Kitabı oku: «Anno Domini 2000; or, Woman's Destiny», sayfa 6

CHAPTER VII.
HEROINE WORSHIP

It was nearly twelve o'clock before Hilda roused herself from a long and dreamless slumber, consequent upon the fatigue and excitement of the previous evening. She still felt somewhat exhausted, but no physician could have administered a remedy so efficacious as the one she found ready to hand. On the table beside her was a small packet sealed with the imperial arms. She removed the covering; and opening the case beneath, a beautifully painted portrait of the Emperor on an ivory medallion met her enraptured gaze. The portrait was set round with magnificent diamonds. But she scarcely noticed them; it was the painting itself that charmed her. The Emperor looked just as he appeared when he said to her, "Tell me now as woman to man, not as subject to emperor." There was the same winning smile, the same caressing yet commanding look. She involuntarily raised the medallion to her lips, and then blushed rosy red over face and shoulders. She turned the medallion, and on the back she found these words engraved: "Albert Edward to Hilda, in testimony of his admiration and gratitude." He must have had these words engraved during the night.

The maid entered. "Miss Fitzherbert," she said, "during the last two hours there have been hundreds of cards left for you. There is quite a continuous line of carriages coming to the door, and there have been bundles of telegrams. Miss Maud is opening them."

Hilda realised the meaning of the line—

 
"Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame."
 

Then the maid told her Mrs. Hardinge was most anxious to see her and was waiting. She would not allow her to be awakened. Hilda said she would have her bath and see Mrs. Hardinge in the little boudoir adjoining her dressing-room in a few minutes.

Quite recovered from her last night's agitation, Hilda looked her best in a charmingly fashioned dressing-gown as she entered the room where Mrs. Hardinge was waiting to receive her.

"My dear, dear girl," said that lady as she embraced her, "I am delighted. You are well again? I need not ask. Your looks proclaim it. You are the heroine of the hour. The Emperor learnt everything last night, and the papers all over the world are full of it to-day. Maud says the telegrams are from every part of the globe, not only within our own empire, but from Europe, and the United States, and South America. You are a brave girl."

"Pray do not say so, Mrs. Hardinge. I only did my duty—what any one in my place would have done. Tell me all that has happened."

Mrs. Hardinge, nothing reluctant, replied with animated looks and gestures. "Laurient has told me everything. You instructed the officer, it seems, to keep a watch over only the occupants of the three further rows. Lord Reginald had left those, and was approaching you. The officer, following your words literally, allowed him to leave unwatched. Some sixty only of the people were placed under espionage. Nearly every one of the rest who were present is supposed to have left Melbourne, including Lord Reginald. We sent to his house to arrest him, but he had departed in one of his fastest long-distance air-cruisers. It is supposed that he has gone to Europe, or to America, or to one of his remote estates in the interior of this continent. I am not sure that the Emperor was displeased at his departure. When the intelligence reached him, he said to me, 'That will save Miss Fitzherbert from appearing in public to give evidence. As for the rest, it does not matter. They have been fooled to serve that man's ends.' So now they are free. But their names are known; indeed, their ridiculous appearance is immortalised. A likeness was taken of every one, but the tout ensemble is superbly grotesque. It is well so few people know the secret of artificial magnetism."

Hilda showed Mrs. Hardinge the Emperor's magnificent present, and asked what was she to do. Should she write a letter of thanks?

"Do so," said the shrewd woman of the world. "Who knows that he will not value the acknowledgment as you value the gift?"

Again Hilda's face was suffused in red. "I must go away," she said to herself, "until I can better command myself." Then she begged Mrs. Hardinge not to mention about the Emperor's gift. "I shall only tell Maud of it. I felt it was right to tell you."

"Of course it was," said Mrs. Hardinge; "but it may be well not to mention it further. There are thousands of persons who honour and admire you; but there are thousands also who already envy you, and who will not envy you the less because of this great deed."

Then she told Hilda that the Emperor wished to do her public honour by making her a countess in her own right. Hilda shrank from the distinction. "It will lose me my seat in Parliament," she said.

"No. You will only have to stand for re-election, and no one will oppose you."

"But," said the girl, "I am not rich enough."

"If report is correct, you soon will be. The river-works in New Zealand are nearly finished; they will make you, it is said, a millionaire."

"I had forgotten them for the moment, but it is not safe to count on their success until the test is actually made. This reminds me that they will be finished next week; and my friends in New Zealand think that my sister and I ought to be present, if only in honour of our dear grandfather, who left us the interest we hold in the river. Can you spare me for ten days?"

