CHAPTER XVIII
A GLIMPSE OF THE PERIL
The morning was spent in a general overhaul of the observatory and thelaboratory in which Lennard had discovered and perfected the explosivewhich had been used with such deadly effect in the guns of the_Ithuriel_. Lunch was an entirely delightful meal, and when it was overAuriole took Mrs O'Connor and Norah up to her own particular domain inthe house to indulge in that choicest of feminine luxuries, a good longtalk. Mr Parmenter excused himself and disappeared into his study to getready for the evening mail, and so Lord Westerham and Lennard were leftto their own devices for a couple of hours or so. This was just whatLennard wanted, and so he proposed a stroll and a smoke in the Park.
They lit their cigars and walked for a few minutes along a pine-shadedpath. His lordship had an intuitive idea that his companion hadsomething to say to him--albeit he was very far from imagining what thatsomething was to be--and so he thought he had better let him begin. Whenthey were out of sight or hearing of anyone, Lennard slowed down hispace a little and said somewhat abruptly:
"Westerham, I am going to ask you a question which you will probablythink a rather impertinent one, and, moreover, whether you choose toanswer it or not, I hope you will not for the present ask me why I askit. Now there are a good many 'asks' in that, but as the matter issomewhat important to both of us, I wanted to put the thing plainly,even at the expense of a little tautology."
Lord Westerham, in addition to being a gentleman and a soldier, was alsoone of the most frankly open-minded men that another honest man couldwish to have anything to do with, and so, after a long pull at hiscigar, he looked round and said:
"My dear Lennard, we were school-fellows once, and we managed to worrythrough Cambridge together--you with a great deal more kudos than Idid--and we have been very good friends since, so there can't be anyquestion of impertinence between us, although there might be someunpleasantness for one or both of us. But, anyhow, whatever it is, outwith it. Honestly, I don't think you could offend me if you tried."
"That's just what I thought you would say," replied Lennard. "And Ithink you are about the only man I should like to ask such a question;but after what you've just said I'll put it just as shortly as it can bemade."
"And the question is?" asked Lord Westerham, blowing a long stream ofblue smoke up through the still air towards the tops of the pine trees.
There was a little pause, during which Lennard bit off about half aninch of the end of his cigar, spat it out, and took two or three morepuffs from what was left. Then he said, in a dry, almost harsh tone:
"The question is quite a short one, Westerham, and you can answer it bya simple yes or no. It's just this: Do you intend to make Miss ParmenterMarchioness of Westerham or not? Other things of course being equal, aswe used to say at school."
Somewhat to Lennard's astonishment, Lord Westerham's cigar shot from hislips like a torpedo from a tube, and after it came an explosion oflaughter, which fully accounted for its sudden ejectment. His lordshipleant up against a convenient pine and laughed till he was almostspeechless.
"What the devil's the matter with you, Westerham?" said Lennard, with anote of anger in his voice. "You'll excuse my saying so, but it seemshardly a question for a sort of explosion like that. I have been askingyou a question which, as you might have seen, concerns me ratherclosely."
Lord Westerham sobered down at once, although his voice was stillsomewhat tremulous with suppressed laughter when he said:
"My dear chap, I'm very sorry. It was beastly rude of me to laugh, butI'm quite sure you'll forgive me when you know the facts or, at least,_the_ fact, and that is as follows, as they say in the newspapers. WhenI tell you that your sweetheart drove my sweetheart up to the houseto-day from Settle--"
"What, Norah Castellan!" exclaimed Lennard. "I didn't even know that youhad met her before."
"Haven't I!" replied Lord Westerham. "Look here, it was this way."
And then he began a story of a fishing and shooting trip to Connemara,where he had rented certain salmon streams and shooting moors from asquire of the county, named Lismore, who was very much in love withNorah Castellan, and how he had fished and shot and yachted with her andthe brother who had sold his diabolical inventions to the enemies ofEngland, until he had come to love the sister as much as he hated thebrother. And when he had done, Lennard told him of the swimming race inClifden Bay, and many other things to which Lord Westerham listened withan interest which grew more and more intense as every minute passed;until when Lennard stopped, he crossed the road and held out his handand said:
"I've got the very place to suit you. A cannel-coal mine near Bolton inLancashire with a perpendicular shaft, twelve hundred feet deep. Thevery place to do your work. It's yours from to-day, and if the thingcomes off, Papa Parmenter shall give a couple of hundred thousand dowryinstead of buying the mine. I don't think he'll kick at that. Now, let'sgo back and have a whisky-and-soda. I've got to be off recruitingto-morrow."
