“Above the Houses of Parliament; a blank discharge of the cannon will warn all, after which my flag will be run out. And then——well——”
I understood.
“We shall conduct the attack in three ways—by shell firing and machine-gun fire, by dynamite and forcite bombs, and by streams of burning petroleum.”
“Good God!”
“Meanwhile our associates will be spreading devastation below. The Houses of Parliament, the City, and the West End will occupy us in turn.”
“Who will control operations?”
“Schwartz, Norris, and Brandt manage the bombs. Five Swiss the oil; the rest—with the exception of three in the engine-room—man the quick-firing and machine-guns. I myself shall direct the course of the Attila from this tower. You are free to walk the upper deck, but the lower gallery is being transformed into tanks to hold the oil. I must now ask you to go. Thomas, you will see Mr. Stanley on to the deck and place him under due watch. He is free to inspect all he wishes, but he must interfere with nothing—understand, with nothing either by word or deed. Any breach of the order will entail death.”
I was as helpless as a bluebottle in a spider’s web. Thank heavens that I had sent Lena that telegram and letter. Luckily, in any case, she and her parents ought to receive warning from the guarded hints doubtless already conveyed to Mrs. Hartmann.
When I reached the deck, Thomas (who acted as a sort of A.D.C.) told off a man to watch me, and then sped away below. Looking over the rail, I could see that the oil was being poured into tanks formed by fitting cross walls into parts of the lower gallery. There were some eight of these along the bow end of the vessel alone, and I trembled to think of the fearful mischief which these hideous contrivances portended. Lamentations of this sort were, however, futile. Casting an eye over the landscape, I saw Caterham vanishing beneath us, while to the right rolled the billowy expanse of the North Downs. We were now going at a high speed, and in a short time—far too short to my thinking—were rapidly skimming over Croydon, Norwood Junction, and the Crystal Palace. We were now nearing our destination, and our altitude, recently raised to one of five hundred and fifty feet above sea-level, was once again suddenly altered to one of one hundred and fifty. The speed, too, was rapidly reduced, till at last gliding gracefully over Lambeth we passed obliquely over Westminster Bridge.
The scene here beggars description. The enormous crowd, already massed for some great labour demonstration, usurped every available patch of standing room, windows and roofs became animated, and vehicles of all sorts and conditions pulled up in batches and served as the vantage-ground of excited groups. Probably the arrival at Brighton had been at once telegraphed to the newspaper offices, but few knew of it, and to those few (the anarchist “brothers” apart) the Attila was necessarily a complete mystery. To the majority we came as falls a bolt from the blue (I refer here to the universal astonishment apparent, for at the outset it was clear enough that the aëronef inspired no terror). Cheers shook the air beneath us, and the distant thunders of applause rumbled far away down the Embankment.