The Hunchback of Westminster

by William Le Queux

that dizzy path that separated me from her. What if she didnot know me in that disguise? I, at least, knew her, and, should theneed come, I would, I swore to myself, cheerfully lay down my life tosave her from harm.

  That passage from the car to the platform could not have occupied morethan seven or eight seconds. To me it seemed as though hours had passedbefore I got to that platform and stood up by that complicated series oflevers, with hands firmly gripped to the steel rails that ran round onthree sides, the bulky outline of the motor shutting in the fourth. Atlength, however, I stood there, and realised I had not reached it oneinstant too soon, for just at that moment the air-ship struck a warmerstrata of atmosphere and began to move on a dizzy and bewilderingcourse, now shooting upward like a rocket, then striking a cold wind,and collapsing like a stricken bird.

  "Pull some of those levers, man. Get the rudder at work," shouted theprofessor through his hands as the machine commenced to career sidewaysthrough the air like a torpedo. "These cars will be flattened out ifyou don't accomplish something soon."

  But my blood was up after my dizzy crawl through space, and I felt Icould not brook interference. "Throw that idiot out if he says anotherword," I shouted to Casteno. Then I turned to Doris. "Don't befrightened, Miss Napier," I cried, "just trust me, and, if all goeswell, we shall before five minutes are over be safe on land again." Andthen I bent down and studied the machinery by which I was surrounded.

  A ship's compass warned me of the position of the levers that controlledthe rudder, and after three or four experimental turns of the latter Igot the great monster in hand. Indeed, so queerly constituted are wemen who love adventure that, no sooner did I find the air-ship obey mymovements, than I promptly forgot all the dangers of my position, and,almost with boyish joy, I began to manoeuvre the vessel, first in onedirection and then in another, until in the end I found I could make ithead on whatever course I wished.

  Unfortunately, none of those movements brought the machine any nearer tothe earth, and I had to turn to try other levers, the objects of whichwere not quite so apparent. My first experiment shut off the control ofthe motor. My second extinguished the electrical ignition altogether,and I found that as the screw ceased to revolve we began to fall to theearth at a tremendous pace.

  What was I to do? For a second, I confess, I had the wildest thoughtsof throwing everything portable overboard and trusting to luck to geteverything started again. Then, all at once, something seemed towhisper to me: "The motor has stopped. Now the thing is no longer aflying machine but a balloon; treat it as a balloon. Find the cord thatcontrols the valves in the top of the bag and pull those, and let allthe gas escape, and come down to earth like a bird that is spent andtired."

  Like a man dazed I threw out my hands and gripped what ropes I couldthat looked at all like guide-ropes. The first I seized sent myplatform heeling over sideways, and it was nothing less than a miraclethat I did not fall off its inclined surface so sudden was the change ofbalance. Happily, the second I snatched controlled the valves in thetop of the balloon. It answered to a touch, and the gas went roaringthrough the aperture like a typhoon.

  "Throw yourselves into the bottom of the cars," I shouted to theoccupants of the two compartments. "We are racing towards the earth ata terrific pace. In a few seconds we shall reach it. We shall strikeit gently enough because of the law of gravity and of the compensatingballonet we carry above the propeller, but I don't want one of you toget frightened and to leap out of the ship before all the gas isexhausted, otherwise we shall go careering up again, and the entire shipthen will fall and dash itself and us into pieces. Trust to its steadycollapse." And seizing an anchor that was fastened to the guide-railsof the platform I flung this over the side, and then crouched myself ona kind of huge buoy that hung just above the platform, through which allthe different ropes of the machine seemed to pass.

  Fortunately, everybody was too impressed by the way in which I hadguided the ship in the first instance to have noticed how badly I hadmanaged in the second in stopping the use of the motor, and so at mywords they dropped down amongst the ballast in the bottom of the cars,and with teeth clenched and hands gripping the framework they awaitedthe inevitable crash.

  Down--down--down we went--down into space!

  The clouds shot past us as though they were driven out of our path bysome tornado. The wind roared in our ears.

