"What a cheerful prospect!" he exclaimed, gaily—"And I'm to be killed by my own secret, am I? I wonder what it is! Ah, Manella, Manella! That stupid old Gwent has been at you, stuffing your mind with a lot of nonsense—don't you believe him! I've no 'secret' that will kill me—I don't want to be killed; No, Manella! Though you come 'again and yet again and ever so often' as you say, you will not find me dead! I'm too strong!"
But Manella, yielding to her inward excitement, pointed a hand at him with a warning air of a tragedy queen.
"Do not boast!" she said—"God is always listening! No man is too strong for God! I am not clever—I have no knowledge of what you do—but this I will tell you surely! You may have a secret,—or you may not have it,—but if you play with the powers of God you will be punished! Yes!—of that I am quite certain! And this I will also say—if you were to pull all the clouds down upon you and the thunders and the lightnings and all the terrible things of destruction in the world, I would be there! And you would know what love is!—Yes!"—her voice choked, and then pealed out like that of a Sybilline prophetess, "If God struck you down to hell, I would be there!"
And with a wild, sobbing cry she rushed away from him down the hill before he could move or utter a word.
CHAPTER XVIII
A red sky burned over Egypt,—red with deep intensity of spreading fire. The slow-creeping waters of the Nile washed patches of dull crimson against the oozy mud-banks, tipping palms and swaying reeds with colour as though touched with vermilion, and here and there long stretches of wet sand gleamed with a tawny gold. All Cairo was out, inhabitants and strangers alike, strangers especially, conceiving it part of their "money's worth" never to miss a sunset,—and beyond Cairo, where the Pyramids lifted their summits aloft,—stern points of warning or menace from the past to the present and the future,—a crowd of tourists with their Arab guides were assembled, staring upward in, amazement at a white wonder in the red sky, a great air-ship, which, unlike other air-ships, was noiseless, and that moved vast wings up and down with the steady, swift rhythm of a bird's flight, as though of its own volition. It soared at an immense height so that it was quite impossible to see any pilot or passenger. It hung over the Pyramids almost motionless for three or four minutes as if about to descend, and the watching groups below made the usual alarmist prognostications of evil, taking care to look about for the safest place of shelter for themselves should the huge piece of mechanism above them suddenly escape control and take a downward dive. But apparently nothing was further from the intention of its invisible guides. Its pause above the Pyramids was brief—and almost before any of the observers had time to realise its departure it had floated away with an easy grace, silence and swiftness, miraculous to all who saw it vanish into space towards the Libyan desert and beyond. The Pyramids, even the Sphinx—lost interest for the time being, every eye being strained to watch the strange aerial visitant till it disappeared. Then a babble of question and comment began in all languages among the travellers from many lands, who, though most of them were fairly well accustomed to aeroplanes, air-ships and aerial navigation as having become part of modern civilisation, found themselves nonplussed by the absolute silence and lightning swiftness of this huge bird-shaped thing that had appeared with extraordinary suddenness in the deep rose glow of the Egyptian sunset sky. Meanwhile the object of their wonder and admiration had sped many miles away, and was sailing above a desert which, from the height it had attained, looked little more than a small stretch of sand such as children play upon by the sea. Its speed gradually slackened—and its occupants, Morgana, the Marchese Rivardi and their expert mechanic, Gaspard, gazed down on the unfolding panorama below them with close and eager interest. There was nothing much to see. Every sign of humanity seemed blotted out. The red sky burning on the little stretch of sand was all.
"How small the world looks from the air!" said Morgana—"It's not worth half the fuss made about it! And yet—it's such a pretty little God's toy!"
She smiled,—and in her smiling expressed a lovely sweetness. Rivardi raised his eyes from his steering gear.
"You are not tired, Madama?" he asked.