The Air Trust Part 44

Stormed it, as it began to blaze and crumble; stormed it, in search of Flint and Waldron, would-be murderers of the world.

Stormed it, only to see Herzog gnash his teeth upon the flask, and fall, and die; only to know that there, within the rock-hewn, steel-lined tanks, below, their enemies had still outwitted them!

The swift onrush of the fire drove the victors back.

"_Out, comrades! Out of here_!" shouted Gabriel, facing the attackers.

None too soon. Hardly had they beaten a retreat, back into the vast courtyard again, strewn with the dead, when a second oxygen tank exploded, overwhelming the laboratory building with tons of flying steel.

Leaping toward the zenith, a giant tongue of flame roared heavenward. So intense the heat had now become, that the solid brick and concrete walls, exposed to the direct verberation of the flame, began to crack and crumble.

Gabriel ordered a general retreat of the attacking army. Victory was won; and to stay near that gus.h.i.+ng tornado of flame, with new explosions bound to occur as the other oxygen tanks let go, must mean annihilation.

So the triumphant Army of the Proletaire fell back and back still further, out into the wrecked and trampled Park, and all through the city, where shattered buildings, many of them ablaze, and broken trees, dead bodies, smashed ordnance and chaos absolute told something of the story of that brief but terrible war.

Ringed round the peris.h.i.+ng ruins of the Air Trust they stood, these mute, thrilled thousands. Silence fell, now, as they watched the roaring, ever-mounting flames that, whipped by the breeze, crashed upward in long and cadenced tourbillions of white, of awful incandescence.

And the river, ever-hurrying, always foaming on and downward to its t.i.tanic plunge, sparkled with eerie lights in that vast glow. Its voice of thunder seemed to chant the pa.s.sing and the requiem of the Curse of the World, Capitalism.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

DEATH IN THE PIT OF STEEL.

And Flint, now, what of him! And Waldron?

While the Air Trust plant was burning, crumbling, smas.h.i.+ng down, what of its masters, the masters of the world?

A sense of vast relief possessed them both, at first, as the steel door clanged after them.

Now, for a time at least, they realized that they were safe, safe from the People, safe from the awakened and triumphant Proletariat. Even now, had they surrendered, they would have been spared; but nothing was further from their thoughts than any treating with the despised and hated enemy.

Foremost in the mind of each, now, was the thought that if they could but stand siege, a day or so, the troops of the government--their government and their troops, their own personal property--would inevitably rescue them.

With this comforting belief, together they descended the long steel staircase to the trap-door, pa.s.sed through this, and climbed down the metal ladder to the vast storage-vaults.

Here, everything was cool and quiet and well-lighted. Not yet had the electric-generating plant been put out of action. Though all its workers had either been drafted into the ranks of the Cosmos mercenaries, or Herzog's regiments, or else had fled to hiding, still the huge turbines and enormous dynamos were whirling, unattended. Thus, for the first few minutes, in their living tomb, down over which the ruins of the now white-hot laboratory-building had crashed, the world-masters had electric light.

Rea.s.sured a little, they descended to the very bottom of the first huge tank.

"G.o.d!" snarled Flint, as he breathed deeply and glared about him. "The curs! The swine! To think of this, _this_ really happening! And to think that if we hadn't got here just in time, they'd actually have--have used violence on _us_--"

Waldron laughed brutally, his body still trembling and his face chalky.

His laugh echoed, hollowly, from the metal walls.

"You old fool!" he spat. "Canting old hypocrite to the last, eh?

Violence? What the devil do you expect? Rosewater and confetti? Violence was all that ever held 'em, wasn't it? And when they slipped the leash, naturally they retorted--that's all! Violence? You make me sick! d.a.m.ned lucky for us if we get through this yet, without violence, you whining cur!"

Flint, for the first time hearing Waldron's honest opinion of him, failed even to note it. All his panic-stricken ear had caught was the note of hope, of survival.

Clutching eagerly at Waldron's sleeve, he cackled:

"If we get through? If we get through, you say? Then, in your opinion, there _is_ a chance to get through? They can't get us here? We surely shall be rescued?"

