The Outlaws of the Air, etc

Prologue

. — IN THE CAMP OF ISHMAEL ... 1 I. UTOPIA IN THE SOUTH ..... 16 II. GOING INTO PORT ...... 25 III. OLD FRIENpS AND NEW ..... 33 IV. THE STORY OF THE RED riRATE . . . .41 V. ANARCHY AFTER DINNER . . . . .49 VI. A VISION IN THE SKY ..... 57 VII. A PICNIC ON MOUNT TLATO . . . .68 VIII. A DOUBLE TRAGEDY ..... 77 IX. A SOLILOQUY IN MID-AIR ..... 88 X. ON THE SCENE OF ACTION ..... 95 XI. THE "DESTROYER" AT WORK .... 103 XII. ANARCHY UP TO DATE ..... 114 XIII. TO UTOPIA ....... 121 XIV. HOMEWARD BOUND . . . . . .128 XV. NEWS OF WAR ...... 139 XVI. THE "NAUTILUS" GOES INTO ACTION . . . 147 XVII. A VISIT TO PARIS ...... 155 XVIII. TRAPPED ....... 163 XIX. A SCENE AT BOW STREET ..... 172 XX. SENTENCE OF DEATH ..... 179 XXI. A CALM BEFORE A STORM ..... 185 XXII. AT THE LAST MOMENT . . . . .193 XXIII.

REVENGE ....... 203 XXIV. A REIGN OF TERROR ..... 212 v Contents VI CHAP. PAGE XXV. THE " WAR-HA WK'S" FIRST FLIGHT . . . 219 XXVI. A FLYING FIGHT ...... 226 XXVII. AN ESCAPE AND A CAPTURE .... 234 XXVIII. PRISONERS OF WAR ...... 242 XXIX. MAX TO THE RESCUE ..... 250 XXX. THE BATTLE OF THE SOUND .... 259 XXXI. THE VICTORS VANQUISHED . . . . . 266 XXXII. THE OUTLAWS' EYRIE ..... 274 XXXIII. NEWS AND BAD NEWS ..... 282 XXXIV. VENDETTA ....... 289 XXXV. TUP.NING THE TABLES ..... 299 XXXVI. THE END OF THE "BREMEN" .... 307 XXXVII. PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT ..... 317 XXXVIII. MUTINY ....... 324 XXXIX. HARTOG'S REVENGE ...... 333 XL. GAME TO THE LAST ...... 343 XLI. THE SYNDICATE PREPARES TO ACT. . . . 353 XLII. WOLVES AT BAY ...... 360 XLIII. THE ULTIMATUM ...... 366

Epilogue

. — THE NEW UTOPIA .... LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE HE WAS completely trapped (see p. 171) . . . Frontispiece SHE FLICKED THE ASH OFF A CIGARETTE .... 7 THE TRUNCATED CONE OF AN EXTINCT VOLCANO . . .27 "DON'T YOU THINK UTOPIA IS A LOVELY LAND?" . . .29 "THEY SENT A TORPEDO INTO HER" .... 5 "LITERALLY BLEW HER STERN OFF" . . . .47 THE "NAUTILUS" . . . . . . .53 THEY WATCHED THE STRANGE, SWIFTLY-MOVING THING . . 65 A LOVELY WOODED TLATEAU ...... 71 " 'DESTROYER,' AHOY !" HE SANG OUT . . . facing 109 SHE SHOT AWAY UPWARDS AND NORTHWARDS . . .123 HAD TAKEN SEVERAL OF THEM FOR A RUN ROUND THE REEF IN THE "MERMAID". ...... 129 SIGNALS WERE BEING FLASHED FROM THE OUTER WATERS OF THE STRAITS ........ 145 POSTED IN A HUNDRED DIFFERENT PLACES A SMALL, RED placard ....... facing 178 MR. HIRAM S. MAXIM ....... 1S9 HE SUBMITTED TO THE PROCESS OF PINIONING . . . 199 THE BODY OF MAX DANGLING IN A LASSO .... 201 A SHELL STRUCK THE CUPOLA OF ST. PAUL'S . . . 207 List of Illustrations PAGE sent bomb after bomb through the roofs of the houses of parliament ....... 208 sending the long tongue of flame far up into the sky . 209 saw a brilliant spout of flame burst up out of the dark, heather-clad hills ..... 231 she flashed farewell with her searchlights . . . 247 sir harry's portrait appeared in all the illustrated periodicals ....... 251 left newcastle with the partially disabled " vengeur " in tow ........ 290 "yes, i think i can quite understand" . . . 309 dropped like a stone into the sea .... 313 whipped a silk handkerchief round renault's throat . 327 the "revanche" touched the snow-covered surface of the polar ice ....... 351 THEY TURNED THEIR BACKS ON THE DARKENING CRATER . facing

