"Brighton . . . the sea . . . And there"s the tender waiting."
At first the prelate could not make it out against the radiance below, but an instant later, as they rushed on, it loomed up, sudden and enormous, itself blazing with lights against the dark sea. It looked to him something like a floating stage, outlined with fire; and there were glimmering, perpendicular lines beneath it which he could not understand, running down to lose themselves in the misty glow three hundred feet beneath.
"How"s it done?" he asked.
"It"s a platform, charged of course with _aeroline_. It runs on lines straight up from the stage beneath, and keeps itself steady with screws. You"ll see it go down after we"ve left again. Come to the stern, we shall see better from there."
By the time that they had reached the other end of the ship, the pace had rapidly diminished almost to motionlessness; and as soon as Monsignor could attend again, he perceived that there was sliding at a footpace past their starboard side the edge of the huge platform that he had seen just now half a mile away. For a moment or two it swayed up and down; there was a slight vibration; and then he heard voices and the trampling of footsteps.
"The bridges are fixed," remarked the priest. "They"re on the lower deck, of course. Pretty prompt, aren"t they?"
The prelate stood, staring with all his eyes; now at the motionless platform that hung alongside, now at the gulf below with the fairy lights strewed like stars and _nebulae_ at its bottom. It seemed impossible to realize that this station in the air was not the normal level, and the earth not a strange foreign body that attended on it. There came up on deck presently a dozen figures or so, carrying wraps, and talking. It was amazing to him that they could behave with such composure. Two were even quarrelling in subdued voices. . . .
It was hardly five minutes before the three bells rang again; and before the fourth sounded, suddenly he saw drop beneath, like a stone into a pit, the huge immovable platform that just now he had conceived of as solid as the earth from which it had risen.
Down and down it went, swaying ever so slightly from side to side, diminishing as it went; but before the motion had ceased the fourth bell rang, and he clutched the rail to steady himself as the ship he was on soared again with a strange intoxicating motion. The next instant, as he glanced over the edge, he saw that they were far out over the blackness of the sea.
"I think we might go below for a bit," said the priest in his ear.
There was no kind of difficulty in descending the stairs; there was practically no oscillation of any kind in this still and windless summer night, and the two came down easily and looked round the lower deck.
This was far more crowded with figures: there were padded seats fully occupied running round all the sides, beneath the enormous continuous windows. In the centre, sternwards, ran a narrow refreshment bar, where a score of men were standing to refresh themselves. Forward of the farther stairs (down the well of which they had seen the engineer"s head), by which they were standing, the deck was closed in, as with cabins.
"Like to see the oratory?" asked Father Jervis.
"The what?"
"Oratory. The long-journey boats, that have chaplains, carry the Blessed Sacrament, of course; but there is only a little oratory on these continental lines."
Monsignor followed him, unable to speak, up the central pa.s.sage running forwards; through a pair of heavy curtains; and there, to his amazed eyes, appeared a small altar, a hanging lamp, and an image of St. Michael.
"But it"s astounding!" whispered the prelate, watching a man and a woman at their prayers.
"It"s common sense, isn"t it?" smiled the priest. "Why, the custom began a hundred years ago."
"No!"
"Indeed it did! I learnt it from one of the little guide-books they give one on these boats. A company called the Great Western had mosaic pictures of the patron saint of each boat in the saloon. And their locomotives, too, were called after saints"
names. It"s only plain common sense, if you come to think of it."
"Are lines like this--and railways, and so on--owned by the State now? I suppose so."
The other shook his head.
"That was tried under Socialism," he said. "It was one of their smaller failures. You see, when compet.i.tion ceases, effort ceases. Human nature is human nature, after all. The Socialists forgot that. No; we encourage private enterprise as much as possible, under State restrictions."
They paused as they came out again.
"Care to lie down for a bit? We shan"t be in till three. The Cardinal engaged a room for us."
He indicated a small cabin that bore his own name on a card.
Monsignor paused.
"Yes, I will, I think. I"ve a lot to think about."
But he could not sleep. The priest promised to awaken him in plenty of time, and he slipped off his buckled shoes and tried to compose his mind. But it was useless. His mind whirled with wonder.
