The Mummy and Miss Nitocris: A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension by Griffith (best classic novels .TXT) 📗

a new experience to begin with," said Nitocris, thinking how nice it would be to take her wedding trip with Merrill in such a craft as this. "Why, look at the two shores coming together, Dad!"

"No, excuse me," said Oscarovitch, "we are only about half-way to the Gate of the Baltic yet. That land on the right is the island of Hvreen. When we have passed that you will soon see the heights of Elsinore and Helsingborg rising ahead. There are only about two and a half miles between Denmark and Sweden there."

"Oh yes, of course. I am forgetting my geography," laughed Nitocris, as the low, wooded patch of land came rushing towards them as[Pg 268] though it were adrift on a fast-flowing stream. "Goodness, what a speed!"

"A very wonderful craft, Prince," added the Professor, as the island drifted past; "she quite inclines me towards a breach of the tenth commandment. Now that you have given us this taste of the delights of speed, I think that if I were a millionaire, I should try to build one to beat her."

"Exactly," laughed Oscarovitch. "It is marvellous this fascination of speed. Your poet, Henley, touched the pulse of the times when he wrote those splendid lines of his. But surely, Professor, you would not have very much difficulty in leaving all far behind. A man to whom mathematical impossibilities are as easy as an addition sum ought to be able to realise the dream of the ages and solve the problem of aerial navigation."

He looked him straight in the eyes as he said this. He fully believed in the possibility of human flight, given the transcendent genius who could work out the equation of weight and power. Perhaps that genius might be with him now in the bridge-house. His vivid imagination was already picturing the lovely girl at his side crowned Empress of the Russias and the East, and himself in command of an aerial navy, beneath whose assault the armies and navies and fortresses of the rest of the world would be as so many toys to play with and destroy.

"If I could do that, and I do not think it would be so very difficult after all," said Franklin Marmion, returning his glance, "I would not[Pg 269] do it. It would put too much power in the hands of a few men, and we have enough of that already. The owner of a fleet of aerial warships would be above all human law. He could terrorise the earth, and make mankind his slaves. Life would become unendurable under such conditions. Commercialism, which only means slavery plus the liberty to starve, is bad enough, but it is at least possible. The other would be impossible. There is no man quite honest enough to be trusted with such a power as that. I have worked the thing out, and it is perfectly feasible, but I burnt my designs and calculations."

"What!" exclaimed Oscarovitch, flushing in spite of his effort to keep the blood back from his face. "You have solved the problem, and won't make use of the greatest invention of all the ages! Surely, Professor, that is a little quixotic, is it not?"

"Who am I that I should bring a curse upon humanity, Prince?" he answered gravely. "Do you not kill each other fast enough now? No, the world is not fit for such a development yet. My results will remain my own until Tom Hood's ideal of good government has been realised."

"And what was that, Dad?" asked Nitocris, who had a double reason for being interested in the conversation. "If I ever knew it, I have forgotten it."

"Despotism, Niti—and an angel from heaven for the despot," he replied, with another look into the Prince's eyes which brought him to the[Pg 270] conclusion that the sooner his presence on board the Grashna was dispensed with the better for his plans. There was a sense of quiet mastery in Franklin Marmion's manner which made him uneasy.

"Ah! there is the famous fortress, is it not? the home of Hamlet and Ophelia and the Ghost!" she exclaimed, pointing ahead to where a grey-blue mass was rising out of the water. "Do you believe in ghosts, Prince?" she added suddenly, flashing a glance at him which seemed to pierce his brain like a ray of unearthly light.

"Ghosts? No, Miss Marmion. I'm afraid I am too hopelessly materialistic for that. I never saw or heard of an authentic ghost, and I do not propose to believe until I see."

"We have a ghost at 'The Wilderness,'—the wraith of a poor young lady who killed herself after some royal blackguard had abused his own hospitality. She often comes to visit me in my study," said the Professor, as though he were relating the most ordinary occurrence.

"Ah," smiled the Prince, "that is very interesting: but, of course, it would be in the power of a man like yourself to have experiences which are denied to ordinary mortals. Still, granted all that, I confess that I have often wondered whether or not I should be frightened if I really did see a ghost."

"Yes, I wonder?" murmured Nitocris, with a great deal more meaning than he had any idea of just then.

All three felt that the conversation was getting a little difficult, and they were not sorry when[Pg 271] the rapid rising of the rock of Elsinore made it necessary for Oscarovitch to go out to the engine telegraph.

"His Highness doesn't believe in ghosts now," whispered Nitocris to her father, when the door shut behind him, "but I think he will before very long. I wonder what he is really going to do? I've half a mind to——"

"No, no, Niti," he said quickly; "keep this side of the Border till you really have to cross it. What on earth, literally, would happen if he came back and found me standing here alone?"

"Oh, of course I didn't mean it," she smiled. "It would be very poor sport to spoil both the comedy and the tragedy before the curtain goes up. I wonder if the drama will begin to-night? I shouldn't be surprised."

"Nor I," said the Professor, a trifle grimly. "I didn't at all like his looks when I was talking about the flying machine. The brute looked as if he were quite capable of locking me up and starving or torturing me until I gave him the secret. My word, I should like to see him try! I'd have him grovelling at my feet in five minutes."

