It would be vain to attempt to describe the feelings with which the President and the father of Alexis went, as they thought, to receive their sons, but the air-ships had returned without them, and in their stead they brought a written message which conveyed tidings no less strange and startling than those brought from Antarctica by the Ithuriel and her consort3.
It was a letter from Alan to his father, and as soon as he received it from the captain of one of the air-ships, who had found it nailed to a tree on the island, he took his friend into his library, and there the two fathers read it together.
After briefly4 but circumstantially recounting the capture of the flag-ship by Olga by means of her subtle drugs, and showing how, by using the power they gave her, she had kept them in mental slavery for years, forcing them to employ their skill and knowledge in aiding her to build her aerial and submarine fleets out of the spoils of the destroyed ocean transports, from which[95] the latter had taken an incalculable amount of treasure, Alan’s letter concluded thus:—
I will now tell you the reason why Alexis and myself have not waited for the air-ship which we knew you would send for us as soon as you received the message which Olga Romanoff told us she would despatch5 to you. We consider that by our weakness and folly—or, in truth, I should rather say mine, for it was I who invited these treacherous6 guests on board the Ithuriel—we have not only brought endless calamities7 upon the world, but we have also forfeited8 our right to the citizenship9 of Aeria.
What the judgment10 of the Council would be upon us I don’t know, but we are resolved that, whatever it might have been, you and Alexis’s father shall be spared the sorrow of pronouncing sentence upon your own sons. Some day perhaps we may win at least the right to plead our cause before you. At present we have none, and until we have won it you shall not see us again unless you capture us by force.
We were sent here in the Narwhal, the swiftest and most powerful vessel2 of the Russian submarine fleet. Only a few days ago an accident revealed to Alexis for the first time during our long mental slavery the means which this woman, who is as beautiful as an angel and as merciless as a fiend, had used to keep us in subjection. We took the utmost care to give her no suspicion of his discovery, and although we drank no more of her poison we acted exactly as though we were still under its influence.
In what could only have been mockery she gave us back our belts and coronets, bidding us wear them “when we returned to our kingdom,” as she put it. We shall never wear the winged circlets again till we have regained11 the right to do so, but the belts and a couple of brace12 of magazine pistols which we took before we left her stronghold in Antarctica stood us in good stead.
We have killed the crew of the Narwhal, and taken possession of her. She is far swifter and more powerful than any vessel in our submarine navy, for she can be driven at a hundred and fifty miles an hour through the water, and can destroy anything that floats in or on the sea with a blow of her ram13, and, more than this, she carries a torpedo14 battery which has an effective range of two miles, and can strike and destroy anything within that distance without giving the slightest warning of her presence.
There are fifty vessels of this type in the Russian fleet, but the Narwhal is at least thirty miles an hour faster than any of them. An attack will probably be made by the Russians on our station at Kerguelen Island within a week by submarine vessels and a small squadron of air-ships, and there we shall begin our operations against the enemy. If you have any reply to make to this letter we will wait for it at sea off Kerguelen, and then begin the campaign we have planned. We shall never rest until we have either destroyed the Russian fleet in detail or have died in the attempt to do so.
If we ever return it will be to restore to you the supremacy15 of the sea, and then, and not till then, we will ask you to pardon our fault and will willingly submit to such further conditions as you may see fit to impose upon us before you give us back—if ever you do—the rights which we have lost.
With all love and duty to yourself, and loving remembrances to the dear ones in Aeria, your son
Alan.
[96]
At the foot of the letter was a postscript16 signed by Alexis, indorsing all that Alan had said, save with regard to his sole responsibility for the calamity17 that had ensued from the admission of Olga and Serge on board the Ithuriel.
The two fathers discussed the strange, and, to them, most affecting communication for nearly an hour in private, and then another meeting of the Council was called to consider it and pronounce authoritatively18 upon it. The President read the letter aloud in a voice which betrayed no trace of the deep emotion that moved his inmost being, and then left the Council chamber19 with Maurice Masarov, so that their presence might not embarrass their colleagues.
The simple, manly20 straightforwardness21 of Alan’s letter appealed far more eloquently22 to the Council than excuses or prayers for forgiveness would have done. It was plain, too, that after the first indiscretion of taking the strangers on board the air-ship, no moral responsibility or blame could be laid on Alan and Alexis for what they had done under the influence of a drug which had paralysed their moral sense.
