during the return to england two incidents of note, both alike terrible, but terrible in widely different ways, chequered our voyage, and the first of these it will now be my task to detail.
wealth of romance, witchery of mountain scenery, and panoramas of ever-varying landscapes in the plains—whatever happiness can be gleaned from these was mine in bounteous plenty. hitherto, however, the attila had met with gentle winds and fairly clear skies; she was a gay butterfly by day and a listless moth by night. she had shortly to display to me her prowess as a rider of the tempest. this experience, along with its sequel of grim incident, impressed me deeply. i shall try to awake in the reader some echo of the emotions which it stirred into fervour within me.
no one, at any rate, could charge hartmann with 107boring his unsolicited guest. feasted as i had been with pictures, i was destined to be swept through ever novel galleries of natural marvels. i had anticipated that we should return by a like route to that by which we had arrived, but a pleasant reversal of this view was in store for me. leaving the slopes of the jura behind her, the attila sped in a southwesterly direction across the department of aisne, over lyons, westward across the extinct volcanoes of auvergne, then curving slightly to the south she leapt the river dordogne, and, finally, passing at a great height over bordeaux, reached the ocean rim over the desolate landes which span the coast-line betwixt the garonne estuary and the adour. had i been exploring central africa in the interests of science, i should feel justified in presenting my observations at length. but the tracts beneath me being so familiar, such procedure would be both useless and troublesome. i must therefore leave the imaginative to put themselves in my place and picture these well-known districts as transfigured by the romance of air-travelling.
in looking down on such natural maps one is transported with a sense of power and exultation that renders even homely sights attractive. burnett, it is true, assured me that even this luxury of travel palls 108on one after a time. judging from the indifference of the crew, i should say that he had right on his side. but, whether my artistic appetite was abnormal, or the banquet provided was not of the proper duration, i can only say that this part of my residence on the attila always wore the livery of a gorgeous dream.
it was becoming dark when the pine forests and sand wastes of the landes gave place to the rim of biscay surf. in accordance with custom we rapidly began to descend, and were soon coursing over the billows at a height of some 200 feet. it was one of those evenings which ordinarily favour melancholy and lassitude. above us stretched inky layers of stratus or “fall” cloud, wrought of mists driven from the upper regions by the chills that hurried after the setting sun. the wind blew in gusts and preyed vampire-like on our energies—an electric tension of the atmosphere was becoming unmistakably manifest. clouds were rising smoke-like from the ocean rim and mingling with the flatter masses overhead, and even as i gazed the waves seemed to flash whiter and whiter through the veil of the nether darkness. i was standing on the upper deck debating social problems with brandt, greatly to the enjoyment of three of the crew who watched the contest. 109some few yards in front of us the platform tapered off to a point at the convergence of the bow railings, and directly in front of this the hull sloped downwards and outwards to form the projecting ram. at the extremity of this, with crest barely visible from the spot where my listeners were reclining, rose the conning-tower like a horn on the snout of a rhinoceros. amidships and astern hummed the forest of stays and props which hung us to the a?roplane, clustering thick over the rounded boss of the citadel, now half shrouded in gloom. it was a scene to inspire the painter—this weird vessel and its weird crew borne along between an angry welkin and the riotous surges of the ocean.
“violent diseases often demand violent remedies,” said brandt, as he developed his favourite topic. “the surgeon may be gentle at heart, but he spares not the gangrenous limb. in modern times he has an?sthetics to soothe his patient, but did he shrink from his task when such artifices as these were unknown? regard us anarchists as excising the foul ulcers of humanity and as forced to perform that duty with no an?sthetics to aid us. could we throw all london, all paris, all berlin into a trance, how painless would be our surgery! but, unhappily, we 110have to confront struggling patients vividly sensitive to the knife. nevertheless, for their own sakes, or rather the sake of humanity, we must cut.”
“but you overlook one important contrast. the surgeon lops off a limb or roots up an ulcer to save his patient’s life or better his health. but you attack civilization not to reform it but to annihilate it.”
