The Secret Power

CHAPTER XIX

At almost the same moment Gaspard stumbled to his feet.

"Asleep—asleep!" he exclaimed—"Mon Dieu!—the shame of it!—the shame! What pigs are men! To sleep after food and wine, and to leave a woman alone like this!... the shame!"

Morgana, quietly steering the "White Eagle," smiled.

"Poor Gaspard!" she said—"You could not help it! You were so tired! And you, Marchese! You were both quite worn out! I was glad to see you sleeping—there is no shame in it! As I have often told you, I can manage the ship alone."

But Rivardi was white with anger and self-reproach.

"Gross pigs we are!" he said, hotly—"Gaspard is right! And yet—" here he passed a hand across his brow and tried to collect his thoughts—"yes!—surely something unusual must have happened! We heard bells ringing—"

Morgana watched him closely, her hand on her air-vessel's helm.

"Yes—we all thought we heard bells"—she said—"But that was a noise in our own brains—the clamour of our own blood brought on by pressure—we were flying at too great a height and the tension was too strong—"

Gaspard threw out his hands with a half defiant gesture.

"No, Madama! It could not be so! I swear we never left our own level! What happened I cannot tell—but I felt that I was struck by a sudden blow—and I fell without force to recover—"

"Sleep struck you that sudden blow, you poor Gaspard!" said Morgana, "And you have not slept so long—barely an hour—just long enough for me to hover a while above this black desert and then turn homeward,—I want no more of the Sahara!"

Rivardi, smarting under a sense of loss and incompetency, went up to her.

"Give me the helm!" he said, almost sharply—"You have done enough!"

She resigned her place to him, smiling at his irritation.

"You are sure you are quite rested?" she asked.

"Rested!" he echoed the word disdainfully—"I should never have rested at all had I been half the man I profess to be! Why do you turn back? I thought you were bent on exploring the Great Desert!—that you meant to try and find the traditional Brazen City?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"I do not like the prospect"—she said—"There is nothing but sand—interminable billows of sand! I can well believe it was all ocean once,—when the earth gave a sudden tilt, and all the water was thrown off from one surface to another. If we could dig deep enough below the sand I think we should find remains of wrecked ships, with the skeletons of antediluvian men and animals, remains of one of the many wasted civilisations—"

"You do not answer me—" interrupted Rivardi with impatience—"What of your search for the Brazen City?"

She raised her lovely, mysterious eyes and looked full at him.

"Do you believe it exists?" she asked.

He gave a gesture of annoyance.

"Whether I believe or not is of no importance,"—he answered—"YOU have some idea about it, and you have every means of proving the truth of your idea—yet, after making the journey from Sicily for the purpose, you suddenly turn back!"

Still she kept her eyes upon him.

"You must not mind the caprices of a woman!" she said, with a smile—"And do please remember the 'Brazen City' is not MY idea! The legend of this undiscovered place in the desert was related by your friend Don Aloysius—and he was careful to say it was 'only' a legend. Why should you think I accept it as a truth?"

"Surely it was the motive of your flight here?" he demanded, imperatively.

Her brows drew together in a slight frown.

"My dear Marchese, I allow no one to question my motives"—she said with sudden coldness—"That I have decided to go no farther in search of the Brazen City is my own affair."

"But—not even to wait for the full daylight!" he expostulated—"You could not see it by night even if it existed!"

"Not unless it was lit like other cities!" she said, smiling—"I suppose if such a city existed, its inhabitants would need some sort of illuminant—they would not grope about in the dark. In that case it would be seen from our ship as well by night as by day."

Gaspard, busy with some mechanical detail, looked up.

"Then why not make a search for it while we are here?" he said—"You evidently believe in it!"

"I have turned the 'White Eagle' homeward, and shall not turn again"—she said—"But I do not see any reason why such a city should not exist and be discovered some day. Explorers in tropical forests find the remains or beginnings of a different race of men from our own—pygmies, and such like beings—there is nothing really against the possibility of an undiscovered City in the Great Desert. We modern folk think we know a great deal—but our wisdom is very superficial and our knowledge limited. We have not mastered EVERYTHING under the sun!"

The Marchese Rivardi looked at her with something of defiance in his glance.

"I will adventure in search of the legendary city myself, alone!" he said.

