Of all the vagaries and humours of humanity when considered in crowds, there is nothing which appears more senseless and objectless than the way in which it congregates outside the door of a church at a fashionable or "society" wedding. The ma.s.sed people pushing and shoving each other about have nothing whatever to do with either bride or bridegroom, the ceremony inside the sacred edifice has in most cases ceased to be a "sacrament"--and has become a mere show of dressed-up manikins and womenkins, many of the latter being mere OBJECT D'ART,--stands for the display of millinery. And yet--the crowds fight and jostle,--women scramble and scream,--all to catch a glimpse of the woman who is to be given to the man, and the man who has agreed to accept the woman. The wealthier the pair the wilder the frenzy to gaze upon them. Savages performing a crazy war-dance are decorous of behaviour in contrast with these "civilised" folk who tramp on each other's feet and are ready to squeeze each other into pulp for the chance of staring at two persons whom the majority of them have never seen before and are not likely to see again. The wedding of Miss Lydia Herbert with her "ancient mariner," a seventy-year-old millionaire reputed to be as wealthy as Rockefeller,--was one of these "sensations"--chiefly on account of the fact that every unmarried woman young and old, and every widow, had been hunting him in vain for fully five years. Miss Herbert had been voted "no chance," because she made no secret of her extravagant tastes in dress and jewels,--yet despite society croakers she had won the game. This in itself was interesting,--as the millionaire she had secured was known to be particularly close-fisted and parsimonious. Nevertheless he had shown remarkable signs of relaxing these tendencies; for he had literally showered jewels on his chosen bride, leaving no door open for any complaint in that quarter. Her diamonds were the talk of New York, and on the day of her wedding her gowns literally flashed like a firework with numerous dazzling points of light. "The Voice that breathed o'er Eden" had little to do with the magnificence of her attire, or with the brilliancy of the rose-wreathed bridesmaids, young girls of specially selected beauty and elegance who were all more or less disappointed in failing to win the millionaire themselves. For these youthful persons in their 'teens had social ambitions hidden in hearts harder than steel--"a good time" of self-indulgence and luxury was all they sought for in life--in fact, they had no conception of any higher ideal. The millionaire himself, though old, maintained a fairly middle-aged appearance--he was a thin, wiry, well-preserved man, his wizened and furrowed countenance chiefly showing the marks of Time's ploughshare.

It would have been difficult to say why, out of all the feminine b.u.t.terflies hovering around him, he had chosen Lydia Herbert,--but he was a shrewd judge of character in his way, and he had decided that as she was not in her first youth it would be more worth her while to conduct herself decorously as wife and housekeeper, and generally look after his health and comfort, than it would be for a less responsible woman. Then, she had "manner,"--her appearance was attractive and she wore her clothes well and stylishly. All this was enough for a man who wanted some one to attend to his house and entertain his friends, and he was perfectly satisfied with himself as he repeated after the clergyman the words, "With my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow," knowing that "with his body" he had never worshipped anything, and that the "endowment" of his worldly goods was strictly limited to certain settlements. He felt himself to be superior to his old bachelor friend Sam Gwent, who supported him as "best man"

at the ceremony, and who, as he stood, stiffly upright in immaculate "afternoon visiting attire" among the restlessly swaying, semi-whispering throng, was all the time thinking of the dusky night-gloom in the garden of the "Plaza" far away in California and a beautiful face set against the dark background of myrtle bushes exhaling rich perfume.

"What a startling contrast she would be to these dolls of fashion!" he thought--"What a sensation she would make! There's not a woman here who can compare with her! If I were only a bit younger I'd try my luck!--anyway I'm younger than to-day's bridegroom!--but she--Manella--would never look at any other man than Seaton, who doesn't care a rap for her or any other woman!" Here his thoughts took another turn.

"No," he repeated inwardly--"He doesn't care a rap for her or any other woman--except--perhaps--Morgana! And even if it were Morgana, it would be for himself and himself alone! While she--ah!--it would be a clever brain indeed that could worry out what SHE cares for! Nothing in this world, so far as I can see!"

Here the organ poured the rich strains of a soft and solemn prelude through the crowded church--the "sacred" part of the ceremony was over, and bride and bridegroom made their way to the vestry, there to sign the register in the presence of a selected group of friends. Sam Gwent was one of these,--and though he had attended many such functions before, he was more curiously impressed than usual by the unctuous and barefaced hypocrisy of the whole thing--the smiling humbug of the officiating clergy,--the affected delight of the "society" toadies fluttering like wasps round bride and bride-groom as though they were sweet dishes specially for stinging insects to feed upon, and in his mind he seemed to hear the warm, pa.s.sionate voice of Manella in frank admission of her love for Seaton.

"It is good to love him!" she had said--"I am happy to love him. I wish only to serve him!"