The Council, therefore, not only accepted the conditions of the letter, but without a dissentient voice, agreed to confer the first and second commands of the Aerian submarine fleets and stations for the time being upon Alan and Alexis, with permission to call in the aid of the nearest aerial squadron when necessary. This decision was despatched forthwith by an air-ship to Kerguelen, and within an hour all Aeria was talking of nothing else than the strange fate of the two youths who for five years had been mourned as dead.
Later on that evening, when the twin snow-clad peaks which towered high above the city of Aeria had lost the pink afterglow of the departed sunlight, and were beginning to gleam with a whiter radiance in the level beams of the newly-risen moon, a girl was standing24 on the spacious25 terrace of a marble villa26 which stood on the summit of a rounded eminence27 a couple of miles from the western verge28 of the city.
She had just crossed the threshold of womanhood. The next sun that would rise would be that of her twentieth birthday.[97] Yet for two years she had worn the silver circle and crystal wings, for in Aeria a girl became of legal age at eighteen, though she took no share in the civil life of the community until she was married, an event which, as a rule, took place not long after she was invested with the symbol of citizenship.
It was an exceedingly rare event for an Aerian girl to reach the eve of her twentieth year unmarried, for the sexes in the Central-African paradise were very evenly balanced, and, as was natural in a very high state of civilisation29, where families seldom exceeded three or four children, celibacy30 in either sex was looked upon as a public misfortune and a private reproach.
But Alma Tremayne, the girl who was standing on the terrace of her father’s house on this most eventful evening, had become an exception to the rule through circumstances so sad and strange that her loneliness was an honour rather than a reproach. There were many of the wearers of the golden wings who had sought long and ardently31 to win her from the allegiance which forbade her to look with favouring eyes upon any of them.
She was beautiful in a land where all women were fair, a land where, under the most favourable32 conditions that could be conceived, a race of almost more than human strength and beauty had been evolved, and she came of a family scarcely second in honour even to that of the President, for she was the direct descendant in the fifth generation of Alan Tremayne, first President of the Anglo-Saxon Federation33, through his son Cyril born two years after the daughter who had married the first-born son of Natasha and Richard Arnold.
More than five years before she and Alan had plighted34 their boy-and-girl troth on the eve of his departure on the fateful voyage from which he had never returned, and of which no tidings had reached Aeria until a few hours before. To the simple vow35 which her girlish lips had then spoken she had remained steadfast37 even when, as the years went by and still no tidings came of her lost lover, she, in common with her own kindred, had begun to mourn him as dead.
It is true that she was in love rather with a memory than[98] with a man, yet with some natures such a love as this is stronger than any other, more ideal and more lasting38, and exempt39 from the danger of growing cold in fruition. So strong was the hold that this ideal love had taken upon her being that the idea of even accepting the love and homage40 of any other man appeared as sacrilegious to her as the embrace of an earthly lover would have seemed to a nun41 of the Middle Ages.
And so, with a single companion in her solitary42 state, she stood aside and watched with patient, unregretful eyes the wedded43 happiness of her more fortunate friends. This companion was Isma Arnold, Alan’s sister, who had a double reason for doing as Alma had done.
Not only had she resolved never to marry while her brother’s fate remained uncertain, but she, too, had also made her choice among the youths of Aeria, and in such matters an Aerian girl seldom chose twice. So she waited for Alexis as Alma did for Alan, hoping even against her convictions, and keeping his memory undefiled in the sacred shrine44 of her maiden45 soul.
No artist could have dreamed of a fairer picture than Alma standing there on the terrace overlooking the stately city and the dark shining lake at her feet. She was clad in soft, clinging garments of whitest linen46 and finest silk of shimmering47, pearly grey, edged with a dainty embroidery48 of gold and silver thread.
Her dress, confined at the waist with a girdle of interlinked azurine and gold, clothed without concealing49 the beauties of her perfect form, and her hair, crowned by her crystal-winged coronet, flowed unrestrained, after the custom of the maidens50 of Aeria, over her shoulders in long and lustrous51 waves of dusky brown. There was a shadow in the great deep grey eyes which looked up as though in mute appeal to the starlight, the shadow of a sorrow which can never come to a woman more than once.
