CHAPTER XIX
At almost the same moment Gaspard stumbled to his feet.
"Asleep--asleep!" he exclaimed--"_Mon Dieu!_--the shame of it!--theshame! What pigs are men! To sleep after food and wine, and to leave awoman alone like this!... the shame!"
Morgana, quietly steering the "White Eagle," smiled.
"Poor Gaspard!" she said--"You could not help it! You were so tired!And you, Marchese! You were both quite worn out! I was glad to see yousleeping--there is no shame in it! As I have often told you, I canmanage the ship alone."
But Rivardi was white with anger and self-reproach.
"Gross pigs we are!" he said, hotly--"Gaspard is right! And yet--" herehe passed a hand across his brow and tried to collect histhoughts--"yes!--surely something unusual must have happened! We heardbells ringing--"
Morgana watched him closely, her hand on her air-vessel's helm.
"Yes--we all thought we heard bells"--she said--"But that was a noisein our own brains--the clamour of our own blood brought on bypressure--we were flying at too great a height and the tension was toostrong--"
Gaspard threw out his hands with a half defiant gesture.
"No, Madama! It could not be so! I swear we never left our own level!What happened I cannot tell--but I felt that I was struck by a suddenblow--and I fell without force to recover--"
"Sleep struck you that sudden blow, you poor Gaspard!" said Morgana,"And you have not slept so long--barely an hour--just long enough forme to hover a while above this black desert and then turn homeward,--Iwant no more of the Sahara!"
Rivardi, smarting under a sense of loss and incompetency, went up toher.
"Give me the helm!" he said, almost sharply--"You have done enough!"
She resigned her place to him, smiling at his irritation.
"You are sure you are quite rested?" she asked.
"Rested!" he echoed the word disdainfully--"I should never have restedat all had I been half the man I profess to be! Why do you turn back? Ithought you were bent on exploring the Great Desert!--that you meant totry and find the traditional Brazen City?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"I do not like the prospect"--she said--"There is nothing butsand--interminable billows of sand! I can well believe it was all oceanonce,--when the earth gave a sudden tilt, and all the water was thrownoff from one surface to another. If we could dig deep enough below thesand I think we should find remains of wrecked ships, with theskeletons of antediluvian men and animals, remains of one of the manywasted civilisations--"
"You do not answer me--" interrupted Rivardi with impatience--"What ofyour search for the Brazen City?"
She raised her lovely, mysterious eyes and looked full at him.
"Do you believe it exists?" she asked.
He gave a gesture of annoyance.
"Whether I believe or not is of no importance,"--he answered--"YOU havesome idea about it, and you have every means of proving the truth ofyour idea--yet, after making the journey from Sicily for the purpose,you suddenly turn back!"
Still she kept her eyes upon him.
"You must not mind the caprices of a woman!" she said, with asmile--"And do please remember the 'Brazen City' is not MY idea! Thelegend of this undiscovered place in the desert was related by yourfriend Don Aloysius--and he was careful to say it was 'only' a legend.Why should you think I accept it as a truth?"
"Surely it was the motive of your flight here?" he demanded,imperatively.
Her brows drew together in a slight frown.
"My dear Marchese, I allow no one to question my motives"--she saidwith sudden coldness--"That I have decided to go no farther in searchof the Brazen City is my own affair."
"But--not even to wait for the full daylight!" he expostulated--"Youcould not see it by night even if it existed!"
"Not unless it was lit like other cities!" she said, smiling--"Isuppose if such a city existed, its inhabitants would need some sort ofilluminant--they would not grope about in the dark. In that case itwould be seen from our ship as well by night as by day."
Gaspard, busy with some mechanical detail, looked up.
"Then why not make a search for it while we are here?" he said--"Youevidently believe in it!"
"I have turned the 'White Eagle' homeward, and shall not turnagain"--she said--"But I do not see any reason why such a city shouldnot exist and be discovered some day. Explorers in tropical forestsfind the remains or beginnings of a different race of men from ourown--pygmies, and such like beings--there is nothing really against thepossibility of an undiscovered City in the Great Desert. We modern folkthink we know a great deal--but our wisdom is very superficial and ourknowledge limited. We have not mastered EVERYTHING under the sun!"
The Marchese Rivardi looked at her with something of defiance in hisglance.
"I will adventure in search of the legendary city myself, alone!" hesaid.
