The death of Burnett drove the crew to frenzy, their curses were not those of men but of fiends. The shock of surprise—the fury that one blow of their despised victims should have told—goaded them into the mood of Molochs. Instantly the news flew to Hartmann, who returned a welcome answer. The yells around me were broken by a burst of laughter.
“What is it?” I asked, fearful of some new horror, full as the measure of crime now seemed.
“Wait and you will see!” was all the reply I got.
The Attila began to move at a high speed, and four of the men rushed down on to the lower deck. Quicker! quicker! quicker!—there was no doubt of it, we were swooping on the City like a falcon. I was at the rail in a moment, and, careless of uprushing shot and shell, bent over the side in a fever. 156Though beyond the zone of flames, a simoom blast swept the vessel, and puffs of inky smoke spangled with sparks rendered breathing a torment. But the Attila swerved not an iota. Down we swept like a hurricane over the yelling maddened throngs massed in Farringdon Street. Suddenly I heard a sharp cry:
“Stand off!” I had hardly time to draw back when a column of flames shot up the side, reddening the very bar I had been clutching.
“Let go!”—a crash, the column vanished, and a stream of fire like a comet’s tail drew out instantaneously in the wake of the Attila. It was the petroleum. The first tank had been lighted, its contents shot over the shrieking wretches below! For full fifty to sixty yards the blaze filled the roadway, and the mob, lapped in flame, were writhing and wrestling within it. A fiendish revenge was glutted. Suddenly I was hurled violently to the deck as the bow rose sharply. The Attila, buoyed by her a?roplane, shot once more aslant to her old higher level, firing her guns continuously as she ascended. Sick and surfeited with horror I remained lying some time where I was. But the end was yet to come.
157
POURING DOWN LIQUID FIRE.
158By this time the night was pressing on rapidly, but what a night! I rose up and staggered to the stern—anything to be away from these wretches. The 159hum of the great screw-blades reached me, and I looked over and yearned that they might fail us. We were now circling over Fleet Street and the neighbourhood of the Strand. The fires lighted at Westminster in the morning were carrying all before them, and a crimson yellow rim stretched all the way from Whitehall to Victoria. On our flank the City was blazing, and a roaring tumult of flames was undulating in every direction from this centre. And now for the first time I saw that others than ourselves were hurrying on the incendiary work below. There were visible blazing circles in South London over the water, blazing circles far away in North London, and blazing circles scattered throughout the West End. The delegates had kept their faith. The great metropolis seemed doomed. I shuddered to think what the mob might do in their despair. The West End was even now probably being looted, and the worst passions would toll its death-knell. I thought of my telegram, and found some relief in the belief that Lena at least was out of danger.
Suddenly I shook with terror. I had never asked Hartmann whether the letter and the telegram form had been handed to the delegate. Racing back to the citadel, I appealed to one of my guards. Could 160a message be sent to the captain? Certainly. The reply came back in about ten minutes. It was to the effect that they had been handed to Burnett for one of the French delegates. Had Burnett, then, given them? It was just possible that he had not. Kneeling by the body I ransacked the dead man’s pockets. My worst fears were realized. In the breast-pocket of his coat lay the precious and forgotten missives! My heart seemed to stop for the moment, and then beat with hammer strokes. I made a desperate resolution. I must see Hartmann at all costs, and wring from him the permit and opportunity to descend. Doubtless it was entering the shambles of a desperate city, now being wrecked and pillaged by its own inhabitants; it was entering the lion’s den possibly only to find a victim before becoming one myself; but whatever risks I ran, honour scoffed at delay, and love winged me with ardour.
“Tell the captain I must see him. Tell him the letter was never delivered, and that I must somehow find a means of speaking to him face to face.” The answer came that he could not possibly see me, and that I must say through the telephone what I wanted, and that briefly. I shouted that I must at all costs descend. He replied that his plans were unalterable. I entreated, I clamoured, I expostulated, pleading 161the friendship I had borne to his mother, and the possibility that she, too, had not yet stirred. His words to her had necessarily been more or less enigmatical. Let me, then, go and watch over the fate of her also. I had moved him, for there was a long pause. After what seemed ages of waiting came his reply. “The Attila cannot descend, but it crosses Hyde Park shortly. If the case is urgent, take my parachute. The fall will not be of more than five or six hundred feet.”
This alternative was gruesome, but there was no help for it. I wavered an instant and accept............