All these years she had loved in cheerful patience and perfect faith the man for whose memory she had lived in maiden widowhood—and now, who could measure the depth of the darkness, darker than the shadow of death itself, that had fallen across her life, severing52 the past from the present with a chasm53 that seemed impassable, and leaving the future but a barren,[99] loveless waste to be trodden by her in weariness and loneliness until the end!
All these years she had loved an ideal man, one of her own splendid race, the very chosen of the earth, as pure in his unblemished manhood as she was in the stainless54 maidenhood55 that she had held so sacred for his sake even while she thought him dead—and, lo! the years had passed, and he had come back to life, but how? Hers was not the false innocence56 of ignorance. She knew the evil and the good, and because she knew both shrank from contamination with the horror born of knowledge.
She had seen both Olga’s letter and Alan’s, and those two terrible sentences, “They have served my turn, and I have done with them,” and “She is as beautiful as an angel and as merciless as a fiend,” kept ringing their fatal changes through her brain in pitiless succession, forcing all the revolting possibilities of their meaning into her tortured soul till her reason seemed to reel under their insupportable stress.
Mocking voices spoke36 to her out of the night, and told her of the unholy love that such a woman would, in the plenitude of her unnatural57 power, have for such a man; how she would subdue58 him, and make him not only her lover but her slave; how she would humble59 his splendid manhood, and play with him until her evil fancy was sated, and then cast him aside—as she had done—like a toy of which she had tired.
Better a thousand times that he had died as his murdered comrades had died—in the northern snowdrift into which this Syren of the Skies had cast them, to sleep the sleep that knew neither dreams nor waking! Better for him and her that he had gone before her into the shadows, and had remained her ideal love until, hand in hand, they could begin their lives anew upon a higher plane of existence.
As these thoughts passed and repassed through her mind with pitiless persistence60, her lovely face grew rigid61 and white under the starlight, and, but for the nervous twining and untwining of her fingers as her hands clasped and unclasped behind her, her motionless form might have been carved out of stone. For the first time since peace had been proclaimed on[100] earth, a hundred and thirty-two years ago, the flames of war had burst forth23 again, and for the first time in the story of her race the snake had entered the now no longer enchanted62 Eden of Aeria.
It was hers to suffer the first real agony of soul that any woman of her people had passed through since Natasha, in the palm-grove down yonder by the lake, had told Richard Arnold of her love on the night that he had received the Master’s command to take her to another man to be his wife.
There were no tears in the fixed63, wide-open eyes that stared almost sightlessly up to the skies, in which the stars were now paling in the growing light of the moon. The torment64 of her torturing thoughts was too great for that.
She was growing blind and dizzy under the merciless stress of them, when—it might have been just in time to save her from the madness that seemed the only outcome of her misery—the sweet, silvery tones of a girl’s voice floated through the still, scented65 air uttering her name—
“Alma!”
The sound mercifully recalled her wandering senses in an instant. It was the voice of her friend, of the sister of her now doubly-lost lover, and it reproved the selfishness of her great sorrow by reminding her that she was not suffering alone. As the sound of her name reached her ear the rigidity66 of her form relaxed, the light came back to her eyes, and turning her head she looked in the direction whence it came.
There was a soft whirring of wings in the still air of the tropic night, and out of the half-darkness floated a shape that looked like a realisation of one of the Old-World fairy-tales. It was a vessel some twenty-five feet long by five wide, built of white, polished metal, and shaped something like an old Norse galley67, with its high, arching prow68 fashioned like the breast and neck of a swan.
From the sides projected a pair of wide, rapidly-undulating wings, and in the open space between these stood on the floor of the boat the figure of a girl whose loose, golden hair floated out behind her with the rapid motion of her fairy craft.
[101]
There was no need for words of greeting between the two girl friends. Alma knew the kindly69 errand on which Isma had come, and as she stepped out she went towards her with hands outstretched in silent welcome.
As their hands met, and the two girls stood face to face, motionless for a moment, they made an exquisite70 contrast of opposite types of womanly beauty—Alma tall and stately, with a proudly-carried head, clear, pale skin, grey eyes, and perfectly71 regular features, and Isma, a year younger and a good inch shorter, slender of form yet strong and lithe72 of limb, with golden, silky hair and sunny-blue eyes, fresh, rosy73 skin, and mobile features which scarcely ever seemed to wear the same expression for a couple of minutes together—as sweet a daughter of delight as ever man could look upon with eyes of love and longing74.