PROLOGUE.

. IN THE CAMP OF ISHMAEL. FEW minutes before one a.m. on Sunday, the 1st of July 1894, a man was walking with quick if somewhat irregular strides, as some men do walk when deeply absorbed in thought, up the Caledonian Road from King's Cross Station. By his dress he might either have belonged to the aristocracy of the craftsman class, or he might have been one of the poorer members of that class which is popularly considered to be above it. But, whatever doubt there might have been as to his station in life, there could have been none as to the character of the face on which his slightly back-tilted black felt hat allowed the light of the gas-lamps to fall, as he walked with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, and his head thrown back just a shade from the perpendicular. It was a dark, clear-cut, clean-shaven face, with bright blue eyes, con trasting strongly with the black straight brows above them ; a slightly aquiline nose, with thin, sensitive nostrils ; short I upper lip, firm, resolute mouth, square chin, and strong though not heavy lower jaw.

A single glance would have been enough to show that it was the face of a man in whom strong convictions were united with the will and the courage to translate them into action, no matter what difficulties or dangers might lie in the path marked out for him by what he considered to be his duty. In stature, he was over the average, and but for a slight stoop of the shoulders which gave a suggestion of the student, borne out by the broad, square forehead and two little perpendicular lines between the eyes, he would have stood very nearly six feet in the low-heeled walking shoes which he wore. To the casual glance of the passer-by, there was nothing to differentiate him from any other young fellow of his apparent age and station ; and, therefore, it was quite out of the question that the policeman who was beginning his night's work by flashing his bull's-eye into the doorways, and trying door haudles and shop shutters, should bestow more than a passing glance, quite devoid of interest, upon him as he strode by.

He was sober and respectable, and seemingly making his way quietly home after a decently spent Saturday evening. There was nothing to tell the guardian of the peace that the most dangerous man in Europe was passing within a few feet of him, or that if only he could have arrested him on some valid pretext that would have enabled him to lock him up for the rest of the night, and then handed him over to the Criminal Investigation Department at New Scotland Yard, — the officers of which had been hunting for just such a man as he for the last twelve months, — he would have prevented the commission of a crime which, within twenty four hours, was to plunge a whole nation into panic and mourning, and send a thrdl of horror through Europe. But he would have done far more than this, for by lay ing Max Renault, electrician and anarchist, by the heels just at that moment, he would have ensured the discovery of documentary evidence which would have procured his ex tradition to France, and subsequent proceedings which would have saved the world from a reign of terror and an epoch of carnage and destruction in comparison with which the worst that society had so far learned to fear from anarchy would prove to be the merest trifle.

But how was that most unimaginative and matter-of fact of mortals, a British policeman, to know that in his waistcoat pocket he carried a foreign telegram, which, properly interpreted, conveyed the intelligence that Caserio Santo was on his way to Lyons, to await there the order, in obedience to which he would with one stroke of his knife send a shudder through the civilised world ; or how was he to divine that in the brain behind that open, honest-looking brow there were thoughts working which ere long might set the world in a blaze ? In St. Petersburg, or even in Paris, such a man would have been shadowed, his every movement would have been watched, all his comings and goings noticed, and at any moment — such a one as . this, for instance— he might have been pounced upon and searched as a suspicious person ; and assuredly, if he had been, the toils of the law would have closed about him in such fashion that little but a miracle could have set him free again.

