“We don’t argue here,” said Burnett, “we act. If you want arguments, you must wait till you see the captain. Disputes with us are useless.”
So even he was becoming surly. It was natural enough, however, as a moment’s reflection showed. The alligator on land is ordinarily mild enough, in his element he is invariably a terrible monster. The “suspect” anarchist of Stepney was courteous and argumentative, but the free and independent anarchist of the Attila dogmatic and brutal. It was obviously best policy to humour him, for he alone, perhaps, might stand by me at a pinch. I endeavoured to throw oil on the troubled waters.
“You used not to mind criticism,” I urged.
“Oh no! but those days are past. Don’t take what I say unkindly, for we all mean you well. The captain will always talk, but we here are tired of it. We only exist now to act—when the word is passed. So you will consult our convenience and your own much more effectually if you drop all such homilies for the future.”
“Yes,” put in Thomas, “I had enough of it in London. Fifteen years of revolutionary socialist talking and nothing ever done! But wait a few weeks and I warrant it will be said that we here have atoned wonderfully well for arrears. Come, a glass to our captain—the destined destroyer of civilization!” The gallant three, acting on this hint, left me to digest their advice and retired within. How long I remained thinking I know not. Some one brought me a chair, but I was too abstracted to thank him. For fully an hour I must have looked down on those twinkling lights with a terror beyond the power of words to express. All was as Burnett had said. The dream of Hartmann was realized. The exile and outcast, lately sheltered from the law in the shadow of Continental cities, now enjoyed power such as a hundred Czars could not hope for. The desperadoes with him, hated by and hating society, were probably one and all devoured by lust of blood and revenge. The three I knew were all proscribed men, loathing not only the landlord and capitalist but the workers, who would most of them have rejoiced over their capture. They attacked not only the abuses and the defects but the very foundations of society. Their long-cherished thought had been to shatter the trophies of centuries. And the long-contemplated opportunity had come at last!
One resource remained. What they meant to do with me was uncertain. But my relations with Burnett and the friendship of Hartmann’s mother were sufficient to avert any apprehension of violence. My endeavour then henceforward must be to work on the mind of Hartmann, to divert this engine of mischief into as fair a course as possible, to achieve by its aid a durable and relatively bloodless social revolution, and to reap by an authority so secure from overthrow a harvest of beneficial results. Buoyed up by these brighter thoughts, I now began to find time for a more immediate interest. What of this wonderful vessel or aëronef itself? What was it built of? how was it propelled, supported, steered, manned, constructed? Rising from my chair, I felt my way along the railing forward, but found the way barred by some door or partition. As I made my way back I met Burnett, who emerged from the low door already mentioned.
“What, exploring already?” he said. “It’s no good at this hour, as you have doubtless discovered. Come inside and I’ll see you are made cosy for the night. You must want sleep, surely.”
I followed him in without a word. Passing into the chamber he pressed a spring in the wall, and a concealed door flew back revealing a dark recess. He struck a light, and there became visible a comfortable berth with the usual appurtenances of a homely cabin such as one would occupy in the second-class saloon of an ordinary ocean-going steamer.
“By the way,” I said, “you have not told me what happened in the park; I am dying to know.”
“It is easily told. When you fell, the two detectives were up in a moment. I turned round meaning to shoot, but before I emptied a barrel, crack, crack, crack, came a series of reports from aloft, and both men were settled, one spinning right across you—see, your coat is covered with blood. The explanation is that thirty feet up between the alleys of the trees floated the Attila, and Hartmann and Schwartz were indulging in a little sport. I very soon climbed up the ladder which was swinging close by the tree we were to have come to, and you were shortly afterwards hauled up in a carefully tied sheet. Why did we take you on board? I am surprised at your asking. We could not stop, and the idea of leaving you stunned, and in the compromising company of dead men, was not arguable. Would you have relished the idea of a trial as murderer and anarchist? You meant well, you see, by me, and the captain was strong in your favour. Some of the men know of you, and no one had a bad word to say—save that your theories were rather Utopian. But you may change.”