Chapter XXII: The Ray Migrates

Now, then, for some days was the _régime_ of air-boats, Chinnery’s body still lying in its coffin in Buckingham Palace when twenty boats lay in the Park, the Prince and Sturge themselves winding, winding magnet-bobbins—without any very definite object! for it was a fairly certain thing that Li Ku Yu must have Oyone’s air-boat; and air-boat-making ceased suddenly in England on the fourth day, when Pilcher and others who had been scouting over France in air-boats reported that hundreds of thousands of magnets were being turned out at every “forges et chantiers”—de la Seyne, de la Gironde, de la Mediterranée—at Châlons-sur-Saône, at Rochefort, at Cherbourg: whereupon the Prince set himself to make the ray.

He worked in those days under the eyes of the Princess Elizabeth: for along one wall of his workshop ran a gallery aloft fronted with big-bellied balusters of old stone, through which one could peep down without being seen; and thence day after day, midnight after midnight, in patient vigil, peeped the Princess down: for the Prince of Wales was strange to her in those days—stiff, stiff, and still.

She suspected that he may have been told that she had visited Oyone at “Ning Shou Kung,” suspected that he suspected that Oyone was free through her: and there in the deepest unease, often when the palace was deeply asleep, she sat peeping, peeping, keeping her eyes fixed upon his flying activities, he finding time neither to eat nor sleep.

By this time England, that had sung so glad a song at the damming of the flood, again knew, not only its doom, but almost the day of it.

Every hour air-boats and aeroplanes flew home with fresh news of the hosts of Chinese now shrieking like fowl of ill-omen under the clouds, undergoing air-training in every town and countryside from Ghent to Guyenne.

Already there had been shots exchanged between air-boat and air-boat; already three flocks of a dozen air-boats had appeared over London, and dropped rice-greens into men’s eyes.

The destruction, then, was to be, not from below, but from the air, not an eruption, but a rain; and western man, knowing nothing of the Redlike Ray, understood that the Prince was powerless now to save.

He, for his part, reckoned from the reports sent him from Aldershot that the rain would be during the night of Friday the 9th of May; and he reckoned, by restless effort, to have the ray ready by the noon of Tuesday, the 6th of May—in time to send a letter to Li Ku Yu.

But he and Sturge worked with a blackness of uncertainty in their hearts. At least half of the apparatus they were making was being made, not in reliance upon known truth, but in reliance upon likelihoods.

And by the noon of that fatal Tuesday Oyone’s steamer was speedily approaching the English coast near Deal, in haste for Eulalia and the Redlike Ray.

Oyone had started from France days before, on the very night of Chinnery’s death, but had not steamed nine miles when she had been sighted by the third-class cruiser _Pioneer_, with a twenty-knot speed; and now—a chase.

Oyone’s yacht had finally escaped among the Scheldt channels, and she had since been a shrinking prisoner on the sea, till now by dodgings she saw the English cliffs; and instantly on landing was off by motor for 19 Chapel Street, Whitechapel.

Before that hour, about noon, the Queen had come into the workshop to see if the work was finished—not knowing what was being made, for her son would tell no one, but knowing that it was something immensely momentous. She laid her hand on his shirt-sleeve at the bench to murmur: “Not finished?”

He did not look at her. “No, Mother.”

“I have brought you these delicious little sandwiches.”

His deafened sense caught “sandwiches,” and now for the first time in his life he was intolerant of her. “Oh, Mother, for God’s sake!” he said with a very intense fretfulness of nettle-rash; and now her paled face went paler, and out mouse-mute she moved.

He nor Sturge ate; at six the work was not finished; at eight it was not finished; at nine it was near completion; at nineteen past it was finished.

Now the two faces were like ghost-faces down there in the light’s glow, their frames in a tremblement resembling the make-and-break of electric bells that tremble, as they flew about the room, mute but for a breath tossed anon from one to the other, while Elizabeth wondered, peeping through balusters above....

Now was the moment of testing. They had a little black cat at hand, so after locking all doors, they set her on a chair and ran, the Prince with two strings, to the remotest part of the room behind their black box on the bench; and there, their backs toward the box, the Prince pulled: the cap slipped down; a pencil of rays shot from the orifice upon the cat.

Dumbly now they hung some moments, though their hearts in their bosoms blabbed like tongues; and suddenly in those mute moments the cat mewed.

The Prince pulled the other string: toward her they flew; and, to their sorrow, saw her washing her chops with her paw ... cynic.

“Puss, puss, come,” went Sturge, and she ran straight to him.

The Prince sat on her chair siffling through his teeth-edges, calm now, but blanched like chalk.

At that moment Oyone’s motor was already in South-east London, travelling fast toward the ray, her chauffeur a Japanese from the Continent.

But it happened so that now, as the Prince sat there siffling his hymn, a pressing visitor was announced, and presently the Chief Commissioner was there, saying:

“The nurse who was observed carrying a black box has been unearthed, Sir. The box is now actually on a chair in her third-floor back room at No. 19 Chapel Street, East. Whether it is _the_ black box—it has a cap——”

“It _is_ it!”—the Prince had sprung to his feet—“I’ll go myself. ’Phone, Sturge, to the stables.”