"Of course I can, Hilda dear. The change will do you good. Laurient is going. He is said to have an interest in the works. And Montreal is going also. He too had an interest, but I think he parted with it."

They discussed whether Hilda should go to the fête that was to be held on Monday to celebrate the centenary of the completion of the irrigation of the Malee Scrub Plains.

These plains were once about as desolate and unromantic a locality as could be found; but a Canadian firm, Messrs. Chaffey Brothers, had undertaken to turn the wilderness into a garden by irrigation, and they had entirely succeeded. An enormous population now inhabited the redeemed lands, and a fête was to be held in commemoration of the century that had elapsed since the great work was completed. The Emperor himself had agreed to be there. Hilda begged to be excused. Her nerves were shaken. She would dread the many congratulations she would receive and the requests to repeat over and over again the particulars of the scene which inspired her now with only horror and repulsion.

"You must not show yourself to-day," Mrs. Hardinge said; "and I will cry you off to-morrow on the ground of illness. Next day go to New Zealand, and by the time you return you will be yourself again."

"You may say too I am abundantly occupied," said Hilda archly as Maud entered the room with an enormous package of open telegrams in her hands. "Dear Hilda, you do look well to-day. I am so pleased," said the delighted girl as she flung down the telegrams and embraced her sister. There was something singularly pathetic in the love of these two girls. Mrs. Hardinge left them together. Hilda showed the medallion in strict confidence. Maud was literally enraptured with it. "How noble, how handsome, he is! I know only one other man so beautiful." Then she paused in confusion; and Hilda rather doubted the exception, though she knew it was their old playfellow Montreal who was intended.

"Who is the traitor," she said, "you dare to compare with your Sovereign?"

Maud, almost in tears, declared she did not mean what she said. The Emperor was very handsome.

"Do not be ashamed, my dear, to be true to your feelings," said Hilda sententiously. "A woman's heart is an empire of itself, and he who rules over it may be well content with a single loyal subject."

"Nonsense, Hilda! Do not tease me. An emperor, too, may rule over a woman's heart."

This was rather carrying the war into the opposite camp. Miss Fitzherbert thought it time to change the subject. They discussed the telegrams. Then Maud told Hilda how frightfully agitated Laurient was the previous evening. Finally they decided they would go to New Zealand the day after the next. They debated if they should proceed in their own air-cruiser or in the public one that left early every morning. It was about a sixteen hours' journey in the public conveyance, but in their own it would take less time. Besides, they wished to go straight to Dunedin, where the girls had a beautiful residence, and where their friends were chiefly located. Hilda represented Dunedin in the New Zealand Parliament, and local government honours had been freely open to her; but, under the tutelage of Mrs. Hardinge, she had preferred entering into federal politics, though she continued in the New Zealand Parliament. Most of the leading federal statesmen interested themselves with one or other Dominion government. There was such an absence of friction between the federal and the separate dominion governments that no inconvenience resulted from the dual attention, while it led to a more intimate knowledge of local duties. Maud bashfully remembered that Lady Taieri had asked them to go to Dunedin on her beautiful cruiser. "She was making up a party," said Maud; "and she mentioned that Colonel Laurient and Lord Montreal were amongst the number."

Hilda saw the wistful look in Maud's eyes. "Let us go with Lady Taieri," she said; and so it was arranged.

CHAPTER VIII.
AIR-CRUISERS

We trust our readers will not be wearied because it is necessary to give them at some length an explanation concerning the aerial machines to which reference has so often been made as air-cruisers. It need scarcely be said that from time immemorial a great deal of attention has been directed to the question whether aerial travelling could he made subservient to the purposes of man. Balloons, as they were called, made of strong fabrics filled with a gas lighter than air, were to some extent used, but rarely for practical purposes. They were in considerable request for military objects, and it is recorded that Gambetta managed to get out of Paris in a balloon when that city was beleaguered by the German army in 1871. The principle of the balloon was the use of a vessel which, weighing, with all its contents, less than a similar volume of the atmosphere, would consequently rise in the air. But evidently no great progress could be made with such an apparatus. The low specific gravity of the atmosphere forbade the hope of its being possible to carry a heavy weight in great quantity on a machine that depended for its buoyancy on a less specific gravity. Besides, there was danger in using a fabric because of its liability to irreparable destruction by the smallest puncture.

