CHAPTER XXIII. WHILE THE AEROPLANES WERE COMING
For a time the Master of the Earth was not even master of his own mind.Even his will seemed a will not his own, his own acts surprised himand were but a part of the confusion of strange experiences that pouredacross his being. These things were definite, the aeroplanes werecoming, Helen Wotton had warned the people of their coming, and he wasMaster of the Earth. Each of these facts seemed struggling for completepossession of his thoughts. They protruded from a background of swarminghalls, elevated passages, rooms jammed with ward leaders in councilkinematograph and telephone rooms, and windows looking out on a seethingsea of marching men. The man in yellow, and men whom he fancied werecalled Ward Leaders, were either propelling him forward or followinghim obediently; it was hard to tell. Perhaps they were doing a little ofboth. Perhaps some power unseen and unsuspected, propelled them all. Hewas aware that he was going to make a proclamation to the People of theEarth, aware of certain grandiose phrases floating in his mind as thething he meant to say. Many little things happened, and then he foundhimself with the man in yellow entering a little room where thisproclamation of his was to be made.
This room was grotesquely latter-day in its appointments. In the centrewas a bright oval lit by shaded electric lights from above. The restwas in shadow, and the double finely fitting doors through which he camefrom the swarming Hall of the Atlas made the place very still. The deadthud of these as they closed behind him, the sudden cessation of thetumult in which he had been living for hours, the quivering circle oflight, the whispers and quick noiseless movements of vaguely visibleattendants in the shadows, had a strange effect upon Graham. The hugeears of a phonographic mechanism gaped in a battery for his words, theblack eyes of great photographic cameras awaited his beginning, beyondmetal rods and coils glittered dimly, and something whirled about with adroning hum. He walked into the centre of the light, and his shadow drewtogether black and sharp to a little blot at his feet.
The vague shape of the thing he meant to say was already in his mind.But this silence, this isolation, the sudden withdrawal from thatcontagious crowd, this silent audience of gaping, glaring machineshad not been in his anticipation. All his supports seemed withdrawntogether; he seemed to have dropped into this suddenly, suddenly to havediscovered himself. In a moment he was changed. He found that he nowfeared to be inadequate, he feared to be theatrical, he feared thequality of his voice, the quality of his wit, astonished, he turned tothe man in yellow with a propitiatory gesture. "For a moment," he said,"I must wait. I did not think it would be like this. I must think of thething I have to say."
While he was still hesitating there came an agitated messenger with newsthat the foremost aeroplanes were passing over Arawan.
"Arawan?" he said. "Where is that? But anyhow, they are coming. Theywill be here. When?"
"By twilight."
"Great God! In only a few hours. What news of the flying stages?" heasked.
"The people of the south-west wards are ready."
"Ready!"
He turned impatiently to the blank circles of the lenses again.
"I suppose it must be a sort of speech. Would to God I knew certainlythe thing that should be said! Aeroplanes at Arawan! They must havestarted before the main fleet. And the people only ready! Surely..."
"Oh! what does it matter whether I speak well or ill?" he said, and feltthe light grow brighter.
He had framed some vague sentence of democratic sentiment when suddenlydoubts overwhelmed him. His belief in his heroic quality and callinghe found had altogether lost its assured conviction. The picture of alittle strutting futility in a windy waste of incomprehensible destiniesreplaced it. Abruptly it was perfectly clear to him that this revoltagainst Ostrog was premature, foredoomed to failure, the impulse ofpassionate inadequacy against inevitable things. He thought of thatswift flight of aeroplanes like the swoop of Fate towards him. He wasastonished that he could have seen things in any other light. In thatfinal emergency he debated, thrust debate resolutely aside, determinedat all costs to go through with the thing he had undertaken. And hecould find no word to begin. Even as he stood, awkward, hesitating, withan indiscrete apology for his inability trembling on his lips, came thenoise of many people crying out, the running to and fro of feet. "Wait,"cried someone, and a door opened. "She is coming," said the voices.Graham turned, and the watching lights waned.
Through the open doorway he saw a slight grey figure advancing acrossa spacious hall. His heart leapt. It was Helen Wotton. Behind and abouther marched a riot of applause. The man in yellow came out of the nearershadows into the circle of light.
