Part 15

He had crossed the sloping peak of the Matterhorn by this time, and could espy the precipices of the Weisshorn once more. The Valley of Zermatt running down to the pass was but a trench in a desolation from which the eyes must shrink. Knowing little of the place, he had few landmarks; but the Gorner Glacier was one of them, and he traced it with precision. There he perceived great tendrils of pure ice, bent and gnarled as the trunks of trees; black rocks upon which no snow could rest; fathomless depths of ice so blue that a magic river should lie beneath them. And there, as elsewhere, the stillness appalled him. He was glad that it was so, for wind was the enemy. Let the weather change, and he might still be defeated. He knew it, and his heart sank at the remembrance.

A great endeavour is chiefly a story of great hopes. This man had dreamed of such an opportunity as this--he knew not in what phase of his calling--but he had dreamed that some day the world would hail him as a victor, and that his name would be known to men. Now it seemed that the moment was at hand. The immensity of his achievement was hardly present to his mind. Sometimes he was almost afraid for himself, saying, "I am jesting with my fellow-men; it is the machine and not the man which counts in the story of the sciences." At other times a great pride in what he had done ran like fire through his veins. The whole world must know his name to-morrow. If he fell dead then and there upon the black rocks of the Matterhorn, they must still say that he of all living men had first crossed the summit of Mont Blanc. He knew it, and flushed at the knowledge. He had not lived in vain; perchance, should the supreme prize be his, he was about to enter upon a new life whose rewards he would not dwell upon. Others had told him so; he was content to believe them.

And so great hopes went with him, and the smallest check upon them could set his heart beating. Of these the most considerable came at the moment when he headed his machine for the twin-peaked Weisshorn. His brother and the abbe had warned him against the currents of the Valley of Zermatt; but so triumphant had been his progression to this time that he had forgotten the warnings or derided them. Now they returned as an echo to which he must listen. Suddenly, and without any warning at all, he felt himself sinking toward the valley. It was just as though the whole machine dropped rapidly, had lost stability, and would go hurtling down to the abyss as a bird that is shot. In vain he raised his elevating plane to its full capacity. The shell continued its headlong flight, its nose dipped downwards, its engine raced wildly. Then, as suddenly, he regained his balance, went a little way upon an even keel, and discovered that his engine had almost ceased to run. It ebbed away as a life that gasps for air--sobbed out a requiem. And that drove him almost mad with terror; for a spell his wit failed him altogether; he sat back in his chair and looked death in the face.

But it was for an instant, no more. There is this in the instinct of a true mechanic, that whatever the emergency, his mind will grasp the meaning of it before the minds of others, and he will be the first to act. Even as death looked him in the face, Benny could say that the engine had ceased to run because the petrol supply had failed. Turning in his seat he lifted the needles valve, and then struck the side of his tank a fierce blow. As swiftly as the engine had failed, as swiftly it took up the drive again. He heard the hum of it; watched the great propeller racing, and then looked ahead of him to regain his course. There had been a margin of ten seconds perhaps between salvation and the ultimate calamity. He was as white as the snow beneath him when he understood the truth.

A vast black precipice of rock loomed up the third of a mile away. Unable to see more than its jagged face, Benny swung his machine to port, then soared without a break until he had lost all sense of locality, and the air was so bitterly cold that his very breath turned to ice. Now a great white cloud enveloped him. He looked vainly to his compass for help, but the needle oscillated so violently that north and south had no meaning. Descending a little way, he discovered that he was circling about Monte Rosa, and that the plains of Italy called him once more. Then despair seized upon him--the despair of a man who wanders by night, lost to all sense of direction, and vainly seeking lights upon a strange horizon.

In a measure this dread had been inspired by the fall. He waited with ear intent for any sound that the engine would fail a second time, and shuddered at any variation of its rhythm. When the vista became clear again he was astonished to find that the scene was just as it had been when first he crossed the summit of the Matterhorn. All the great peaks--the Dent Blanche, the Rothhorn, the Grand Gorner, the Weissthor--stood in the same relation to his course as when he had set it at the beginning. And at this he took new courage, and with a counsel of prudence which sent him eastward across the mouth of the valley. He would not enter that trap for the second time; he knew that in altitude lay his salvation.

His flight now lay in some part along the Italian frontier. He skirted Monte Rosa and flew straight across the Gorner Grat, kept to the right of the Horner, and henceforth found a kindlier country. Had he persisted he would have come to the lesser peaks which fend the Simplon Pass; but he swung again before he reached them, and so, with the wind at his back, he headed at last straight for Andana and the goal. Half an hour, he thought, would bring the end, if the weather held and the mists were but local.