Morgana laughed, her clear little cold laugh of disdain.
"Do so, my friend! Why not?" she said--"You are a daring airman on manyforms of airships--I knew that,--before I entrusted you with the schemeof mine. Discover the legendary 'Brazen City' if you can!--I promisenot to be jealous!--and return to the world of curiositymongers--(also, if you CAN!) with a full report of its inhabitants andtheir manners and customs. And so--you will become famous! But you mustnot fall asleep on the way!"
He paled with anger and annoyance,--she still smiled.
"Do not be cross, AMICO!" she said, sweetly. "Think where we are!--inthe wide spaces of heaven, pilgrims with the stars! This is no placefor personal feeling of either disappointment or irritation. You askedme a while ago if I was tired--I thought I was Hot, but I am--verytired!--I am going to rest. And I trust you both to take care of me andthe 'White Eagle'!"
"We are to make straight for Sicily?" he asked.
"Yes--straight for Sicily."
She retired into her sleeping-cabin and disappeared. The MarcheseRivardi looked at Gaspard questioningly.
"We must obey her, I suppose?"
"We could not think of disobeying!" returned Gaspard.
"She is a strange woman!" and as he spoke Rivardi gripped hissteering-gear with a kind of vindictive force--"It seems absurd thatwe,--two men of fair intelligence and scientific attainment,--should beruled by her whim,--her fancies--for after all she is made up offancies--"
Gaspard shook his finger warningly.
"This air-ship is not a 'whim' or a 'fancy'"--he said,impressively--"It is the most wonderful thing of its kind everinvented! If it is given to the world it will revolutionise the wholesystem of aerial navigation. Here we are, flying at top speed inperfect ease and safety with no engine--nothing to catch fire--nothingto break or bust--and the whole mechanism mysteriously makes its ownmotive power as it goes. Radio-activity it may be--but its condensationand use for such a purpose is the secret invention of a woman--andsurely we must admit her genius! As for our obedience--ECCELLENZA, weare both royally paid to obey!"
Rivardi flushed red.
"I know!" he said, curtly--"I never forget it. But money is noteverything."
Gaspard's mobile French face lit up with a mirthful smile.
"It is most things!" he replied--"Without it even science is crippled.And this lady has so much of it!--it seems without end! Again,--it isseldom one meets with money and brains and beauty--all together!"
"Beauty?" Rivardi queried.
"Why, yes!--beauty that only flashes out at moments--of all beauty themost fascinating! A face that is always beautiful is fatiguing,--it isthe changeful face with endless play of expression that enthralls,--orso it is to me!" And Gaspard gave an eloquent gesture--"This lady weboth work for seems to have no lovers--but if she had, not one of themcould ever forget her!"
Rivardi was silent.
"I should not wonder," ventured Gaspard, presently--"if--while weslept--she had seen her 'Brazen City'!"
Rivardi uttered something like an oath.
"Impossible!" he exclaimed--"She wou
ld have awakened us!"
"If she could, no doubt!" agreed Gaspard--"But if she could not, howthen?"
For a moment Rivardi looked puzzled,--then he dismissed his companion'ssuggestion with a contemptuous shrug.
"Basta! There is no 'Brazen City'! When she heard the old tradition shewas like a child with a fairy tale--a child who, reading ofstrawberries growing in the winter snow, goes out forthwith to findthem--she did not really believe in it--but it pleased her to imagineshe did. The mere sight of the arid empty desert has been enough forher."
"We certainly heard bells"--said Gaspard.
"In our brains! Such sounds often affect the nerves when flying for along while at high speed. For all our cleverness we are only human. Ihave heard on the 'wireless,' sounds that do not seem of this world atall."
"So have I"--said Gaspard--"And though it may be my own brain talking,I'm not so obstinate in my own knowledge as to doubt a possibleexisting means of communication between one continent and another apartfrom OUR special 'wireless.' In fact I'm sure there is something of thekind,--though where it comes from and how it travels I cannot say. Butcertain people get news of occurring events somehow, from somewhere,long before it reaches Paris or London. I dare say the lady we are withcould tell us something about it."
"Her powers are not limitless!" said Rivardi--"She is only a womanafter all!"
