“Yes, Mr. Holt. Your little balloon was picked up about three years ago in the Gulf of Guinea, and, after various adventures and much discussion, has led to our present voyage.”
“I am delighted to hear it. I suppose there were plenty of noodles who put it down to a practical joke or something of that sort? What’s become of Stanley? Why didn’t he come out and rescue me, as he did Emin? Not glory enough, I suppose? It would bother him, too, to get over these mountains, unless he flew over. By the way, has he got an air-ship?”
“No,” replied Arnold, with a laugh. “This is the only one in existence, and she has not been a week afloat. But if you’ll allow us, we’ll come down and get generally acquainted, and after that we can explain things at our leisure.”
“Quite so, quite so; do so by all means. Most happy, I’m sure. Ah! beautiful model. Comes down as easily as a bird. Capital mechanism. What’s your motive-power? Gas, electricity — no, not steam, no funnels! Humph! Very ingenious. Always said it would be done some day. Build flying navies next, and be fighting in the clouds. Then there’ll be general smash. Serve ’em right. Fools to fight. Why can’t they live in peace?”
While Louis Holt was running along in this style, jerking his words out in little short snappy sentences, and fussing about round the air-ship, she had sunk gently to the earth, and her passengers had disembarked.
Arnold for the time being took no notice of the questions with regard to the motive-power, but introduced first himself, then the ladies, and then Colston, to Louis Holt, who may be described here, as elsewhere, as a little, bronzed, grizzled man, anywhere between fifty-five and seventy, with a lean, wiry, active body, a good square head, an ugly but kindly face, and keen, twinkling little grey eyes, that looked straight into those of any one he might be addressing.
The introductions over, he was invited on board the Ariel, and a few minutes later, in the deck-saloon, he was chattering away thirteen to the dozen, and drinking with unspeakable gusto the first glass of champagne he had tasted for nearly five years.
Chapter 18.
A Navy of the Future.
Arnold’s instructions from the Council had been to remain in Aeria, and make a thorough exploration of the wonderful region described in Louis Holt’s manuscript, until the time came for him to meet the Avondale, the steamer which was to bring out the materials for constructing the Terrorists’ aërial navy.
Louis Holt and his faithful retainer, during the three years and a half that they had been shut up in it from the rest of the world, had made themselves so fully acquainted with its geography that very little of its surface was represented by blanks on the map which the former had spent several months in constructing, and so no better or more willing guides could have been placed at their service than they were.
Holt was an enthusiastic naturalist, and he descanted at great length on the strangeness of the flora and fauna that it had been his privilege to discover and classify in this isolated and hitherto unvisited region. It appeared that neither its animals nor its plants were quite like those of the rest of the continent, but seemed rather to belong to an anterior geological age.
From this fact he had come to the conclusion that at some very remote period, while the greater portion of Northern Africa was yet submerged by the waters of that ocean of which what is now the Sahara was probably the deepest part, Aeria was one of the many islands that had risen above its surface; and that, as the land rose and the waters subsided, its peculiar shape had prevented the forms of life which it contained from migrating or becoming modified in the struggle for existence with other forms, just as the flora and fauna of Australia have been shut off from those of the rest of the world.
There were no traces of human inhabitants to be found; but there were apparently two or three families of anthropoid apes, that seemed, so far as Holt had been able to judge — for they were extremely shy and cunning, and therefore difficult of approach — to be several degrees nearer to man, both in structure and intelligence, than any other members of the Simian family that had been discovered in other parts of the world.
As may well be imagined, a month passed rapidly and pleasantly away, what with exploring excursions by land and air, in the latter of which by no means the least diverting element was the keen and quaintly-expressed delight of Louis Holt at the new method of travel. Two or three times Arnold had, for his satisfaction, sent the Ariel flying over the ridge across which she had entered Aeria, but he had always been content with a glimpse of the outside world, and was always glad to get back again to the “happy valley,” as he invariably called his isolated paradise.
The brief sojourn in this delightful land had brought back all the roses to Natasha’s lovely cheeks, and had completely restored both her and the Princess to the perfect health that they had lost during their short but terrible experience of Russian convict life; but towards the end of the month they both began to get restless and anxious to get away to the rendezvous with the steamer that was bringing their friends and comrades out from England.
So it came about that an hour or so after sunrise on Friday, the 20th of May, the company of the Ariel bade farewell for a time to Louis Holt and his companion, leaving with them a good supply of the creature comforts of civilisation which alone were lacking in Aeria, rose into the air, and disappeared over the ridge to the north-west.
They had rather more than 2500 miles of plain and mountain and desert to cross, before they reached the sea-coast on which they expected to meet the steamer, and Arnold regulated the speed of the Ariel so that they would reach it about daybreak on the following morning.
The voyage was quite uneventful, and the course that they pursued led them westward through the Zegzeb and Nyti countries, then north-westward along the valley of the Niger, and then westward across the desert to the desolate sandy shores of the Western Sahara, which they crossed at sunrise on the Sunday morning, in the latitude of the island which was to form their rendezvous with the steamer.
They sighted the island about an hour later, but there was no sign of any vessel for fifty miles round it. The ocean appeared totally deserted, as, indeed, it usually is, for there is no trade with this barren and savage coast, and ships going to and from the southward portions of the continent give its treacherous sandbanks as wide a berth as possible. This, in fact, was the principal reason why this rocky islet, some sixty miles from the coast, had been chosen by the Terrorists for their temporary dockyard.
According to their calculations, the steamer would not be due for another twenty-four hours at the least, and at that moment would be about three hundred miles to the northward. The Ariel was therefore headed in that direction, at a hundred miles an hour, with a view to meeting her and convoying her for the rest of her voyage, and obviating such a disaster as Natasha’s apprehensions pointed to.
The air-ship was kept at a height of two thousand feet above the water, and a man was stationed in the forward conning tower to keep a bright look-out ahead. For more than three hours she sped on her way without interruption, and then, a few minutes before twelve, the man in the conning tower signalled to the wheel-house —“Steamer in sight.”
The signal was at once transmitted to the saloon, where Arnold was sitting with the rest of the party; he immediately signalled “half-speed” in reply to it, and went to the conning tower to see the steamer for himself.
She was then about twelve miles to the northward. At the speed at which the Ariel was travelling a very few minutes sufficed to bring her within view of the ocean voyagers. A red flag flying from the stern of the air-ship was answered by a similar one from the mainmast of the steamer. The Ariel’s engines were at once slowed down, the fan-wheels went aloft, and she sank gently down to within twenty feet of the water, and swung round