“For—for Heaven’s sake, do!” groaned Mrs. Gudrun. But again that new voice spake from the blue lips of De Petoburgh, and——
“I’ve lived like a dashed blackguard, but I’m not going to die like a cowardly cad. Curtain’s up—go through with the show. Bolsover, you bragging, white-livered idiot, you can steer an electric launch and drive a motor-car. If I’d ever learned to do either, I’d take your place. But as I can’t—go ahead, and keep on as I direct, or I’ll shoot you through your empty skull with this revolver”—the click of the weapon came stimulatingly to the ears of the scared helmsman—“and swear I went mad and wasn’t responsible. They—they’d believe me! Mabel, if you sit tight and go through with this, I’ll stand you that thousand-guinea tiara you liked at Alphonse’s, if we—when we get safe to ground. Now, Bolsover, drive on, or take the consequences!”
Perhaps the familiar terms employed restored Bobby to the use of his suspended faculties. Certain it is that the airship began to forge steadily ahead at the rate of some twenty miles an hour—but not absolutely in the direction of the vast spidery erection of metal which was its destined goal. It skimmed in the direction of the Bois de Boulogne, keeping at so lofty an altitude that of the end of the guide-rope merely a length of some six feet trailed upon the ground.
“Those—those men l-look so funny running after it,” said Mrs. Gudrun, upon whom the promise of the tiara had acted as a stimulant.
“I hope they may keep up with it,” muttered De Petoburgh as the airship sailed over the humming streets of the gay city, and tiny men and women turned white specks of faces upwards to stare. “Ease her, Bolsover,” he commanded.
“Oh, we’re going right up again!” gasped Mrs. Gudrun. Then, as the airship regained the horizontal: “This isn’t half bad,” she said in a more cheerful tone, “but the housetops with their spiky chimney-pots look dreadfully dangerous. The guide-rope has knocked a row of potted geraniums off a third-floor balcony, and the old man who was reading the paper in the cane chair must be swearing awfully. But where are the men? I don’t see them; do you?”
The four workmen were at that moment heatedly cursing the Municipal Council of Paris at the bottom of a very long, very deep trench which had been excavated across a certain street for the accommodation of a new drain. The guide-rope pursued its course without them, now sweeping a peaceful citizen off his legs, now covering the occupants of a smart victoria with mud, now trailing over a roof or coiling serpent-wise around the base of a block of chimneys. In the distance loomed the Eiffel Tower, but in answer to De Petoburgh’s repeated requests that he should steer thither, Bobby Bolsover only groaned. And the airship, after navigating gracefully over the green ocean of the Bois de Boulogne, continued her trip over the Longchamps racecourse, veered to the south at the pleasure of a shifting current of air, and, having leaked much, began plainly to buckle and bend.
De Petoburgh, uncomfortably conscious of a misspent existence and wasted opportunities, looked at the back of Mrs. Gudrun’s head, and wondered whether she knew any prayers.
“The trees are coming awfully close, aren’t they?” said the unconscious beauty.
“Awfully!” said the Duke, as the capricious motor stopped.