III
It was about nineteen o'clock that the ruddy English conductor looked inat the doorway, waking Percy from his doze.
"Dinner will be served in half-an-hour, gentlemen," he said (speakingEsperanto, as the rule was on international cars). "We do not stop atTurin to-night."
He shut the door and went out, and the sound of closing doors came downthe corridor as he made the same announcement to each compartment.
There were no passengers to descend at Turin, then, reflected Percy; andno doubt a wireless message had been received that there were none tocome on board either. That was good news: it would give him more time inLondon. It might even enable Cardinal Steinmann to catch an earliervolor from Paris to Berlin; but he was not sure bow they ran. It was apity that the German had not been able to catch the thirteen o'clockfrom Rome to Berlin direct. So he calculated, in a kind of superficialinsensibility.
He stood up presently to stretch himself. Then he passed out and alongthe corridor to the lavatory to wash his hands.
He became fascinated by the view as he stood before the basin at therear of the car, for even now they were passing over Turin. It was ablur of light, vivid and beautiful, that shone beneath him in the midstof this gulf of darkness, sweeping away southwards into the gloom as thecar sped on towards the Alps. How little, he thought, seemed this greatcity seen from above; and yet, how mighty it was! It was from thatglimmer, already five miles behind, that Italy was controlled; in one ofthese dolls' houses of which he had caught but a glimpse, men sat incouncil over souls and bodies, and abolished God, and smiled at HisChurch. And God allowed it all, and made no sign. It was there thatFelsenburgh had been, a month or two ago--Felsenburgh, his double! Andagain the mental sword tore and stabbed at his heart.
* * * * *
A few minutes later, the four ecclesiastics were sitting at their roundtable in a little screened compartment of the dining-room in the bows ofthe air-ship. It was an excellent dinner, served, as usual, from thekitchen in the bowels of the volor, and rose, course by course, with asmooth click, into the centre of the table. There was a bottle of redwine to each diner, and both table and chairs swung easily to the veryslight motion of the ship. But they did not talk much, for there wasonly one subject possible to the two cardinals, and the chaplains hadnot yet been admitted into the full secret.
It was growing cold now, and even the hot-air foot-rests did not quitecompensate for the deathly iciness of the breath that began to streamdown from the Alps, which the ship was now approaching at a slightincline. It was necessary to rise at least nine thousand feet from theusual level, in order to pass the frontier of the Mont Cenis at a safeangle; and at the same time it was necessary to go a little slower overthe Alps themselves, owing to the extreme rarity of the air, and thedifficulty in causing the screw to revolve sufficiently quickly tocounteract it.
"There will be clouds to-night," said a voice clear and distinct fromthe passage, as the door swung slightly to a movement of the car.
Percy got up and closed it.
The German Cardinal began to grow a little fidgety towards the end ofdinner.
"I shall go back," he said at last. "I shall be better in my fur rug."
His chaplain dutifully went after him, leaving his own dinnerunfinished, and Percy was left alone with Father Corkran, his Englishchaplain lately from Scotland.
He finished his wine, ate a couple of figs, and then sat staring outthrough the plate-glass window in front.
"Ah!" he said. "Excuse me, father. There are the Alps at last."
The front of the car consisted of three divisions, in the centre of oneof which stood the steersman, his eyes looking straight ahead, and hishands upon the wheel. On either side of him, separated from him byaluminium walls, was contrived a narrow slip of a compartment, with along curved window at the height of a man's eyes, through which amagnificent view could be obtained. It was to one of these that Percywent, passing along the corridor, and seeing through half-opened doorsother parties still over their wine. He pushed the spring door on theleft and went through.
He had crossed the Alps three times before in his life, and wellremembered the extraordinary effect they had had on him, especially ashe had once seen them from a great altitude upon a clear day--aneternal, immeasurable sea of white ice, broken by hummocks and wrinklesthat from below were soaring peaks named and reverenced; and, beyond,the spherical curve of the earth's edge that dropped in a haze of airinto unutterable space. But this time they seemed more amazing thanever, and he looked out on them with the interest of a sick child.
The car was now ascending; rapidly towards the pass up across the hugetumbled slopes, ravines, and cliffs that lie like outworks of theenormous wall. Seen from this great height they were in themselvescomparatively insignificant, but they at least suggested the vastness ofthe bastions of which they were no more than buttresses. As Percyturned, he could see the moonless sky alight with frosty stars, and thedimness of the illumination made the scene even more impressive; but ashe turned again, there was a change. The vast air about him seemed nowto be perceived through frosted glass. The velvet blackness of the pineforests had faded to heavy grey, the pale glint of water and ice seenand gone again in a moment, the monstrous nakedness of rock spires andslopes, rising towards him and sliding away again beneath with acrawling motion--all these had lost their distinctness of outline, andwere veiled in invisible white. As he looked yet higher to right andleft the sight became terrifying, for the giant walls of rock rushingtowards him, the huge grotesque shapes towering on all sides, ran upwardinto a curtain of cloud visible only from the dancing radiance thrownupon it by the brilliantly lighted car. Even as he looked, two straightfingers of splendour, resembling horns, shot out, as the bowsearchlights were turned on; and the car itself, already travelling athalf-speed, dropped to quarter-speed, and began to sway softly from sideto side as the huge air-planes beat the mist through which they moved,and the antennae of light pierced it. Still up they went, and on--yetswift enough to let Percy see one great pinnacle rear itself, elongate,sink down into a cruel needle, and vanish into nothingness a thousandfeet below. The motion grew yet more nauseous, as the car moved up at asharp angle preserving its level, simultaneously rising, advancing andswaying. Once, hoarse and sonorous, an unfrozen torrent roared like abeast, it seemed within twenty yards, and was dumb again on the instant.Now, too, the horns began to cry, long, lamentable hootings, ringingsadly in that echoing desolation like the wail of wandering souls; andas Percy, awed beyond feeling, wiped the gathering moisture from theglass, and stared again, it appeared as if he floated now, motionlessexcept for the slight rocking beneath his feet, in a world of whiteness,as remote from earth as from heaven, poised in hopeless infinite space,blind, alone, frozen, lost in a white hell of desolation.
Once, as he stared, a huge whiteness moved towards him through the veil,slid slowly sideways and down, disclosing, as the car veered, a giganticslope smooth as oil, with one cluster of black rock cutting it like thefingers of a man's hand groping from a mountainous wave.
Then, as once more the car cried aloud like a lost sheep, there answeredit, it seemed scarcely ten yards away, first one windy scream of dismay,another and another; a clang of bells, a chorus broke out; and the airwas full of the beating of wings.