The City in the Clouds Part 37

It was the reaction, only to be expected, as the Richmond doctor said to me some three hours later. For the next two or three days I was to do nothing at all, after my "bad fall," which was the way my state had been explained to him. Whether he believed it or not, I cannot tell. It was certainly odd that Mr. Mendoza Morse, whom he also attended, should be in very much the same state of shock and semi-collapse. But he was a discreet, clean-shaven gentleman, with a comfortable manner, and in the seventh heaven at being admitted to the mysterious City in the Clouds, his eyes everywhere as he was being conducted through its wonders to our bedsides--so Rolston told me afterwards. At any rate, he was right. It was certainly necessary to go slow for a few days, and fortunately, now that the search was over and no trace of Midwinter discovered, we felt we could do this.

The preliminary arrangements for our final effort were left in Rolston's hands, who descended with the doctor, and I did not rise till mid-day.

I met Morse at lunch--_piano_, and distinctly under the weather from a physical point of view. We neither of us talked of important matters, but enjoyed a stroll round the City during a bright afternoon. At tea-time we met Juanita, and I had a long and happy talk with her. She knew, of course, that the search had proved satisfactory, and--as we had all agreed together--I led her to think that all danger was now practically over. Indeed, as far as Morse and she were concerned, I believed it myself. I knew that there was yet a grim tussle ahead for the rest of us, but that was all. I did not see her at dinner, but took the meal alone in my own house. Rolston was still absent, and as I did not want to talk to any one, failing Juanita, I was quite happy by myself.

About nine o'clock I was rung up on the telephone. Morse spoke. He said he was now thoroughly rested, and was ready for a chat. If I hadn't seen the treasures of the library yet, he and Pu-Yi would be pleased to show them to me. And so, slipping on a coat over my evening clothes, and taking a light cane in my hand, I started out for Grand Square. It was again, I may mention here, a fine and calm night.

My host and the Chinaman were waiting for me in the great, Gothic room, and we inspected the treasures in some of the gla.s.s-fronted shelves. I was surprised and delighted to find that my future father-in-law had a real love for, and a considerable knowledge of, books. It was a side of him I had not seen before. I had not connected him with the arts in any way, which, when you come to think of it, was rather foolish. Certainly he had the finest expert advice and help to be found in the whole world in the building of the City in the Clouds. But I should have remembered that the initial conception was his own and that many of the details also came entirely from his brain. Certainly, in his way, Mendoza Morse was a creative artist.

My own collection of books at Stax, my place in Hertfords.h.i.+re, is, of course, well known, and always mentioned when English libraries are under discussion. But Morse could boast treasures far beyond me. During the last year or two I had been so busy in working up the _Evening Special_ that I had quite neglected to follow the book sales, but I learned now that some of the rarest treasures obtainable had been quietly bought up on Morse's behalf. He had all the folios, and most of the quartos, of Shakespeare, a fine edition of Spenser's "Faerie Queene"

with an inscription to Florio, the great Elizabethan scholar; there was Boswell's own copy of Johnson's "Lives of the Poets," with a ponderous Latin inscription in the st.u.r.dy old doctor's own hand, and many other treasures as rare, though not perhaps of such popular and general interest.

Pu-Yi made us some marvelous tea in the Chinese fas.h.i.+on, with a sort of ritual which was impressive as he moved about the table and waved his long pale hands. It was of a faint, straw color, with neither sugar, milk, or lemon, and he a.s.sured me that it came from the stores of the Forbidden City in Pekin. Certainly, it was nasty enough for anything, and I praised it as I had praised Morse's rose-colored champagne the night before--but with less sincerity.

I don't know if my friend had a touch of homesickness or not, but he began to tell us of his home by the waters of the Yang-Tse-Kiang. His precise and literary English rose and fell in that great room with a singular charm, and though I don't think Morse listened much, he smoked a cigar with great good-humor while Pu-Yi expounded his quaint, Eastern philosophy. We did not refer to the grim scenes of the night before, but something I said turned the conversation to the funeral customs of China.