"This is the girl who told us what Ostrog had dune," he said.
Her face was aflame, and the heavy coils of her black hair fell abouther shoulders. The folds of the soft silk robe she wore streamed fromher and floated in the rhythm of her advance. She drew nearer andnearer, and his heart was beating fast. All his doubts were gone. Theshadow of the doorway fell athwart her face and she was near him. "Youhave not betrayed us?" she cried. "You are with us?"
"Where have you been?" said Graham.
"At the office of the south-west wards. Until ten minutes since I didnot know you had returned. I went to the office of the south-west wardsto find the Ward Leaders in order that they might tell the people."
"I came back so soon as I heard--."
"I knew," she cried, "knew you would be with us. And it was I--it wasI that told them. They have risen. All the world is rising. The peoplehave awakened. Thank God that I did not act in vain! You are Masterstill."
"You told them" he said slowly, and he saw that in spite of her steadyeyes her lips trembled and her throat rose and fell.
"I told them. I knew of the order. I was here. I heard that the negroeswere to come to London to guard you and to keep the people down--to keepyou a prisoner. And I stopped it. I came out and told the people. Andyou are Master still."
Graham glanced at the black lenses of the cameras, the vast listeningears, and back to her face. "I am Master still," he said slowly, and theswift rush of a fleet of aeroplanes passed across his thoughts.
"And you did this? You, who are the niece of Ostrog."
"For you," she cried. "For you! That you for whom the world has waitedshould not be cheated of your power."
Graham stood for a space, wordless, regarding her. His doubts andquestionings had fled before her presence. He remembered the things thathe had meant to say. He faced the cameras again and the light about himgrew brighter. He turned again towards her.
"You have saved me," he said; "you have saved my power. And the battleis beginning. God knows what this night will see--but not dishonour."
He paused. He addressed himself to the unseen multitudes who stared uponhim through those grotesque black eyes. At first he spoke slowly. "Menand women of the new age," he said; "You have arisen to do battle forthe race... There is no easy victory before us."
He stopped to gather words. The thoughts that had been in his mindbefore she came returned, but transfigured, no longer touched with theshadow of a possible irrelevance. "This night is a beginning," he cried."This battle that is coming, this battle that rushes upon us to-night,is only a beginning. All your lives, it may be, you must fight. Take nothought though I am beaten, though I am utterly overthrown."
He found the thing in his mind too vague for words. He pausedmomentarily, and broke into vague exhortations, and then a rush ofspeech came upon him. Much that he said was but the humanitariancommonplace of a vanished age, but the conviction of his voice touchedit to vitality. He stated the case of the old days to the people of thenew age, to the woman at his side. "I come out of the past to you,"he said, "with the memory of an age that hoped. My age was an age ofdreams--of beginnings, an age of noble hopes; throughout the worldwe had made an end of slavery; throughout the world we had spread thedesire and anticipation that wars might cease, that all men and womenmight live nobly, in freedom and peace. ... So we hoped in the days thatare
past. And what of those hopes? How is it with man after two hundredyears?
"Great cities, vast powers, a collective greatness beyond our dreams.For that we did not work, and that has come. But how is it with thelittle lives that make up this greater life? How is it with the commonlives? As it has ever been--sorrow and labour, lives cramped andunfulfilled, lives tempted by power, tempted by wealth, and gone towaste and folly. The old faiths have faded and changed, the new faith--.Is there a new faith?"
Things that he had long wished to believe, he found that he believed. Heplunged at belief and seized it, and clung for a time at her level. Hespoke gustily, in broken incomplete sentences, but with all his heartand strength, of this new faith within him. He spoke of the greatness ofself-abnegation, of his belief in an immortal life of Humanity in whichwe live and move and have our being. His voice rose and fell, and therecording appliances hummed their hurried applause, dim attendantswatched him out of the shadow. Through all those doubtful places hissense of that silent spectator beside him sustained his sincerity. For afew glorious moments he was carried away; he felt no doubt of his heroicquality, no doubt of his heroic words, he had it all straight and plain.His eloquence limped no longer. And at last he made an end to speaking."Here and now," he cried, "I make my will. All that is mine in the worldI give to the people of the world. All that is mine in the world I giveto the people of the world. I give it to you, and myself I give to you.And as God wills, I will live for you, or I will die."