Gaspard said no more, and there followed a silence,--a silence all themore tense and deep because of the amazing swiftness with which the"White Eagle" kept its steady level flight, making no sound despite therapidity of its movement. Very gradually the darkness of night lifted,as it were, one corner of its sable curtain to show a grey peep-hole ofdawn, and soon it became apparent that the ship was already far awayfrom the mysterious land of Egypt--"The land shadowing with wings"--andwas flying over the sea. There was something terrific in the completenoiselessness with which it sped through the air, and Rivardi, thoughnow he had a good grip on his nerves, hardly dared allow himself tothink of the adventurous business on which he was engaged. A certainsense of pride and triumph filled him, to realise that he had beenselected from many applicants for the post he occupied--and yet withall his satisfaction there went a lurking spirit of envy anddisappointed ambition. If he could win Morgana's love--if he could makethe strange elfin creature with all her genius and inventive abilityhis own,--why then!--what then? He would share in her fame,--aye, morethan share it, since it is the way of the world to give its honour tono woman whose life is connected with that of a man. The man receivesthe acknowledgment invariably, even if he has done nothing to deserveit, and herein is the reason why many gifted women do not marry, andprefer to stand alone in effort and achievement rather than have theirhardly won renown filched from them by unjust hands. When Roger Seatonconfessed to the girl Manella that his real desire was to bend andsubdue Morgana's intellectuality to his own, he spoke the truth, notonly for himself but for all men. Absolutely disinterested love for abrilliantly endowed woman would be difficult to find in any malenature,--men love what is inferior to themselves, not superior. Thuswomen who are endowed with more than common intellectual ability haveto choose one of two alternatives--love, or what is called love, andchild-bearing,--or fame, and lifelong loneliness.
The Marchese Rivardi, thinking along the usual line of masculine logic,had frequently turned over the problem of Morgana's complex charactersuch as it appeared to him,--and had almost come to the conclusion thatif he only had patience he would succeed in persuading her thatwifehood and motherhood were more conducive to a woman's happiness thanall the most amazing triumphs of scientific discovery and attainment.He was perfectly right according to simple natural law,--but he choseto forget that women's mental outlook has, in these modern days, beengreatly widened,--whether for their gain or loss it is not yet easy tosay. Even for men "much knowledge increaseth sorrow,"--and it may behinted that women, with their often overstrung emotions and exaggeratedsentiments, are not fit to plunge deeply into studies which tax thebrain to its utmost capacity and try the nerves beyond the level of thecalm which is essential to health. Though it has to be admitted thatmarried life is less peaceful than hard study--and the bright woman whorecently said, "A husband is more trying than any problem in Euclid,"no doubt had good cause for the remark. Married or single, woman bothphysically and mentally is the greatest sufferer in the world--her timeof youth and unthinking joy is brief, her martyrdom long--and it ishardly wonderful that she goes so often "to the bad" when there is solittle offered to attract her towards the good.
Rivardi, letting himself go on the flood-tide of hope and ambition,pleased his mind with imaginary pictures of Morgana as his wife and asmother of his children, rehabilitating his fallen fortunes, restoringhis once great house and building a fresh inheritance for its formerrenown. He saw no reason why this should not be,--yet--even while heindulged in his thoughts of her, he knew well enough that behind hersmall delicate personality there was a powerful intellectual "lens," soto speak, through which she examined the ins and outs of character inman or woman; and he felt that he was always more or less under this"lens," looked at as carefully as a scientist might study bacteria, andthat as a matter of fact it was as unlikely as the descent of themoon-goddess to Endymion that she would ever submit herself to hispossession. Nevertheless, he argued, stranger things had happened!
The grey peep of dawn widened into a silver rift, and the silver riftstreamed into a bar of gold, and the gold broke up into long strands ofblush pink and pale blue like festal banners hanging in heaven's brightpavilion, and the "White Eagle" flew on swiftly, steadily, securely,among all the glories of the dawn like a winged car for the conveyanceof angels. And both Rivardi and Gaspard thought they were not far fromthe realisation of an angel when Morgana suddenly appeared at the doorof her sleeping-cabin, attired in a fleecy-wool gown of purest white,her wonderful gold hair unbound and falling nearly to her feet.
"What a perfect morning!" she exclaimed--"All things seem new! And Ihave had such a good rest! The air is so pure and clean--surely we areover the sea?"
"We are some fifteen thousand feet above the Mediterranean"--answeredRivardi, looking at her as he spoke with unconcealedadmiration;--never, he thought, had she seemed so charming, youthfuland entirely lovable--"I am glad you have rested--you look quiterefreshed and radiant. After all, it is a test of endurance--thisjourney to Egypt and back."
