THROUGH THE SUN IN AN AIRSHIP

CHAPTER I THE STORY OF THE REGINA

“What’s that for, Gilbert?” asked Ross Ainley, in surprise, as his chum, Gilbert Eastern, flung an egg into the stream which gurgled past them.

“It’s rotten, old chap, rotten as a man’s word of honour,” replied Gilbert. “Thank goodness it’s the last of the batch, and I get no more from Flatters. He assured me he had manufactured every one and all had stood Government tests, therefore he could guarantee them. I don’t want to spoil our little picnic here at the North Pole or I’d go back and make the fellow eat the thing; see, even that fish discards it!” as a fish rose to the surface, nosed the egg a little, and then darted off. “No wonder!” he commented, and then without further remark he reached for another egg and, cutting off the top of the capsule, at once became absorbed in extracting the contents—a peculiar pink-coloured paste, which he spread on a cake of brown meal and commenced to eat in silent enjoyment. His friend Ross, who had just finished his meal, leaned over the mossy bank and half filled a drinking vessel with water from the stream; after sterilising it he rummaged in the basket, and bringing out a small box extracted a pellet, which he placed in the vessel and

crumbled with his already sterilised fingers. Instantly 2the water became turbid, and, a second later, opaque-white as the powder entered into solution, and he drank off what appeared to be fresh milk. Having satisfied his thirst, he sprayed some antiseptic liquid on his hands and the glass, threw his pulp serviette away, and leaving the other things till his friend had finished also, lay down on his back full length, with his elbows up and hands clasped under his head, gazing in silence into the blue sky overhead between their two airships which were riding at anchor, their vanes gently moving in the wind just sufficiently to maintain them at an altitude of about twenty feet. They were in a small clearing in the heart of a magnificent forest which extended for miles in all directions and was, perhaps, the finest and most picturesque portion of all that beautiful district of the North Pole which was appropriately called ‘The Garden of the Earth.’ After passing through miles of moss and peat and bog, the river Pole entered

this forest some ten or twelve miles distant as a gurgling brook, tumbling and twisting and twining amongst the boulders in its bed; but other streams, longing for closer companionship, drew nearer and nearer till they joined it, and together they all came flowing down in noisy happiness, whilst the rushes which were swept by the lively water, now a river, bent their nodding heads lower and lower till they kissed the sparkling wavelets and reared themselves again in their joy at having stolen such sweetness. Thus the river Pole swept onwards, an ever widening and deepening stream, spreading its fragrant influence around till the trees, shrubs and underwood became almost intoxicated with the luxuriance of their growth, and expanded their limbs in the ecstasy of being alive. And in the twilight of the green woods occasional lovers would be found, walking in its cool recesses and talking of the future, or perhaps merely walking together oblivious of all save that they were in love—love too deep for words, too strong and 3holy for expression

in anything but silent thanks to heaven for the love which is heaven; such are passed, they unnoticing and being unnoticed,

and here and there the trees grew more widely apart and clearings were formed by nature almost specially for picnics and alfresco meals, for the grass was thicker than any carpet and softer, having a deep bed of peat, whilst the murmuring stream and the faint hum of insects, and that delightful and peculiar sound of thousands of branches being gently swayed by the wind, lent a delightful accompaniment to the pleasantry and laughter inseparable from young and healthy hearts which, like the air and sky, are clear and sunny.

To one of these clearings had Ross and Gilbert come for a little relaxation, because they knew that nature is always ready and able to give health and vigour to all who seek her, and they made a point of spending at least one half-day in each week in some spot on the beautiful earth where they could talk and revel in nature unalloyed, and after Ross had been looking for a few minutes into the throbbing ether, where the blue was flecked with streamers of ‘mares’ tails’ which floated in one of the higher strata, he suddenly rolled over to face his friend and said, seriously,—

“Has it ever struck you, Gilbert, what a wonderful age this is?”

“The age is all right, Ross, so far as I can see,” answered Gilbert, indifferently.

