“Really?” I stammered. “Do—do you like music, sir?”
He ignored that, too. “Come on, Pocket,” he said. “I think we’ve done our bit for the shareholders.”
He turned and stalked away a few paces, the stained and crumpled tails of his jacket flapping behind him. Then he looked back. “Well?” he boomed. “Care to join me?”
“Ah… where, sir?”
“In the Phaeton, of course. She’s perched on the top deck. Much better view of the Royal Marines from up there, if you like that sort of thing. And you might be amused to inspect her construction.” He fixed Holden with a searching stare. “And I daresay I could rustle up some stronger poison for your dissolute companion there, who looks as if he needs it.”
Drawing back, I was about to stammer an apology, when Holden kicked me—none too gently—and hissed, “For God’s sake, accept! Have you no curiosity? Traveller’s flying ship is the wonder of the Age.”
“But Françoise—”
Holden ground his teeth. “Françoise will still be here when you get back. Come on, Ned; where’s your spirit?”
And so Holden and I hurried through a corridor of curious stares after Traveller.
4
PHAETON
Champagne glasses in hand, we climbed a marble staircase to the Promenade Deck of the Prince Albert, emerging into strong sunlight.
At the head of the stair I turned back to survey the Saloon’s chattering throng. I recognized the young Frenchman Bourne by his absurd masher’s costume—he peered up at us with an odd cunning, I thought—but I failed to espy Françoise; and with a stab of regret I turned away to follow the engineer.
Despite myself, Holden’s remarks had caused me to reflect. Apart from her quite remarkable looks and figure, what was it about Françoise that attracted me so?… After all I knew next to nothing about her. With her unusually broad understanding, not to mention her cutting tongue, she was scarcely comparable to the rather empty-headed young ladies it had been my pleasure to escort up to that point.
Fancy Ned Vicars being attracted to a woman of intelligence!
And then there was that air of mystery which Holden had so bluntly pointed out. Why indeed should a woman, no matter how intelligent, wish to study the finer points of reciprocating arms and steam jackets? And where would she learn such things?
Ah, Françoise! I walked across the Promenade Deck oblivious to the wonders around me. Perhaps it was her very mystery that attracted me so: the sense of the unpredictable, the unfathomable, the wild.
I wondered if I were truly falling in love.
Before Françoise, I would have testified on oath that love on first sight is impossible. If no congress of minds has yet taken place the only attraction is purely glandular in origin.
Surely this was so.
And yet…
And yet I had already followed the blessed girl halfway across Europe!
I saw myself then through Françoise’s eyes: as a rather vain and shallow young man; one of thousands circling the civilized capitals—although, I allowed, rather more charming and better- looking than the average—
Holden took my arm and shook me. “Good God, Ned; have you no curiosity at all? Look at the wonders you’re strolling past!”
As if emerging from a dream I raised my head and gazed about me; and I felt my face, scrutinized by a satisfied Holden, break into a smile.
For the Albert’s Promenade Deck was indeed a wonderful, if not magical, place.
The bulk of the deck was laid to lawn, planted here and there with young trees (firs, of the shallow- rooted kind). We followed a path through the trees, gravel crunching pleasantly beneath our feet. There were shaped bushes and a little statuary, but overall the effect was pleasingly irregular with a hint of the healthy and the natural—just as in the best English gardens, I reflected, which avoid the foppish over-ornate design of, say, the French.
Beyond the trees the ship’s funnels soared into the air, copper bands gleaming.
Here we were, perched on the hide of this iron Behemoth sixty feet above the Belgian countryside, and yet it was as if we were strolling through an English country garden!
At length we emerged into a large clear area at the center of the craft. To our left stood a small, ornamented bandstand; the orchestra were vigorously doing their worst to a polka—although the heavier din of the Royal Marines band was now drifting up from the ground in competition. And before us lay a glittering disc of water. This was the Albert’s celebrated ornamental pond; it centered on an ornate fountain-figure of Neptune, complete with trident. The sun, glinting from this pool, dazzled me.
I made out the tall, black-frocked figure of Traveller on the far side of the pond and stalking away from us, his stovepipe hat screwed tightly to his head, the man Pocket at his side like a shadow.
Then I looked beyond Traveller and saw for the first time his flying ship Phaeton.
To my dazzled eyes it looked for all the world as if, against the backdrop of his wonderful vessel, Traveller was walking on the surface of his portable iron sea; and, just for a brief moment, he acquired in my eyes the aura of the magical.
In overall form the Phaeton was rather like a mortar shell, set standing on its base—or rather on three rather fragile-looking legs of wrought iron which raised the body of the vessel some ten feet from the deck. But this shell was tipped by a dome of leaded glass perhaps fifteen feet wide; and the lower hull was marked by what I took to be hatchways and portholes, all set flush with the surface. A hatch near the bottom of the glass dome hung open, and a collapsible staircase of rope and wood hung from it, down the side of the craft and to the deck.
The whole assemblage sat squat on the Albert’s deck, perhaps thirty-five feet tall. The hull gleamed silver like a beacon in the sunlight.
A small crowd of sightseers was restrained by a red rope on brass poles. A single British Peeler patroled the interior of this rope circle, hands behind his back and looking uncommonly hot in his heavy black uniform.
We joined Traveller and Pocket within the barrier; Traveller rested rather ostentatiously against one of the Phaeton’s three legs, and now I could see how the leg terminated in runners—like a sled’s, but mounted on gimbals, no doubt to allow the vessel to rest on uneven surfaces—and how the leg was decorated with ironwork, a delicate filigree. Three nozzles like gaping mouths hung in the craft’s noonday shadow, and I noticed now how the deck surface beneath the nozzles showed signs of scorching, even—in one or two places—of melting.
Traveller said, “Enjoy your stroll, did you? I thought your friend was thirstier than that, Wickers.” He reached and took our empty champagne glasses. “And you won’t be needing these lemonade beakers.” He turned and hurled the two glasses as far as he could into the air. Sparkling and turning they flew clean over the side of the Albert, and I winced as a tinkling crash and cries of protest came floating up from the throng gathered below.
The Peeler stared after the glasses, bemused.
I turned to Traveller once more—to find he had vanished! In some confusion I peered about the filigreed legs, the gaping nozzles—until a voice came drifting down from above. “What are you waiting for? Pocket—help them.”
I peered up, squinting in the sun, and there was the engineer already half-way up his portable ladder and climbing with the alacrity of a man half his age.
Holden grinned at me. “I think we’re in for an interesting afternoon.” With some hesitation, but gamely enough, he clambered aboard the swaying ladder and hauled his spherical bulk into the air.