He ended with a florid gesture and turned about. He found the light ofhis present exaltation reflected in the face of the girl. Their eyesmet; her eyes were swimming with tears of enthusiasm. They seemed to beurged towards each other. They clasped hands and stood gripped, facingone another, in an eloquent silence. She whispered. "I knew," shewhispered. "I knew." He could not speak, he crushed her hand in his. Hismind was the theatre of gigantic passions.
The man in yellow was beside them. Neither had noted his coming. He wassaying that the south-west wards were marching. "I never expected it sosoon," he cried. "They have done wonders. You must send them a word tohelp them on their way."
Graham dropped Helen's hand and stared at him absent-mindedly. Thenwith a start he returned to his previous preoccupation about the flyingstages.
"Yes," he said. "That is good, that is good." He weighed a message."Tell them;--well done South West."
He turned his eyes to Helen Wotton again. His face expressed hisstruggle between conflicting ideas. "We must capture the flying stages,"he explained. "Unless we can do that they will land negroes. At allcosts we must prevent that."
He felt even as he spoke that this was not what had been in his mindbefore the interruption. He saw a touch of surprise in her eyes. Sheseemed about to speak and a shrill bell drowned her voice.
It occurred to Graham that she expected him to lead these marchingpeople, that that was the thing he had to do. He made the offerabruptly. He addressed the man in yellow, but he spoke to her. He sawher face respond. "Here I am doing nothing," he said.
"It is impossible," protested the man in yellow.
"It is a fight in a warren. Your place is here."
He explained elaborately. He motioned towards the room where Graham mustwait, he insisted no other course was possible. "We must know where youare," he said. "At any moment a crisis may arise needing your presenceand decision." The room was a luxurious little apartment with newsmachines and a broken mirror that had once been en _rapport_ with thecrow's nest specula. It seemed a matter of course to Graham that Helenshould stop with him.
A picture had drifted through his mind of such a vast dramatic struggleas the masses in the ruins had suggested. But here was no spectacularbattle-field such as he imagined. Instead was seclusion--and suspense.It was only as the afternoon wore on that he pieced together a truerpicture of the fight that was raging, inaudibly and invisibly,within four miles of him, beneath the Roehampton stage. A strange andunprecedented contest it was, a battle that was a hundred thousandlittle battles, a battle in a sponge of ways and channels, fought outof sight of sky or sun under the electric glare, fought out in a vastconfusion by multitudes untrained in arms, led chiefly by acclamation,multitudes dulled by mindless labour and enervated by the tradition oftwo hundred years of servile security against multitudes demoralised bylives of venial privilege and sensual indulgence. They had no artillery,no differentiation into this force or that; the only weapon on eitherside was the little green metal carbine, whose secret manufacture andsudden distribution in enormous quantities had been one of Ostrog'sculminating moves against the Council. Few had had any experience withthis weapon, many had never discharged one, many who carried it cameunprovided with ammunition; never was wilder firing in the history ofwarfare. It was a battle of amateurs, a hideous experimental warfare,armed rioters fighting armed rioters, armed rioters swept forward bythe words and fury of a song, by the tramping sympathy of their numbers,pouring in countless myriads towards the smaller ways, the disabledlifts, the galleries slippery with blood, the halls and passages chokedwith smoke, beneath the flying stages, to learn there when retreat washopeless the ancient mysteries of warfare. And overhead save for a fewsharpshooters upon the roof spaces and for a few bands and threads ofvapour that multiplied and darkened towards the evening, the day was aclear serenity. Ostrog it seems had no bombs at command and in allthe earlier phases of the battle the aeropiles played no part. Not thesmallest cloud was there to break the empty brilliance of the sky. Itseemed as though it held itself vacant until the aeroplanes should come.
Ever and again there was news of these, drawing nearer, from thisMediterranean port and then that, and presently from the south ofFrance. But of the new guns that Ostrog had made and which were known tobe in the city came no news in spite of Graham's urgency, nor any reportof successes from the dense felt of fighting strands about the flyingstages. Section after section of the Labour Societies reported itselfassembled, reported itself marching, and vanished from knowledge intothe labyrinth of that warfare What was happening there? Even the busyward leaders did not know. In spite of the opening and closing ofdoors, the hasty messengers, the ringing of bells and the perpetualclitter-clack of recording implements, Graham felt isolated, strangelyinactive, inoperative.