“that is true, but civilization—your industrial civilization—what is it? not a system to be identified with the cause of human welfare, and hence worth preserving in some form or other at all costs, but a mere vicious outgrowth prejudicial to that welfare as we conceive it. the test of the worth of a civilization is its power to minister to human happiness. judged by this standard your civilization has proved a failure. mankind rushed to her embraces in hope, fought its way thither through long and weary centuries, and has for a reward the sneers of a mistress as exacting as she is icy:
“‘the third day comes a frost, a killing frost.’”
111
the storm gathering.
112during the delivery of this harangue the wind had been steadily rising, and it now began to shriek through the stays in a fashion positively alarming. foregoing further parley, i bent over the railing and 113strove to catch a glimpse of the angry sea-horses beneath us. but it was by this time too dark for the non-feline eye. glancing upwards and around the horizon, i could see the awnings of the storm unrolling, with here and there a rift through which stole the feeble moonlight. a man came from the citadel and stepped up to us. it was hartmann.
“well,” he said, “we are in for it. the barometer is falling rapidly, and the storm is already gathering. have a care for yourselves, comrades,” he added to his followers. “you, stanley, follow me to the conning-tower. the log of the attila may be worth writing to-night.”
i followed him gladly into the citadel, and down the stair leading to the narrow corridor which ran on to the bow. as we entered it the attila seemed to reel with a violent shock that sent me spinning against the wall. the storm had burst. by the time i had picked myself up hartmann had disappeared. i found my way after him into the tower, where he was standing, regulator in hand, with his eyes on the glass plate that looked forward into the night.
“we are rising,” he said, laconically. “look!”
a fan of vivid glory cleft the darkness. illumined by the electric search-light great masses of driving 114vapour were rushing by us; but other sight there was none. suddenly a second squall struck us, and the attila rolled like a liner in a cyclone; the lurch was horrible, and for a moment i thought we were capsizing—it must have been one of at least forty-five degrees followed by a very slow recovery. hartmann was busy over a medley of wheels, levers, and regulators.
“we are passing through the cloud-belt at a very high speed,” he continued, as if the shock was a trifle. “my intention is, first, to let you see a storm from the quiet zone above it; secondly, to rush downwards into it that the attila may show her mettle.”
i said nothing, for my feelings were in truth somewhat mixed. with the ascent portion of the programme i concurred heartily; the second i would gladly have abandoned, as it seemed to me so utterly foolhardy. but faint heart was not the commodity for hartmann, and wishing to earn his favour through his respect, i suppressed my fears resolutely. not noticing my silence he kept on throwing in his comments on the situation. as the minutes wore on i observed that the mist masses were blowing thinner and thinner against the bow of the attila. suddenly the electric light was turned off, and a gentle silvery glow took its place. and as we swept on i perceived 115that the wind had fallen also. hartmann pressed a bell-knob, and the two men on watch reappeared.
amongst the cloud-battalions.
117“now to the deck again, and you shall see a fine picture.”
as we stepped into the court of the citadel i had reason to appreciate this remark. down in the conning-tower i had stood behind the captain and seen little save the dawn of a gentle radiance among the thinning mists. but up here the vista was glorious. a brisk but by no means stinging wind swept the deck. above shone the horned moon in unclouded majesty, casting a weird light on the rolling masses of cloud-battalions underneath us. from below came the roar of the strife of elements and the crooked gleam of the levin-bolt, while the echoes of the thunder leapt grimly across the halls and palaces of the storm-king. as if arbiter of the struggle, the attila rode serenely over the turmoil in the quiet zone.
“how high are we now?” i asked hartmann, for the air was oppressively rare.
“a trifle over two miles. a sublime spectacle this, is it not?”
“uniquely so. the sense of serene power is so striking. but you do not propose to rest here?”
118“oh no. i must show that this serene power is not fraudulent. i shall shortly plunge the attila into the very vortex of the storm, and teach you how nobly she can wing her way through it.”