“I don’t think so,” replied Ross, argumentatively. “It seems to me too matter-of-fact.”

“What else would you have it? all fancy?” asked 4Gilbert, still indifferent, being hungry and absorbed in his meal.

“No, of course not,” replied Ross, musingly, “but it seems to me that if a little of the past could be worked into the present it would leaven things a bit.” Here he paused, and as Gilbert did not offer any remark, he continued,—

“Take that egg, for instance. Natural eggs are never eaten now, any more than swans and peacocks, yet I don’t see why they shouldn’t be, though at the bare suggestion of eating a real egg every one would recoil with horror; but why should they be kept for broods only? They are wholesome enough, or they used to be, anyway, and if they were taken from the fowls and other egg-laying creatures, more eggs would be laid and there would be plenty for all.”

“Probably,” said prosaic Gilbert, “but the real eggs had to be boiled, and cooked in other ways, and beaten, and goodness knows what, and all that sort of thing must have been a shocking waste of time. Besides, the shells are brittle, and if you should by chance sit on a basketful of them, they would, of course, explode and break and make a nasty mess, to say nothing of the perfume of a bad one. There is not one of those objections in a modern egg, and they are wholesome, nutritious, of fine flavour, will keep for years in these capsules, and if you jump on one you will merely alter its shape and flatten it; no cooking is necessary, they are pure and sterilised, and exert an antiseptic action on the stomach, counteracting any tendency to undue acidity, ulceration, cancer, and lots of other things—ergo, I say they are better than the natural article, and not one in a million is faulty, except by deliberate fraud.” And Gilbert, after this tirade, continued his meal with renewed vigour, as if to make up for lost time.

“But in this age it is supposed that there is no fraud,” observed Ross.

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“Just so,” replied Gilbert, with a kind of ‘I’m busy’ air; “but ever since man was created some dispositions are and always will be treacherous.”

“Probably,” assented Ross, plucking a blade of grass and breaking it into short lengths, “but everything in this world is so cut and dried, so trite, that I am weary of it.”

“Poor fellow!” said Gilbert, banteringly; “you need your diet changing; you’re secreting too much bile and it’s giving you the blues. Just talk and let off as much as you can whilst I finish my dinner; I was bothering with my anchor while you were feeding; the blessed thing wouldn’t suck. Now, fire away, and talk yourself into a better humour—I’ll not interrupt.”

“My humour is all right,” answered Ross, laughing, “but as I lay here on this beautiful turf and saw our ships riding at anchor, as much under control as if on the sea, I could not help thinking of all the past.”

“Think away, old man, only think aloud,” said Gilbert, as his friend paused.

“You think I’m not serious, but I am, really and truly!” said Ross. “I was thinking of the changes this district of the North Pole has undergone. Hundreds and hundreds of years ago it was as it is now—a beautiful, warm climate; then came a time when things changed and all turned to ice, and the trees were covered with snow, all approach being cut off by an impassable barrier of ice, although even then many explorers believed that at the Pole it was not all frozen; and in 1878 or 1879, when the explorer Nordenskiold was locked in the ice in Northern Siberia, and this ice extended as far as he could see, he proved that here at the North Pole no ice existed; and another explorer, Admiral Wrangell, I believe, when he was journeying north from Siberia, found the ice getting thinner and thinner as he advanced and the climate becoming warmer until he actually got to unbroken and unfrozen sea and a temperate climate. This was 6confirmed later by such authorities as Anjou Hedenström and others. And still later, between 1905 and 1910, mammoths, stacks of peat, living but frozen

trees, were found by explorers; then a few years later, the conquest of the air began to be felt as a practical possibility, and science generally made enormous strides—the time from 1900, or say from 1850 to 1950, was a century of the greatest scientific triumphs of all time, and electricity became so much used that the climate of the world altered and the terrible barriers of ice at the poles became no longer impassable. Then followed, in actual reality, the conquest of the air, which caused a complete revolution in mechanical progress. After this came a period of intense scientific research, and about a hundred years ago was made the great ‘discovery’—which had been expected centuries before—that life originated at the North Pole (from whence its germs were wafted all over the world by air and water), and the South Pole saw its passage to higher and more noble existences.

