A Honeymoon in Space
terse, pregnant message, and under the ocean in the dark depths of the
Atlantic ooze, vivid narratives of the coming of the miracle went
flashing to a hundred newspaper offices in England and on the Continent.
The New York correspondent of the London _Daily Express_ added the
following paragraph to his account of the strange occurrence:
"The secret of this amazing vessel, which has proved itself capable of
traversing the Atlantic in a day, and of soaring beyond the limits of
the atmosphere at will, is possessed by one man only, and that man is an
English nobleman. The air is full of rumours of universal war. One
vessel such as this could scatter terror over a continent in a few days,
demoralise armies and fleets, reduce Society to chaos, and establish a
one-man despotism on the ruins of all the Governments of the world. The
man who could build one ship like this could build fifty, and, if his
country asked him to do it, no doubt he would. Those who, as we are
almost forced to believe, are even now contemplating a serious attempt
to dethrone England from her supreme place among the nations of Europe,
will do well to take this latest potential factor in the warfare of the
immediate future into their most serious consideration."
This paragraph was not perhaps as absolutely correct as a proposition in
Euclid, but it stopped the war. The _Deutschland_ came in the next day,
and again the press was flooded, this time with personal narratives, and
brilliantly imaginative descriptions of the Vision which had descended
from the clouds, made rings round the great liner going at her best
speed, and then vanished in an instant beyond the range of field-glasses
and telescopes.
Thus did the creature of Professor Rennick's inventive genius play its
first part as the peacemaker of the world.
When the _Astronef's_ message had been duly given and recorded, her
propellers began to revolve, and her head swung round to the north-east.
So began, as all the world now knows, the most extraordinary
electioneering trip that ever was known. First Baltimore, then
Philadelphia, and then New York saw the flashes in the sky. There were
illuminations, torchlight processions, and all the machinery of American
electioneering going at full blast. But when people saw, far away up in
the starlit night, those swiftly-changing beams glittering down, as it
were, out of infinite Space, and when the telegraph operators caught on
to the fact that they were signals, a sort of awe seemed to come over
both Republicans and Democrats alike. Even Tammany's thoughts began to
lift above the sordid level of boodle. It was almost like a message from
another world. There was something supernatural about it, and when it
was translated and rushed out in extra editions of the evening papers:
"Vote for sound men and sound money" became the watchword of millions.
From New York to Boston, Boston to Albany, and then across country to
Buffalo, Cleveland, Chicago, Omaha--then westward to St. Paul and
Minneapolis, and northward to Portland and Seattle, southward to San
Francisco and Monterey, then eastward again to Salt Lake City, and then,
after a leap across the Rockies which frightened Mrs. Van Stuyler almost
to fainting point and made Zaidie gasp for breath, away southward to
Santa Fe and New Orleans.
Then northward again up the Mississippi Valley to St. Louis, and thence
eastward across the Alleghanies back to Washington--such was the famous
night-voyage of the _Astronef_, and so by means of that long silver
tongue of light did she spread the message of common-sense and
commercial honesty throughout the length and breadth of the Great
Republic. The world knows how America received and interpreted it the
next day.
Meanwhile Mr. Russell Rennick had taken train to Washington, and the day
after the election he willingly took back all that he had intended with
regard to the Marquis of Byfleet, accepted Lord Redgrave in his stead,
and bestowed his avuncular blessing at the wedding breakfast held in the
deck-chamber of the _Astronef_ poised in mid-air, five hundred feet
above the dome of the Capitol, a week later. To this he added a cheque
for a million dollars--payable to the Countess of Redgrave on her return
from her wedding trip.
Breakfast over, the wedding party made an inspection of the wonderful
vessel under the guidance of her Commander. After this, while they were
drinking their coffee and liqueurs, and the men were smoking their
cigars in the deck-chamber, a score of the most distinguished men and
women in the United States experienced the novel sensation of sitting
quietly in deck-chairs while they were being hurled at the rate of a
hundred and fifty miles an hour through the atmosphere.
They ran up to Niagara, dropped to within a few feet of the surface of
the Falls, passed over them, fell to the Rapids, and drifted down them
within a couple of yards of the raging waters. Then in an instant they
leapt up into the clouds, dropped again, and took a slanting course for
Washington at a speed incredible, but to them quite imperceptible, save
for the blurred rush of the half-visible earth behind them.
That night the _Astronef_ rested again in front of the steps of the
White House, and Lord and Lady Redgrave were the guests at a
semi-official banquet given by the newly re-elected President. The
speech of the evening was made by the President himself in proposing the
health of the bride and bridegroom, and this is the way he ended:
"There is something more in the ceremony which we have been privileged
to witness than the union of a man and a woman in the bonds of holy
matrimony. Lord Redgrave, as you know, is the descendant of one of the
noblest and most ancient families in the Motherland of New Nations. Lady
Redgrave is the daughter of the oldest and, I hope I may be allowed to
say without offence, the greatest of those nations. It is, perhaps,
early days to talk about a formal federation of the Anglo-Saxon people,
but I think I am only voicing the sentiments of every good American when
I say that, if the rumours which have drifted over and under the
Atlantic, rumours of a determined attempt on the part of certain
European powers to assault and, if possible, destroy that magnificent
fortress of individual liberty and collective equity which we call the
British Empire should unhappily prove to be true, then it may be that
the rest of the world will find that America does not speak English for
nothing.