Morgana laughed, her clear little cold laugh of disdain.

"Do so, my friend! Why not?" she said—"You are a daring airman on many forms of airships—I knew that,—before I entrusted you with the scheme of mine. Discover the legendary 'Brazen City' if you can!—I promise not to be jealous!—and return to the world of curiosity mongers—(also, if you CAN!) with a full report of its inhabitants and their manners and customs. And so—you will become famous! But you must not fall asleep on the way!"

He paled with anger and annoyance,—she still smiled.

"Do not be cross, AMICO!" she said, sweetly. "Think where we are!—in the wide spaces of heaven, pilgrims with the stars! This is no place for personal feeling of either disappointment or irritation. You asked me a while ago if I was tired—I thought I was Hot, but I am—very tired!—I am going to rest. And I trust you both to take care of me and the 'White Eagle'!"

"We are to make straight for Sicily?" he asked.

"Yes—straight for Sicily."

She retired into her sleeping-cabin and disappeared. The Marchese Rivardi looked at Gaspard questioningly.

"We must obey her, I suppose?"

"We could not think of disobeying!" returned Gaspard.

"She is a strange woman!" and as he spoke Rivardi gripped his steering-gear with a kind of vindictive force—"It seems absurd that we,—two men of fair intelligence and scientific attainment,—should be ruled by her whim,—her fancies—for after all she is made up of fancies—"

Gaspard shook his finger warningly.

"This air-ship is not a 'whim' or a 'fancy'"—he said, impressively—"It is the most wonderful thing of its kind ever invented! If it is given to the world it will revolutionise the whole system of aerial navigation. Here we are, flying at top speed in perfect ease and safety with no engine—nothing to catch fire—nothing to break or bust—and the whole mechanism mysteriously makes its own motive power as it goes. Radio-activity it may be—but its condensation and use for such a purpose is the secret invention of a woman—and surely we must admit her genius! As for our obedience—ECCELLENZA, we are both royally paid to obey!"

Rivardi flushed red.

"I know!" he said, curtly—"I never forget it. But money is not everything."

Gaspard's mobile French face lit up with a mirthful smile.

"It is most things!" he replied—"Without it even science is crippled. And this lady has so much of it!—it seems without end! Again,—it is seldom one meets with money and brains and beauty—all together!"

"Beauty?" Rivardi queried.

"Why, yes!—beauty that only flashes out at moments—of all beauty the most fascinating! A face that is always beautiful is fatiguing,—it is the changeful face with endless play of expression that enthralls,—or so it is to me!" And Gaspard gave an eloquent gesture—"This lady we both work for seems to have no lovers—but if she had, not one of them could ever forget her!"

Rivardi was silent.

"I should not wonder," ventured Gaspard, presently—"if—while we slept—she had seen her 'Brazen City'!"

Rivardi uttered something like an oath.

"Impossible!" he exclaimed—"She would have awakened us!"

"If she could, no doubt!" agreed Gaspard—"But if she could not, how then?"

For a moment Rivardi looked puzzled,—then he dismissed his companion's suggestion with a contemptuous shrug.

"Basta! There is no 'Brazen City'! When she heard the old tradition she was like a child with a fairy tale—a child who, reading of strawberries growing in the winter snow, goes out forthwith to find them—she did not really believe in it—but it pleased her to imagine she did. The mere sight of the arid empty desert has been enough for her."

"We certainly heard bells"—said Gaspard.

"In our brains! Such sounds often affect the nerves when flying for a long while at high speed. For all our cleverness we are only human. I have heard on the 'wireless,' sounds that do not seem of this world at all."

"So have I"—said Gaspard—"And though it may be my own brain talking, I'm not so obstinate in my own knowledge as to doubt a possible existing means of communication between one continent and another apart from OUR special 'wireless.' In fact I'm sure there is something of the kind,—though where it comes from and how it travels I cannot say. But certain people get news of occurring events somehow, from somewhere, long before it reaches Paris or London. I dare say the lady we are with could tell us something about it."

"Her powers are not limitless!" said Rivardi—"She is only a woman after all!"