The question then was mooted, Could not an aerial machine be devised to work although of higher specific gravity than the air? Birds, it was argued, kept themselves afloat by the motion of their wings, although their weight was considerably greater than a similar volume of the air through which they travelled. This idea was pursued. The cheap production of aluminium, a strong but light metal, gave an impulse to the experiment; and it was at length proved quite satisfactorily that aerial travelling was practicable in vessels considerably heavier than the air, by the use of quickly revolving fans working in the directions that were found to be suitable to the progress of the vessel. But great power was required to make the fans revolve, and the machinery to yield great power was proportionately heavy. It was especially heavy if applied separately to a portion of the fans, whilst it was dangerous to rely on one set of machinery, since any accident to it would mean cessation of the movement of the whole of the fans and consequently instant destruction. It was considered that, for safety's sake, there should be at least three sets of fans, worked by separate machinery, and that any one set should be able to preserve sufficient buoyancy although the other two were disabled. But whilst it was easy to define the conditions of safety, it was not easy to give them effect. All applications of known engines, whether of steam, water gas, electricity, compressed air, or petroleum, were found to be too bulky; and although three sets of machines were considered necessary, one set only was generally used, and many accidents occurred in consequence. The aerial mode of travelling was much employed by the adventurous, but hundreds of people lost their lives annually.

At length that grand association the Inventors' Institution came to the rescue. The founders of the Inventors' Institution, though working really with the object of benefiting humanity, were much too wise to place the undertaking on a purely philanthropic basis. On the contrary, they constructed it on a commercial basis. The object was to encourage the progress of valuable inventions, and they were willing to lend sums from trifling amounts to very large ones to aid the development of any invention of which they approved. They might lend only a trifle to obtain a patent or a large sum to make exhaustive experiments. The borrower had to enter into a bond to repay the amount tenfold or to any less extent demanded by the Institution at its own discretion. It was clearly laid down that, when the invention proved a failure through no fault of the inventor, he would not be asked for any repayment. In case of moderate success, he would only be asked for moderate repayment, and so on. The fairness of the Institution's exercise of discretion was rarely, if ever, called into question. Once they lent nearly thirty thousand pounds to finally develop an invention. Within four years they called upon the inventor to repay nearly three hundred thousand, but he was nothing loath. The invention was a great commercial success and yielding him at the rate of nearly a million per annum. This association offered a large reward for the best suggestion as to the nature of an invention to render aerial travelling safe, quick, and economical. A remarkable paper gained the prize.

The writer was an eminent chemist. He expressed the opinion that the one possible means of success was the use of a power which, as in the case of explosives, could be easily produced from substances of comparative light weight. He urged, it was only of late years that any real knowledge of the nature of explosives was obtained. It was nearly four hundred years after the discovery of gunpowder before any possible substitutes were invented. It was again a long time before it was discovered that explosives partook of two distinctly separate characters. One was the quick or shattering compound producing instantaneous effect; the other was the slow or rending compound of more protracted action. He dwelt on the fact that in all cases the force yielded by explosives was through the change of a solid into a gaseous body, and that the volume of the gaseous body was greatly increased by the expansion consequent on the heat evolved during decomposition. The total amount of heat evolved during decomposition did not differ, but evidently the concentration of heat at any one time depended on the rapidity of the decomposition. The volume of gas, independent of expansion by heat, varied also with different substances. Blasting oil, for instance, gave nearly thirteen hundred times its own volume of gas, and this was increased more than eight times by the concentration of heat; gunpowder only yielded in gas expanded by heat eight hundred times its own volume: or, in other words, the one yielded through decomposition thirteen times the volume of the other. He went on to argue that what was required was the leisurely chemical decomposition of a solid into a gas without sensible explosion, and of such a slow character as to avoid the production of great heat. He referred, as an example of the change resulting from the contact of two bodies, to the effect of safety matches. The match would only ignite by contact with a specially prepared surface. This match was as great an improvement on the old primitive match, as would be a decomposing material the force of which could be controlled, an improvement on the present means of obtaining power. He expressed a positive opinion that substances could be found whose rapidity of decomposition, and consequent heat and strength, could be nicely regulated, so that a force could be employed which would not be too sudden nor too strong to be used in substitution of steam or compressed air. He was, moreover, of opinion that, instead of the substances being mixed ready for use, with the concurrent danger, a mode could be devised of bringing the different component parts into contact in a not dissimilar manner to the application of the safety match, thereby assuring absolute immunity from danger in the carriage of the materials. This discovery could be made, he went on to say; and upon it depended improvement in aerial travelling. Each fan could be impelled by a separate machine of a light weight, worked with perfect safety by a cheap material; for the probabilities were, the substance would be cheaply producible. Each aerial vessel should carry three or four times the number of separate fans and machinery necessary to obtain buoyancy. The same substances probably could be used to procure buoyancy in the improbable event of all the machines breaking down. Supposing, as he suspected would be the case, that the resultant gas of the decomposition was lighter than air, a hollow case of a strong elastic fabric could be fastened to the whole of the outside exposed surface of the machine; and this could be rapidly inflated by the use of the same material. The movement of a button should be sufficient to produce decomposition, and as a consequence to charge the whole of this casing with gas lighter than the air. As the heat attending the decomposition subsided the elastic fabric would sufficiently collapse. The danger then would not be so much of descending too rapidly through the atmosphere as of remaining in it; a difficulty, however, which a system of valves would easily overcome.

