The Angel of the Revolution: A Tale of the Coming Terror by Griffith (reading like a writer txt) 📗
- Author: Griffith
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He crossed the deck and set the other gun by its scale, saying as he did so—
"Put your finger on the button and press when I tell you."
Colston did as he was bid, and as his finger touched the little knob his hand was as firm as though he had been making a shot at billiards.
"Now!"
He pressed the button down hard. There was the same sharp sound, and a second messenger of destruction sped on its way towards the doomed fortress.
"Good God, that is awful."
See page 82. [Pg 83]
They saw it strike, and then came the flash, and after that a huge cloud of dust mingled with flying objects that might have been blocks of masonry, guns, or human bodies, rose into the air, and then fell back again to the earth.
"There goes one of the angles of the fortification into the sea," said Arnold, as he saw the effects of the shot. "Kronstadt won't be much good when the war breaks out, it strikes me. I suppose they'll be replying soon with a few rifle shots. We'd better quicken up a bit."
He went aft to the wheel-house, followed by Colston, and signalled for the three propellers to work at their utmost speed. The order was instantly obeyed; the fan-wheels ceased revolving, and under the impetus of her propellers the Ariel leapt forwards and upwards like an eagle on its upward swoop, rose five hundred feet in the air, and then swept over Kronstadt at a speed of more than a hundred miles an hour.
As they passed over they saw a series of flashes rise from one of the untouched portions of the fortress, but no bullets came anywhere near them. In fact, they must have passed through the air two or three miles astern of the flying Ariel. No soldier who ever carried a rifle could have sent a bullet within a thousand yards of an object seventy feet long travelling over a hundred miles an hour at a height of nearly four thousand feet, and so the Russians wasted their ammunition.
As soon as they had passed over the fortress, Arnold signalled for the propellers to stop, and the fan-wheels to revolve again at half speed. The air-ship stopped within three miles, and remained suspended in air over the opening mouth of the Neva. Then the two after guns were trained upon the fortress, and Colston and Arnold fired them together.
The two shells struck at the same moment, one in each of two angles of the ramparts. Their impact was followed by a tremendous explosion, far greater than could be accounted for by the shells themselves.
"There goes one, if not two, of his powder magazines. Look! half the fortress is a wreck. I wonder which fired the lucky shot."
The man who a year before had been an inoffensive student of mechanics and an enthusiast dreaming of an unsolved [Pg 84] problem, spoke of the frightful destruction of life and the havoc that he had caused by just pressing a button with his finger, as coolly and quietly as a veteran officer of artillery might have spoken of shelling a fort.
There were two reasons for this almost miraculous change. One was to be found in the bitter hatred of Russian tyranny which he had imbibed during the last six months, and the other was the fact that the woman for whom he would have himself died a thousand deaths if necessary, was a captive in Russian chains, being led at that moment to slavery and degradation.
As soon as they had seen the effects of the last two shots, Arnold said with a grim, half-smile on his lips—
"I think it will be better if we don't show ourselves too plainly to Petersburg. It will take some time for the news of the destruction of Kronstadt to reach the city, and, of course, there will be the wildest rumours as to the agency by which it was done, so we may as well leave them to argue the matter out among themselves."
He signalled again to the engine-room, and with the united aid of her planes and fan-wheels the Ariel mounted up and up into the sky, driven only by the stern-propeller and with the force of the other engines concentrated on the lifting wheels, until a height of five thousand feet was reached.
At that height she would have looked, if she could have been seen at all, nothing more than a little grey spot against the blue of the sky, and as they heard afterwards she passed over St. Petersburg without being noticed.
From St. Petersburg to Tiumen, as the crow flies, the distance is 1150 English miles, and nine hours after she had passed over the Capital of the North, the Ariel had winged her way over the Ourals and the still snow-clad forests of the eastern slopes, past the tear-washed Pillar of Farewells, and had come to a rest after her voyage of two thousand two hundred miles, including the delay at Kronstadt, in twenty hours almost to the minute, as her captain had predicted. [Pg 85]
CHAPTER XII.IN THE MASTER'S NAME.
The Ariel, in order to avoid being seen from the town, had made a wide circuit to the northward at a considerable elevation, and as soon as a suitable spot had been sought out by means of the field-glasses, she dropped suddenly and swiftly from the clouds into the depths of the dense forest through which the Tobolsk road runs from Tiumen to the banks of the Tobol.
From Tiumen to the Tobol is about twenty-five miles by road. The railway, which was then finished as far as Tomsk, ran to Tobolsk by a more northerly and direct route than the road, but convicts were still marched on foot along the great post road after the gangs had been divided at Tiumen according to their destinations.
The spot which had been selected for the resting-place of the Ariel was a little glade formed by the bend of a frozen stream about five miles east of the town, and at a safe distance from the road.
Painted a light whitish-grey all over, she would have been invisible even from a short distance as she lay amid the snow-laden trees, and Arnold gave strict orders that all the window-slides were to be kept closed, and no light shown on any account.