The latter was now his only doubt, and he could not shake it off despite the magnitude of his attainment. He had reached a point where he should have been able to look right up the Valley of the Rhone; but the view was obscured by those banks of white cloud which had drifted in the valley since dawn, and were still to be reckoned with. He entered the first of them, and was subject once more to all the dread and despair which had afflicted him at Zermatt. A sense of direction was lost as heretofore; vast shadows appeared to pursue him; he raced his engine that he might escape them, but they pressed on the more. Then, in an instant, the way would be clear, the sun shining brightly, the valley below him a smiling scene to summon him to victory.

It was but such a little way, and victory stood so near. When the cloud enveloped him for the third time that day, he tried to soar above it, and succeeded for a little while; but the vapour was mounting also and it would interpose a curtain between him and the earth, so that direction was alternately lost and found, while he himself became soaked to the skin and began to lose the use of his hands. Now, surely, he thought that he was done for; but still he headed for Andana and the slopes, and said that all must be risked in that final descent. Henceforth, it was a race between the endurance of the man and the machine, and the magnitude of the cloud. He heard an ominous misfire in his engine, and shivered as though a cold hand had touched him. The great white sea of vapour below forbade him to see whether he were then above Visp or Sierre; nor did the contour of the valley shape as he had expected. So a woful sense of defeat took possession of him anew; his numbed hands permitted the ship to rock horribly; he went down a hundred feet, but feared the walls of the valley; rose again, and reeled in his seat. He was a beaten man by now, hardly able to raise a hand to a lever; the great white sea had done for him, and he knew it.

Here irony stepped in, and with a weird interposition which would have delighted a cynic. While his machine rolled and sagged in the mists a sound of human voices came up to him from below. He thought that he heard cheers, the hooting of horns, and the crack of a revolver shot. As swiftly as the sounds arose they died away, and the stillness became supreme. He felt that he must come down whatever the cost. The great prize was lost, and with it the hope of the years. And at this tears of a bitter sorrow welled to the man's eyes. Defeated! Yes, that was the truth, and the world would know the story to-morrow, and forget him in a week. What mattered it that he had done so much? Was not victory his all in all? And he was beat--dead beat--by the cloud which mocked him. Almost with a sob he made a last effort and began to come down. The ground below him, emerging suddenly, showed a steep bank of snow with pinewoods above it. There he ran his ship, and as she came to rest he buried his face in his hands and wept aloud.

*CHAPTER XXII*

*THE EMPTY HOUSE*

The fit of weakness passed swiftly to give place to a finer measure of courage than any which had inspired him hitherto.

The prize was lost. What then? He had been robbed of it, not by any failure of the machine he had created, but by the caprice of nature, against which he was powerless. Those who criticised him would be compelled to admit as much. And, all said and done, he had been the first man to cross Mont Blanc in an aeroplane, and no tongue could rob him of the credit.

These were early impressions, and not a little vague. He was bitterly cold and so cramped in every limb that when he rolled out of his seat at last he could not stand upright. Utterly exhausted in mind and body, he held as well as he could to the shell of the ship, and tried to drag himself to his feet. Then he remembered that there was a flask of brandy among his "stores," and finding it with maladroit hand, he took a heavy draught. The potent liquor revived him immediately. Circulation came back at last. He stood upright and looked about him.

He was on a steep slope of the snow, and there were woods above him. When he had searched them a little while with patient eyes, he began to think that they were not unfamiliar. A further scrutiny showed him a gabled building above the woods, and he could have sworn that it was the well-known hotel at Vermala. Turning to the valley below, he perceived a clump of pines emerging from the mists, and they fitted into the picture he had imagined. Yes, they would be the woods standing between Vermala and the plateau of Andana, and if they were, his chalet lay below them. But at that thought he shrugged his shoulders and laughed in an odd way. He would not think about a chance so preposterous.

His machine had escaped all damage in the swift descent, and lay across the bank; one wing just tipping the froth of the snow, the other poised high above the white ground. His difficulty was to reach solid ground, for the drifts were deep hereabouts, and he sank up to his knees at every step he took. It occurred to him that he must carry skis with him in future against such a mishap as this; and resolving to make a note of it, he began to examine the engine and propellers to see if all were well with them. This scrutiny still occupied him when he heard a loud shouting from the woods below, and picked up his ears as a hare that is warned.

There were cries in the wood, incoherent salvos as of a mob whose hearts might be in unison, but whose lungs were out of tune. Listening intently, Benny thought that he could distinguish the raucous voices of boys, the shrill piping of girls, and the deep baying of men excited abnormally. A moment later and a man emerged from the wood, and set out to cross the snow toward him, and this man was up to his waist in the drift immediately, while strong arms were thrust out to help him, and a roar of laughter proffered as his reward.