Gaspard said no more, and there followed a silence,—a silence all the more tense and deep because of the amazing swiftness with which the "White Eagle" kept its steady level flight, making no sound despite the rapidity of its movement. Very gradually the darkness of night lifted, as it were, one corner of its sable curtain to show a grey peep-hole of dawn, and soon it became apparent that the ship was already far away from the mysterious land of Egypt—"The land shadowing with wings"—and was flying over the sea. There was something terrific in the complete noiselessness with which it sped through the air, and Rivardi, though now he had a good grip on his nerves, hardly dared allow himself to think of the adventurous business on which he was engaged. A certain sense of pride and triumph filled him, to realise that he had been selected from many applicants for the post he occupied—and yet with all his satisfaction there went a lurking spirit of envy and disappointed ambition. If he could win Morgana's love—if he could make the strange elfin creature with all her genius and inventive ability his own,—why then!—what then? He would share in her fame,—aye, more than share it, since it is the way of the world to give its honour to no woman whose life is connected with that of a man. The man receives the acknowledgment invariably, even if he has done nothing to deserve it, and herein is the reason why many gifted women do not marry, and prefer to stand alone in effort and achievement rather than have their hardly won renown filched from them by unjust hands. When Roger Seaton confessed to the girl Manella that his real desire was to bend and subdue Morgana's intellectuality to his own, he spoke the truth, not only for himself but for all men. Absolutely disinterested love for a brilliantly endowed woman would be difficult to find in any male nature,—men love what is inferior to themselves, not superior. Thus women who are endowed with more than common intellectual ability have to choose one of two alternatives—love, or what is called love, and child-bearing,—or fame, and lifelong loneliness.

The Marchese Rivardi, thinking along the usual line of masculine logic, had frequently turned over the problem of Morgana's complex character such as it appeared to him,—and had almost come to the conclusion that if he only had patience he would succeed in persuading her that wifehood and motherhood were more conducive to a woman's happiness than all the most amazing triumphs of scientific discovery and attainment. He was perfectly right according to simple natural law,—but he chose to forget that women's mental outlook has, in these modern days, been greatly widened,—whether for their gain or loss it is not yet easy to say. Even for men "much knowledge increaseth sorrow,"—and it may be hinted that women, with their often overstrung emotions and exaggerated sentiments, are not fit to plunge deeply into studies which tax the brain to its utmost capacity and try the nerves beyond the level of the calm which is essential to health. Though it has to be admitted that married life is less peaceful than hard study—and the bright woman who recently said, "A husband is more trying than any problem in Euclid," no doubt had good cause for the remark. Married or single, woman both physically and mentally is the greatest sufferer in the world—her time of youth and unthinking joy is brief, her martyrdom long—and it is hardly wonderful that she goes so often "to the bad" when there is so little offered to attract her towards the good.

Rivardi, letting himself go on the flood-tide of hope and ambition, pleased his mind with imaginary pictures of Morgana as his wife and as mother of his children, rehabilitating his fallen fortunes, restoring his once great house and building a fresh inheritance for its former renown. He saw no reason why this should not be,—yet—even while he indulged in his thoughts of her, he knew well enough that behind her small delicate personality there was a powerful intellectual "lens," so to speak, through which she examined the ins and outs of character in man or woman; and he felt that he was always more or less under this "lens," looked at as carefully as a scientist might study bacteria, and that as a matter of fact it was as unlikely as the descent of the moon-goddess to Endymion that she would ever submit herself to his possession. Nevertheless, he argued, stranger things had happened!

The grey peep of dawn widened into a silver rift, and the silver rift streamed into a bar of gold, and the gold broke up into long strands of blush pink and pale blue like festal banners hanging in heaven's bright pavilion, and the "White Eagle" flew on swiftly, steadily, securely, among all the glories of the dawn like a winged car for the conveyance of angels. And both Rivardi and Gaspard thought they were not far from the realisation of an angel when Morgana suddenly appeared at the door of her sleeping-cabin, attired in a fleecy-wool gown of purest white, her wonderful gold hair unbound and falling nearly to her feet.

"What a perfect morning!" she exclaimed—"All things seem new! And I have had such a good rest! The air is so pure and clean—surely we are over the sea?"

"We are some fifteen thousand feet above the Mediterranean"—answered Rivardi, looking at her as he spoke with unconcealed admiration;—never, he thought, had she seemed so charming, youthful and entirely lovable—"I am glad you have rested—you look quite refreshed and radiant. After all, it is a test of endurance—this journey to Egypt and back."