Once he slipped to a sitting position, drew back the little curtain over the porthole, and stared out. There was little to be seen; but by the sight of a lake of soft light that slid past at some incalculable depth a dozen miles away, he perceived that they had left the sea far behind and were spinning over the land of France. He looked out long, revolving thoughts and conjectures, striving to find some glimmer of memory by which he might adjust these new experiences; but there was none. He was like a child, with the brain of a man, plunged into a new mode of existence, where everything seemed reversed, and yet astonishingly obvious; it was the very simplicity that baffled him. The Christian religion was true down (or up) even to the Archangels that stand before G.o.d and control the powers of the air. The priesthood was the priesthood; the Blessed Sacrament was the G.o.d-Man tabernacling with men. Then where was the cause for amazement that the world recognized these facts and acted upon them; that men should salute the priest of G.o.d as His representative and agent on earth; that air-ships (themselves constructed on the model of the sea-gull--hollow feathers and all) should carry the Blessed Sacrament on long journeys, that communicants might not be deprived of their Daily Bread, and even raise altars on board to the honour of those Powers under whose protection they placed themselves. It was curious, too, he reflected, that those who insist most upon the claims of Divinity insist also upon the claims of humanity. It seemed suggestive that it was the Catholics who were most aware of the compet.i.tive pa.s.sions of men and reckoned with them, while the Socialists ignored them and failed.
So he sat--this poor man bewildered by simplicity and almost shocked by the obvious--listening with unheeding ears to the steady rush of air past the ship, voices talking naturally and easily, heard through the roof above his head, an occasional footstep, and once or twice a bell as the steersman communicated some message to one of his subordinates. Here he sat--John Masterman, Domestic Prelate to His Holiness Gregory XIX, Secretary to His Eminence Gabriel Cardinal Bellairs, and priest of the Holy Roman Church, trying to a.s.similate the fact that he was on an air-ship, bound to the court of the Catholic French King, and that practically the whole civilized world believed and acted on the belief which he, as a priest, naturally also held and was accustomed to teach.
A tap on his door roused him at last.
"It"s time to be moving, Monsignor," said Father Jervis through the half-open door. "We"re in communication with St. Germains."
CHAPTER IV
(I)
"Tell me a little about the costumes," said Monsignor, as the two set out on foot from their lodgings in Versailles after breakfast next morning, to present their letters of introduction. "They seem to me rather fantastic, somehow."
Their lodgings were situated in one of the great palaces on the vast road that runs straight from the gates of the royal palace itself into Paris. They had come straight on by car from St.
Germains, had been received with immense respect by the proprietor, who, it appeared, had received very particular instructions from the English Cardinal; and had been conducted straight upstairs to a little suite of rooms, decorated in eighteenth-century fashion, and consisting of a couple of bedrooms for themselves, opening to a central sitting-room and oratory; the two men-servants they had brought with them were lodged immediately across the landing outside.
"Fantastic?" asked Father Jervis, smiling. "Don"t you think they"re attractive?"
"Oh yes; but----"
"Remember human nature, Monsignor. After all, it was only intense self-importance that used to make men say that they were independent of exterior beauty. It"s far more natural and simple to like beauty. Every child does, after all."
"Yes, yes; I see that, I suppose. But I didn"t mean only that. I was on the point of asking you yesterday, again and again, but something marvellous distracted me each time," said the prelate, smiling. "They"re extraordinarily picturesque, of course; but I can"t help thinking that they must all mean something."
"Of course they do. And I never can imagine how people ever got on without the system. Why, even less than a hundred years ago, I understand that every one dressed, or tried to dress alike. How in the world could they tell who they were talking to?"
"I . . . I expect that was deliberate," faltered the other. "You see, I think people used to be ashamed of their trades sometimes, and wanted to be thought gentlemen."
Father Jervis shrugged his shoulders.
"Well, I don"t understand it," he said. "If a man was ashamed of his trade, why did he follow it?"
"I"ve been thinking," said Monsignor animatedly, "that perhaps it"s the new teaching on Vocation that has made the difference.
Once a man understands that his Vocation is the most honourable thing he can do, I suppose----There! who"s that man," he interrupted suddenly, "in blue with the badge?"