"Good God!" cried Benny, "it's the little priest!" And, in truth, it was.

The Abbe Villari, with his cassock tucked up to his waist, his arms waving wildly, hatless and with tousled hair, he had been first before them all. No runner at Stamford Bridge could have had much the better of him in that mad striving for the first prize in the race. And, worthy soul, the snow engulfed him immediately, and it remained for the parson, Harry Clavering, to drag him out and set him, sobered, upon his feet. Meanwhile, others had snatched the prize from him, and before them all the Admirable Crichton of Andana, Dr. Orange, the immaculate.

Benny steadied himself by the shell of his ship while he watched this advance; nor could his wit make anything of it. Why were all these people in such a hurry to thrash a dead horse? Had they come to tell what he knew so well, that his endeavour had failed, and that the prize must go to another? He could make nothing of it, and he stood and stared while men and women on skis debouched from the woods by twenty paths and came racing over the snow toward him.

Dr. Orange was quite out of breath when he reached the place, and he stood for a little while holding to the ship and trying to find words. Before he had recovered, Bob Otway, Dick Fenton, and Keith Rivers had joined him, and these were eloquent enough, though they spoke a strange tongue to Benny. In truth, their greeting was an incoherent salvo of wild words among which he distinguished such homely phrases as, "You've got them stiff"; "Bravo old Benny!" and "Perinder pays, by thunder!" An instant later and Bob had suggested that it was a case for "chairing"; and there being no chair handy, he and Rivers laid violent hands upon the astonished victor and lifted him bodily to their shoulders.

His protest went for nothing. He cried out that it was "damned nonsense!" but no one seemed to hear him. Perchance a man has never been carried shoulder-high by other men on skis before. They would establish a precedent, as Bob declared, and calling the parson and Dick Fenton to his aid, set off bravely for the Palace.

"Where is my brother?" Benny asked them in an interlude. The doctor answered that he had fainted when the gun announced the victory; but that was an enigma to the engineer, and kept him quiet awhile. "When the gun announced his victory. Good God! What victory?"

"I lost it," he stammered presently, "because the mist took me. It seems I was nearer than I thought. Another ten minutes and I would have done it."

Nobody listened to this. They were in the woods now, and went on in a triumph characteristic of Andana. If the music were chiefly of horns and bugles, it mattered little. Major Boodle, among others, had devoted a master intellect to the acquisition of the "yoodle" in various keys, and he practised it relentlessly. There was one fellow who had borrowed a drum in the village, and beat a tattoo with real cleverness. A few mild youths, who always carried revolvers when "on the Continent," produced those far from formidable weapons and shot down the branches from the trees. But, in the main, the voice was the instrument, and was to be heard in a stentorian cheer, or the less musical and more joyous chant of victory.

Some hundreds of the spectators had gone up to Vermala, but many thousands remained on the plateau and were discovered suddenly as the odd procession emerged from the woods. The drift of cloud, which had tricked the aviator into the belief that he had failed, was now but a wall of vapour flanking the precipices across the valley, all the scene stood out, revealed in magic glory.

Heaven knew whence all the flags had come. It was said that the bunting erected by the _Daily Recorder_ had been pulled down by excited hands and distributed among the people. Certainly, every other man carried a flag and waved it perpetually. In their turn, the women waved handkerchiefs while the children ran to and fro hardly understanding what it was all about, and caring very little. Meanwhile, the band blared incessantly, and down at the village the church bell tolled as gaily as an ancient bell-ringer could persuade it to do.

The crowd had waited patiently for its hero to come down from the heights, and directly it perceived the outposts of the procession, all bonds were broken and a wild tumult ensued. A hundred hands fought for the burden, and were repulsed with difficulty. A frenzy of cheers succeeded the intermittent salvos. Men, and women too, fell in the snow and were rolled over and over by the heedless feet of other runners. The one desire was to see the man who had done this thing, and, if it might be, to touch his hand. He, in turn, implored those who carried him to make an end of it.

"Take me to the chalet," he said. And the doctor commanding, they carried him there in triumph, and shut and barred the door against the multitude.

* * * * * * *

Brother Jack had been sitting before the fire in their little sitting-room when Benny came tumbling in. His face was very pale and his eyes wide open. It was true that he had fainted when the signal-gun announced his brother's victory, and the reaction of joy could be detected in the quiver of his lips and his restless hands. Had he been a Frenchman he would have kissed Benny on both cheeks prior to a flourish of words in which platitudes of sentiment abounded. But as it was, he just stood up and cried, "Hallo, Benny!" while Benny said, "Hallo, Jack!" and came and slapped him on the shoulder. The others in the room at this time were at the Abbe Villari, Harry Clavering and the doctor, and these three stood apart that the brothers might talk.

