 CHAPTER XXXV of THE RATE OF DOVER, A ROMANCE OF THE RAIN OF WOMAN, A.D. 1940, by Douglas Morey Ford. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. LINKED LIVES Lenten-Harrick, losing not a day nor an hour in London, had carried the great news to Zenobia. Much that wired and wireless messages could not convey, he as one of the inner circle, was in a position to explain. But the triumph of the Friends of the Phoenix, and the restoration of Wilson-Renshaw, did not exhaust the subject of their conversation. Lenten was charged with an impressive and confidential message from Renshaw himself. The restored minister entreated the daughter of the dead president to resort to no act of public reparation. He besought her to let the dead past hold its dead. The story of her father's crime need never be given in its fullness to a censorous world. Against his enemy the rescued rival nourished no resentful bitterness. His feeling, rather was one of sorrow, that the temptations of power and ambition and the weakness of human nature had wrought the moral ruin of a man in whom he had discerned many admirable and striking qualities. The message Ardeen was greatly moved. She recognized the nobility of Renshaw's attitude, but she still had misgivings as to her own path of duty. The messages reached her at a time when she was torn with conflicting feelings, bewildered by new sensations, impressed with new aspects of human life, agitated by complex thoughts and emotions to which hitherto she had been a stranger. It was a crisis in her life. Little but masterful influences were at work upon her innermost being. Scales had failed, as it were, from her eyes, and her soul looked out upon possibilities of which her unenlightened days she had never even dreamed. Love, duty, religion, each and all had acquired for her a deep and wonderful significance, and in her heart she feared to be presented with the problem of choice. Could these things be reconciled in the light of the revelation that had come to her? Would they be her armor and her strength, wherewith she could go forward to some great predestined goal? Or, if she chose the one, must she have necessity ensue the rest? One thing she knew for certain, when she again held Linton's hand and looked into his face. This was the man she loved and always would love. Stranger still, it seemed as if he were a man she always had loved. But she knew now of his daring, his fidelity, his narrow escape from death, and realized his clear, though unspoken devotion to herself. And he, for his part, had known no peace until he found himself at her side again. Renshaw had placed at his disposal the albatross, one of the swiftest of the government airships, and another engineer had succeeded to the place of poor Wilton. Westwards he had rushed on the wings of the albatross, leaving the lights of London, its crowded streets, its shouting and excited multitudes, far behind. And now, side by side, he and Zenobia and Peter her dog, engaged in dog-like explorations on the route, went slowly across the quaint bridge with its low roof chops that spans the Avon, and passed through the streets of ancient Bath. What would you do? What is your advice? the girl asked, turning to him suddenly. They had been silent for some time, but each knew well what occupied the other's thoughts. Respect Renshaw's wishes was Linton's firm reply. But the will, the confession is in the will, said Zenobia. The will not need be proved. With or without it, what your father left belongs to you, his soul next of kin. She looked down thoughtfully. It is your advice, she asked quietly. Yes, mine as well as his. Then I shall follow it. When next they spoke it was upon another subject. This place strikes me oddly, said Linton, looking round as they went up the slopes of Victoria Park. I have never been here before, and yet I have a curious feeling. She turned quickly. How strange! I know what you are going to say. I believe you have the same feeling, as if we had been here before. You and I together, as if all that surrounds us were familiar. This is the first time you have felt like this, she asked eagerly. No, but I have never felt quite what I am feeling now. Again with Puzzle Brow he glanced around. Once she went on hesitatingly. The first time we went up in the Belladude, you remember that night. Yes, yes, I felt it then, cried Linton, pausing. And the other night, Zenobia continued seriously. When I looked from a window down on the lights of Bath, I had a strange sensation, as if it were a scene which I had always known, and after that I had a dream in which that feeling was confirmed. Curious, said Linton. Do you believe in the theory of pre-existence, she asked abruptly. Do you think it possible that in some former state of being, you and I or others can have met before? It may be so, he answered gravely. Wise men have held the theory. Who can limit the life of the ego, fix its beginning, or appoint its end? If the breath of God is in us, said Zenobia solemnly, all things must be possible. We too must be eternal. We may sleep and we may wake, but all the time we live. The soul does not belong to time, but to eternity, and eternity is an everlasting now. Yes, said Linton, why should not the spirit have an all-pervading presence? Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, and the round ocean and the living air, and the blue sky and in the mind of man? While they were speaking thus gravely, they entered the botanical garden on the slope of the hill. Opposite the bench on which they sat down, they noticed a sundial of curious construction. On the face of the dial, fixed at an angle, was an iron cross. They looked at the sacred emblem, at first vaguely, and then with growing attention. Below it was an inscription. What mysteries, what mysteries enfold us, murmured Zenobia. She turned to him with a smile and a sigh that were pathetic. What I wonder, is the true philosophy of life, she whispered. Linton sat for a moment, then he leaned forward, and as he did so one hand closed upon and held her own. I think we have it here in this inscription. The hours are found around the cross, and while it is fine, the time is measured by a moving line. But if the sky be clouded, mark the loss of hours not ruled by shadows from the cross. Ah! the cross! the cross! cites Zenobia. Linton repeated the word in a pondering and half-puzzle tone, rising his hat with instinctive reverence. I feel more than ever that this place is not new to me, he added, rising and looking round with wondering eyes. And I, too, have the same persistent sense of memory, half-whispered Zenobia. There is a tradition that perhaps explains my dream. Do you know it? That in the days of the Romans there was a heathen temple here, where we are sitting, and that an early convert to Christianity, a sculptor of great skill, erected a cross upon its threshold. And the sculptor was put to death. I have read it, or did I dream it? He turned and looked down upon the city, as if seeking some clue or inspiration. There was a priestess, he said slowly, a priestess. Zenobia had risen to her feet. A priestess of the temple of Saul, yes, she, too, was put to death. They buried her alive. She pressed the backs of her hands to a brow. Her gaze assumed an almost tragic intensity. She had listened to the sculptor. They found her kneeling by the cross, and in the temple of Saul the sacred fire had gone out. She paused, each looked into the other's eyes. A flash of inspiration came to both of them. Your face, she said, is the face of the sculptor in my dream. Heavy clouds had been rapidly gathering overhead. The atmosphere had grown strangely oppressive. So full had they been of other thoughts that no reference had been made to the developments of natural phenomena which had lately caused so much dismay in the locality, and indeed throughout the country. It was known that the signs of disturbance already chronicled had gradually diminished, and for some days the volume of water rising from the thermal spring had been little more than normal. The emission of smoke or vapor arising from the fissure on Lansdowne had entirely ceased. But at this moment the somber clouds that had gathered over the city seemed to be heavily charged with electricity, and there was a peculiarity in the sultry atmosphere which suggested some threatening association with the abnormal signs that lately had caused so much alarm. The day throughout had been exceptionally hot for the time of year, but it seemed to linten as if the mercury must now be mounting up by leaps and bounds. An unnatural, brooding stillness had spread over the whole town. The few people who were walking in the park did so languidly and in silence. A heavy weight pressed irresistibly upon the spirit. All things, animate and inanimate, seemed to be subsiding, drooping, under the pressure of some gloomy and mysterious influence. Peter, returning from sniffing explorations in the undergrowth of the gardens, came wining to his mistress's feet, as if seeking for the consolation of close companionship. Xenobia sat down and patted the dog affectionately. Peter is frightened, she said. There must be a storm coming. Linten looked around, but answered nothing. But he realized that the signs within and without were such as people who lived in tropical countries had more than once described to him. Peter sniffed the air, and then gave voice to a long and piteous howl. "'We had better get going,' said Linten, while Xenobia, still stooping, tried to soothe the dog. When she looked up there was an expression on Linten's face that