Their isolation seemed at times the strangest, the most unexpected ofall the things that had happened since his awakening. It had somethingof the quality of that inactivity that comes in dreams. A tumult, thestupendous realisation of a world struggle between Ostrog and himself,and then this confined quiet little room with its mouthpieces and bellsand broken mirror!
Now the door would be closed and they were alone together; they seemedsharply marked off then from all the unprecedented world storm thatrushed together without, vividly aware of one another, only concernedwith one another. Then the door would open again, messengers wouldenter, or a sharp bell would stab their quiet privacy, and it was likea window in a well built brightly lit house flung open suddenly to ahurricane. The dark hurry and tumult, the stress and vehemence of thebattle rushed in and overwhelmed them. They were no longer personsbut mere spectators, mere impressions of a tremendous convulsion.They became unreal even to themselves, miniatures of personality,indescribably small, and the two antagonistic realities, the onlyrealities in being were first the city, that throbbed and roared yonderin a belated frenzy of defence and secondly the aeroplanes hurlinginexorably towards them over the round shoulder of the world.
At first their mood had been one of exalted confidence, a great pridehad possessed them, a pride in one another for the greatness of theissues they had challenged. At first he had walked the room eloquentwith a transitory persuasion of his tremendous destiny. But slowlyuneasy intimations of their coming defeat touched his spirit. There camea long period in which they were alone. He changed his theme, becameegotistical, spoke of the wonder of his sleep, of the little life of hismemories, remote yet minute and clear, like something seen through aninverted opera-glass, and all the brief play of des
ires and errors thathad made his former life. She said little, but the emotion in her facefollowed the tones in his voice, and it seemed to him he had at last aperfect understanding. He reverted from pure reminiscence to that senseof greatness she imposed upon him. "And through it all, this destiny wasbefore me," he said; "this vast inheritance of which I did not dream."
Insensibly their heroic preoccupation with the revolutionary strugglepassed to the question of their relationship. He began to questionher. She told him of the days before his awakening, spoke with a briefvividness of the girlish dreams that had given a bias to her life, ofthe incredulous emotions his awakening had aroused. She told him tooof a tragic circumstance of her girlhood that had darkened her life,quickened her sense of injustice and opened her heart prematurely tothe wider sorrows of the world. For a little time, so far as hewas concerned, the great war about them was but the vast ennoblingbackground to these personal things.
In an instant these personal relations were submerged. There camemessengers to tell that a great fleet of aeroplanes was rushing betweenthe sky and Avignon. He went to the crystal dial in the corner andassured himself that the thing was so. He went to the chart room andconsulted a map to measure the distances of Avignon, New Arawan, andLondon. He made swift calculations. He went to the room of the WardLeaders to ask for news of the fight for the stages--and there was noone there. After a time he came back to her.
His face had changed. It had dawned upon him that the struggle wasperhaps more than half over, that Ostrog was holding his own, thatthe arrival of the aeroplanes would mean a panic that might leave himhelpless. A chance phrase in the message had given him a glimpse of thereality that came. Each of these soaring giants bore its thousandhalf savage negroes to the death grapple of the city. Suddenly hishumanitarian enthusiasm showed flimsy. Only two of the Ward Leaders werein their room, when presently he repaired thither, the Hall of the Atlasseemed empty. He fancied a change in the bearing of the attendants inthe outer rooms. A sombre disillusionment darkened his mind. She lookedat him anxiously when he returned to her.
"No news," he said with an assumed carelessness in answer to her eyes.
Then he was moved to frankness. "Or rather--bad news. We are losing. Weare gaining no ground and the aeroplanes draw nearer and nearer."
He walked the length of the room and turned.
"Unless we can capture those flying stages in the next hour--there willbe horrible things. We shall be beaten.
"No!" she said. "We have justice--we have the people. We have God on ourside."
"Ostrog has discipline--he has plans. Do you know, out there just now Ifelt--. When I heard that these aeroplanes were a stage nearer. I feltas if I were fighting the machinery of fate."