Every precaution possible was taken to obviate a discovery which should seriously endanger the success of the rescue, but, nevertheless, the fan-wheels were kept aloft, and everything was in readiness to rise into the air at a moment's notice should any emergency require them to do so. [Pg 86]
It was a little after three o'clock on the Thursday afternoon when the Ariel settled down in her resting-place, and half an hour later Colston and Ivan Petrovitch appeared on deck completely disguised, the former as a Russian fur trader, and the latter as his servant.
All the arrangements for the rescue had been once more gone over in every detail, and just before he swung himself over the side Colston shook hands for the last time with Arnold, saying as he did so—
"Well, good-bye again, old fellow! Ivan shall come back and bring you the news, if necessary; but if he doesn't come, don't be uneasy, but possess your soul in patience till you hear the whistle from the road in the morning. I expect the train will get in sometime during the night, and in that case we shall have everything ready to make the attempt soon after daybreak, if not before.
"If we can get as far as this without being pursued we shall come right on board. If not we must trust to our horses and our pistols to keep the Cossacks at a distance till you can help us. In any case, rest assured that once clear of Tiumen, we shall never be taken alive. Those are the Master's orders, and I will shoot Natasha myself before she goes back to captivity."
"Yes, do so," replied Arnold. His lips quivered as he spoke, but there was no tremor in the hand with which he gripped Colston's in farewell. "She will prefer death to slavery, and I shall prefer it for her. But if you have to do it you will at least have the consolation of knowing that within twelve hours of your death the Tsar shall be lying buried beneath the ruins of the Peterhof Palace. I will have his life for hers if only I live to take it."
"I will tell her," said Colston simply, "and if die she must, she will die content."
So saying, he descended the little rope-ladder, followed by Ivan, and in a few moments the two were lost in the deep shadow of the trees, while Arnold went down into the saloon to await with what patience he might the moment that would decide the fate of the daughter of Natas and the man who had gone, as he would so gladly have done, to risk his life to restore her to liberty.
Rather more than half an hour's tramp through the forest [Pg 87] brought Colston and Ivan out on the road at a point a little less than five miles from Tiumen.
Colston was provided with passports and permits to travel for himself and Ivan. These, of course, were forged on genuine forms which the Terrorists had no difficulty in obtaining through their agents in high places, who were as implicitly trusted as the Princess Ornovski had been but a few months before.
So skilfully were they executed, however, that it would have been a very keen official eye that had discovered anything wrong with them. They described him as "Stepan Bakuinin, fur merchant of Nizhni Novgorod, travelling in pursuit of his business, with his servant, Peter Petrovitch, also of Nizhni Novgorod."
Instead of going straight into the town by the main road they made a considerable detour and entered it by a lane that led them through a collection of miserable huts occupied by the poorest class of Siberian mujiks, half peasants, half townsfolk, who cultivate their patches of ground during the brief spring and summer, and struggle through the long dreary winter as best they can on their scanty savings and what work they can get to do from the Government or their richer neighbours.
Colston had never been in Tiumen before, but Ivan had, for ten years before he had voluntarily accompanied his father, who had been condemned to five years' forced labour on the new railway works from Tiumen to Tobolsk, for giving a political fugitive shelter in his house. He had died of hard labour and hard usage, and that was one reason why Ivan was a member of the Outer Circle of the Terrorists.
He led his master through the squalid suburb to the business part of the town, which had considerably developed since the through line to Tobolsk and Tomsk had been constructed, and at length they stopped before a comfortable-looking house in the street that ends at the railway station.
They knocked, gave their names, and were at once admitted. The servant who opened the door to them led them to a room in which they found a man of about fifty in the uniform of a sub-commissioner of police. As Colston held out his hand to him he said— [Pg 88]
"In the Master's name!"
The official took his hand, and, bending over it, replied in a low tone—
"I am his servant. What is his will?"
"That Anna Ornovski and Fedora Darrel, the English girl who was taken with her, be released as soon as may be," replied Colston. "Is the train from Ekaterinburg in yet?"
"Not yet. The snow is still deep between here and the mountains. The winter has been very severe and long. We have almost starved in Tiumen in spite of the railway. There has been a telegram from Ekaterinburg to say that the train descended the mountain safely, and one from Kannishlov to say that we expect it soon after ten to-night."
"Good! That is sooner than we expected in London. We thought it would not reach here till to-morrow morning."
"In London! What do you mean? You cannot have come from London, for there has been no train for two days."
"Nevertheless I have come from London. I left England yesterday evening."
"Yesterday evening! But, with all submission, that is impossible. If there were a railway the whole distance it could not be done."
"To the Master there is nothing impossible. Look! I received that the evening I left London."
As he spoke, Colston held out an envelope. The Russian examined it closely. It bore the Ludgate Hill post-mark, which was dated "March 7."
Colston's host bent over it with almost superstitious reverence, and handed it back, saying humbly—
"Forgive my doubts, Nobleness! It is a miracle! I ask
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