puzzled her. She rose quickly and laid her hand upon his arm, following his gaze upward and around. "'What does it mean?' she asked breathlessly. "'If this were not England,' he replied, with hesitation. "'I should think it meant,' as he spoke a low but formidable rumble came suddenly audible, coming not from above, but from below. Frought with indescribable awe and menace, it produced an instantaneously petrifying effect. They stood rigid, holding each other, waiting, listening for the coming climax. It came in as a flash. The rumble grew into a thunderous roar. The blue flames suddenly shot into the heavy clouds above them, and beneath their feet the solid earth rocked and swayed, again and yet again, as if with the rolling motion of a mighty wave. THE RAITH OF SOUL The earthquake, in a twinkling of an eye, had changed the face of all nature around them, and while it did so it annihilated stereotype manners and conventional restraints. To Zenobia it did not seem strange that Linten's arm should be folded protectingly about her, or that she should cling to him, face to face and heart to heart. The moment of the earth's convulsion had bridged a gulf and wrought a revelation. They knew themselves, beyond all doubt, for what they were, lovers and twin souls, pledged to each other by unspoken vows. The dreadful shock had come and gone, but the external changes and terrors which the catastrophe had brought about could not be immediately realized. Presently they discovered that the ground had moved with them, and that they had been swept to a considerable distance from the plateau in which they had been standing. A great gap yawned where the sundial had stood. Peter had disappeared. They themselves had been saved from falling by the trunk of a giant tree, one of the few which had not been uprooted. While below them, on the slope of the hill, new spaces were revealed where other trees had crashed down to the ground. The air was full of a strange echoing din, caused by the collapse of buildings outside the limits of the park and in the town below. In the midst of these reverberating sounds, and in strange contrast, was heard the prolonged wail of terrified women and the shrill cry of a frightened child. Gasping and looking up the hill, they could see, rising from lands down, dense volumes of sulfurous smoke, through which shot vivid gleams of forking flame. Elsewhere a grayish veil began to spread across the land. A steaming, suffocating atmosphere choked their lungs. There may be another shock. We must escape for our very lives, Linden whispered hoarsely. Xenobia, white to the lips, made a faint gesture of ascent. Hold my hand. We must find a way across the river, he said quickly. Again she made an obedient sign, and Linden, guiding her, they moved cautiously forward in the strange gray twilight which began to enfold them. Ah-inspiring sounds had been succeeded by a silence which was scarcely less terrible. A sense of horror half paralyzed their faculties as they cautiously moved forward down the slope. Almost at their feet had opened a chasm which revealed many solid blocks of masonry, such as had been used of old in the construction of the Roman baths. The rending of the earth had exposed to view a section of what looked like the foundations of an ancient and imposing temple. Between the massive walls, at the bottom of some steps, they observed a narrow cell or chamber, and as they stepped past the shadowy opening, Xenobia's foot came into contact with an ancient Roman lamp. Of these things neither of them was fully conscious at the moment. They were mental photographs, vivid experiences unconsciously stored in memory and fraught with a strange confirmatory significance not yet to be appreciated. Hand in hand, picking their steps apprehensively, they made their way between the fallen trees down the broad avenue leading to the lower gate of the park. Here, at the gate, for the first time they encountered evidence of death and disaster in the town itself. Houses had collapsed on every side, distracting moans and piteous cries from unseen sufferers assailed their ears. For a moment they paused before a monumental heap of stone and timber, impelled to render help in answer to these vague but terrible appeals. We can do nothing, groaned Linton, in answer to Xenobia's questioning pause. Come, and he later quickly round the wreckage of the houses. Stumbling, half running, they made their way by a devious route down towards the heart of the town. In Queen Square there was a frightened crowd. Women and children, weeping and sobbing, were kneeling on the roadway with hands upraised in prayer. Men came running towards them shouting unintelligible warnings, questions. Terrified faces appeared at many upper windows. They saw a frenzied girl leap from the parapet