The Institution offered twenty-five thousand pounds for a discovery on the lines indicated; and the Government offered seventy-five thousand pounds more on the condition that they should have the right to purchase the invention and preserve it as a secret, they supplying the material for civil purposes, but retaining absolute control over it for military purposes. This proviso was inserted because of the opinion of the writer that the effects he looked for might not so much depend on the chemical composition of the substances as on their molecular conditions, and that these might defy the efforts of analysts. If he was wrong, and the nature of the compound could be ascertained by analysis, the Government need not buy the invention; they could leave the discoverer to enjoy its advantages by patenting it, and share with other nations the uses that could be made of it for purposes of warfare.

It was some time before the investigations were completely successful. There was no lack of attention to the subject, the inducements being so splendid. Many fatal accidents occurred through the widely spread attention given to the properties of explosives and to the possibility of modifying their effects. On one occasion it was thought that success was attained. Laboratory experiments were entirely satisfactory, and at length it was determined to have a grand trial of the substance. A large quantity was prepared, and it was applied to the production of power in various descriptions of machinery. Many distinguished people were present, including a Cabinet Minister, a Lord of the Admiralty, the Under-Secretary for Defence, the President of the Inventors' Institution, several members of Parliament, a dozen or more distinguished men and women of science, and the inventor himself. The assemblage was a brilliant one; but, alas! not one of those present lived to record an opinion of the invention. The substance discovered was evidently not wanting in power. How far it was successful no one ever learnt. It may have been faultily made or injudiciously employed. But the very nature of the composition was lost, for the inventor went with the rest. An explosion occurred; and all the men and women within the building were scattered miles around, with fragments of the edifice itself. The largest recognisable human remains discovered were the well-defined joint of a little finger. A great commotion followed. The eminent chemist who wrote the paper suggesting the discovery was covered with obloquy. Suggestions were made that the law should restrain such investigations. Some people went so far as to describe them as diabolical. All things, however, come to those who wait; and at length a discovery was made faithfully resembling the one prognosticated by the great chemist.

Strange to say, the inventor or discoverer was a young Jewish woman not yet thirty years of age. From childhood she had taken an intense interest in the question, and the terrible accident above recorded seemed to spur her on to further exertion. She had a wonderful knowledge of ancient languages, and she searched for information concerning chemical secrets which she believed lost to the present day. She had a notion that the atomic structure of substances was better known to students in the early ages. It was said that the hint she acted on was conveyed to her by some passage in a Chaldean inscription of great antiquity. She neither admitted nor denied it. Perhaps the susceptibilities of an intensely Eastern nature led her to welcome the halo of romance cast over her discovery. Be that as it may, it is certain she discovered a substance, or rather substances which, brought into contact with each other, faithfully fulfilled all that the chemist had ventured to suggest. Together with unwavering efficiency there was perfect safety; and so much of the action depended on the structure, not the composition, that the efforts of thousands of savants failed to discover the secret of the invention. What the substances were in composition, and what they became after decomposition was easily determined, but how to make them in a form that fulfilled the purpose required defied every investigation.

The inventor did not patent her invention. After making an enormous fortune from it, she sold it to the Government, who took over the manufactory and its secrets; and whilst they sold it in quantity for ordinary use, they jealously guarded against its accumulation in foreign countries for possible warlike purposes. This invention, as much almost as its vast naval and military forces, gave to the empire of Britain the great power it possessed. The United States alone affected to underrate that power. It was the habit of Americans to declare that they did not believe in standing armies or fleets. If they wanted to fight, they could afford to spend any amount of treasure; and they could do more in the way of organising than any nation in the world. They were not going to spend money on keeping themselves in readiness for what might never happen. But we have not now to consider the aerial ships from their warlike point of view.

It should be mentioned that the inventor of this new form of power was the aunt of Colonel Laurient. She died nearly twenty years before this history, and left to him, her favourite nephew, so much of her gigantic fortune as the law permitted her to devise to one inheritor.