"Bah!" Waldron flung at him, some latent spark of courage still smouldering in his sodden breast, whereas old Flint was craven to the marrow. "You nauseate me! Afraid to die, eh? Well, so am I; but not so d.a.m.ned paralyzed and sick with panic as all that! If you'd taken less dope, the last twenty years, you'd have more nerve now, to face the music! World-master, you? Eh? Playing the biggest game on earth--and now, when things break bad, you squeal! Arrrh! You called me a quitter once, you mealy-mouthed old Pecksniff! We'll see, now, who quits! We'll see, at a show-down, who can face it, you or I!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: His fingers lost their hold--he dropped like a Plummet.]

Waldron's brutality, the hard, savage quality that all his life had made him "Tiger" Waldron, now was beginning to rea.s.sert itself. His first sheer panic over, a little manhood was returning. But as for Flint, no manhood dwelt in him to be awakened. Instead, each moment found him more abject and more pitiable. Like an old woman he now wrung his hands and groaned, hysterically; and now he paced the steel floor of the vault that was destined to be his tomb; and now he stopped again and stared about him with wild eyes.

On all sides, sheer up a hundred feet or more, the smooth steel sides of the vast oxygen tank rose, studded with long lines of rivets.

Near the top a dark aperture showed where the six-inch pipe joined the tank; the pipe destined to fill it, when Herzog's last process--never, now, to be completed--should have been done.

The huge floor, 150 feet in diameter, sloped gently downward toward the center; and here yawned another pipe, covered by a grating--the pipe to drain the liquid oxygen out to the pumping station.

So deeply set in the rock of the Niagara cliff was this stupendous tank, and so cunningly surrounded by vacuum-chambers, that now no faintest sound of the Falls was audible. All that betrayed the nearness of the cataract was a faint, incessant trembling of the metal walls, as though the solid ribs of Earth herself were shuddering with the impact of the plunge.

Old Flint surveyed this extraordinary chamber with mingled feelings. It surely offered absolute protection, for the present--or seemed to--but his distressed mind conjured alarming pictures of the future, in case no rescue came. Death by starvation, thirst and madness loomed before him.

Nervously he recommenced his pacing. Another terribly serious factor was to be considered. He had now been three hours without his dose of morphia, and his nerves were calling, tugging insistently for it.

"Rotten luck," he grumbled, "that I've got none with me!" Even there, in the imminent presence of disaster and death, his mind reverted to the poison, more necessary to him than food.

Waldron now had grown fairly calm. He stood leaning against the steel ladder, down which they had descended. Choosing a cigar, he proceeded to light up.

"Might as well be comfortable while we wait," said he. "I only wish we had a couple of chairs, down here. Oversight on our part that we didn't have some steel ones put in, and a line of canned goods and a few quarts of Scotch. The floor's a bit damp and cold to sit on, and I want a drink d.a.m.n bad!"

Flint swung about and faced him, pale and shaking, tortured with fear and with longing for his dope.

"You--you don't think it _will_ be long, eh, do you?" he demanded. "Not long before we're taken out?"

Waldron shrugged his shoulders and blew a long, thin arrow of smoke athwart the brightly-lighted air.

"Search me!" he exclaimed. "To judge by what was happening when we made our exit, the Plant must be a mess, by this time. We seem to have been checked, even if not mated, Flint. I must admit they caught us by surprise. Caught us napping, d.a.m.n them, after all! They were stronger than we thought, Flint, and cleverer, and better organized. And so--"

"Don't say 'we,' curse you!" snarled Flint. "Blame yourself, if you want to, but leave me out! _I_ knew there was trouble due, I tell you. _I_ saw it coming! Who's been trying to crush the swine completely, if not I? Who's worked night and day to have those bills put through, and who had the army increased, and conscription started? Who's driven the President to back all sorts of things? Who's forced them? Who made the National Mounted Police a reality, if not I? d.a.m.n you, don't include _me_ in your blame!"

Waldron shrugged his shoulders, and smoked contemplatively.

"Suit yourself," he answered. "If we both die, down here, it won't matter much either way."

"Die?" quavered the old jackal, suddenly forgetting his rage and peering about with furtive eyes. "Did you say die, Wally? No, no! You didn't say that! You didn't mean that, surely!"

Waldron smiled, evilly, joying in this abject fear of his hated partner.