of a tottering house and disappear behind a heap of ruins. In the lower streets the destruction rot was less noticeable, but a new tear was revealed. The sound of rushing waters reached their ears, and every moment white-faced men and women tore past them, crying in shrill tones, the spring, the spring. Then they saw edding streams of steaming, orange-tended water creep round street corners, overflow the gutters, and spread into the road. The water rose so rapidly that they had to turn aside, and once more take to higher ground. They found themselves crossing millsome street, and as they did so a loud explosion sounded at the upper end, accompanied with an overpowering smell of gas. Screams rent the air, and another crowd of men and women, some of them carrying children in their arms, came rushing helter-skelter down the street. None of the houses at the lower end had fallen, but several were bulging forward and appeared to be deserted. And here already the predatory instinct was at work. Lyndon caught the arm of a filthy-looking tramp just as he raised an iron bar to smash the plate-glass window of a jeweler's shop. He hurled the thief aside. Then grasping Zanobia's hand again he dragged her forward, making for the nearest bridge. But once again their way was barred. From a great crack in the roadway a fountain, a geyser of yellow streaming water, suddenly leaped into the air. To avoid it they were compelled to make another circuit. They hurried down some narrow streets and reached the open space in front of the theater. Fighting their way through excited and gestulating groups of people, they passed the hospital, and, turning to the right, reached the front of the grand pump-room hotel. Limping and enfeebled invalids, who could scarcely move unaided, were streaming from the building, appealing eagerly for guidance to a way of escape from the perils that surrounded them. Tremulous but unheated questions were heard on every side, as Lyndon and Zanobia crossed the road and reached the colonnade. To their right, from the doorways of the grand pump-room itself, another flood of tinted, steaming water was pouring rapidly over the broad pavement and stealing into the abbey church. By keeping close to the opposite wall they escaped the stream, and leaving the great church, which seemed so far intact, upon their right they soon reached the space in front of the guild-hall. Only a little distance and they would gain the bridge. This way, cried Zanobia, as Lyndon, who knew nothing of the town, stopped in hesitation. But as she spoke, the pavement, barely ten yards away, bulged suddenly, then split apart, with a violent rush another geyser burst into the street. They drew back just in time, and hurried breathlessly toward the station road. On their left rose the tall building of the Empire Hotel. Behind them was the abbey. A sudden shout impelled them to look back. A third geyser had opened in the middle of the roadway, and in an instant columns of steaming water were spouting high into the air. Quick, quick, urged Lyndon. His voice was scarcely audible, for as they approached the river a mighty roar was coming from the weir, dominating the multitude-ness sound of terror which filled the air on every side. In this appalling crisis, earth and air and water seemed united as in a ruthless conspiracy for the destruction of humanity. In the presence of these vast, mysterious, and irresistible forces, man, the boasted master, Lord of Creation, was subdued and helpless. The effect produced on the inhabitants of the city was that with which the struggling atoms of the race, accustomed only to a calm and ordered system, ever encounter nature in her moods of unfamiliar violence. The tempests of the deep, in the awful hurricane, when winds and seas mix and contend in a titanic conflict, nature ignores the puppets tossing on the helpless ship, or half-ground on the surging raft. What is man in presence of the waterspout that towers from the ocean to the clouds? How shall he face the unfathomable whirlpool that yawns for the frail boat in which he is compelled to trust? Whether shall we fly, when as now, the earth vomits forth from unimaginable caverns the scalding water floods that she has stored within her depths throughout uncounted centuries? No one can stand unmoved when the hills smoke and the earth trembles. When darkness, a darkness that may be felt, spreads in a sinister and all-pervading veil over a world that seems abandoned to the powers of evil, powdery ashes were falling everywhere upon the doomed city. From lands down a vast, vaporous column, a dreadful blend of water, betumen and sulfur, rose high into the clouds. As the great column branched and spread, assuming the form of an enormous pine tree, the darkness deepened, safe where, above the hill