Moreover, there were the obligations of treaties to be remembered. Air-ships were not to be used in warfare. International compacts on the subject of aerial navigation must be respected. To set a dishonourable example by disregarding them for our own immediate purpose might lead to disastrous international results. Two, and more than two, could play at such a game as that!
And even, while the idea was being mooted, its immediate adoption became impossible. In a single night every English air-ship, the whereabouts of which was known, sustained mysterious, and, in most cases, irreparable damage. Such a discovery could not be concealed from the public. It was clear that some great and elaborate conspiracy was afoot, that the agents of the enemy were numerous, active, and daring, here in the very heart of England. It was clear, too, that the Government had been caught napping, and only too probable that worse surprises might yet befall the country. The police, it is true, made several arrests of suspected persons, but prevention, not cure, was the national desideratum. While the grass grew the steed might starve. Of what avail the slow formalities of legal, investigation, the jog-trot of red-tape routine, when the enemy was already at the gate, aye, in the heart of the citadel?
In this crisis it transpired that the Bladud was the only air-ship unaccounted for. There were conflicting statements about her recent movements; but presently it became known that she had been lent by the late President to a young Canadian friend named Linton Herrick. Mr. Herrick had been seen to go up with Wilton, the Engineer, and it was believed that subsequently the Bladud had been identified with an air-ship that had been seen travelling rapidly, and at a considerable altitude, over the English Channel.
HOW THE RAID FAILED.
Flossie had spoken. Silent resentment, obdurately nursed for quite two days, had given place to voluble reproaches. He was naughty, she told her father; never before had she known him quite so naughty. Why! he had hardly opened his lips for days and days; he had not taken her out, nor brought things home, or done anything. Waking that morning very early and very hungry, she had found nothing—not a thing—under her pillow—no, not even a lump of sugar; and he knew perfectly well that there were always lumps of sugar in the sideboard. No! he had forgotten. He did not love her, that was quite clear. His head was fuller than ever of that horrid Fort. If he did not look out he would go there and get killed himself presently, and that would be a nice thing to happen, wouldn't it?
Under the shower of these reproaches, Major Wardlaw hung his head. His silence and submissiveness slightly mollified the stern young lady. Like many others of her sex, Flossie must needs scold and then be sorry for the object of her reproaches. To-night there was something in her father's looks and bearing that arrested her vehemence. Why! goodness gracious! what was the matter?
"You know," she said shrewdly, looking at him as she stood between his knees with that steady gaze of youthful eyes that is often so disconcerting, "You know, if you weren't a great big man, I should say you were going to cry."