She made no answer for a while. "We have done right," she said at last.
He looked at her doubtfully. "We have done what we could. But does thisdepend upon us? Is it not an older sin, a wider sin?"
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"These blacks are savages, ruled by force, used as force. And they havebeen under the rule of the whites two hundred years. Is it not a racequarrel? The race sinned--the race pays."
"But these labourers, these poor people of London--!"
"Vicarious atonement. To stand wrong is to share the guilt."
She looked keenly at him, astonished at the new aspect he presented.
Without came the shrill ringing of a bell, the sound of feet and thegabble of a phonographic message. The man in yellow appeared. "Yes?"said Graham.
"They are at Vichy."
"Where are the attendants who were in the great Hall of the Atlas?"asked Graham abruptly.
Presently the Babble Machine rang again. "We may win yet," said the manin yellow, going out to it. "If only we can find where Ostrog has hiddenhis guns. Everything hangs on that now. Perhaps this--"
Graham followed him. But the only news was of the aeroplanes. They hadreached Orleans.
Graham returned to Helen. "No news," he said "No news."
"And we can do nothing?"
"Nothing."
He paced impatiently. Suddenly the swift anger that was his nature sweptupon him. "Curse this complex world!" he cried, "and all the inventionsof men! That a man must die like a rat in a snare and never see his foe!Oh, for one blow!..."
He turned with an abrupt change in his manner. "That's nonsense," hesaid. "I am a savage."
He paced and stopped. "After all London and Paris are only two cities.All the temperate zone has risen. What if London is doomed and Parisdestroyed? These are but accidents." Again came the mockery of news tocall him to fresh enquiries. He returned with a graver face and sat downbeside her.
"The end must be near," he said. "The people it seems have fought anddied in tens of thousands, the ways about Roehampton must be like asmoked beehive. And they have died in vain. They are still only at thesub stage. The aeroplanes are near Paris. Even were a gleam of successto come now, there would be nothing to do, there would be no time to doanything before they were upon us. The guns that might have saved us aremislaid. Mislaid! Think of the disorder of things! Think of this foolishtumult, that cannot even find its weapons! Oh, for one aeropile--justone! For the want of that I am beaten. Humanity is beaten and our causeis lost! My kingship, my headlong foolish kingship will not last anight. And I have egged on the people to fight--."
"They would have fought anyhow."
"I doubt it. I have come among them--"
"No," she cried, "not that. If defeat comes--if you die--. But even thatcannot be, it cannot be, after all these years."
"Ah! We have meant well. But--do you indeed believe--?"
"If they defeat you," she cried, "you have spoken. Your word has gonelike a great wind through the world, fanning liberty into a flame. Whatif the flame sputters a little! Nothing can change the spoken word. Yourmessage will have gone forth...."
"To what end? It may be. It may be. You know I said, when you told meof these things dear God! but that was scarcely a score of hours ago!--Isaid that I had not your faith. Well--at any rate there is nothing to donow...."
"You have not my faith! Do you mean--? You are sorry?"
"No," he said hurriedly, "no! Before God--no!" His voice changed."But--. I think--I have been indiscreet. I knew little--I grasped toohastily...."
He paused. He was ashamed of this avowal. "There is one thing that makesup for all. I have known you. Across this gulf of time I have come toyou. The rest is done. It is done. With you, too, it has been somethingmore--or something less--"
He paused with his face searching hers, and without clamoured theunheeded message that the aeroplanes were rising into the sky of Amiens.
She put her hand to her throat, and her lips were white. She staredbefore her as if she saw some horrible possibility. Suddenly herfeatures changed. "Oh, but I have been honest!" she cried, and then,"Have I been honest? I loved the world and freedom, I hated cruelty andoppression. Surely it was that."
"Yes," he said, "yes. And we have done what it lay in us to do. We havegiven our message, our message! We have started Armageddon! But now--.Now that we have, it may be our last hour, together, now that all thesegreater things are done...."
He stopped. She sat in silence. Her face was a white riddle.
