“Tell the captain I must see him. Tell him the letter was never delivered, and that I must somehow find a means of speaking to him face to face.” The answer came that he could not possibly see me, and that I must say through the telephone what I wanted, and that briefly. I shouted that I must at all costs descend. He replied that his plans were unalterable. I entreated, I clamoured, I expostulated, pleading the friendship I had borne to his mother, and the possibility that she, too, had not yet stirred. His words to her had necessarily been more or less enigmatical. Let me, then, go and watch over the fate of her also. I had moved him, for there was a long pause. After what seemed ages of waiting came his reply. “The Attila cannot descend, but it crosses Hyde Park shortly. If the case is urgent, take my parachute. The fall will not be of more than five or six hundred feet.”
This alternative was gruesome, but there was no help for it. I wavered an instant and accepted. Shortly afterwards Norris appeared on deck, and bade me follow him into the citadel. I entered it, crouching low down to the deck with the fire of the guns darting forth above me, and down the steep stair we went till we reached the door of the dynamite room. My guide pushed the door open and we entered.
A solitary electric lamp dispelled the gloom of the chamber and revealed the figures of Schwartz and two other men standing by the trap-hole, now for the moment closed. I was struck with the caution with which their work, judging from appearances, was done. From a cabinet in the right-hand corner sloped a stoutly-made tube of network, well stayed by bands and roping to the ceiling. It was evidently along this that the dangerous bombs were guided, rolling into a bag-like compartment immediately over the trap. I had scarcely entered when the trap was lifted, the compartment lowered, its terrible passenger released, and the bag sharply pulled in. To forego a glance was impossible. I leant over the aperture and listened for the voice of the fatal messenger. It exploded near Oxford Street below us, apparently in a house, for the secondary rattle was tremendous, suggesting the crash of ruined walls on the roadway. Schwartz was about to launch another when a ting of the call-bell arrested him. He telephoned to Hartmann, and received the order to cease dropping bombs for the present. The reason was simple enough, they were about to utilize a new weapon, the petroleum, which up to this time had done duty only on the hideous occasion already mentioned.
Norris now stepped up to Schwartz and told him of my determination. The German’s wicked eyes twinkled.
“Good. I, too, descend to-morrow, and we may meet.”
“Better luck,” I said bitterly; “I have done with the Attila for ever.”
“So, ah! you Socialists have much to learn. Well, we are teaching you something in London.”
I managed to keep my temper, for these were not men to be played with. But how I would have liked to have hurled the miscreant down that trap-hole.
Norris muttered that the mob might teach me something too, and I realized, then, that the descent was not my greatest danger.
What if the parachute were to be seen by any one? I should be torn to pieces or worse. The possibility was an appalling one. Still the darkness would prove a very serviceable shield. Once clear of the Park, I could pilot myself through the streets without trouble.