“About the opening of the twentieth century morality in business had sunk to a very low ebb; every one was possessed by a craze for making money—in what manner was quite a secondary consideration—consequently the richest people were almost invariably the most unscrupulous. At last the working classes revolted and by sheer force of numbers sent a majority of working men to Parliament, and by such means obtained Old Age Pensions. Still they groaned under the dishonest and callous actions of the moneyed people and employers, and in course of time they rose up in revolution and swept the country clean. From that time everything has improved, and though we have in some minor matters, such as modes of expression and what not, reverted to the style of our forefathers of about the twentieth century, science has progressed by leaps and bounds, until now we have got almost to the other extreme, and everything is science:—we 7eat, drink, live, move and have our very being on scientific lines, till one gets tired and weary almost to death at the mere word.”

“You’ll certainly have to change your diet, old fellow!” put in Gilbert, laughing, “but go on!”

“I am really serious,” continued Ross, smiling at the sarcasm. “I don’t believe this world was ever intended for man, and it’s my opinion that we came here by accident from some other planet.”

“Really!”

“Yes. Just think! where intellectual man is not, vegetation grows to magnificent luxuriance; so do wild animals, insects, birds and flowers; all these are made and suited to the world by nature, but directly the so-called ‘lord of creation’ comes, one of two things must happen—he must either open out nature and bring it into line with his life and habits, or he must gradually acclimatise himself to his surroundings by various doses of malaria, swamp fever, orchid-poisoning and the like, and by the time he has become immune from these evils and can live, he is not so healthy or so useful as were the scarecrows of ancient fame. And wherever numbers live together, so many hygienic matters have to be considered that healthy living in numbers is, and always will be, a most serious problem. No, man is about the only animal on the earth that upsets nature, or is upset by nature.

“Wherever he lives the country suffers, and the rare and beautiful birds and creatures fly from him as from a pestilence. Take the present era, for example. Where are all the beautiful birds and beasts our forefathers wrote about, and all the insects that used to keep the air sweet and fresh? Man has frightened them away. He kills every insect in the ground by electricity, and then finds that worms, moles, and other such creatures aërate the ground and make it healthy, and he gets the land to stink with rottenness 8ere he decides to see it, when he could have seen it before with half an eye had he not been blind; then he goes to the other extreme and, finding that worms are healthy and good for the land, he kills every blessed bird lest a single worm should be destroyed. By that time he gets a little overdone in worms and wants his birds back. Then the constant use of his electrical appliances and forces so upset the atmosphere that the moving life in it has to go higher into purer air, and the airships passing and repassing

at enormous speeds drive the birds still further away and higher, gradually altering their habits, so that now it is a very rare thing to see them flying, or even coming down to rest. They do rest, of course, but only in the forests where people seldom enter, for every one has a ship of some sort and is always in the air, as if this glorious grass, this beautiful water, and these shady, magnificent trees were not good enough for man to enjoy, but he must needs go tearing round the whole world on every half-holiday. I call it a sin!”

“What an excellent mood you’re in this afternoon!” remarked Gilbert, as he made a pellet of his napkin and threw it at a darting fish. “I have finished my meal, and have enjoyed it so much that I am inclined to look on the world as it is now as being very beautiful, and on the science of to-day as being the most useful in the world’s history. It is true the climate of the whole earth has changed, and with it manners and customs, perforce; but now, every man works at the trade for which he is best fitted, physically and mentally, and receives guaranteed Government wages on fixed scale for the work he does. If by learning and application he can do more intellectual work, he receives the higher pay, and every one can have his fair trial and none are oppressed. All shops are under the control of the Government, and no one can undersell, or buy to better advantage than his neighbour, nor can there be undue competition, and if any licensed 9manufacturer supplies an inferior article, like my first egg, he must return its equivalent on proof, and he is a loser.

