IV
There was one horrible instant before a clang of a bell, the answeringscream, and a whirling motion showed that the steersman was alert. Thenlike a stone the car dropped, and Percy clutched at the rail before himto steady the terrible sensation of falling into emptiness. He couldhear behind him the crash of crockery, the bumping of heavy bodies, andas the car again checked on its wide wings, a rush of footsteps brokeout and a cry or two of dismay. Outside, but high and far away, thehooting went on; the air was full of it, and in a flash he recognisedthat it could not be one or ten or twenty cars, but at least a hundredthat had answered the call, and that somewhere overhead were hooting andflapping. The invisible ravines and cliffs on all sides took up thecrying; long wails whooped and moaned and died amid a clash of bells,further and further every instant, but now in every direction, behind,above, in front, and far to right and left. Once more the car began tomove, sinking in a long still curve towards the face of the mountain;and as it checked, and began to sway again on its huge wings, he turnedto the door, seeing as he did so, through the cloudy windows in theglow of light, a spire of rock not thirty feet below rising from themist, and one smooth shoulder of snow curving away into invisibility.
Within, the car shewed brutal signs of the sudden check: the doors ofthe dining compartments, as he passed along, were flung wide; glasses,plates, pools of wine and tumbled fruit rolled to and fro on the heavingfloors; one man, sitting helplessly on the ground, rolled vacant,terrified eyes upon the priest. He glanced in at the door through whichhe had come just now, and Father Corkran staggered up from his seat andcame towards him, reeling at the motion underfoot; simultaneously therewas a rush from the opposite door, where a party of Americans had beendining; and as Percy, beckoning with his head, turned again to go downto the stern-end of the ship, he found the narrow passage blocked withthe crowd that had run out. A babble of talking and cries made questionsimpossible; and Percy, with his chaplain behind him, gripped thealuminium panelling, and step by step began to make his way in search ofhis friends.
Half-way down the passage, as he pushed and struggled, a voice madeitself heard above the din; and in the momentary silence that followed,again sounded the far-away crying of the volors overhead.
"Seats, gentlemen, seats," roared the voice. "We are movingimmediately."
Then the crowd melted as the conductor came through, red-faced anddetermined, and Percy, springing into his wake, found his way clear tothe stern.
The Cardinal seemed none the worse. He had been asleep, he explained,and saved himself in time from rolling on to the floor; but his old facetwitched as he talked.
"But what is it?" he said. "What is the meaning?"
Father Bechlin related how he had actually seen one of the troop ofvolors within five yards of the window; it was crowded with faces, hesaid, from stem to stern. Then it had soared suddenly, and vanished inwhorls of mist.
Percy shook his head, saying nothing. He had no explanation.
"They are inquiring, I understand," said Father Bechlin again. "Theconductor was at his instrument just now."
There was nothing to be seen from the windows now. Only, as Percy staredout, still dazed with the shock, he saw the cruel needle of rockwavering beneath as if seen through water, and the huge shoulder of snowswaying softly up and down. It was quieter outside. It appeared that theflock had passed, only somewhere from an infinite height still sounded afitful wailing, as if a lonely bird were wandering, lost in space.
"That is the signalling volor," murmured Percy to himself.
He had no theory--no suggestion. Yet the matter seemed an ominous one.It was unheard of that an encounter with a hundred volors should takeplace, and he wondered why they were going southwards. Again the name ofFelsenburgh came to his mind. What if that sinister man were stillsomewhere overhead?
"Eminence," began the old man again. But at that instant the car beganto move.
A bell clanged, a vibration tingled underfoot, and then, soft as aflake of snow, the great ship began to rise, its movement perceptibleonly by the sudden drop and vanishing of the spire of rock at whichPercy still stared. Slowly the snowfield too began to flit downwards, ablack cleft, whisked smoothly into sight from above, and disappearedagain below, and a moment later once more the car seemed poised in whitespace as it climbed the slope of air down which it had dropped just now.Again the wind-chord rent the atmosphere; and this time the answer wasas faint and distant as a cry from another world. The speed quickened,and the steady throb of the screw began to replace the swaying motion ofthe wings. Again came the hoot, wild and echoing through the barrenwilderness of rock walls beneath, and again with a sudden impulse thecar soared. It was going in great circles now, cautious as a cat,climbing, climbing, punctuating the ascent with cry after cry, searchingthe blind air for dangers. Once again a vast white slope came intosight, illuminated by the glare from the windows, sinking ever more andmore swiftly, receding and approaching--until for one instant a jaggedline of rocks grinned like teeth through the mist, dropped away andvanished, and with a clash of bells, and a last scream of warning, thethrob of the screw passed from a whirr to a rising note, and the note tostillness, as the huge ship, clear at last of the frontier peaks, shookout her wings steady once more, and set out for her humming flightthrough space.... Whatever it was, was behind them now, vanished intothe thick night.
There was a sound of talking from the interior of the car, hasty,breathless voices, questioning, exclaiming, and the authoritative terseanswer of the guard. A step came along outside, and Percy sprang to meetit, but, as he laid his hand on the door, it was pushed from without,and to his astonishment the English guard came straight through, closingit behind him.
He stood there, looking strangely at the four priests, with compressedlips and anxious eyes.
"Well?" cried Percy.
"All right, gentlemen. But I'm thinking you'd better descend at Paris. Iknow who you are, gentlemen--and though I'm not a Catholic---"
He stopped again.
"For God's sake, man---" began Percy.
"Oh! the news, gentlemen. Well, it was two hundred cars going to Rome.There is a Catholic plot, sir, discovered in London---"
"Well?"
"To wipe out the Abbey. So they're going---"
"Ah!"
"Yes, sir--to wipe out Rome."
Then he was gone again.