But here in London, the asylum of anarchy, and the focus of the most dangerous forces in the world, he went on his way unquestioned and unsuspected, for, although the police were morally certain that such a man existed, they had no idea as to his personality, no notion that this smart, good-looking young fellow, whose name had never been heard in connection even with such anarchist clubs as were known to have their quarters in London, and much less, therefore, with any of the crimes that had been laid to the charge of anarchy, was in reality even a greater criminal than Vaillant or Henry, or even the infamous Ravachol himself. These were only the blind if willing tools, the instru ments of political murder, the visible hands that obeyed the unseen brain, those who did the work and paid the penalty.

But Max Renault was the brain itself, the intellect which conceived the plans for the execution of which the meaner and cheaper disciples of the sanguinary brotherhood of the knife and the bomb died on the scaffold, or wore out their lives in penal prisons or the mines of Siberia. In a word, he was the moving spirit and directing in tellect of what was soon to become the most dreaded body of men and women in the world, but which was now only known to the initiated as " Autonomie Group Number 7." But the stroke which, if his true character had been known, would have cut short his career, whether by rope or axe, would have done more than paralyse the brain which had plotted half the crimes that had been committed in the name of anarchy during the previous five years, and others in which the red hand had never been seen.

It would have stopped his career at the most important moment of his life, and prevented him acting as the connecting link between two sets of circumstances which, though naturally of the utmost antagonism to each other, would, when united in such a personality as his, produce an explosion which might shake the world. A few hundred yards past the top of the hill, Max turned sharply to the left, walked along a side street, turned to the right at the end of this, and went into another. Three minutes' quick walking brought him to the side door of a house which had a small timber yard on one side of it, and on the other a deserted beer-house, which had lost its licence, and remained unoccupied because the premises were fit for no other kind of business. The house itself had a low shop front, with the lower half of its windows painted a dull green, and on the upper part was an arc of white letters making the legend : " Social Club and Eclectic Institute."

A lamp over the shop door bore the same inscription in white letters on blue glass, but the lamp was out now, for it was one of the rules of the club that all members should leave the premises not later than twelve o'clock at night on week-days and half-past eleven on Sundays. This rule, however, seemed only to apply to a certain section of the members. After Max had opened the side door with his latch-key, and ascended the stairs at the end of the passage, with a familiarity that enabled him to dis pense with a light in the absolute darkness, he knocked at the door of an upstairs room which he found without the slightest hesitation. It was opened, and he found himself in the presence of four men and three women sitting round a table on which were the remains of what had evidently been a substantial and even luxurious supper.

Renault's action on entering the room was one which more than bore out what has been said of his character and the desperate work that he was engaged in. He acknow ledged with a brief, curt nod the salutations of the company, and then, putting his back against the door, he pulled his right hand out of his trouser pocket, and said, in a quiet, almost well-bred voice, which had just the faintest trace of a foreign accent — " Victor Berthauld, sit still ! " There was a small slender-barrelled, six-chambered Colt in his hand, and the muzzle was pointed at a little lean, wiry, black-muzzled, close-cropped Frenchman, who had begun to wriggle uneasily in his seat the moment Max had made his appearance. His black eyes rolling in their deep sockets took one frightened glance from face to face, and then he said, in a voice to which he in vain tried to impart a tone of bravado — " Well, Comrade Renault, what do you want with me, and what is that revolver drawn for ?