"Indeed, Sir Thomas," said Pu-Yi, "the death of a man of my nation may be said to be the most important act of his whole life. For then only can his personal existence be properly considered to begin."

This seemed a somewhat startling proposition, and I said so, but he proceeded to explain. I shall not easily forget his little monologue, every word of which I remember for a very sad and poignant reason. Well, he knows all about it now, and I hope he is happy.

"It is in this way," he said. "By death a man joins the great company of ancestors who are, to us, people of almost more consequence than living folk, and of much more individual distinction. It is then at last," he continued, delicately sipping his tea, "that the individual receives that recognition which was denied him in the flesh. Our ancestors are given a dwelling of their own and devotedly reverenced. This, I know, will seem strange to Western ears, but believe me, honorable sir, the cult is anything but funereal. For the ancestral tombs are temples and pleasure pavilions at the same time, consecrated not simply to rites and ceremonies, but to family gatherings and general jollification."

This was quite a new view to me, and certainly interesting. I said so, and Pu-Yi smiled and bowed.

"And the fortunate defunct," he went on, "if he is still half as sentient as his dutiful descendants suppose, must feel that his earthly life, like other approved comedies, has ended well!"

His voice was sad, but there was a faint, malicious mockery in it also, and as I looked at him with an answering smile to his own, I wondered whether that keen and subtle brain really believed in the customs of his land. That he would be studious and rigid in their outward observance, I knew.

I never met, as I have said before, a more courteous gentleman than Pu-Yi.

"Ever been in South Germany?" said Morse suddenly--he had evidently been pursuing a train of his own thought while the Chinaman held forth.

"Yes, Mr. Morse, why?"

"Then in some of those quaint, old-fas.h.i.+oned towns you have seen the storks nesting on the roofs of the houses?"

I remembered that I had.

"Well, I've got a pair of storks--they arrived this morning from Germany--duck and drake, or should you say c.o.c.k and hen?--at any rate, I've a sort of idea of trying to domesticate them, and to that end have had a nest constructed on the roof of this building, where they will be sheltered by the parapet and be high up above the roof of the City. What do you say to going to have a look at them and see if they're all right?"

Extraordinary man! He had always some odd or curious idea in his mind to improve his artificial fairyland. Nothing loth, we left Pu-Yi and ascended a winding staircase to the roof of the great building. Save for the lantern in the center, it was flat and made a not unpleasant promenade. The storks were at present in a cage, and could only be distinguished as bundles of dirty feathers in a miscellaneous litter. I thought my friend's chance of domesticating them was very small, but he seemed to be immensely interested in the problem.

When we had talked it over, he gave me a cigar and we began to promenade the whole length of the roof. As I have said, the night was clear and calm. Again the great stars globed themselves in heaven with an incomparable glory unknown and unsuspected by those down below. The silence was profound, the air like iced wine.

From where we were, we had a bird's-eye view of the whole City. Grand Square lay immediately at our feet, brilliantly illuminated as usual.

Not a living soul was to be seen; only the dragon-fountain glittered with mysterious life. To the right, beyond the encircling buildings of the Square, stood the Palacete Mendoza surrounded by its gardens, a square, white, sleeping pile. I sent a mental greeting to Juanita. So high was the roof on which we stood that only one of the towers or cupolas rose much above us. It was the dome of the observatory, exactly opposite on the other side of Grand Square.

"There is some one who isn't much troubled by sub-lunary affairs," I said, pointing over the _machicolade_.

Morse nodded, and expelled a blue cloud of smoke. "I guess old Chang is the most contented fellow on earth," he said. "He is Professor, you know, Professor Chang, and an honorary M.A. of Oxford University. I had him from the Imperial Chinese Observatory at Pekin, and I am told he is on the track of a new comet, or something, which is to be called after me when he has discovered it--thus conferring immortality upon yours truly!

"It is an odd temper of mind," he went on more seriously, "that can spend a whole life in patient seclusion, peering into the unknown, and what, after all, is the unknowable. Still, he is happy, and that is the end of human endeavor."