This was primitive pa.s.sion,--the pa.s.sion of primitive woman for her mate whom she admitted to be stronger than herself, to whom she instinctively looked for shelter and protection, and round whose commanding force she sought to rear the lovely fabric of "Home,"--a state of feeling as far removed from the sentiments of modern women as the constellation of Orion is removed from earth. And Sam Gwent's fragmentary reflections flitting through his brain were more serious--one might say more romantic, than the consideration of dollars, which usually occupied all his faculties. He had always thought that there was a good deal in life which he had missed somehow, and which dollars could not purchase; and a certain irate contempt filled him for the man who, unlike himself, was in the prime of strength, and who, with all the glories of Nature about him and the love and beauty of an exquisite womanhood at his hand for possession, could nevertheless devote his energies to the science of destruction and the compa.s.sing of death without compunction, on the lines Roger Seaton had laid down as the remedy against all war.

"The kindest thing to think of him is that he's not quite sane,"--Gwent mused--"He has been obsessed by the horrible carnage of the Great War, and disgusted by the utter inefficiency of Governments since the armistice, and this appalling invention of his is the result."

The crashing chords of the Bridal March from "Lohengrin" put an end to his thoughts for the moment,--people began to crush and push out of church, or stand back on each other's toes to stare at the bride's diamonds as she moved very slowly and gracefully down the aisle on the arm of her elderly husband. She certainly looked very well,--and her smile suggested entire satisfaction with herself and the world.

Press-camera men clambered about wherever they could find a footing, to catch and perpetuate that smile, which when enlarged and reproduced in newspapers would depict the grinning dental display so much a.s.sociated with Woodrow Wilson and the Prince of Wales,--though more suggestive of a skull than anything else. Skulls invariably show their teeth, we know--but it has been left to the modern press-camera man to insist on the death-grin in faces that yet live. The crowd outside the church was far denser than the crowd within, and the fighting and scrambling for points of view became terrific, especially when the wedding guests'

motor-cars began to make their way, with sundry hoots and snorts, through the densely packed mob. Women screamed,--some fainted--but none thought of giving way to others, or retiring from the wild scene of contest. Gwent judged it wisest to remain within the church portal till the crowd should clear, and there, safely ensconced, he watched the maddened ma.s.s of foolish sight-seers, all of whom had plainly left their daily avocations merely to stare at a man and woman wedded, with whom, personally, they had nothing whatever to do.

"People talk about unemployment!" he mused--"There's enough human material in this one street to make wealth for themselves and the whole community, yet they are idle by their own choice. If they had anything to do they wouldn't be here!"

He laughed grimly,--the utter stodginess and stupidity of humanity EN Ma.s.sE had of late struck him very forcibly, and he found every excuse for the so-called incapacity of Governments, seeing the kind of folk they are called upon to govern. He realised, as we all who read history, must do, that we are no worse and no better than the peoples of the past,--we are just as hypocritical, fraudulent, deceptive and cruel as ever they were in legalised torture-times, and just as ineradicably selfish. The pagans practised a religion which they did not truly believe in, and so do we. All through the ages G.o.d has been mocked;--all through the ages Divine vengeance has fallen on the mockers and the mockery.

"And after all," thought Gwent--"wars are as necessary as plagues to clear out a superabundant population, only most unfortunately Nature adopts such recklessness in her methods that it most often happens the best among us are taken, and the worst left. I tried to impress this on Seaton, whose system of destruction would involve the good as well as the bad--but these intellectual monsters of scientific appet.i.te have no conscience and no sentiment. To prove their theories they would annihilate a continent."

Here a sudden ugly rush of the crowd, dangerous to both life and limb, pushed him back against the church portal with the force of a tidal wave,--it was not concerned with the bridal pair who had already driven away in their automobile, nor with the wedding guests who were following them to the great hotel where the bride's reception was held--it was caused by the wild dash of half a dozen or so of unkempt men and boys who tore a pa.s.sage for themselves through the swaying mob of sightseers, waving newspapers aloft and shouting loudly with voices deep and shrill, clear and hoa.r.s.e--

"Earthquake in California! Terrible loss of life! Thousands dead! Awful scenes! Earthquake in California!"

The people swayed again--then stopped in ma.s.sed groups,--some clutching at the newsboys as they ran and buying the papers as fast as they could be sold, while all the time above the m.u.f.fled roar of the city they sent their cries aloft, echoing near and far--

"Thousands dead! Awful scenes! Towns destroyed! Terrible Earthquake in California!"

Sam Gwent stepped out from the church portal, elbowing his way through the confusion,--the yells of the news vendors rang sharply in his ears and yet for the moment he scarcely grasped their meaning; "California"

was the one word that caught him, as it were, with a hammer stroke,--then "Thousands dead!" Finding at last an open pa.s.sage through the dispersing crowd, he went at something of a run after one of the newsboys, and s.n.a.t.c.hed the last paper he had to sell out of his hand.

"What is it?" he demanded as he paid his money.

"Dunno!" the boy replied, breathlessly--"'Xpect everybody's dead down California way!"

Gwent unfolded the journal and stared at the great headlines, printed in fat black letters, still smelling strongly of printer's ink.

Appalling Earthquake In California!--Mountain Upheaval!--Towns Wiped Out!--Plaza Hotel Engulfed!--Frightful Loss of Life!

His eyes grew dim and dazzled--his brain swam,--he gazed up unseeingly at the blue sky, the tall "sky-sc.r.a.per" houses, the sweep of human and vehicular traffic around him; and to his excited fancy the beautiful face of Manella came, like a phantom, between him and all else that was presented to his vision--that face warm and glowing with woman's tenderness--the splendid dark eyes aflame with love for a man whose indifference to her only strengthened her adoration and he seemed to hear the deep defiant voice of Roger Seaton ringing in his ears--

"Annihilation! A holocaust of microbes! I would--and could--wipe them off the face of the earth in twenty-four hours!" He could--and would!

"And by Heaven," said Gwent, within himself--"He's done it!"

CHAPTER XXIII

Struck by the hand of G.o.d! So men say when, after denying G.o.d's existence ail their lives, the seeming solid earth heaves up like a ship on a storm-billow, dragging down in its deep recoil their lives and habitations. An earthquake! Its irresistible rise and fall makes human beings more powerless than insects,--their houses and possessions have less stability than the spider's web which swings its frail threads across broken columns in greater safety than any man-made bridge of stone,--and terror, mad, hopeless, helpless terror, possesses every creature brought face to face with the dire cruelty of natural forces, which from the very beginning have played havoc with struggling mankind. Struck by the hand of G.o.d!--and with a merciless blow! All the sunny plains and undulating hills of the beautiful stretch of land in Southern California, in the centre of which the "Plaza" hotel and sanatorium had stood, were now unrecognisable,--the earth was torn asunder and thrown into vast heaps--great rocks and boulders were tumbled over each other pell-mell in appalling heights of confusion, and, for miles around, towns, camps and houses were laid in ruins. The scene was one of absolute horror,--there was no language to express or describe it--no word of hope or comfort that could be fitly used to lighten the blackness of despair and loss. Gangs of men were at relief work as soon as they could be summoned, and these busied themselves in extricating the dead, and rescuing the dying whose agonised cries and moans reproached the Power that made them for such an end,--and perhaps as terrible as any other sound was the savage roar and rush of a loosened torrent which came tearing furiously down from the cleft hills to the lower land, through the great canon beyond the site where the Plaza had stood,--a canon which had become enormously widened by the riving and the rending of the rocks, thus giving free pa.s.sage to wild waters that had before been imprisoned in a narrow gorge. The persistent rush of the flood filled every inch of s.p.a.ce with sound of an awful, even threatening character, suggesting further devastation and death. The men engaged in their dreadful task of lifting crushed corpses from under the stones that had fallen upon them, were almost overcome and rendered incapable of work by the appalling clamour, which was sufficient to torture the nerves of the strongest; and some of them, sickened at the frightful mutilation of the bodies they found gave up altogether and dropped from sheer fatigue and exhaustion into unconsciousness, despite the heroic encouragement of their director, a man well used to great emergencies. Late afternoon found him still organising and administering aid, with the a.s.sistance of two or three Catholic priests who went about seeking to comfort and sustain those who were pa.s.sing "the line between." All the energetic helpers were prepared to work all night, delving into the vast suddenly made grave wherein were tumbled the living with the dead,--and it was verging towards sunset when one of the priests, chancing to raise his eyes from the chaos of earth around him to the clear and quiet sky, saw what at first he took to be a great eagle with outspread wings soaring slowly above the scene of devastation. It moved with singular lightness and ease,--now and then appearing to pause as though seeking some spot whereon to descend,--and after watching it for a minute or two he called the attention of some of the men around him to its appearance.

They looked up wearily from their gruesome task of excavating the dead.

"That's an air-ship"--said one--"and a big thing, too!"

"An air-ship!" echoed the priest amazedly,--and then was silent, gazing at the shining expanse of sky through which the bird-shaped vessel made its leisurely way like the vision of a fairy tale more than any reality. There was something weirdly terrible in the contrast it made, moving so tranquilly through clear s.p.a.ce in apparent safety, while down below on the so-called "solid" earth, all nature had been convulsed and overthrown. The wonderful result of human ingenuity as measured with the remorseless action of natural forces seemed too startling to be real to the mind of a Spanish priest who, despite all the evidences of triumphant materialism, still clung to the Cross and kept his simple, faithful soul high above the waves that threatened to engulf it.