"I wish I could join the Yeomanry and come with you, if you would haveme," laughed Lennard, whose spirits had been rising rapidly during thelast half-hour or so, "only I reckon, as Mr Parmenter would put it, thatI shall have all my work cut out getting ready to give our celestialinvader a warm reception. To begin with, it won't exactly be child'splay building a cannon twelve hundred feet long."
"I wonder what they'd think of a proposition like that at the WarOffice?" laughed Lord Westerham in reply. "Several permanent officialswould certainly faint on the spot."
A sharp frost set in during the night, and the sky was brilliantlyclear. After dinner, when the ladies had left the table, Lennard said toMr Parmenter:
"I am going to renew my acquaintance with our celestial visitorto-night. I shall want a couple of hours to run over my calculations andverify the position of the comet up to date; and then, say at eleveno'clock, I should like you and Lord Westerham to come up to theobservatory and have a somewhat serious talk."
The owner of the great reflector looked up quickly over his wine-glassand said:
"Look here, Mr Lennard, I guess this poor old country of yours has aboutenough serious matters on hand just now without worrying about comets.What's the trouble now?"
"My dear sir," replied Lennard, gravely, "this is a matter which notonly England, but every other country in the world, will have to troubleabout before very long."
"Say, that sounds pretty serious," said Mr Parmenter. "What's the worrywith this old comet of yours, anyhow?"
Lord Westerham smiled, and Lennard could not help smiling too as hereplied:
"It is too long a story to tell now, sir, and what is more, I cannottell it until I have reverified my observations and figures, and,besides, the ladies will be expecting us. I shall be quite ready for youby eleven. By the way, I haven't told you yet that those shells were aperfect success, from our point of view, at least. It seems rathercurious how that all came about, I must say. Here's Denis Castellan, thebrother of the traitor, a British naval officer, and like his sister anacquaintance of Westerham's. I discover the explosive, tell you aboutit, you tell Westerham, and send me off to try it on the _Ithuriel_, andhere I come back from London with Miss Castellan and her aunt."
"Quite an excellent arrangement of things on the part of the Fates,"remarked Lord Westerham, with a meaning which Mr Parmenter did notunderstand.
"Why, yes," said their host, "quite like a piece out of a story, isn'tit? And so that explosive got its work in all right, Mr Lennard?"
"As far as we could see," replied Lennard. "It tore steel armour intoshreds as if it had been cardboard, and didn't leave a living thinganywhere within several yards of the focus of the explosion. Erskine andCastellan are filling up with it, and I expect we shall hear somethingabout it from London before long. I am glad to say that Lord Beresfordtold me that after what he had seen of our fire, Government and privategun factories were going to work night and day turning out pneumaticguns to use it. The effect of it on land if a battery once gets
withinreach of large masses of men will be something frightful."
"Sounds pretty useful," said Lord Westerham, who was one of thosesoldiers who rightly believe that the most merciless methods of wagingwar are in the end most merciful.
By nine o'clock Lennard was in the equatorial chamber of theobservatory, taking his first observations since he had left forPortsmouth the week before. The ghostly shape pictured on the greatreflector was bigger and brighter now, although, to his great comfort,none of the scientific papers had made any mention of its discovery byother observers. When he had noted its exact position, he went to hisdesk and plunged into a maze of calculations.
Precisely at eleven there was a tap at the door and Mr Parmenter andLord Westerham came in. Lord Westerham, as the guest, had the first lookat the approaching World Peril; then Mr Parmenter took a long squintinto the eye-piece and then they sat down, and Lennard told MrParmenter, in the cold, precise language of science, the story which hehad already told to Auriole and Lord Westerham.
The millionaire, who had listened with an attention that even he hadnever given to any subject before, smoked in silence for a few momentsafter Lennard had finished, and then he said quietly:
"Well, I reckon that's about the biggest order that two or three humanbeings have ever been called upon to fill. One thing's certain. It'dmake these fighting fellows feel pretty foolish if they could be got tobelieve it, which they couldn't. No disrespect to you, Lord Westerham,because I take it you do believe it."