But she was grave enough now, for her friend’s sorrow was hers too, and its shadow lay with equal darkness upon her. The ready tears welled up under her dark lashes75 as she looked upon Alma’s white, drawn76 face and dry, burning eyes, and her low, sweet voice was broken by a sob77 as, passing her arm round her waist, she drew her towards the boat and said—
“Come, dear, this sorrow belongs to me as well as you and we must help each other to bear it. I have brought my new boat so that we can take a flight round the valley and talk about it quietly. If two heads are better than one, so are two hearts.”
Alma’s only reply to the invitation was a sad, sweet smile, and a gentle caress78, but the welcome, loving sympathy had come when it was most sorely needed, and so she got into the aerial boat with Isma, and a few moments later the beautiful craft was bearing them at an easy speed southward down the valley.
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1
vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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consort
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| v.相伴；结交 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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despatch
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| n./v.(dispatch)派遣；发送；n.急件；新闻报道 | |
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treacherous
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| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
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calamities
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| n.灾祸，灾难( calamity的名词复数 )；不幸之事 | |
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forfeited
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| （因违反协议、犯规、受罚等）丧失，失去( forfeit的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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citizenship
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| n.市民权，公民权，国民的义务(身份) | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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regained
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| 复得( regain的过去式和过去分词 )； 赢回； 重回； 复至某地 | |
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brace
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| n. 支柱,曲柄,大括号; v. 绷紧,顶住,(为困难或坏事)做准备 | |
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13
ram
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| (random access memory)随机存取存储器 | |
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14
torpedo
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| n.水雷，地雷；v.用鱼雷破坏 | |
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supremacy
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| n.至上；至高权力 | |
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postscript
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| n.附言，又及；(正文后的)补充说明 | |
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calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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authoritatively
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| 命令式地，有权威地，可信地 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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straightforwardness
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| n.坦白，率直 | |
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eloquently
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| adv. 雄辩地(有口才地, 富于表情地) | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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eminence
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| n.卓越，显赫；高地，高处；名家 | |
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verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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celibacy
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| n.独身(主义) | |
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ardently
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| adv.热心地，热烈地 | |
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favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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federation
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| n.同盟，联邦，联合，联盟，联合会 | |
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plighted
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| vt.保证，约定（plight的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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vow
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| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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37
steadfast
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| adj.固定的，不变的，不动摇的；忠实的；坚贞不移的 | |
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lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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exempt
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| adj.免除的；v.使免除；n.免税者，被免除义务者 | |
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homage
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| n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬 | |
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nun
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| n.修女，尼姑 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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43
wedded
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| adj.正式结婚的；渴望…的，执著于…的v.嫁，娶，（与…）结婚( wed的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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44
shrine
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| n.圣地，神龛，庙；v.将...置于神龛内，把...奉为神圣 | |
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45
maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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46
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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47
shimmering
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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48
embroidery
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| n.绣花，刺绣；绣制品 | |
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49
concealing
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的现在分词 ) | |
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50
maidens
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| 处女( maiden的名词复数 )； 少女； 未婚女子； （板球运动）未得分的一轮投球 | |
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51
lustrous
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| adj.有光泽的；光辉的 | |
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52
severing
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| v.切断，断绝( sever的现在分词 )；断，裂 | |
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chasm
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| n.深坑，断层，裂口，大分岐，利害冲突 | |
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54
stainless
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| adj.无瑕疵的，不锈的 | |
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55
maidenhood
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| n. 处女性, 处女时代 | |
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56
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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57
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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58
subdue
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| vt.制服，使顺从，征服；抑制，克制 | |
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humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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persistence
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| n.坚持，持续，存留 | |
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61
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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62
enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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63
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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64
torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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65
scented
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| adj.有香味的；洒香水的；有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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66
rigidity
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| adj.钢性，坚硬 | |
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67
galley
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| n.（飞机或船上的）厨房单层甲板大帆船；军舰舰长用的大划艇； | |
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68
prow
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| n.(飞机)机头，船头 | |
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69
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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70
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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71
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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72
lithe
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| adj.(指人、身体)柔软的，易弯的 | |
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73
rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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74
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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75
lashes
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| n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 )；鞭子；突然猛烈的一击；急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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76
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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caress
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| vt./n.爱抚，抚摸 | |
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