Turning anew to his melancholy duties, he bent over a dying youth just lifted from beneath a weight of stones that had crushed him. The boy's fast glazing eyes were upturned to the sky.

"See the angel coming?" he whispered, thickly--"Never used to believe in them!--but there's one sure enough! Glory--!" and his utterance ceased for ever.

The priest crossed his hands upon his breast and said a prayer--then again looked up to where the air-ship floated in the darkening blue. It was now directly over the canon,--immediately above the huge rift made by the earthquake, through which the clamorous rush of water poured.

While he watched it, it suddenly stood still, then dived slowly as though bent on descending into the very depths of the gully. He could not forbear uttering an exclamation, which made all the men about him look in the direction where his own gaze was fixed.

"That air-ship's going to kingdom-come!" said one--"Nothing can save it if it takes to nose-diving down there!"

They all stared amazed--but the dreadful work on which they were engaged left them no time for consideration of any other matter. The priest watched a few minutes longer, more or less held spell-bound with a kind of terror, for he saw that without doubt the great vessel was either purposely descending or being drawn into the vast abyss yawning black beneath it, and that falling thus it must be inevitably doomed to destruction. Whoever piloted it must surely be determined to invite this frightful end to its voyage, for nothing was ever steadier or more resolute than its downward movement towards the whirling waters that rushed through the canon. All suddenly it disappeared, whelmed as it seemed in darkness and the roaring flood, and the watching priest made the sign of the cross in air murmuring--

"G.o.d have mercy on their souls!"

Had he been able to see what happened he might have thought that the confused brain of the dying boy who had imagined the air-ship to be an angel, was not so far wrong, for no romancer or teller of wild tales could have pictured a stranger or more unearthly sight than the wonderful "White Eagle" poised at ease amid the tossed-up clouds of spray flung from the seething ma.s.s of waters, while at her prow stood a woman fair as any fabled G.o.ddess--a woman reckless of all danger, and keenly on the alert, with bright eyes searching every nook and cranny that could be discerned through the mist. Clear above the roaring torrent her voice rang like a silver trumpet as she called her instructions to the two men who, equally defying every peril, had ventured on this journey at her command,--Rivardi and Gaspard.

"Let her down very gently inch by inch!" she cried; "It must be here that we should seek!"

In absolute silence they obeyed. Both had given themselves up for lost and were resigned and ready to meet death at any moment. From the first they had made no effort to resist Morgana's orders--she and they had left Sicily at a couple of hours' notice--and their three days' journey across the ocean had been accomplished without adventure or accident, at such a speed that it was hardly to be thought of without a thrill of horror. No information had been given them as to the object of their long and rapid aerial voyage,--and only now when the "White Eagle,"

swooping over California, reached the scene of the terrific devastation wrought by the earthquake did they begin to think they had submitted their wills and lives to the caprice of a madwoman. However, there was no drawing back,--nothing for it but still to obey,--for even in the stress and terror naturally excited by their amazing position, they did not fail to see that the great air-ship was steadily controlled, and that whatever was the force controlling it, it maintained its level, its mysterious vibrating discs still throbbing with vital and incessant regularity. Apparently nothing could disturb its equilibrium or shatter its mechanism. And, according to its woman-designer's command, they lowered it gently till it was, so to say, almost immersed in the torrent and covered with spray--indeed Morgana's light figure itself at the prow looked like a fair spirit risen from the waters rather than any form of flesh and blood, so wreathed and transfigured it was by the dust of the ceaseless foam. She stood erect, bent on a quest that seemed hopeless, watching every eddying curve of water,--every flickering ripple,--her eyes, luminous as stars, searched the black and riven rocks with an eager pa.s.sion of discovery,--when all suddenly as she gazed, a thin ray of light,--pure gold in colour,--struck sharply like a finger-point on a shallow pool immediately below her. She looked and uttered a cry, beckoning to Rivardi.

"Come! Come!"

He hurried to her side, Gaspard following. The pool on which her eyes were fixed was shallow enough to show the pebbly bed beneath the water--and there lay apparently two corpses--one of a man, the other of a woman whose body was half flung across that of the man.

Morgana pointed to them.

"They must be brought up here!" she said, insistently--"You must lift them! We have emergency ropes and pulleys--it is easily done! Why do you hesitate?"

"Because you demand the impossible!" said Rivardi--"You send us to death to rescue the already dead!"

She turned upon him with wrath in her eyes.

"You refuse to obey me?"

What a face confronted him! White as marble, and as terrible in expression as that of a Medusa, it had a paralysing effect on his nerves, and he shrank and trembled at her glance.