Part 11 (2/2)

”Now, come down and have something to eat, and then we will have a smoke and a chat and go to bed. There is nothing more to be seen until the morning, and then I will show you Petersburg as it looks from the clouds.”

”If you told me you would show me the Ourals themselves, I should believe you after what I have seen,” replied Colston, as together they descended the companion-way from the wheel-house to the saloon.

”Ah, I'm afraid that would be too much even for the _Ariel_ to accomplish in the time,” said Arnold. ”Still, I think I can guarantee that you shall cross Europe in such time as no man ever crossed it before.”

CHAPTER XI.

FIRST BLOOD.

After supper the two friends ascended to the deck saloon for a smoke, and to continue their discussion of the tremendous events in which they were so soon to be taking part. They found the _Ariel_ flying through a cloudless sky over the German Ocean, whose white-crested billows, silvered by the moonlight, were travelling towards the north-east under the influence of the south-west breeze from which the engineer had promised himself a.s.sistance when they started.

”We seem to be going at a most frightful speed,” said Colston, looking down at the water. ”There's a strong south-west breeze blowing, and yet those white horses seem to be travelling quite the other way.”

”Yes,” replied Arnold, looking down. ”This wind will be travelling about twenty miles an hour, and that means that we are making nearly a hundred and fifty. The German Ocean here is five hundred miles across, and we shall cross it at this rate in about three hours and a half, and if the wind holds over the land we shall sight Petersburg soon after sunrise.

”The sun will rise to-morrow morning a few minutes after five by Greenwich time, which is about two hours behind Petersburg time.

Altogether we shall make, I expect, from two to two and a half hours'

gain on time.”

The two men talked until a few minutes after ten, and then went to bed. Colston, who had been travelling all the previous night, began to feel drowsy in spite of the excitement of the novel voyage, and almost as soon as he lay down in his berth dropped off into a sound, dreamless sleep, and knew nothing more until Arnold knocked at his door and said--

”If you want to see the sun rise, you had better get up. Coffee will be ready in a quarter of an hour.”

Colston pulled back the slide which covered the large oblong pane of toughened gla.s.s which was let into the side of his cabin and looked out. There was just light enough in the grey dawn to enable him to see that the _Ariel_ was pa.s.sing over a sea dotted in the distance with an immense number of islands.

”The Baltic,” he said to himself as he jumped out of bed. ”This is travelling with a vengeance! Why, we must have travelled a good deal over a thousand miles during the night. I suppose those islands will be off the coast of Finland. If so, we are not far from Petersburg, as the _Ariel_ seems to count distance.”

The most magnificent spectacle that Colston had ever seen in his life, or, for the matter of that, ever dreamed of, was the one that he saw from the conning-tower of the _Ariel_ while the sun was rising over the vast plain of mingled land and water which stretched away to the eastward until it melted away into the haze of early morning.

The sky was perfectly clear and cloudless, save for a few light clouds that hung about the eastern horizon, and were blazing gold and red in the light of the newly-risen sun. The air-s.h.i.+p was flying at an elevation of about two thousand feet, which appeared to be her normal height for ordinary travelling. There was land upon both sides of them, but in front opened a wide bay, the northern sh.o.r.es of which were still fringed with ice and snow.

”That is the Gulf of Finland,” said Arnold. ”The winter must have been very late this year, and that probably means that we shall find the eastern side of the Ourals still snow-bound.”

”So much the better,” replied Colston. ”They will have a much better chance of escape if there is good travelling for a sleigh.”

”Yes,” replied Arnold, his brows contracting as he spoke. ”Do you know, if it were not for the Master's explicit orders, I should be inclined to smash up the station at Ekaterinburg a few hours beforehand, and then demand the release of the whole convict train, under penalty of laying the town in ruins.”

Colston shook his head, saying--

”No, no, my friend, we must have a little more diplomacy than that.

Your thirst for the life of the enemy will, no doubt, be fully gratified later on. Besides, you must remember that you would probably blow some hundreds of perfectly innocent people to pieces, and very possibly a good many friends of the Cause among them.”

”True,” replied Arnold; ”I didn't think of that; but I'll tell you what we can do, if you like, without transgressing our instructions or hurting any one except the soldiers of the Tsar, who, of course, are paid to slaughter and be slaughtered, and so don't count.”

”What is that?” asked Colston.

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