" " Don't ' comrade ' me, you little rat," said Max, with a short, savage laugh. " Tell me who tried to warn the Paris police that Carnot's life was in danger. Tell me who would have had Santo arrested at Marseilles if his telegram had only got into the hands it was intended for. " Tell me who means to repeat the message to-morrow morning to Paris and Lyons, and who means to have this place raided by the English police at an inconvenient hour within the next week, on the ground of unlawful gambling being permitted here. Tell me that, you dirty hound, and then I'll tell you, if you don't know, what we usually do with traitors." Berthauld sat for a moment speechless with fear. Then, with an imprecation on his lips, he leapt to his feet. Not a hand was moved to restrain him, but as he rose to his full height, Renault's arm straightened out, there was a crack and a flash, and a little puff of plaster reduced to dust leapt out of the angle of the wall behind him ; but before the bullet struck the wall, it had passed through his forehead and out at the back of his head, his body shrank together and collapsed in a huddled heap in his chair, and Max, putting his pistol back into his pocket, said, just as quietly as before — ■ " It's a curious thing that even among eight of us we must have a traitor.

I hope there aren't any more about. Take that thing down to the cellar, and then let us get to business ; I've something important to tell you." So saying, he walked round the table to a vacant arm chair that stood at the end opposite the door, threw himself back in it, took out a cigar and lit it, and, with the same unshaken hand that a moment before had taken a fellowcreature's life, poured out a tumblerful of champagne from a bottle that stood half empty beside him. Meanwhile, two of the men had risen from their seats. One of them tied a red handkerchief tightly round the dead man's skull, to stop what little bleeding there was from the two clean-cut wounds, and then the two picked him up, and, without a word, carried him out of the room. "I hope I haven't shocked you by such a rough-and ready administration of justice," said Max, half turning in his chair and addressing a girl who sat next to him on his right hand.

" No," said the girl. " It was obviously necessary. If half you charged him with is true, he ought to have been crucified, let alone shot. I can't think what such vermin are made for." And as she spoke, she flicked the ash off a cigarette that she held between her fingers, put it between as dainty a pair of lips as ever were made for kissing, and sent a delicate little blue wreathing cloud up to mingle with the haze that filled the upper part of the room. " And how, what is this interesting something that you have got to tell us, Monsieur Max ? " " All in good time, Ma'm'selle. I must ask you to wait until Casano and Rolland have come back ; but meanwhile I will whet your curiosity by telling you I am thinking seriously of exiling myself for a couple of years or so." As he said this, he looked keenly from under his half lowered eyelashes into the girl's eyes, as if expecting, or, perhaps, only half hoping for, some sign of emotion.

Two dark-fringed lids listed suddenly for an instant, and then dropped again, and in that instant two liquid deep grey eyes, which before now he had seen grow almost black with passion, looked at him inquiringly. And that was all. "That is news indeed," she said. "It must be some thing very important that takes Monsieur Max away from the scene of action at such a critical time as this." " Yes," said Renault coldly, and with an almost imperceptible contraction of the brows, " it is important ; so important, in fact, that I don't think I am exaggerating when I say that if I had not come back to-night, instead of to-morrow, and had given that fellow twelve hours more grace, the fate of the whole world would have been changed." " What ! the fate of the world ? " said she half incredu lously, while the others ceased their conversation and turned to listen to this strange passage of words.

" Yes," said Max, slightly raising his tone till it had a note of triumph in it, and at the same time bringing his hand down on hers, which was resting on the arm of her chair. The quick blood came to her cheeks and a flash of anger to her eyes, and she made an effort to withdraw it, but he held it fast, and, before she could speak, went on — " Yes, Lea, if the venture that I am going to undertake turns out a success, I shall hold the fate of human society in my hand, just as I hold this pretty little hand of yours, only in a somewhat rougher grip, and then — " " And then, Monsieur Max," interrupted the girl, snatch ing her hand away as the pressure of his relaxed for a moment. " I suppose you will have what you have not got now, the right to take what you want by the universal law of might."

"Yes," he said, with another laugh, a somewhat more pleasant one this time. " And as I have the power, so will I use it, whether in love or war. Are you agreed ? " Lea looked at him steadily for a moment, and then, with a swift flush overspreading as fair a face as ever man's eyes rested upon with love and longing, said in a low voice that had just a perceptible tremor in it — "Yes, I suppose might is right after all, in love as well as war and nineteenth century society. He who can take can have ; but, if you please, we will wait until you can take." "Agreed !" he said. " That's a bargain. And now we'll get to business. Have you found Comrade Berthauld a quiet resting-place?" he continued, addressing the two men, who had just returned to the room. " Yes," said Casano in his pleasant Italian tenor.