itself, red colored flames slashed hither and thither through the cloud at frequent intervals. Terrific explosions accompanied these manifestations, and Linton, as he half carried Zenobia towards the river, was possessed with the fear that the hill might be completely ribbon and pour forth streams of boiling water or of lava that would not only submerge the town itself, but destroy all life within a radius of many miles. Conceivably indeed it might be the beginning of the end, the end at least of England, for what were the British Isles but the summit of some vast mountain whose foundations were buried deep in the unfathomed sea? It had been forgotten that Great Britain with Ireland and its giants causeway afforded incontrovertible evidence of volcanic origin. These islands, with the Hebrides, the Faroilates, and finally Iceland, in fact constituted a vast volcanic chain, with Mount Hecla as its seismic terminus, a focus more active than Vesuvius itself. And here, at the other end of the chain, was Bath, where for thousands of years the waters of Sol had maintained a disregarded warning of that inevitable convulsion which, at last and in the fullness of time, had come to pass. In the midst of these flashing thoughts and fears that darted through his brain, Linton was possessed with the conviction that their only possible hope of safety lay in crossing the river, the surging roar of which each moment became more audible and threatening. Others in great numbers were animated with the same belief. Linton and Zenobia, indeed, found themselves involved in a madly rushing crowd of panic-stricken men and women. Swept this way and that, they were in danger of being hurled to the ground and troddened underfoot by thousands of purring fellow-creatures, bent on self-preservation and on nothing else. Still supporting Zenobia with one arm and fighting his way forward step by step, Linton presently managed to turn the angle of the tall hotel. On their right, the river, swollen enormously by the inrush from the hidden springs, had almost reached the level of the parapet. Boiling floods had poured and still poured into the Avon, blending with the normal stream, and the sole subduing terror of the scene was augmented by the great clouds of stream that rose from the surface of the Hurdling River. With desperate exertions, still supporting his half-fainting companion, Linton reached the turning towards the bridge. The narrow entrance was choked with a dense and struggling crowd, through which half a dozen men, lashing frantically at rearing horses, strove recklessly to force a passage. Screams and ults blended with the angry roaring of the weir. The struggling people swayed hither and thither in dense, compact masses, while a body of firemen from the station close at hand, seized the heads of several horses and forced them back to give the foot-passenger some slight chance of escape. Individual efforts were futile in the midst of this confused and fighting crowd. By the impetus and weight of numbers, however, Linton and Zenobia, holding closely to each other, were swept as in a human eddy onto the bridge itself. The same contributory force of numbers, close-packed between the windows of the shops, carried them rapidly towards the other side. Again and again there was a crash of glass as the terrific pressure forced in one or other of the windows, but far more ominous was the angry, roaring voice of the invisible river beneath them. Rising higher and yet higher every moment, it buffeted the bridge with unceasing and increasing violence, the torrent whirling round the piers and buttresses, fiercely impatient for greater destruction, as it tore upon its way towards the thundering weir. It was a question of time, and the time must needs be brief. The bridge must go. Halfway across, beneath the feet of the scrambling, sobbing crowd, the roadway split and cracked, there was a sudden lurch that sent Linton and Zenobia, with a dozen others, into the open doorway of a right-hand shop. Like all the rest of the bridge buildings, it was but one story high, and at the end of the short passage a narrow stairway gave access through a trap door to the leads. Linton, breathing heavily from his exertions, gasping a few words of encouragement to Zenobia, pondered in a flash the possibilities of the position. Those who had been swept into the deserted shop with them were making frantic and futile efforts to force their way back into the endless crowd that still streamed across the bridge in such maddened haste. But a place once lost in that dense multitude never could be recovered. In truth there was no choice, and in a moment his resolve was taken. The roof, he whispered, half to himself, the roof. Mounting the steps he swept back the trap door, and reaching down his hand, drew Zenobia