"But I must also remind you that a few yards from the doors of the White
House there lies the greatest marvel, I had almost said the greatest
miracle, that has ever been accomplished by human genius and human
industry. That wonderful vessel in which some of us have been privileged
to take the most marvellous journey in the history of mechanical
locomotion was thought out by an American man of science, the man whose
daughter sits on my right hand to-night. In her concrete material form
this vessel, destined to navigate the shoreless Ocean of Space, is
English. But she is also the result of the belief and the faith of an
Englishman in an American ideal.... So when she leaves this earth, as
she will do in an hour or so, to enter the confines of other worlds than
this--and, it may be, to make the acquaintance of peoples other than
those who inhabit the earth--she will have done infinitely more than she
has already done, incredible as that seems. She will not only have
convinced this world that the greatest triumph of human genius is of
Anglo-Saxon origin, but she will carry to other worlds than this the
truth which this world will have learnt before the nineteenth century
ends.
"England in the person of Lord Redgrave, and America in the person of
his Countess, leave this world to-night to tell the other worlds of our
system, if haply they may find some intelligible means of communication,
what this world, good and bad, is like. And it is within the bounds of
possibility that in doing so they may inaugurate a wider fellowship of
created beings than the limits of this world permit; a fellowship, a
friendship, and, as the _Astronef_ entitles us to believe, even a
physical communication of world with world which, in the dawn of the
twentieth century, may transcend in sober fact the wildest dreams of all
the philanthropists and the philosophers who have sought to educate
humanity from Socrates to Herbert Spencer."
CHAPTER VI
After the _Astronef's_ forward searchlight had flashed its farewells to
the thronging, cheering crowds of Washington, her propellers began to
whirl, and she swung round northward on her way to say goodbye to the
Empire City.
A little before midnight her two lights flashed down over New York and
Brooklyn, and were almost instantly answered by hundreds of electric
beams streaming up from different parts of the Twin Cities, and from
several men-of-war lying in the bay and the river.
"Goodbye for the present! Have you any messages for Mars?" flickered out
from above the _Astronef's_ conning-tower.
What Uncle Sam's message was, if he had one, was never deciphered, for
fifty beams began dotting and dashing at once, and the result was that
nothing but a blur of many mingled rays reached the conning-tower from
which Lord Redgrave and his bride were taking their last look at human
habitations.
"You might have known that they would all answer at once," said Zaidie.
"I suppose the newspapers, of course, want interviews with the leading
Martians, and the others want to know what there is to be done in the
way of trade. Anyhow, it would be a feather in Uncle Sam's cap if he
made the first Reciprocity Treaty with another world."
"And then proceeded to corner the commerce of the Solar System," laughed
Redgrave. "Well, we'll see what can be done. Although I think, as an
Englishman, I ought to look after the Open Door."
"So that the Germans could get in before you, eh? That's just like you
dear, good-natured English. But look," she went on, pointing downwards,
"they're signalling again, all at once this time."
Half a dozen beams shone out together from the principal newspaper
offices of New York. Then simultaneously they began the dotting and
dashing again. Redgrave took them down in pencil, and when the
signalling had stopped he read off:
"No war. Dual Alliance climbs down. Don't like idea of _Astronef_.
Cables just received. Goodbye, and good luck! Come back soon, and safe!"
"What? We have stopped the war!" exclaimed Zaidie, clasping his arm.
"Well, thank God for that. How could we begin our voyage better? You
remember what we were saying the other day, Lenox. If that's only true,
my father somewhere knows now what a blessing he has given his brother
men! We've stopped a war which might have deluged the world in blood.
We've saved perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives, and kept sorrow from
thousands of homes. Lenox, when we get back, you and the States and the
British Government will have to build a fleet of these ships, and then
the Anglo-Saxon race must say to the rest of the world----"
"The millennium has come and its presiding goddess is Zaidie Redgrave.
If you don't stop fighting, disband your armies and turn your fleets
into liners and cargo boats, she'll proceed to sink your ships and
decimate your armies until you learn sense. Is that what you mean,
dear?" laughed Redgrave, as he slipped his left hand round her waist and
laid his right on the searchlight-switch to reply to the message.
"Don't be ridiculous, Lenox. Still, I suppose that is something like it.
They wouldn't deserve anything else if they were fools enough to go on
fighting after they knew we could wipe them out."
"Exactly. I perfectly agree with your Ladyship, but still sufficient