But before that word “stables” the Princess Elizabeth was away flying, wild and white, and quickly was at the Queen’s knees, entreating her: “Teddy has discovered that girl—all is up with my life—has had out men seeking her—and oh, I know—I know—in ways unknown to Your Majesty—that he will surely marry, if he once finds her—as he _must_ now—unless—Mother—you graciously intervene. Go yourself—you and I—only it must be _instantly_—he has telephoned—if you bring her here, he will never find—everywhere else he will now——”

“Come,” said Her Majesty.

Wraps on heads, hand in hand, they ran.

Just outside the palace-front they chanced upon a cab, dashed down the Mall; and as they dashed past the Admiralty, the Prince dashed after in a brougham, Oyone at that moment motoring past the Elephant, between which and Blackfriars Bridge three people were injured by the speed of her wheels.

Now, the Prince’s cylinders had more horse-power than his mother’s, and all along the expanse of the Mall he rapidly overtook her, even though she, on cautiously looking, thought she saw him coming, and incited her driver to his highest speed, pleading, “You know me—the Queen—please—please——”

But once out in the Strand throng, the two were on a more equal footing, both being forced to forge slower through the misty and muddy multitudes; and beyond the Charing Cross Hotel the Queen just escaped what befel the Prince—a fallen horse, round which the crowd thickened like a boil in the blood’s circulation; and no side-street was there....

Nor was he aware that there was any race or very special necessity for haste, or he would certainly have turned back, or driven through the screams of men and women. But he waited.

So the mother got well ahead, dashing into Chapel Street six minutes in advance of the son—a shudder now in Elizabeth’s nerves lest Her Majesty, on observing the street-name and house-number, should remember that this was the very address of the Six Million donor as given by Sir Robert Barrington. But her Majesty had other troubles, as they dashed into the drab caravanserai.

Eulalia sat by her table and lamp, letting her eyes rest on a _Pippa Passes_ that had passed in her pocket through European bloodshed, through her Chinese nightmare, through the air, when—a thumping at her door—the door flung open—and before her the Queen—and peering over the Queen’s shoulder the Princess Elizabeth’s speculative spectacles....

“I am here to take you away”—from the Queen—“no time to explain—for the good of the State—your country, to which you owe everything—will you come?”

A stare!

“Will you come?”

“I—suppose so, Ma’am”—with a glance toward a soap-box containing underclothes.

“What’s in the box? Clothes? Leave those! Come——”

“My canary——”

“Bring that—quickly——” popping upon Eulalia’s head a forage-cap which she saw while Eulalia was taking the cage; which done, Eulalia cast a parting look round, spied her “Taska’s” black box, caught that up, and with the ray and her packet of letters under her right arm, the cage hanging in her left, the forage-cap cocked awry over her right eye, they were gone, like straws caught on cyclonic storms.

By which time the Prince, having passed Aldgate, was pretty near.

And down at the house-door there was delay—through Oyone, just come: for when the Queen reached the door, it was to hear her chauffeur screaming to Oyone’s chauffeur: “Are you drunk, or what?” the latter having shocked end-on upon the Royal cab’s engine.

And as Her Majesty stepped into her cab, and then Eulalia, out jumped Oyone from her motor, and saw the face of Elizabeth, just stepping in, in the off-shine of a wall-lamp; and she ran to Elizabeth saying: “_You?_ I have wished to speak——”

But as Elizabeth turned to her, the Queen’s face was out with “_Make haste!_ Who is this?”—and Oyone, with a starting heart, recognised the Queen, instantly thinking: “_She_ here? What for? the ray?”

The cab moved before she had had an instant’s chance to peer within and see Eulalia and the ray; but before the Queen’s head was withdrawn, Oyone had cut a face of venom and disdain at her.

If, now, the Royal cab had run west, it must have met the Prince, but it ran east, then north, then west, the Princess’s glasses, meantime, throwing ogles of distrust at the black box, not half liking the idea of being blown into “flies’ feet,” even with the Queen for companion.

Meantime, Oyone flew inward with wings, up the stair—resolved, if the box was absent, to follow the Royal cab, and, if necessary, lay dead....

Without ceremony she rushed into Eulalia’s chamber—plied a hundred eyes—not there—and down she rushed....

Causing the Prince’s heart to start! who was just near enough now to the house-door to see her heels pitching into her carriage; and, instantly convinced that she had the ray, he and Sturge were after her, as her car turned eastward, whither she had seen the Queen’s car speed.

Now, she in rushing out of doors had noticed his motor and him looking out of it a second before _his_ recognition of _her_ had leapt into a conscious recognition: so, seeing him follow to capture her, she leant out, sent two rapid shots at his car, and dashed off, scattering the throng from her path.

The Prince’s car ran into wall on the right, and was smashed, his chauffeur’s right arm fractured; and he pursued on foot, till Oyone’s motor disappeared, then ceased.

When he and Sturge spurted up to the “third-floor-back,” it was to discover nothing—a nurse’s coif, tips of little slippers peeping, _Pippa Passes_, a poor cupboard, a nightdress nicely folded, a photo of the Prince in silver ... more fay than ray....

And Oyone herself failed to discover the Royal cab, which arrived safely at the palace.