" Ve has gifen him a bath. I don't sink zere vill be very mooch left of him or his clothes by ze morning." " Very well," said Max, taking some papers out of the breast pocket of his jacket. " Now, sit down and listen." They obeyed in silence, Casano first bolting the door. "First," said Max, looking up from his papers and giving a quick glance at the expectant faces round the table, " Comrade Caserio Santo of the Cette Group has been chosen by lot to execute the sentence passed by this group on the 6th of February on Sadi Carnot in return for the lives which he refused to spare. Santo will be at Lyons soon after daybreak. If that rat Berthauld had got out of this room alive, Santo would have been arrested, and Carnot would have escaped. I have the proofs of his treachery here, if you wish to see them.

As it is, is it agreed that I shall direct him to offer our congratulations to M. le President on his visit to Lyons ? " He stopped and looked round the table again. The others nodded in silence, but Lea looked up with something like softness in her eyes, and said — " What a pity ! Poor Carnot is an excellent fellow in his bourgeois way, isn't he ? Quite a model husband and father, incorruptible in politics, and all that sort of thing. Wouldn't some one else do as well, say, Casimir-Perier or Dupuy ? Incorruptible politicians are not so plentiful in France just now." " The better the man the better the effect," said Max drdy. " It is just as easy to strike high as a little lower. There are plenty of politicians in France, but only one President." " Ja ! dass is so," said a bright-faced, square-headed little German sitting opposite to Lea.

" Strike high and hit hart. Dat is de vay to make dese sheepsheads open deir moufs and stare ven dey reads de papers on Monday. Let Carnot go first, and den — veil, den someone else. Dere are plenty of dem to spare." A laugh followed this speech of Franz Hartog, who may as well be introduced here as elsewhere as the cleverest engineer in Europe, and an anarchist heart and soul — if he had a soul, which some of his nearest acquaintances were very much inclined to doubt. " Very well," said Lea ; " I withdraw my objection, if, indeed, I ever had one." The veto of one member, by the rules of the Group, would have been fatal to the execution of the proposal. As Lea withdrew hers, she flicked some more ash off the end of her cigarette, and with it virtually fell the man whose death all Europe would be mourning within forty-eight hours.

" Then that is settled," said Max. " I wdl wire to Lyons the first thing in the morning. Now, Hartog, have you anything to tell us about this gunboat of yours ? " " Ja, dot is all arranged. Her keel vill be laid on de slips next mont. I have designed de engines mineself, and de speed contracted for by de firm mit de Russian Govern ment vill be thirty-five knots, and you can bet dat my engines vill make her do it. She vill make her private trial, mit all her coal and arms and ammunition on board according to de contract, mitin eighteen monzs from now, and you can depend upon me to be on board her at de time, mit a suitable majority of de firemens and crew to do vat ve vants mit her. " You can be sure, too, dat de oders vill have got some ting inside dem dat vill not make dem mooch good if ve have to have a small scrimmage after all to get possession of de boat.

Den ve vill rendezvous at de proper place, and den dere vill be some vild time on de Atlantic and de Cape routes ver dey bring de specie and de diamonds. " Ja, you believe me, Monsieur Max and comrades, Franz Hartog vill make you de masters ov de sea, and you shall laugh at all de fleets of Europe ven dey try to catch you. Dat vill be anarchy vot vill be worth calling somdings. Ja, it is a great scheme, and ve shall do it, you believe me." The little German stopped and looked round the table, rubbing his hands, and amidst the murmurs of approval that followed his speech, Max nodded laughingly to him and said — " Yes, my friend, you are quite right. That is a great scheme, and if you can capture that little greyhound for us when she is built and armed, you will have done more for anarchy, and driven a bigger nail into the coffin of the tyranny of commercialism, than ever any man did yet.

