CHAPTER XXIII
Struck by the hand of God! So men say when, after denying God'sexistence ail their lives, the seeming solid earth heaves up like aship on a storm-billow, dragging down in its deep recoil their livesand habitations. An earthquake! Its irresistible rise and fall makeshuman beings more powerless than insects,--their houses and possessionshave less stability than the spider's web which swings its frailthreads across broken columns in greater safety than any man-madebridge of stone,--and terror, mad, hopeless, helpless terror, possessesevery creature brought face to face with the dire cruelty of naturalforces, which from the very beginning have played havoc with strugglingmankind. Struck by the hand of God!--and with a merciless blow! All thesunny plains and undulating hills of the beautiful stretch of land inSouthern California, in the centre of which the "Plaza" hotel andsanatorium had stood, were now unrecognisable,--the earth was tornasunder and thrown into vast heaps--great rocks and boulders weretumbled over each other pell-mell in appalling heights of confusion,and, for miles around, towns, camps and houses were laid in ruins. Thescene was one of absolute horror,--there was no language to express ordescribe it--no word of hope or comfort that could be fitly used tolighten the blackness of despair and loss. Gangs of men were at reliefwork as soon as they could be summoned, and these busied themselves inextricating the dead, and rescuing the dying whose agonised cries andmoans reproached the Power that made them for such an end,--and perhapsas terrible as any other sound was the savage roar and rush of aloosened torrent which came tearing furiously down from the cleft hillsto the lower land, through the great canon beyond the site where thePlaza had stood,--a canon which had become enormously widened by theriving and the rending of the rocks, thus giving free passage to wildwaters that had before been imprisoned in a narrow gorge. Thepersistent rush of the flood filled every inch of space with sound ofan awful, even threatening character, suggesting further devastationand death. The men engaged in their dreadful task of lifting crushedcorpses from under the stones that had fallen upon them, were almostovercome and rendered incapable of work by the appalling clamour, whichwas sufficient to torture the nerves of the strongest; and some ofthem, sickened at the frightful mutilation of the bodies they foundgave up altogether and dropped from sheer fatigue and exhaustion intounconsciousness, despite the heroic encouragement of their director, aman well used to great emergencies. Late afternoon found him stillorganising and administering aid, with the assistance of two or threeCatholic priests who went about seeking to comfort and sustain thosewho were passing "the line between." All the energetic helpers wereprepared to work all night, delving into the vast suddenly made gravewherein were tumbled the living with the dead,--and it was vergingtowards sunset when one of the priests, chancing to raise his eyes fromthe chaos of earth around him to the clear and quiet sky, saw what atfirst he took to be a great eagle with outspread wings soaring slowlyabove the scene of devastation. It moved with singular lightness andease,--now and then appearing to pause as though seeking some spotwhereon to descend,--and after watching it for a minute or two hecalled the attention of some of the men around him to its appearance.They looked up wearily from their gruesome task of excavating the dead.
"That's an air-ship"--said one--"and a big thing, too!"
"An air-ship!" echoed the priest amazedly,--and then was silent, gazingat the shining expanse of sky through which the bird-shaped vessel madeits leisurely way like the vision of a fairy tale more than anyreality. There was something weirdly terrible in the contrast it made,moving so tranquilly through clear space in apparent safety, while downbelow on the so-called "solid" earth, all nature had been convulsed andoverthrown. The wonderful result of human ingenuity as measured withthe remorseless action of natural forces seemed too startling to bereal to the mind of a Spanish priest who, despite all the evidences oftriumphant materialism, still clung to the Cross and kept his simple,faithful soul high above the waves that threatened to engulf it.Turning anew to his melancholy duties, he bent over a dying youth justlifted from beneath a weight of stones that had crushed him. The boy'sfast glazing eyes were upturned to the sky.
"See the angel coming?" he whispered, thickly--"Never used to believein them!--but there's one sure enough! Glory--!" and his utteranceceased for ever.
The priest crossed his hands upon his breast and said a prayer--thenagain looked up to where the air-ship floated in the darkening blue. Itwas now directly over the canon,--immediately above the huge rift madeby the earthquake, through which the clamorous rush of water poured.While he watched it, it suddenly stood still, then dived slowly asthough bent on descending into the very depths of the gully. He couldnot forbear uttering an exclamation, which made all the men about himlook in the direction where his own gaze was fixed.
"That air-ship's going to kingdom-come!" said one--"Nothing can save itif it takes to nose-diving down there!"