“it would not be safe, i suppose, on deck, what with the rolling, pitching, and wind? still one can scarcely enjoy these scenes in the conning-tower, where the engineer and watchman usurp the best places.”
“you would like, if possible, to stay here?”
“yes.” if the experience had to be undergone, there was no reason why i should not brave it out thoroughly. better the deck than a back seat in the conning-tower.
“well, so let it be. but you must be lashed securely. where shall it be? why not to the railing over the bow? you could not have a finer coigne of vantage.”
i assented at once, and, a couple of the crew being hailed, i was speedily made fast in a sitting posture by the waist and liberally invested with wraps. my position was excellent. i could see down the sloping bow to the conning-tower, and would be fairly sheltered from the worst of the wind. all the preparations being complete, the captain and the crew retired, leaving the deck altogether deserted. no 119light, save that of the moon, fell on its cold surface, and that only where the umbrella-like a?roplane did not bar off the sheets of slanting silver.
the attila rode grandly over the gloomy wool-packs below, and, thrilling with excitement and some fear, i waited for the coming plunge. the suspense was short. suddenly the electric eye of the a?ronef glowed forth from the crest of the conning-tower, behind and above which i was lashed to the railing. then the bow dipped and the speed began to increase. again and again it dipped with a series of little jolts, and then cut obliquely into the tenuous rim of the cloud-belt, through which it began to plough with an energy almost distressing.
those who have stood on an express engine running sixty miles an hour will know what it is to breathe in the teeth of a rushing blast; let them then conceive my experience when 120 and probably more miles an hour were being done in a hurricane. drenching clouds swept over me, the wind and thunder roared round me, as i was borne into that angry stratum below. burying my mouth within my neckcloth, and sheltering my eyes with my hands, i looked straight ahead at the glow which cleft the darkness before us. in a very brief time we had shot through 120the belt, and were rushing wildly down to the wind-lashed desolation below. the pitching and rolling of the a?ronef now became terrible, and once more awoke my fears. what if the guns were to break adrift or the props of the a?roplane to yield! as it was i could see that the squalls caused a startling irregularity of course, the attila swerving furiously from right to left, now dropping like a stone, now being checked in her descent and hurtled upwards. surely hartmann would not run too close to the waves on such a fearful night!
looking downwards, i now saw that the glow had reached the face of the waters, everywhere in violent turmoil with huge waves at least twenty-five feet high from trough to crest, spanned by clouds of wind-drift. and sight still more enthralling was a large dismasted steamer labouring heavily as she lay hove-to under the strokes of a thousand hammers. with boats smashed, bridge carried away, bulwarks in many places shattered, and decks continually swept, she was a spectacle fit to move even a hartmann. assistance, however, was out of the question. every art of the captain must be required to guide the course of the attila, and our tremendous speed could not safely be relaxed for a moment. it would have 121been, indeed, easy to “hover” in the teeth of a furious blast, but what if the blast were to drop and leave us momentarily stationary, while a side roll or pitch were to succeed?
sighting a doomed vessel.
123screws and sand levers notwithstanding, it was better to risk nothing. but what an experience was this! the attila with flaming electric eye circled round the doomed vessel, lighting up a deck crowded with panic-stricken passengers, groups of whom every larger wave washed pell-mell through the broken bulwarks. cry or shriek, none could be heard, the roar of the elements was too frightful, but the gestures of the wretches were too piteous to misinterpret. shutting my eyes, i refused for some minutes to look on the dreadful holocaust, but once more i had to yield to the fascination. by that time the drama was over. the attila was still circling, but in the place of the luckless vessel leapt the white-maned savage billows.
i now began to feel chilled and miserable; the excitement of the outset had dwindled, and a reaction, enhanced by the rigours of the night and the foregoing drama, mastered me. happily the attila had by this time weathered enough of difficulties. rising through the cloud-belt, she left the angry winds and rain once more below her. some of the crew ascended 124to the deck and released me from my bondage. it was now getting late, so after thanking hartmann for his courtesy, i descended into my berth to sleep off the ill effects of exposure, and dream horrible dreams of wrecks and drowning victims.