"I thought you were done, Benny, old boy. I heard the engine down the valley, and thought you'd miss us. How did you manage it? How did you do it, old fellow?"

"That's what I'm asking myself, Jack. I must have done it, or these people wouldn't be making such a noise. Luck, I suppose. I thought I was a good ten miles from the place when I came down. Well, I suppose I wasn't, and that's all."

Jack laughed. The colour was returning to his cheeks.

"It's not all by a long way, Benny. You flew right over our heads just as though you were making a bee line. Not that it mattered. What you had to do was to get back to the starting-point, and here you are. Come and warm yourself, old boy. You're stiff with the cold."

Benny agreed to that.

"Never was so cold in all my life, Jack. You could cut me up in lengths, if you liked! I've had a hard time, old boy--a d----d hard time! And now it's over, eh? Well, that's something; and if none of you mind, I think I'll go to bed for a spell. Dr. Orange would prescribe that, I know. Just a snooze, doctor, eh, and a drop of something warm!"

He turned and went up the little staircase to his bedroom. Jack and the doctor following. The crowd was still gathered about the house, and from time to time it cheered lustily; but when Dr. Orange went out and said the aviator was resting, the people drew back respectfully, while the gendarmes posted sentries before the chalet, and forbade anyone to approach it. Among them was the little gendarme, Philip, waiting impatiently for his chief's permission to go into Italy.

* * * * * * *

It had been arranged that the cheque for ten thousand pounds should be handed over by Sir John Perinder, the proprietor of the _Daily Recorder_, at a banquet to be given at the Palace Hotel at seven o'clock that night. Lavish according to his habit, Sir John invited all the residents at the hotel to be his guests, and prepared also a high table at which the victor might meet his intimates.

Aided by the staff of the Palace, the great dining-room was quickly prepared for this novel function. The flags of many nations adorned its whitewashed walls; there were ridiculous streamers and words of welcome both in French and English. Bizarre ornaments from the bazaar decorated the long tables, but the high table itself carried the monster silver cup with which the Aero Club of Switzerland commemorated the achievement, and this was a veritable work of art.

Benny found this dinner one of the most uncomfortable entertainments at which he had yet assisted. It is true that he was received by a round of cheers when he entered the room, but he could not but remember that many who now applauded had derided him but a week ago.

For himself, he would have been hard put to it to say just what he did feel. That the whole world would tell the story of the flight to-morrow, he knew full well. It would have been absurd to have put aside so self-evident a fact. The nations would honour him, and his own people welcome a British victory. Looking further afield, he perceived that his social position had changed in a flash, and that he, who had called himself a beggar that morning, was now a rich man, with every prospect of adding enormously to his riches in the immediate future. Already the cable had brought offers which dazed him by their generosity. He was to fly at this meeting, to fly at that. A firm in London offered him two thousand pounds just to show his machine. Surely, this implied a permanence of fortune. And he had but begun to use those amazing brains which God had given him.

Here were things to be remembered subtly as the waiters filled his glass with champagne, and boisterous diners asked to drink wine with him. He found the speeches tedious enough, and thought Sir John a dreadful windbag. When the great moment came, and the cheque was handed over to him, it seemed such a sorry strip of paper to stand for so much, and he thrust it into his pocket carelessly, as though it were the visiting-card of an acquaintance. None the less, he was conscious of it being there during the rest of the dinner; and despite his desire not to do so, he touched it more than once with his fingers to be quite sure that he had not lost it.

His own speech amazed the company. No one expected an engineer to be also an orator, and yet his simple words had the stamp of true oratory. He spoke to the hearts of those who heard him, concealing none of his aims and ambitions, and confessing how greatly he had desired success. His honesty was inspiring. He believed that they would be glad to have this news in England. It was natural that he should think of his own country at such a moment. But he could give every credit to France, and the brains of those Frenchmen who had carried this art to such lengths. In conclusion, he hoped that his many friends at Andana would hold some memory of him in their affections.

There were rousing cheers at this--the cheers of those who had grown suddenly conscious of their own littleness, and knew that they had met a man. When the dinner broke up, young and old swarmed about Benny again, begging his experiences, proffering their books, congratulating him in volatile phrases. To all he pleaded that he was dead tired and must get to bed. The supreme day of his life had ended! He was about to say "good-bye" to it.

It was eleven o'clock then, and few were abroad. The excursionists had already returned to Sierre and the railway; the keepers of carnival had surrendered to the snow and a bitter wind arisen at sundown. What should have been an _al fresco_ fete upon the skating rink had become but a collection of shivering impresarios gathered about ebbing fires. The pathway to the Park Hotel was deserted, nor could you have counted twenty people on the road to Vermala.