They all stared amazed--but the dreadful work on which they wereengaged left them no time for consideration of any other matter. Thepriest watched a few minutes longer, more or less held spell-bound witha kind of terror, for he saw that without doubt the great vessel waseither purposely descending or being drawn into the vast abyss yawningblack beneath it, and that falling thus it must be inevitably doomed todestruction. Whoever piloted it must surely be determined to invitethis frightful end to its voyage, for nothing was ever steadier or moreresolute than its downward movement towards the whirling waters thatrushed through the canon. All suddenly it disappeared, whelmed as itseemed in darkness and the roaring flood, and the watching priest madethe sign of the cross in air murmuring--
"God have mercy on their souls!"
Had he been able to see what happened he might have thought that theconfused brain of the dying boy who had imagined the air-ship to be anangel, was not so far wrong, for no romancer or teller of wild talescould have pictured a stranger or more unearthly sight than thewonderful "White Eagle" poised at ease amid the tossed-up clouds ofspray flung from the seething mass of waters, while at her prow stood awoman fair as any fabled goddess--a woman reckless of all danger, andkeenly on the alert, with bright eyes searching every nook and crannythat could be discerned through the mist. Clear above the roaringtorrent her voice rang like a silver trumpet as she called herinstructions to the two men who, equally defying every peril, hadventured on this journey at her command,--Rivardi and Gaspard.
"Let her down very gently inch by inch!" she cried; "It must be herethat we should seek!"
In absolute silence they obeyed. Both had given themselves up for lostand were resigned and ready to meet death at any moment. From the firstthey had made no effort to resist Morgana's orders--she and they hadleft Sicily at a couple of hours' notice--and their three days' journeyacross the ocean had been accomplished without adventure or accident,at such a speed that it was hardly to be thought of without a thrill ofhorror. No information had been given them as to the object of theirlong and rapid aerial voyage,--and only now when the "White Eagle,"swooping over California, reached the scene of the terrific devastationwrought by the earthquake did they begin to think they had submittedtheir wills and lives to the caprice of a madwoman. However, there wasno drawing back,--nothing for it but still to obey,--for even in thestress and terror naturally excited by their amazing position, they didnot fail to see that the great air-ship was steadily controlled, andthat whatever was the force controlling it, it maintained its level,its mysterious vibrating discs still throbbing with vital and incessantregularity. Apparently nothing could disturb its equilibrium or shatterits mechanism. And, according to its woman-designer's command, theylowered it gently till it was, so to say, almost immersed in thetorrent and covered with spray--indeed Morgana's light figure itself atthe prow looked like a fair spirit risen from the waters rather thanany form of flesh and blood, so wreathed and transfigured it was by thedust of the ceaseless foam. She stood erect, bent on a quest thatseemed hopeless, watching every eddying curve of water,--everyflickering ripple,--her eyes, luminous as stars, searched t
he black andriven rocks with an eager passion of discovery,--when all suddenly asshe gazed, a thin ray of light,--pure gold in colour,--struck sharplylike a finger-point on a shallow pool immediately below her. She lookedand uttered a cry, beckoning to Rivardi.
"Come! Come!"
He hurried to her side, Gaspard following. The pool on which her eyeswere fixed was shallow enough to show the pebbly bed beneath thewater--and there lay apparently two corpses--one of a man, the other ofa woman whose body was half flung across that of the man.
Morgana pointed to them.
"They must be brought up here!" she said, insistently--"You must liftthem! We have emergency ropes and pulleys--it is easily done! Why doyou hesitate?"
"Because you demand the impossible!" said Rivardi--"You send us todeath to rescue the already dead!"
She turned upon him with wrath in her eyes.
"You refuse to obey me?"
What a face confronted him! White as marble, and as terrible inexpression as that of a Medusa, it had a paralysing effect on hisnerves, and he shrank and trembled at her glance.
"You refuse to obey me?" she repeated--"Then--if you do--I destroy thisair-ship and ourselves in less than two minutes! Choose! Obey, andlive!--disobey and die!"
He staggered back from her in terror at her looks, which gave her asupernatural beauty and authority. The "fey" woman was "fey"indeed!--and the powers with which superstition endows the fairy folkseemed now to invest her with irresistible influence.
"Choose!" she reiterated.
Without another word he turned to Gaspard, who in equal silence got outthe ropes and pulleys of which she had spoken. The air-ship stoppeddead--suspended immovably over the wild waters and almost hidden inspray; and though the strange vibration of its multitudinous discscontinued in itself it was fixed as a rock. A smile sweet as sunshineafter storm changed and softened Morgana's features as she saw Rivardiswing over the vessel's side to the pool below, while Gaspard unwoundthe gear by which he would be able to lift and support the drownedcreatures he was bidden to bring.