after him. They emerged on the flat roof of the shop. Only a dwarf party wall divided it from the rest. Below, on their left, the rushing and tumbling tide of humanity pressed forward to the bathwick side. Below, on their right, they beheld the terrifying river, curdled in foam and throwing off increasing clouds of heavy steam. They scrambled forward quickly, passing on from roof to roof. Behind them came the sudden sound of rending masonry. A dreadful scream, a wild cry of despair from the multitude, pierced the powdery air. The bridge was slowly yielding to the enormous pressure of the swollen river, but Linton and Zenobia had safely reached the other side. Raising the trap door of the last shop in the row, they descended rapidly and gained the road. Here the congested throng spread out across the wider space and hurried onward to the great Pultany Street. As they paused there came a sound, terrible, arresting, never to be forgotten. The united wail of despairing voices, rising above the crash of the collapsing bridge, as it carried with it, down into the boiling flood, hundreds of helpless and entangled fugitives. Zenobia, clinging convulsively to her protector, drew sobbing breaths at those appalling sounds. But for his supporting arm she would have sunk fainting to the ground. Courage, he whispered, courage still. For the moment he himself believed that on this side of the river they were safe. But at that instant they fell again beneath their feet the quaking of the ground, a long and undulating throb. They reeled against a wall and stood there panting, until a quick and sense of peril impelled them once again to hasten forward. Turning up Edward Street, and leaving the church upon their left, they climbed the hill, until exhaustion compelled them to sink down upon the roadside bench and ease their laboring lungs. Thick grey smoke, heavy with choking particles and powdery ashes, was spreading everywhere, and from this higher ground, looking back towards the fiery summit of the volcanic hill, they could see cloud after cloud of fire-torn vapor mounting in spiral motion towards the darkened heavens. Worried though they were, they struggled to their feet, and once more set their faces towards the hill. Linton fully realized that the area of disturbance was far wider than he had at first supposed. Safety, if attainable at all, could only be secured by placing many miles between themselves and the volcanic district. It was no time for weighing small considerations. Silently he decided what to do. They reached the house in which the President had spent and ended the last days of his life. The hall-door was wide open. Darkness and silence reigned in the interior. The servants, obviously, had fled. Linton shouted, but no answer came. It was clear to him that the engineer of the Albatross was in full flight with the rest. Benning Zenovia rest a minute in the hall. He opened the glass doors on the inner side and ran down the steps into the garden. Here lay the Albatross, already as he knew, for an immediate aerial journey. His own knowledge of the mechanism of an airship, though not complete, was now sufficient, or at any rate it must be trusted. The boat was rather smaller than the bladdued, and in some respects contained improvements. A swift examination of the machinery satisfied him that the Albatross was fit for flight. Hurrying up the steps he called Zenovia. She came to him obediently and instantly. Calmness restored to her, and in her look a ready submission to all that he thought best. Will you trust yourself to me, he asked, very tenderly, taking her hand. The boat is ready. I think you will be safe. I trust you in all things, she answered. I am ready. He later down the steps into the garden and helped her to her seat on the stern bench of the Albatross. Can you steer, he asked? Yes, if you direct me. All's ready then. Keep her before the wind. Now up and away. He himself stepped into the boat and immediately switched on the motive power, adjusting the gear to suit the plans he had already formed. The Albatross rose steadily into the air, then gathering speed in a few rapid circles, began like some huge bird to wing her flight from the dread scene of the catastrophe. Behind them, as they sped upon their way, arose another violent detonation. Suddenly the clouded air was rent with vivid lightening, and this revealed the falling pinnacles of the Abbey Church. Then, as the thunder crashed above their heads, Linden beheld a vast and fiery chasm open in the laboring hill. Out of its lurid depths the waters of Saul leaped upwards in a mighty column, a fountain as it were, of liquid fire. Then darkness settled on the scene, and all was still. End of Chapter 21 End of The Raid of Dover, A Romance of the Rain of Woman, A.D. 1940 by Douglas Mory Ford