And now I am going to tell you of a greater scheme than that." " Greater as dot ! " exclaimed the German, his steely blue eyes glittering through his spectacles with excitement. " How can any scheme be greater as dot ? " " Listen and you shall hear," said Max, " and I won't take very many words to tell you." " Some years ago now, when I was little more than a lad, and before I came to believe that there is no remedy for the present state of affairs except force and terrorism, I joined a society of amiable idiots who meet at each other's houses in different parts of London, and who call themselves the Brotherhood of the Better Life. " I have kept up my membership, partly because it amused and interested me, and partly because I had a sort of idea that some day something might come of it. For a long time they have had a scheme on foot to emigrate to some out-of-the-way part of the world, and start one of those social colonies which of course always come to grief in some way or another, as the Freeland one has just done ; but, up to a few weeks ago, they never had a chance of making a start, for lack of money.

" Then, about a month ago, we had a regular romance, and something occurred that I would never have credited if it hadn't happened under my own eyes. Nearly six months ago, one of our members who pretended to be a craftsman — but who was really nothing of the sort, for he was what they call a gentleman from head to foot — disappeared. " For five months we heard nothing of him, and then, one night, after a lecture by a sort of latter-day prophet of ours, a very clever but misguided fellow called Edward Adams, a stranger came out from the audience and asked to be allowed to say a few words. " Of course, we allowed him to, and then he started out and told us that he was the father of the young fellow who disappeared from amongst us, that his son was dead, and that on his death-bed he had converted his father to his own social views ; and not only this, but he had made him promise to give what would have been his inheritance to the society to carry out the scheme of the social colony.

Then he told us that he had come to fulfil this promise, and, if we would allow him, to take part in the venture himself. " Well, we consented, on condition that he accepted the Constitution which we had been, as I always thought, playing at drawing up, and this he agreed to do, and then staggered us by saying how much he was prepared to devote to the carrying out of the scheme. We expected a few hundreds at most, perhaps just enough to give us a start with what we could get together of ourselves, so you can imagine what we felt like— and I in particular — when the figure came out at over a hundred thousand pounds." " Ein hundert tousand pound ! " cried Hartog, unable to restrain his enthusiasm. " Vy, I could build nearly tree ships of tirty-five knots mit so mooch ! Can you get hold of it, Monsieur Max ?

" " I'm not going to get hold of that, friend Franz, but of something a good deal more important than money. It turned out that our fairy godfather was no other than Frederick Austen, the head of the big engineering firm of Austen and Son, of Queen Victoria Street and Woolwich. The death of his son has made it impossible for an Austen to succeed him in the business, and that, combined with his change of social views, has decided him to give up the business altogether. " Of course, I needn't tell you that we accepted him and his money with thanks. But there was something stranger to come yet. Last night, at a meeting of the committee, of which I have the honour to be a member, he confided to us a secret which, as he said, would enable the colony not only to hold its own against any who might wish to interfere with it in case it prospered, but which will enable the colonists to enforce an object-lesson in peace, goodwill on earth, and all that sort of thing, on the first nations that go to war with each other, after they are in a position to wield the power that it will give them.

" Then " — and here Max Renault leant forward on the table and instinctively lowered his voice while the others leant forward also to catch what was coming — " he told us that just before his last illness his son had completed a series of experiments which enabled him to say with truth that the problem of aerial navigation had at last been solved, and that he had solved it. " He told the secret to his father, and he at once placed all the resources of his business at his disposal, and, comrades, believe me or believe me not, as you like, but I tell you that less than twenty -four hours ago I saw in action a working model of a flying ship which Frederick Austen is going to build with my assistance in the Brotherhood's New Utopia." A murmur half of amazement and half of incredulity ran from lip to lip as Renault uttered these momentous words, and Lea suddenly straightened herself up in her chair, stretched her shapely arms upward, and then, folding her hands behind her head, looked at Max with undisguised admiration in her eyes, and said, with a ring of exultation in her voice — "Ah, now I understand you, as ter wondering all this time what your parable was going to lead up to.