For a moment they heeded nothing of a sudden stir outside, a runningto and fro, and cries. Then Helen started to an attitude of tenseattention. "It is--," she cried and stood up, speechless, incredulous,triumphant. And Graham, too, heard. Metallic voices were shouting"Victory!" Yes it was "Victory!" He stood up also with the light of adesperate hope in his eyes.
Bursting through the curtains appeared the man in yellow, startled anddishevelled with excitement. "Victory," he cried, "victory! The peopleare winning. Ostrog's people have collapsed."
She rose. "Victory?" And her voice was hoarse and faint.
"What do you mean?" asked Graham. "Tell me! What?"
"We have driven them out of the under galleries at Norwood, Streathami
s afire and burning wildly, and Roehampton is ours. Ours!--and we havetaken the aeropile that lay thereon."
For an instant Graham and Helen stood in silence, their hearts werebeating fast, they looked at one another. For one last moment theregleamed in Graham his dream of empire, of kingship, with Helen by hisside. It gleamed, and passed.
A shrill bell rang. An agitated grey-headed man appeared from the roomof the Ward Leaders. "It is all over," he cried.
"What matters it now that we have Roehampton? The aeroplanes have beensighted at Boulogne!"
"The Channel!" said the man in yellow. He calculated swiftly. "Half anhour."
"They still have three of the flying stages," said the old man.
"Those guns?" cried Graham.
"We cannot mount them--in half an hour."
"Do you mean they are found?"
"Too late," said the old man.
"If we could stop them another hour!" cried the man in yellow.
"Nothing can stop them now," said the old man, "they have near a hundredaeroplanes in the first fleet."
"Another hour?" asked Graham.
"To be so near!" said the Ward Leader. "Now that we have found thoseguns. To be so near--. If once we could get them out upon the roofspaces."
"How long would that take?" asked Graham suddenly.
"An hour--certainly."
"Too late," cried the Ward Leader, "too late."
"Is it too late?" said Graham. "Even now--. An hour!"
He had suddenly perceived a possibility. He tried to speak calmly,but his face was white. "There is one chance. You said there was anaeropile--?"
"On the Roehampton stage, Sire."
"Smashed?"
"No. It is lying crossways to the carrier. It might be got upon theguides--easily. But there is no aeronaut--."
Graham glanced at the two men and then at Helen. He spoke after a longpause. "We have no aeronauts?"
"None."
"The aeroplanes are clumsy," he said thoughtfully, "compared with theaeropiles."
He turned suddenly to Helen. His decision was made. "I must do it."
"Do what?"
"Go to this flying stage--to this aeropile."
"What do you mean?"
"I am an aeronaut. After all--. Those days for which you reproached mewere not wasted."
He turned to the old man in yellow. "Put the aeropile upon the guides."
The man in yellow hesitated.
"What do you mean to do?" cried Helen.
"This aeropile--it is a chance--."
"You don't mean--?"
"To fight--yes. To fight in the air. I have thought before--. Anaeroplane is a clumsy thing. A resolute man--!"
"But--never since flying began--" cried the man in yellow.
"There has been no need. But now the time has come. Tell them now--sendthem my message--to put it upon the guides."
The old man dumbly interrogated the man in yellow, nodded, and hurriedout.
Helen made a step towards Graham. Her face was white. "But--How can onefight? You will be killed."
"Perhaps. Yet, not to do it--or to let someone else attempt it--."
He stopped, he could speak no more, he swept the alternative aside by agesture, and they stood looking at one another.
"You are right," she said at last in a low tone. "You are right. If itcan be done... must go."
Those days for not altogether
He moved a step towards her, and she stepped back, her white facestruggled against him and resisted him. "No," she gasped. "I cannotbear--. Go now."
He extended his hands stupidly. She clenched her fists. "Go now," shecried. "Go now."
He hesitated and understood. He threw his hands up in a queerhalf-theatrical gesture. He had no word to say. He turned from her.
The man in yellow moved towards the door with clumsy belated tact. ButGraham stepped past him. He went striding through the room where theWard Leader bawled at a telephone directing that the aeropile should beput upon the guides.
The man in yellow glanced at Helen's still figure, hesitated and hurriedafter him. Graham did not once look back, he did not speak until thecurtain of the ante-chamber of the great hall fell behind him. Then heturned his head with curt swift directions upon his bloodless lips.