"Do you think so?" and Morgana smiled—"It should be nothing—it really is nothing! We ought to be quite ready and willing to travel like this for a week on end! But you and Gaspard are not yet absolutely sure of our motive power!—you cannot realise that as long as we keep going so long will our 'going' force be generated without effort—yet surely it is proved!"

Gaspard lifted his eyes towards her where she stood like a little white Madonna in a shrine.

"Yes, Madama, it is proved!" he said—"But the secret of its proving?—"

"Ah! That, for the present, remains locked up in the mystery box—here!" and she tapped her forehead with her finger—"The world is not ready for it. The world is a destructive savage, loving evil rather than good, and it would work mischief more than usefulness with such a force—if it knew! Now I will dress, and give you breakfast in ten minutes."

She waved a hand to them and disappeared, returning after a brief interval attired in her "aviation" costume and cap. Soon she had prepared quite a tempting breakfast on the table.

"Thermos coffee!" she said, gaily—"All hot and hot! We could have had Thermos tea, but I think coffee more inspiriting. Tea always reminds me of an afternoon at a country vicarage where good ladies sit round a table and talk of babies and rheumatism. Kind,—but so dull! Come—you must take it in turns—you, Marchese, first, while Gaspard steers—and Gaspard next—just as you did last night at what we called dinner, before you fell asleep! Men DO fall asleep after dinner you know!—it's quite ordinary. Married men especially!—I think they do it to avoid conversation with their wives!"

She laughed, and her eyes flashed mirthfully as Rivardi seated himself opposite to her at table.

"Well, I am not married"—he said, rather petulantly—"Nor is Gaspard. But some day we may fall into temptation and NOT be delivered from evil."

"Ah yes!" and Morgana shook her fair head at him with mock dolefulness—"And that will be very sad! Though nowadays it will not bind you to a fettered existence. Marriage has ceased to be a sacrament,—you can leave your wives as soon as you get tired of them,—or—they can leave YOU!"

Rivardi looked at her with reproach in his handsome face and dark eyes.

"You read the modern Press"—he said—"A pity you do!"

"Yes—it's a pity anyone reads it!"—she answered—"But what are we to read? If low-minded and illiterate scavengers are employed to write for the newspapers instead of well-educated men, we must put up with the mud the scavengers collect. We know well enough that every journal is more or less a calendar of lies,—all the same we cannot blind ourselves to the great change that has come over manners and morals—particularly in relation to marriage. Of course the Press always chronicles the worst items bearing on the subject—"

"The Press is chiefly to blame for it"—declared Rivardi.

"Oh, I think not!" and Morgana smiled as she poured out a second cup of coffee—"The Press cannot create a new universe. No—I think human nature alone is to blame—if blame there be. Human nature is tired."

"Tired?" echoed Rivardi—"In what way?"

"In every way!"—and a lovely light of tenderest pity filled her eyes as she spoke—"Tired of the same old round of working, mating, breeding and dying—for no results really worth having! Civilisation after civilisation has arisen—always with strife and difficulty, only to pass away, leaving, in many cases, scarce a memory. Human nature begins to weary of the continuous 'grind'—it demands the 'why' of its ceaseless labour. Latterly, poor striving men and women have been deprived of faith—they used to believe they had a loving Father in Heaven who cared for them,—but the monkeys of the race, the atheists, swinging from point to point of argument and chattering all the time, have persuaded them that they are as Tennyson once mournfully wrote—"

"Poor orphans of nothing—alone on that lonely shore,
Born of the brainless Nature who knew not that which she bore!"

"Can we wonder then that they are tired?—tired of pursuing a useless quest? Human nature is craving for a change—for a newer world—a newer race,—and those who see that Nature is NOT 'brainless' but full of intelligent conception, are sure that the change will come!"

"And you are one of 'those who see'?—" said Rivardi, incredulously.

"I do not say I am,—that would be too much self-assertion"—she answered—"But I hope I am! I long to see the world endowed more richly with health and happiness. See how gloriously the sun has risen! In what splendour of light and air we are sailing! If we can do as much as this we ought to be able to do more!"