  We caught sight of the earth, and it rushed up to meet us as if it wouldthere and then pulverise us into a million atoms.

  Next instant everything appeared to change like magic. Instead of onewild, dizzy, headlong flight to the ground we seemed to be upborne onsome mighty pinions that were moving with great force but steadiness aswe dropped, tired and glad, into our native sphere.

  Slowly, steadily, like a bird coming to rest, we touched the earth againon a wide expanse of grassland. Then women and children started upabout us, and, before we knew what had happened, we heard about us thethunders of British cheers, and found ourselves caught up in the arms ofeager and excited admirers; whilst once again the good ship "Doris" layon its side on the ground, slowly panting out from its shrunken ribs thegas that had lifted us to such dizzy dangers and heights.

  For myself, I own, I should have been strongly tempted to yield to thatjoyous sensation of peace and safety again, and have done like Doris,the hunchback, and Professor Leopardi, and dropped promptly intoblissful unconsciousness, had not Casteno fought his way towards me assoon as the excitement and the mob permitted and caught me tightly bythe arm.

  "Look here," he whispered. "This, remember, is the real time of ourtrial, not up there above the clouds. Make one false move here andyou'll ruin everything."

  "How? What do you mean?" I muttered, blinking my eyes.

  "Why, Leopardi is a spy, and so is Miss Napier. They are following thehunchback, and with good reason. They are keeping watch on those threemanuscripts which he probably carries on his person. Neither Lord Cyrilnor they intend that he shall keep them."

  "Well, what of that?" I murmured, for the fall through space had dulledthe edge of my brain.

  "Well, they will steal them at the first opportunity. The deeds nolonger belong to my father, remember, but to the British Government, whohave purchased them, and who are only letting him retain them now sothat he may not give the fact of their existence away until they havegot their other diplomatic arrangements complete. The pretence thatthey want him to translate them or to decipher them is all fudge. Theyhave two or three experts in cipher at the Foreign Office whose businessit is to decode all secret messages, plans, documents, and treaties ofwhich the Secret Service obtains possession. Now, those are the menwhom they will trust to handle them, not the keeper of a curiosity shopin Westminster."

  "Admitted," I said testily; "but what's that to do with us at thisprecise moment, when none of us know whether we are quite dead or alive?Let the Government try to get them first, then we can act. We caneither side with your father, the hunchback, or with the authorities;but, for heaven's sake, don't worry about it now, here amongst all thiscrowd who want to treat us like conquering heroes or half-dead voyagers,and who won't be put off with a bow, but will want to hear all about us,and all about our adventures, and how the deuce we managed to arrive insafety at this point at all."

  "They must be tricked," whispered Casteno, with a savage oath."Tricked, do you see? You and I have too big a job on just now to poseas popular heroes. We must take those manuscripts from the hunchbackwhilst he is unconscious, and we must get away with them before he orMiss Napier can have any idea that they or we have gone."

  "But that would be a theft," I gasped.

  "Not a bit of it," returned Casteno. "Those documents never reallybelonged to the hunchback at all, for the dead priest in whosepossession they were found had no title to them."

  "Then to whom do they belong?" I questioned.

  "Why, to the Order in Mexico, of course," replied the Spaniard. "Nowyou are warned, be ready, and kee
p close to me." And he turned asmiling face to the crowd who had drawn back from us in respectfulsympathy, thinking, doubtless, that we wished to condole with each otheron the unfortunate state of our companions. In an instant, too, heseized on this last pretext and acted on it. "Will some of yougentlemen," he cried in those clear, ringing tones of his, "carry ourthree senseless friends here to some place where they can be left inperfect safety and quietness? We have come on this flying machine tripfrom the floral fete at Shrewsbury, but, unfortunately, our leader gotburned to death, and we have all had a terrible shock."

  "Poor things! Poor things!" murmured some of the bystanders nearest tous, and instantly the demeanour of the crowd changed, for they realisedsomething of the horror of poor Captain