"Certainly I do," he replied. "Lennard was never known to make a mistakein figures, and I am perfectly certain that he would not make any inworking out such a terrific problem as this. I think I may also say thatI have equal confidence in his plan for saving humanity from theterrible fate which threatens it."
"That's good hearing," said Mr Parmenter, drily. "Personally, I don'tquite feel that I've finished up with this old world yet, and if it's aquestion of dollars--as far as I'm concerned, as I've got a few millionshanging around loose, I might as well use them to help to save the humanrace from being burnt to death as to run corners and trusts, whichwon't be much use anyhow if we can't stop this comet, or whatever it is.Now, Mr Lennard, what's your plan for the scientific salvation of theworld?"
"There is nothing new about the idea," replied Lennard, "except itsapplication to the present circumstances. Of course you have read JulesVerne's _Journey to the Moon_? Well, my plan is simply to do the samething on a much bigger scale, only instead of firing men and dogs andchickens out of my cannon, I am going to fire something like a ton and ahalf of explosives.
"The danger is in the contact of the nucleus of the comet with theearth's atmosphere. If that can be prevented there is no further causefor alarm; so, to put the matter quite shortly, my projectile will havean initial velocity of ten miles a second, and therefore a range that ispractically infinite, for that velocity will carry it beyond the sphereof the earth's attraction.
"Hence, if the gun is properly trained and fired at precisely the rightmoment, and if the fuse does its work, the projectile will pass into thenucleus of the comet, and, before the heat has time to melt the shell,the charge will explode and the nucleus--the only dangerous part--willeither be blown to fragments or dissipated in gas. Therefore, instead ofwhat I might be allowed to call a premature Day of Judgment, we shallsimply have a magnificent display of celestial fireworks, which willprobably amount to nothing more than an unparalleled shower of shootingstars, as they are popularly called.
"The details of the experiment will be practically the same as thoseJules Verne described--I mean as regards the making and firing of thecannon--only, as we haven't time to get a big enough hole dug, I shouldstrongly advise the acceptance of Lord Westerham's very opportuneoffer."
"That's so," said Mr Parmenter, quietly, "but I've got a sort of fancyfor running this business myself. My reflector discovered this comet,thanks, of course, to the good use you made of it, and it seems to methat I'm in a way responsible for making it harmless if that can bedone, and so I'm not disposed to take that convenient colliery as a giftfrom anyone, no, not even you, Lord Westerham. You see, my lord, allthat I can do here is just finding the dollars, and to a man in yourposition, doing his best to get as many men and horses and guns togetherfor the defence of his country, money is money. Will you take a quarterof a million pounds for that colliery?"
"No, I won't, Mr Parmenter," laughed Lord Westerham. "In the firstplace, the colliery isn't worth a tenth of that, and this country canvery well afford to pay for her own defence. Besides, you must rememberthat you will have to pay for the work: I mean casing the pit-shaft,smelting the metal and building the shell, to say nothing of thethousand and one other expenses of which Lennard can tell you more thanI. For one thing, I expect you will have a hundred thousand or so to payin damage to surrounding property after that cannon has gone off. Inother words, if you do save the world you'll probably have to pay prettystiffly for doing it. They're excellent business people in Lancashire,you know."
"I don't quite see the logic of that, Lord Westerham," replied MrParmenter a little testily. "If we can put this business through, thedollars couldn't be much better used, and if we can't they won't be muchuse to me or anyone else. It's worth doing, anyhow, if it's only to showwhat new-world enterprise helped with old-world brains can do inbringing off a really big thing, and that's why I want to buy thatcolliery."
"Well, Mr Parmenter," laughed Lord Westerham again, "we won't quarrelover that. I'm not a business man, but I believe it's generallyrecognised that the essence of all business is compromise. I'll meet youhalf way. For the present you shall take the pit for nothing and pay allexpense connected with making a cannon of it. If that cannon does itswork you shall pay me two hundred thousand pounds for the use of it--andI'll take your I.O.U. for the amount now. Will that suit you?"
"That's business," said Mr Parmenter, getting up and going to Lennard'sdesk. "There you are, my lord," he continued, as he came back with ahalf sheet of notepaper in his hand, "and I only hope I shall have topay that money."