The Raid of Dover. Douglas Morey Ford
his daughter with enthusiasm; and Linton nodded. "Wonderful, indeed, yet here it is!"
Her father went on stolidly: "It was proved many years ago that a flying machine weighing nearly 8,000 lbs., carrying its own engine, fuel, and passengers, can lift itself into the air. An aeroplane will always lift a great deal more than a balloon of the same weight."
"I know," agreed Linton, "and it can travel at a high rate of velocity with less expenditure of power."
"Exactly; a well-made screw propeller obtains sufficient grip on the air to propel an air-boat at almost any speed; the greater the speed the greater the efficiency of the screw. We are going slowly at this moment, but I could put her along at 70 miles an hour, if one wanted to."
Suiting the action to the word, he did increase the speed very considerably for a short distance, and conversation had to be suspended. It was the quickest travelling Linton had yet experienced in the upper air, and he turned with some anxiety to Zenobia Jardine, thinking the pace might tax her nerves. She was perfectly calm, however, and her father set all fears at rest by saying, as he slackened pace again:
"The steering with the new gyroscope is almost automatic, just as if she were a torpedo. Even in a stiff wind she reverts to a horizontal keel. It is simply like the balancing of a bird."
"The Bladud is splendid!" cried Linton with conviction.
"She's hard to beat," was the President's comment. "But, after all, she's only the natural outcome of the air-gun, which has been known for generations. An air-gun is shaped like a rifle, with a hollow boiler or reservoir of power. You force into the reservoir by means of a condensing syringe as much air-power as it will hold. By opening a valve a portion of the air escapes into the barrel of the gun. That's what takes place when you pull the trigger. The released air presses against the ball just as gunpowder would. Off goes your bullet without a sound or sign to show that it has been discharged. Air condensed to 1–46th of its bulk gives about half the velocity of gunpowder. It's precisely the same principle that's firing us through the air at the present moment."
"It's a wonderful discovery!" was Linton's comment.
"Yes," mused Mr. Jardine, "and yet the thing was always there to be discovered."
"Just as the air waves were always ready for wireless telegraphy, but unused till Marconi came along at the beginning of the present century."
The President looked around him at the star-spangled heavens and drew in a deep breath:
"Yes," he said, slowly, "and there are more secrets waiting to be revealed."
"There's a professor of chemistry in one of the American universities who thinks we shall be able to live on air some day," laughed the young man.
The President did not laugh. "Why not?" he asked. "We know well enough we can't live without it. It's quite conceivable that the atmosphere contains undetected sources of nourishment. They may be generated by vaporisation or by electricity and chemical action within the air itself. No one knew anything about ozone a hundred and fifty years ago, and he would be a rash man who said that ozone is the last word in atmospheric discovery."
"It may end in air cakes," suggested Linton, rather flippantly.
"Or begin with air-cakes and end in air-tabloids," said Zenobia. "What a glorious idea! Only think how it would simplify housekeeping. Meat, vegetables, fish, and all the rest, might be superseded, and the butcher's bill would cease to be a terror."
"And dyspepsia would be abolished with the weekly bills."
"Nature, the only universal provider; complete independence of foreign imports. No starvation and no over-feeding. We should no longer go in for a big square meal, but for a small round tabloid."
"Cooks, with all their greasy pots and pans, would not be wanted. You could carry your meals in your waistcoat pocket and eat them when you pleased."
"Yes," agreed Miss Jardine with mock seriousness, "instead of sitting down to a food function—soup, fish, joint, entrée, pastry and dessert, as if it were a sort of religious ceremony! The possibilities are endless."
"And the prospect glorious!" chimed in the Canadian—then the two young people, having kept the ball of frivolity rolling to their own satisfaction, laughed merrily, and even the grim, dark face of the President relaxed into something like a smile.
"But there would be rather a sameness in the diet," added Zenobia, thoughtfully.
"We could vary it occasionally by harking back to the old fleshpots. Besides, discovery would lead to discovery. The constituents of the atmosphere defy the microscope at present, but by and by they may be seized upon and served up in different forms and combinations for the nourishment of man."
"And woman."
"The greater includes the less. They—oh! I beg your pardon! I was forgetting. The old order is changed. We live in the Reign of Woman."
Rather to Linton's surprise, instead of hearing a quick retort, he thought he heard a low and rather plaintive sigh.
"Ozone, at any rate, has a special flavour," remarked Mr. Jardine. "It resembles lobster, and, like lobster, you can have too much of it. But the plants have always lived on air. Man consumes the flesh of beasts, but the beasts have built up their flesh by eating grass or plants. Thus, indirectly, we ourselves live on air already, and draw our vitality from the atmosphere. Presently we may get it by a shorter cut, that's all. So your air-cakes and tabloids may really come to pass," and Mr. Jardine nodded.
This time there was no laughter, partly because the idea did not seem so wild, and partly because they were now close to London, and the wonder of the lighted capital spreading down below was a strange and solemn thing to look upon.
CHAPTER IV.
THE STAR OF LIFE.
The Bladud passed swiftly over Paddington Station, and followed the line of the Edgware Road to the Marble Arch. The incessant roar of the traffic below reached their ears, and it was a relief to get over the great, far-spreading Park—silent and only faintly lighted by the scattered lamps. To the left, Park Lane had a gloomy look. The famous residences of the wealthy, like hundreds of great London mansions in the neighbouring squares, were untenanted. People could not afford to live in such palaces nowadays; the governing bodies of the capital had done their best to ruin it by Socialistic experiments and over-rating.
At Hyde Park Corner, which was soon reached, once more the tumult of the traffic rose into the air, and the long lines of electric lamps stretching eastward along Piccadilly, gave the impression of an enormous glittering serpent down below. They followed the route to Piccadilly Circus, where the blaze of lights and the swiftly changing units in the thoroughfares produced an effect that, seen for the first time by Linton Herrick, held him in a sort of fascination. Trafalgar Square and the Strand produced the same bewildering characteristics, and to the right the effect conveyed by the illuminated bridges was marvellously beautiful. The Bladud circled widely so that Linton might take his fill of the spectacle. Then Mr. Jardine headed her eastward again, and for awhile the streets below lay gloomy and silent until they had crossed the City. Soon the lights of the Commercial Road and Whitechapel outlined the great thoroughfares of the East End, while in every direction branch streams of flaring, smoky light showed where the hawkers and hucksters plied their evening trade. They had sailed over the Isle of Dogs and Greenwich Reach before the President put the boat about; then in the distance, like a lighthouse, the great clock towering over the Houses of Parliament came into view, the dial shining like a huge, dull moon. In these days it was always illuminated, whether the House were sitting or in recess.
"Look!" exclaimed Zenobia, suddenly.
Away in the heart of Southwark huge flames were shooting into the air, and monstrous clouds of woolly looking smoke rolled slowly from above a conflagration.
"A fire," said Mr. Jardine, "and a big one, too. We'll have a look at it."
"Not too close, father," said his daughter, for the first time showing nervousness.
"Keep