He sighed, and with renewed interest I stared out at the round dome. The slit over the telescope was open, which showed that the astronomer was at work. In the gilded half-circle of the cupola, it was exactly like a cut in an orange.

I was about to make a remark, when an extraordinary thing happened.

Without any hint or warning, there was a loud, roaring sound, like that of some engine blowing off steam. With a "whoosh," a great column of fire, like golden rain, rose up out of the dark aperture in the dome, towering hundreds of feet in the sky, like the veritable comet for which old Chang was searching, and burst high in the empyrean with a dull explosion, followed by a swarm of brilliant, blue-white stars.

Some one inside the observatory had fired a gigantic rocket.

Morse gave a shout of surprise. He had a fresh cigar in his hand, and, unknowingly, he dropped it and mechanically bit the end of his thumb instead.

"What was that?" I cried, echoing his shout.

He didn't answer, but grew very white as he stepped up to the parapet, placed his hand upon the stone, and leant forward.

I did the same, and for nearly a minute we stared at the white, circular tower in silence.

Nothing happened. There was the black slit in the gold, enigmatic and undisturbed.

"Some experiment," I stammered at length. "Professor Chang is at work upon some problem."

Morse shook his head. "Not he! I'll swear that old Chang would never be letting off fireworks without consulting or warning Pu-Yi. Kirby, there is some black business stirring! We must look into this. I don't like it at all--hark!"

He suddenly stopped speaking, and put his hand to his ear. His whole face was strained in an ecstasy of listening, which cut deep gashes into that stern, gnarled old countenance.

I listened also, and with dread in my heart. Instinctively and without any process of reasoning, I knew that in some way or other the horror was upon us again. My lips went dry and I moistened them with the tip of my tongue; and, without conscious thought, my hand stole round to my pistol pocket and touched the cold and roughened stock of an automatic Webley.

Then I heard what Morse must have heard at first.

The air all around us was vibrating, and swiftly the vibration became a throb, a rhythmic beat, and then a low, menacing roar which grew louder and louder every second.

We had turned to each other, understanding at last, and the same word was upon our lips when the thing came--it happened as rapidly as that.

Skimming over the top of the distant Palacete like some huge night-hawk, and with a noise like a machine gun, came a venomous-looking, fast-flying monoplane. It swept down into Grand Square like a living thing, just as the noise ceased suddenly and echoed into silence. It alighted at one end and on the side of the fountain nearest the observatory, ran over the smooth wood-blocks for a few yards, and stopped. It was as though the hawk had pounced down upon its prey, and every detail was distinct and clear in the brilliant light of the lamps in the Square below.

Both of us seemed frozen where we stood. I know, for my part, all power of motion left me. A choking noise came from Morse's throat, and then we heard a cry and from immediately below us came the figure of Pu-Yi, hurrying down the library steps and running towards the aeroplane, which was still a considerable distance from him.

The next thing happened very quickly. A door at the foot of the observatory tower opened, and out came what we both thought was the figure of the astronomer. He was a tall, bent, old man, habitually clothed in a padded, saffron-colored robe with a hood, something like that of a monk.

"Chang!" I said in a hoa.r.s.e whisper, when Pu-Yi stopped short in his tracks, lifted his arm, and there was the crack of a pistol.

The figure beyond, which was hurrying towards the monoplane, swerved aside. The robe of padded silk fell from it and disclosed a tall man in dark, European clothes. He dodged and writhed like an eel as Pu-Yi emptied his automatic at him, apparently without the least result. Then I saw that he was at the side of the aeroplane, scrambling up into the fuselage a.s.sisted by the pilot in leather hood and goggles.

He was up the side of the boat-like structure in a second, and then, with one leg thrown over the car he turned and took deliberate aim at Pu-Yi. There was one crack, he waited for an instant to be sure, and saw that it was enough. Then there was a chunk of machinery, two or three loud explosions, a roar, and the wings of the venomous night-hawk moved rapidly over the parquet, chased by a black shadow. It gathered speed, lifted, tilted upwards, and, clearing the buildings at the far end of the Square, hummed away into the night.