"Do you think so?" and Morgana smiled--"It should be nothing--it reallyis nothing! We ought to be quite ready and willing to travel like thisfor a week on end! But you and Gaspard are not yet absolutely sure ofour motive power!--you cannot realise that as long as we keep going solong will our 'going' force be generated without effort--yet surely itis proved!"
Gaspard lifted his eyes towards her where she stood like a little whiteMadonna in a shrine.
"Yes, Madama, it is proved!" he said--"But the secret of its proving?--"
"Ah! That, for the present, remains locked up in the mysterybox--here!" and she tapped her forehead with her finger--"The world isnot ready for it. The world is a destructive savage, loving evil ratherthan good, and it would work mischief more than usefulness with such aforce--if it knew! Now I will dress, and give you breakfast in tenminutes."
She waved a hand to them and disappeared, returning after a briefinterval attired in her "aviation" costume and cap. Soon she hadprepared quite a tempting breakfast on the table.
"Thermos coffee!" she said, gaily--"All hot and hot! We could have hadThermos tea, but I think coffee more inspiriting. Tea always reminds meof an afternoon at a country vicarage where good ladies sit round atable and talk of babies and rheumatism. Kind,--but so dull! Come--youmust take it in turns--you, Marchese, first, while Gaspard steers--andGaspard next--just as you did last night at what we called dinner,before you fell asleep! Men DO fall asleep after dinner you know!--it'squite ordinary. Married men especially!--I think they do it to avoidconversation with their wives!"
She laughed, and her eyes flashed mirthfull
y as Rivardi seated himselfopposite to her at table.
"Well, _I_ am not married"--he said, rather petulantly--"Nor isGaspard. But some day we may fall into temptation and NOT be deliveredfrom evil."
"Ah yes!" and Morgana shook her fair head at him with mockdolefulness--"And that will be very sad! Though nowadays it will notbind you to a fettered existence. Marriage has ceased to be asacrament,--you can leave your wives as soon as you get tired ofthem,--or--they can leave YOU!"
Rivardi looked at her with reproach in his handsome face and dark eyes.
"You read the modern Press"--he said--"A pity you do!"
"Yes--it's a pity anyone reads it!"--she answered--"But what are we toread? If low-minded and illiterate scavengers are employed to write forthe newspapers instead of well-educated men, we must put up with themud the scavengers collect. We know well enough that every journal ismore or less a calendar of lies,--all the same we cannot blindourselves to the great change that has come over manners andmorals--particularly in relation to marriage. Of course the Pressalways chronicles the worst items bearing on the subject--"
"The Press is chiefly to blame for it"--declared Rivardi.
"Oh, I think not!" and Morgana smiled as she poured out a second cup ofcoffee--"The Press cannot create a new universe. No--I think humannature alone is to blame--if blame there be. Human nature is tired."
"Tired?" echoed Rivardi--"In what way?"
"In every way!"--and a lovely light of tenderest pity filled her eyesas she spoke--"Tired of the same old round of working, mating, breedingand dying--for no results really worth having! Civilisation aftercivilisation has arisen--always with strife and difficulty, only topass away, leaving, in many cases, scarce a memory. Human nature beginsto weary of the continuous 'grind'--it demands the 'why' of itsceaseless labour. Latterly, poor striving men and women have beendeprived of faith--they used to believe they had a loving Father inHeaven who cared for them,--but the monkeys of the race, the atheists,swinging from point to point of argument and chattering all the time,have persuaded them that they are as Tennyson once mournfully wrote--"
"Poor orphans of nothing--alone on that lonely shore, Born of the brainless Nature who knew not that which she bore!"
"Can we wonder then that they are tired?--tired of pursuing a uselessquest? Human nature is craving for a change--for a newer world--a newerrace,--and those who see that Nature is NOT 'brainless' but full ofintelligent conception, are sure that the change will come!"
"And you are one of 'those who see'?--" said Rivardi, incredulously.
"I do not say I am,--that would be too much self-assertion"--sheanswered--"But I hope I am! I long to see the world endowed more richlywith health and happiness. See how gloriously the sun has risen! Inwhat splendour of light and air we are sailing! If we can do as much asthis we ought to be able to do more!"
"We shall do more in time"--he said--"The advance of one step leads toanother."