"We shall do more in time"—he said—"The advance of one step leads to another."

"In time!" echoed Morgana—"What time the human race has already taken to find out the simplest forces of nature! It is the horrible bulk of blank stupidity that hinders knowledge—the heavy obstinate bulk that declines to budge an inch out of its own fixity. Nowadays we triumph in our so-called 'discoveries' of wireless telegraphy and telephony, light-rays and other marvels—but these powers have always been with us from the beginning of things,—it is we, we only, who have refused to accept them as facts of the universe. Let us talk no more about it!—Stupidity is the only thing that moves me to despair!"

She rose from the little table, and called Gaspard to breakfast, while Rivardi went back to the business of steering. The day was now fully declared, and the great air-ship soared easily in a realm of ethereal blue—blue above, blue below—its vast wings moving up and down with perfect rhythm as if it were a living, sentient creature, revelling in the joys of flight. For the rest of the day Morgana was very silent, contenting herself to sit in her charming little rose-lined nest of a room, and read,—now and then looking out on the radiating space around her, and watching for the first slight downward movement of the "White Eagle" towards land. She had plenty to occupy her thoughts—and strange to say she did not consider as anything unexpected or remarkable, her brief communication with the "Brazen City." On the contrary it seemed quite a natural happening. Of course it had always been there, she said to herself,—only people were too dull and unenterprising to discover it,—besides, if they had ever found it (certain travellers having declared they had seen it in the distance) they would not have been allowed to approach it. This fact was the one point that chiefly dwelt in her mind—a secret of science which she puzzled her brain to fathom. What could be the unseen force that guarded the city?—girding it round with an unbreakable band from all exterior attack? A million bombs could not penetrate it,—so had said the Voice travelling to her ears on the mysterious Sound Ray. She thought of Shakespeare's lines on England—

"This precious stone set in the silver sea
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house
Against the envy of less happy lands."

Modern science had made the sea useless as a "wall" or "moat defensive" against attacks from the air,—but if there existed an atmospheric or "etheric" force which could be utilised and brought to such pressure as to encircle a city or a country with a protective ring that should resist all effort to break it, how great a security would be assured "against the envy of less happy lands"! Here was a problem for study,—study of the intricate character which she loved—and she became absorbed in what she called "thinking for results," a form of introspection which she knew, from experience, sometimes let in unexpected light on the creative cells of the brain and impelled them to the evolving of hitherto untried suggestions. She sat quietly with a book before her, not reading, but bent on seeking ways and means for the safety and protection of nations,—as bent as Roger Seaton was on a force for their destruction. So the hours passed swiftly, and no interruption or untoward obstacle hindered the progress of the "White Eagle" as it careered through the halcyon blue of the calmest, loveliest sky that ever made perfect weather, till late afternoon when it began to glide almost insensibly downward towards earth. Then she roused herself from her long abstraction and looked through the window of her cabin, watching what seemed to be the gradual rising of the land towards the air-ship, showing in little green and brown patches like the squares of a chess-board,—then the houses and towns, tiny as children's toys—then the azure gleam of the sea and the boats dancing like bits of cork upon it,—then finally the plainer, broader view, wherein the earth with its woods and hills and rocky promontories appeared to heave up like a billow crowned with varying colours,—and so steadily, easily down to the pattern of grass and flowers from the centre of which the Palazzo d'Oro rose like a little white house for the abode of fairies.

"Well steered!" said Morgana, as the ship ran into its shed with the accuracy of a sword slipping into its sheath, and the soundless vibration of its mysterious motive-power ceased—"Home again safely!—and only away forty-eight hours! To the Sahara and back!—how far we have been, and what we have seen!"

"WE have seen nothing"—said Rivardi meaningly, as he assisted her to alight—"The seeing is all with YOU!"

"And the believing!" she answered, smiling—"All my thanks to you both for your skilful pilotage. You must be very tired—" here she gave her hand to them each in turn—"Again a thousand thanks! No air-ship could be better manned!"

"Or woman'd?" suggested Rivardi.

She laughed.

"IF you like! But I only steered while you slept. That is nothing! Good night!"

She left them, running up the garden path lightly like a child returning from a holiday, and disappeared.

"But that which she calls nothing"—said Gaspard as he watched her go—"is everything!"