I find myself unable to deal. Marusa was clinging to me, trembling wildly. Gaston Max had his arms about us both.… Then Lonergan came in.
“How do we cope with my opposite number on the downstairs control platform?” he inquired.
His unemotional attention to the job in hand was just the cold douche we required. This remarkable man would have entered heaven or hell without qualm or enthusiasm, concentrating all the time on (a) whereabouts of the party he was looking for; (b) how he was going to get him out.
As it chanced, the problem, did not arise. We followed Marusa up many stairs which ultimately led to a small, square chamber.
She opened a locked door, beckoning me to follow.
“I knew it!” Max murmured. “It is the renovated tomb adjoining the Felsenweir vault! I have ordered that it shall be watched!”
We were arrested as we came out… the cemetery was stiff with police!