Chapter XXIII: The Disappearance of the Professor

The Prince and the Professor sat up in the smoking-room for a considerable time after Nitocris had retired. Oscarovitch was doing his utmost to persuade his guest to revoke his decision as to the creation of the aerial warships. Franklin Marmion’s simple announcement, which he never thought for a moment of disbelieving, had filled his mind with new ideas, which were rapidly taking the shape of gorgeous dreams of an empire such as mortal man had never ruled over before. All his present designs faded away into mere trivialities in comparison with this splendid conception. He pictured Nitocris, as his consort, Empress of the air, and himself Lord of earth and sea and sky. But all his subtle arguments, all his delicately-put suggestions, and his skilfully framed promises failed to produce the slightest effect upon the genially inflexible man, who quietly turned them all aside, as a grown man might deal with the arguments of a boy.

The thought that this man who was lying back in his deep-seated armchair, holding a cigar in a white, delicately-shaped hand which was strong enough to shake the world to its foundations, should possess such a tremendous power and yet refuse to use it, as quietly as he might have declined an invitation to dinner, exasperated him almost beyond the bounds of patience. If he would only join forces with him what glories might they not achieve, what splendours of power and possession might not be theirs! Here was universal empire, in one sense, only a couple of yards away from him! In another it was more distant than the suns which flame in Space beyond the Milky Way. It was maddening, but it was true, and he knew the man well enough now to feel absolutely assured that no extremity of mental or physical torment would wring the priceless secret from him.

Well, if it had to be, it must be. If he could not learn the secret, at least no one else should. Before morning it would be buried for ever under the waters of the Baltic, and he would revenge himself on the daughter for that which the father refused to do. If Franklin Marmion would not give him the sceptre of the World-Empire, then Nitocris should be his wife and Empress if she would, and if not, his slave and plaything, as he had sworn to Phadrig the Egyptian. The fortress-castle of Oscarburg, on the lonely wooded shore of Viborg Bay, had kept many a secret safely before now, and it would keep this one. Every retainer in the Castle, every man, woman, and child on the estates for leagues around, was his, body and soul, as their fathers before them had been the blind, unquestioning serfs of his fathers. There his word was law, and his will was fate. There was no “liberty” within his domains, since no man wanted it, or would have understood it had it been given to him.

When their argument was over they parted, apparently the best of friends. Franklin Marmion went to bed calmly curious as to what was going to happen, and Oscarovitch paid a visit to his captain.

A little after three that morning he opened the door of the Professor’s state-room very gently and looked in. The room was dark, and he listened. A soft, just audible sound of breathing came from the bed. It was the breathing of a man fast asleep. He pressed the spring of his electric lamp, and turned the thin ray on to the water-bottle in the rack over the wash-stand. It was half-empty, and a glass stood on the table in the middle of the room. Then the ray fell on the face of the sleeping man. It was as Prince Zastrow’s face had been the last night he went to sleep in the Castle of Trelitz--rather the face of a corpse than that of a living man. His captain stood behind him, and he turned and whispered:

“He is ready. Are the men below?”

“All, Highness, save Grovno at the wheel and Hartog on the look-out. They will see nothing, as they did before,” came the whispered reply.

“Very well, then. You and I can manage this between us. You have the line?”

The captain nodded, and they went into the room, softly closing the door. In a few minutes they came out again, carrying between them a long bundle of blankets lashed from end to end with thin line. They took it aft along the alloway and out on to the lower deck by the stern. Two iron doors of a port used for coaling stood open on the starboard side. On the deck lay a couple of pigs of iron lashed together. These the captain made fast to one end of the bundle and lifted them towards the port. Oscarovitch took hold of the other end. They lifted it. The weights dropped outside the port, and the bundle followed them. The captain started up, clasped his hands to his forehead, and said in a gasping whisper: