LITMIR.BIZ

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      In one of the horrible dungeons deep down in the foundations of the fortress, under the waters of the Neva, they were shown a massive gold plate riveted on to the rough, damp, stone wall. Its surface was kept brightly polished, and it looked strangely incongruous with the gloom and squalor of the cell. On it stood an inscription in platinum letters let into the gold:

      “In this cell Israel di Murska, afterwards known as Natas, the Master of the Terror, was imprisoned in the year 1881, previous to his exile to Siberia by order of Alexander Romanoff the last of the Tyrants of Russia.”

      With feelings wide asunder as love and hate, or gratitude and revenge, the descendant of Natas and the daughter of the Romanoffs stood in front of this memorial plate, and read the simple and yet pregnant words. Alan and Alexis both bent their heads as if in reverence for a moment, but Olga and Serge gazed at it with heads erect and eyes glowing with the fires of anger, in a silence that was broken by Alan saying—

      “Liberty surely never had a stranger temple than this, and yet this dungeon is to us what the Tomb of the Prophet is to the Moslems. I wonder what the Last of the Tsars would have thought if he could have foreseen even a little part of all that sprang from the tragedy that was begun in this dismal cell?”

      “He would have killed him,” said Olga, carried away for the moment by an irrepressible burst of passion, “and then there would have been no Natas, no Terror, and no Terrorist air-fleet, and Alexander Romanoff would have died master of the world instead of a chained felon in Siberia! Your ancestor, Richard Arnold, would have starved in his garret, or killed himself in despair, as many other geniuses did before him, and”—

      “And the world would have remained the slave-market of tyrants and the shambles of murderous men. Let us thank God that Natas lived to do his work!” said Alan in a tone of solemn reverence, wondering not a little at Olga’s strange outburst, and yet not having the remotest idea of its true cause.

      Neither Olga nor Serge could reply to this speech. They would have bitten their tongues through rather than say “Amen” to it, and anything else they dare not have said. After a moment more of somewhat constrained silence, Olga turned towards the door and said—

      “Come! Let us go, the air of this place poisons me!”

      When they got on the ice after lunch, Olga was not a little astonished to find that, perfect as she and Serge were in skating, the two Aerians were little inferior to them, despite the fact that they had just left their tropical home for the first time.

      “How is this?” said Olga to Alan, as, hand in hand, they went sweeping over the ice in long, easy curves. “I suppose you manufacture your ice for skating purposes in Aeria?”

      “No,” he said. “Some of our mountains rise above the snow-line, and in their upper valleys they have little lakes, so, when we want a skating surface, we just pump the water up and flood them and let it freeze. Besides this—I don’t think there is any harm in my telling you that we have a sort of wheel-skate which runs quite as easily as steel does on ice.”

      “Ah,” said Olga, possessed by a sudden thought. “Then I suppose that is why the streets of your splendid city are so broad, and white, and smooth?”

      Quietly as the words were spoken, Alan’s hand tightened upon hers as he heard them with a grip that almost made her cry out with pain. It was some moments before he recovered from his astonishment sufficiently to ask her the meaning of her unexpected and amazing question. She greeted his question with a saucy smile and a mocking, upward glance, and said quietly—

      “Simply because I have seen them!”

      It was a bow drawn at a venture. She had suddenly determined to test the truth of her vision and hazard a description from it of the unknown land.

      “You have seen them?” cried Alan, now more amazed than ever. “But, pardon me, even at the risk of contradicting you I must tell you that that is impossible. No one not a born Aerian has set eyes on Aeria for more than a hundred years.”

      “So you think perhaps,” she said in the same quiet, half-mocking tone. “Well now, listen and tell me whether this description is entirely incorrect. If it is correct you need say nothing, if it is not you can tell me so.”

      And then she began, while he listened in a silence of utter stupefaction, and described the valley and city of Aeria as she had seen them in her dream-vision. When she had finished he was silent for several moments, and then said in a voice that told her that she had really seen it as though with the eyes of flesh—

      “What are you? A sorceress, or—No, you cannot be an Aerian girl in disguise, for none ever leaves the country till she is married.”

      “Then as I cannot be the latter,” said Olga, “you must, I suppose, consider me the former. Now I shall take my revenge for your reticence in the train yesterday, and tell you no more. We are quits to that extent at least, and now we will go back to my brother, if you please.”

      With this Alan was forced to be content. Indeed, he could not have pursued the subject without breaking his oath, and so a few minutes later it came about that Olga and Serge were skating together in an unfrequented part of the lake, and here Olga took an opportunity that she might not have again of telling him as much as she thought fit for him to know of her plans for capturing the air-ship on the following day.

      “I needn’t tell you,” said she, “that this air-ship is worth everything to us, and that therefore we must be ready to go to any extremities to get possession of it. It is the first step to the command of the world, for you heard Alan say to-day that she is the swiftest vessel in the whole Aerian fleet.”

      “But to do that we must first overcome the crew,” said Serge, looking anxiously about to see if there was anyone within earshot. “How are we going to do that—two of us against ten or a dozen, armed with powers we know nothing about?”

      “We must find means to drug them—to poison them, if necessary, during to-morrow’s voyage,” came the reply, in a whisper that made his heart stand still for the moment with utter horror.

      “Good God! is that really necessary? It seems a horrible thing to do, when they are trusting us and taking us as their guests,” he said in a low, trembling tone.

      “Yes,” she replied, with a well simulated shudder; “it is horrible, I know, but it is necessary. Remember that we have solemnly sworn war to the knife against this people, and that, armed as they are, all open assault is impossible; therefore they must be struck in secret, or not at all.

      “Now listen. I have brought with me a flask which my grandfather gave me a day or two before he died. It contains enough of a tasteless, powerful narcotic to send twenty people to sleep so that nothing will wake them for several hours. I will give you half of this to-night and keep half myself, and one of us must find an opportunity to get the crew to take it in their wine, or whatever they may drink, for they are sure to have one or two meals while we are on board.

      “To-night I will send instructions in cypher to the Lossenskis in Vorobièvŏ to tell them that as many as possible of the Friends must be ready for action by eight to-morrow night, and must wait, if necessary, night after night till we come. If all goes well we shall select the new crew of the Ithuriel from them before we see two more sunrises. In fact, by the time we return from our voyage we must have absolute control of the vessel.

      “Such an opportunity as this will never offer itself again, and I, for my part, am determined to risk anything, not excepting life itself, to take the best advantage of it. It would be madness to allow any scruples to stand in our way when the Empire of the Air is almost within our grasp.”

      “And none shall, so far as I am concerned,” replied Serge in a low, steady voice that showed that his horror at the deed they contemplated had succumbed, at least for the moment, to the tremendous temptation offered by the prospect of success.

      “Spoken like a true Romanoff!” said Olga, looking up at him with a sweet smile of approval. “As the deed is so shall the reward be. Now we must get

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