The door opened and Oscarovitch came in. He took off the cap which had been pulled tight over his eyes, and said:

"Well, we have arrived! Almost exactly forty-five minutes. There is Elsinore, there is Kronborg, King Frederick's sixteenth-century castle, and there is Marienlyst, which is to Copenhagen what Brighton is to London, only, I must say, in a[Pg 272] much more refined sense. Now what is your pleasure, Miss Marmion? We have still nearly two hours before lunch, so, if you would like an hour's stroll ashore, the gig will be ready in a couple of minutes."

"Thank you, Prince," she said with a rewarding smile. "Dad, what do you think? It all looks very beautiful under this sun and sky."

"Which, of course, means that you want to go ashore, Niti," said her father. "For my own part, I certainly should like a little walk on new ground. I have never been here before."

"Then, of course we will go," said Oscarovitch, opening the door and going to the telegraph.

The yacht came to a standstill in a few minutes, and the gig was waiting at the foot of the gangway ladder. They spent a very pleasant hour ashore, and what they saw, you may read of in your Murray and Baedeker, wherefore there is no need to set it down here. When they came aboard again, lunch was almost ready, and the steward presented his master and the Professor with quite exceptional cocktails in the smoking-room. Then they went and had a wash, and the mellow gong sounded.

I am not very fond of those descriptions in stories which read like extracts from an upholsterer's price-list, nor yet those accounts of meals that, after all, are only menus writ large, so it may suffice to say that the saloon of the Grashna was an arrangement of sandal-wood panels, framed in thin silver filigree, and hung with exquisite[Pg 273] little masterpieces in water-colour, and black and white, and crayon, mostly sea-scapes, with here and there a beautiful head with living eyes which followed you everywhere; that the rich yellow of the panels was enhanced by portières and curtains of deep golden-bronze silk, and that the domed ceiling was of pale, sky-blue enamel spangled with the constellations of the northern heavens, which at night lit up the whole saloon with a soft electric radiance. As for the lunch, it was as nearly perfect as the best-paid chef afloat could make it, after his master had asked him as a personal favour to do so.

They ran back quietly to Copenhagen at twenty knots, and Oscarovitch and the Professor went ashore to send off a few telegrams, leaving Nitocris, for her own reasons, to make herself at home on the yacht. They returned in time to dress for dinner and enjoy a stroll on the broad upper deck, and watch the sunset over the town and the quickly-increasing sparkle of the myriad lights on shore and sea. When they came up after dinner, these lights were only represented by a luminous haze glimmering under the stars to the northward. The Grashna was heading nearly due south at an easy speed towards the Baltic Islands.

Something told both Nitocris and her father that the decisive hour would come soon, and they were both prepared for its advent.[Pg 274]

CHAPTER XXIII THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE PROFESSOR

The Prince and the Professor sat up in the smoking-room for a considerable time after Nitocris had retired. Oscarovitch was doing his utmost to persuade his guest to revoke his decision as to the creation of the aerial warships. Franklin Marmion's simple announcement, which he never thought for a moment of disbelieving, had filled his mind with new ideas, which were rapidly taking the shape of gorgeous dreams of an empire such as mortal man had never ruled over before. All his present designs faded away into mere trivialities in comparison with this splendid conception. He pictured Nitocris, as his consort, Empress of the air, and himself Lord of earth and sea and sky. But all his subtle arguments, all his delicately-put suggestions, and his skilfully framed promises failed to produce the slightest effect upon the genially inflexible man, who quietly turned them all aside, as a grown man might deal with the arguments of a boy.

The thought that this man who was lying back in his deep-seated armchair, holding a cigar in a white, delicately-shaped hand which was strong[Pg 275] enough to shake the world to its foundations, should possess such a tremendous power and yet refuse to use it, as quietly as he might have declined an invitation to dinner, exasperated him almost beyond the bounds of patience. If he would only join forces with him what glories might they not achieve, what splendours of power and possession might not be theirs! Here was universal empire, in one sense, only a couple of yards away from him! In another it was more distant than the suns which flame in Space beyond the Milky Way. It was maddening, but it was true, and he knew the man well enough now to feel absolutely assured that no extremity of mental or physical torment would wring the priceless secret from him.

Well, if it had to be, it must be. If he could not learn the secret, at least no one else should. Before morning it would be buried for ever under the waters of the Baltic, and he would revenge himself on the daughter for that which the father refused to do. If Franklin Marmion would not give him the sceptre of the World-Empire, then Nitocris should be his wife and Empress if she would, and if not, his slave and plaything, as he had sworn to Phadrig the Egyptian. The fortress-castle of Oscarburg, on the lonely wooded shore of Viborg Bay, had kept many a secret safely before now, and it would keep this one. Every retainer in the Castle, every man, woman, and child on the estates for leagues around, was his, body and[Pg 276] soul, as their fathers before them had been the blind, unquestioning serfs of his fathers. There his word was law, and his will was fate. There was no "liberty" within his domains, since no man wanted it, or would