"That's a true noble!" she exclaimed--"I knew your courage would notfail! Believe me, no harm shall come to you!"
Inspirited by her words, he flung himself down--and raising the body ofthe woman first, was entangled by the wet thick strands of her longdark hair which, like sea-weed, caught about his feet and hands andimpeded his movements. He had time just to see a face white as marbleunder the hair,--then he had enough to do to fasten ropes round thebody and push it upward while Gaspard pulled--both men doubting whetherthe weight of it would not alter the balance of the air-ship despiteits extraordinary fixity of position. Morgana, bending over from thevessel, watched every action,--she showed neither alarm nor impatiencenor anxiety--and when Gaspard said suddenly--
"It is easier than I thought it would be!" she merely smiled as if sheknew. Another few moments and the drowned woman's body was hauled intothe cabin of the ship, where Morgana knelt down beside it. Parting theheavy masses of dark hair that enshrouded it she looked--and saw whatshe had expected to see--the face of Manella Soriso. But it was thedeath-mask of a face--strangely beautiful--but awful in its whiterigidity. Morgana bent over it anxiously, but only for a moment,drawing a small phial from her bosom she forced a few drops of theliquid it contained between the set lips, and with a tiny syringeinjected the same at the pulseless wrist and throat. While she busiedherself with these restorative measures, the second body,--that of theman,--was landed almost at her feet--and she found herself gazing in asort of blank stupefaction at what seemed to be the graven image ofRoger Seaton. No effigy of stone ever looked colder, harder, greyerthan this inert figure of man,--uninjured apparently, for there were novisible marks of wounds or bruises upon his features, which appearedfrozen into stiff rigidity, but a man as surely dead as death couldmake him! Morgana heard, as in a far-off dream, the Marchese Rivardispeaking--
"I have done your bidding because it was you who bade,"--he said, hisvoice shaking with the tremor and excitement of his daring effort--"Andit was not so very difficult. But it is a vain rescue! They are pastrecall."
Morgana looked up from her awed contemplation of Seaton's rigid form.Her eyes were heavy with unshed tears.
"I think not,"--she said--"There is life in them--yes, there is life,though for the time it is paralysed. But"--here she gave him theloveliest smile of tenderness--"You brave Giulio!--you are exhaustedand wet through--attend to yourself first--then you can help me withthese unhappy ones--and you Gaspard,--Gaspard!"
"Here, Madama!"
"You have done so well!" she said--"Without fear or failure!"
"Only by God's mercy!" answered Gaspard--"If the rope had broken; ifthe ship had lost balance--"
She smiled.
"So many 'ifs' Gaspard? Have I not told you it CANNOT lose balance? Andare not my words proved true? Now we have finished our rescue work wemay go--we can start at once--"
He looked at her.
"There is more weight on board!" he said meaningly, "If we are to carrytwo dead bodies through the air, it may mean a heavenly funeral for allof us! The 'White Eagle' has not been tested for heavy transport."
She heard him patiently,--then turned to Rivardi and repeated herwords--
"We can start at once. Steer upwards and onwards."
Like a man hypnotised he obeyed,--and in a few moments the air-ship,answering easily to the helm, rose lightly as a bubble from the depthsof the canon, through the fiercely dashing showers of spray tossed bythe foaming torrent, and soared aloft, high and ever higher, as swiftlyas any living bird born for long and powerful flight. Night wasfalling; and through the dense purple shadows of the Californian sky abig white moon rose, bending ghost-like over the scene of destructionand chaos, lighting with a pale glare the tired and haggard faces ofthe relief men at their terrible work of digging out the living and thedead from the vast pits of earth into which they had been suddenlyengulfed,--while far, far above them flew the "White Eagle," graduallylessening in size through distance till it looked no bigger than a doveon its homeward way. Some priests watching by a row of lifeless men,women and children killed in the earthquake, chanted the "NuncDimittis" as the evening grew darker,--and the only one among them whohad first seen the air-ship over the canon, where it fell, as it werein the deep gulf surrounded by flood and foam, now raised his eyes inwonderment as he perceived it once more soaring at liberty towards themoon.
"Surely a miracle!" he ejaculated, under his breath--"An escape fromdestruction through God's mercy! God be praised!"
And he crossed himself devoutly, joining in the solemn chanting of hisbrethren, kneeling in the moonlight, which threw a ghastly lustre onthe dead faces of the victims of the earthquake,--victims not "struckby the hand of God" but by the hand of man! And he who was responsiblefor the blow lay unconscious of having dealt it, and was borne throughthe air swiftly and safely away for ever from the tragic scene of theruin and desolation he had himself wrought.