“If, in times past, a man robbed his employer of twenty shillings he was imprisoned for five years with hard labour, whereas if the theft was of twenty thousand pounds he was merely cautioned not to do it again, or at the most imprisoned for a few months without labour, and the quiet, restful time of serving the sentence invariably set him up in health at the country’s expense; but nowadays, a man stays in prison and must earn his keep and expenses, and in addition, enough to pay back every farthing to the person robbed, who receives an instalment every month until the loss is made good, or until the prisoner dies. Thus, not only are the prisons self-supporting and a profit to the State, but the ‘punishment fits the crime,’ and under the present business methods anything beyond petty frauds is altogether impossible. Then there are no poor, no really destitute; and there is no institution in the world that is not self-supporting, whilst the excellent system of our finances makes wealth, if not an impossibility, of little value—for wealth formerly meant power and oppression,

but now the comparatively so-called poor are not poor enough to be oppressed, consequently the rich have none to oppress, and in most cases people spend their surplus wealth in scientific research, in inventing and discovering that which will make life brighter, easier, and happier to their fellow-men by lifting higher those who chance to be less fortunate than they themselves. For what use is wealth to a right-minded man when every man must work and earn enough to keep himself comfortably, and he knows that when he gets past work he will receive a pension according to his deserts. Nor can he marry till he receives a certain salary, and even then his family must not exceed the calls on his income for their maintenance, clothing and education, 10suitable to their station. If he errs in this respect, or is unfaithful, or betrays anyone, no further offence is made possible to him. Why! formerly, in the twentieth century, so far as some of the working men of that period were concerned, one who earned what would have kept half a dozen families in comfort would drink and gamble

his earnings away, have an unconscionable number of children, and if he were but half a day out of work he was destitute. With a blissful selfishness, he would neglect work to go drinking and gaming, to the utter disregard of the needs of his wife and family, knowing his neighbours would not let them starve; nor did they. If he were sent to prison he did not care, for the burden of the maintenance of his numerous family had to be borne by others who by self-denial had saved and yet who, for humanitarian reasons, had to deny themselves still more to help the idler. All that is now an utter impossibility, and yet you long for the old times, Ross! I don’t. I like, too, to know what I’m eating, to have everything made under rigid antiseptic conditions, to have everything condensed and excluded from air, and to know that what I am swallowing is good and wholesome, anyway.”

“That’s all very well,” replied Ross, flinging fir-needles into the stream, “but it’s very much overdone. Compression is all very well, too, but when you come to certain foods and salts which, to begin with, are indigestible and often quite insoluble in the stomach, and you compress them to so small a compass that they are as hard as steel, where are you? One swallows a good dinner, as one thinks, yet most of it has gone; no stomach, not even that of an ostrich, could digest it. One tries to realise what a delicious dinner it was, yet no stretch of imagination can overlook the fact that one gets desperately hungry quicker than one should. Now, notwithstanding all the science displayed on my recent meal, I am sure I could eat, enjoy, and digest, a thick, juicy steak from that 11salmon there which is just turning a somersault. Oh yes, hold up your hand in disgust! I’m not going to fly in the face of custom, because I’m quite aware that the salmon’s great and much revered ancestor might at some time have swallowed a

fly or a worm that had on it a parasite or some injurious microbe, and therefore, because of this awful occurrence to its great grandparent thrice removed, it cannot be eaten without being first dried, sterilised, compressed, and enclosed in a little antiseptic capsule in which it is guaranteed to remain, if need be, fresh and pure till the crack of doom, when it may joyfully rise and meet its family as a pure and wholesome fish. I am tired of it all! and as I said before I think science, hygiene, and all the other aids to existence are so much overdone that there will soon be a reaction, or my name’s not Ross Ainley,” and disgusted Ross rolled back again and lay looking up at his ship, a beautiful aluminium vessel, dipping and curtseying to the rippling breeze as if she were breasting an incoming tide.