"In time!" echoed Morgana--"What time the human race has already takento find out the simplest forces of nature! It is the horrible bulk ofblank stupidity that hinders knowledge--the heavy obstinate bulk thatdeclines to budge an inch out of its own fixity. Nowadays we triumph inour so-called 'discoveries' of wireless telegraphy and telephony,light-rays and other marvels--but these powers have always been with usfrom the beginning of things,--it is we, we only, who have refused toaccept them as facts of the universe. Let us talk no more aboutit!--Stupidity is the only thing that moves me to despair!"
She rose from the little table, and called Gaspard to breakfast, whileRivardi went back to the business of steering. The day was now fullydeclared, and the great air-ship soared easily in a realm of etherealblue--blue above, blue below--its vast wings moving up and down withperfect rhythm as if it were a living, sentient creature, revelling inthe joys of flight. For the rest of the day Morgana was very silent,contenting herself to sit in her charming little rose-lined nest of aroom, and read,--now and then looking out on the radiating space aroundher, and watching for the first slight downward movement of the "WhiteEagle" towards land. She had plenty to occupy her thoughts--and strangeto say she did not consider as anything unexpected or remarkable, herbrief communication with the "Brazen City." On the contrary it seemedquite a natural happening. Of course it had always been there, she saidto herself,--only people were too dull and unenterprising to discoverit,--besides, if they had ever found it (certain travellers havingdeclared they had seen it in the distance) they would not have beenallowed to approach it. This fact was the one point that chiefly dweltin her mind--a secret of science which she puzzled her brain to fathom.What could be the unseen force that guarded the city?--girding it roundwith an unbreakable band from all exterior attack? A million bombscould not penetrate it,--so had said the Voice travelling to her earson the mysterious Sound Ray. She thought of Shakespeare's lines onEngland--
"This precious stone set in the silver sea Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive to a house Against the envy of less happy lands."
Modern science had made the sea useless as a "wall" or "moat defensive"against attacks from the air,--but if there existed an atmospheric or"etheric" force which could be utilised and brought to such pressure asto encircle a city or a country with a protective ring that shouldresist all effort to break it, how great a security would be assured"against the envy of less happy lands"! Here was a problem forstudy,--study of the intricate character which she loved--and shebecame absorbed in what she called "thinking for results," a form ofintrospection which she knew, from experience, sometimes let inunexpected light on the creative cells of the brain and impelled themto the evolving of hitherto untried suggestions. She sat quietly with abook before her, not reading, but bent on seeking ways and means forthe safety and protection of nations,--as bent as Roger Seaton was on aforce for their destruction. So the hours passed swiftly, and nointerruption or untoward obstacle hindered the progress of the "WhiteEagle" as it careered through the halcyon blue of the calmest,loveliest sky that ever made perfect weather, till late afternoon whenit began to glide almost insensibly downward towards earth. Then sheroused herself from her long abstraction and looked through the windowof her cabin, watching what seemed to be the gradual rising of the landtowards the air-ship, showing in little green and brown patches likethe squares of a chess-board,--then the houses and towns, tiny aschildren's toys--then the azure gleam of the sea and the boats dancinglike bits of cork upon it,--then finally the plainer, broader view,wherein the earth with its woods and hills and rocky promontoriesappeared to heave up like a billow crowned with varying colours,--andso steadily, easily down to the pattern of grass and flowers from thecentre of which the Palazzo d'Oro rose like a little white house forthe abode of fairies.
"Well steered!" said Morgana, as the ship ran into its shed with theaccuracy of a sword slipping into its sheath, and the soundlessvibration of its mysterious motive-power ceased--"Home againsafely!--and only away forty-eight hours! To the Sahara and back!--howfar we have been, and what we have seen!"
"WE have seen nothing"--said Rivardi meaningly, as he assisted her toalight--"The seeing is all with YOU!"
"And the believing!" she answered, smiling--"All my thanks to you bothfor your skilful pilotage. You must be very tired--" here she gave herhand to them each in turn--"Again a thousand thanks! No air-ship couldbe better manned!"
"Or woman'd?" suggested Rivardi.
She laughed.
"IF you like! But I only steered while you slept. That is nothing! Goodnight!"
She left them, running up the garden path lightly like a childreturning from a holiday, and disappeared.
"But that which she calls nothing"--said Gaspard as he watched hergo--"is everything!"