The Secret Power, Marie Corelli [good romance books to read .TXT] 📗

the organ in the chapel sent a wave of solemn and prayerful tenderness on the air, and, moved by the emotion of the hour, Morgana’s heart beat more quickly and tears filled her eyes.

“There must be beautiful music in the Golden City!” she said.

Don Aloysius smiled.

“There is! And when the other things of life give you pause to listen, you will often hear it!”

She smiled happily in response, and then, with a silent gesture of farewell, left the cloister and made her way to the chapel, part of which was kept open for public worship. It was empty, but the hidden organist was still playing. She went towards the High Altar and knelt in front of it. She was not of the Catholic faith,—she was truly of no faith at all save that which is taught by Science, which like a door opened in heaven shows all the wonders within,—but her keen sense of the beautiful was stirred by the solemn peace of the shut Tabernacle with the Cross above it, and the great lilies bending under their own weight of loveliness and fragrance on either side.

“It is the Symbol of a great Truth which is true for all time”—she thought, as she clasped her hands in an attitude of prayer—“And how sad and strange it is to feel that there are thousands among its best-intentioned worshippers and priests who have not discovered its mystic meaning. The God in Man, born of purity in woman! Is it only in the Golden City that they know?”

She raised her eyes in half unconscious appeal—and, as she did so, a brilliant Ray of light flashed downward from the summit of the Cross which surmounted the Altar, and remained extended slantwise towards her. She saw it,—and waited expectantly. Close to her ears a Voice spoke with extreme softness, yet very distinctly.

“Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” she replied at once, with equal softness.

“Then, listen! I have a message for you!”

And Morgana listened,—listened intently,—the sapphire hue of the Ray lighting her gold hair, as she knelt, absorbed. What she heard filled her with a certain dread; and a tremor of premonition, like the darkness preceding storm, shook her nerves. But the inward spirit of her was as a warrior clothed in steel,—she was afraid of nothing—least of all of any event or incident passing for “supernatural,” knowing beyond all doubt that the most seeming miraculous circumstances are all the result of natural movement and transmutation. There never had been anything surprising to her in the fact that light is a conveyor of sound; and that she was receiving a message by such means seemed no more extraordinary to her mind than receiving it by the accepted telephonic service. Every word spoken she heard with the closest attention—until—as though a cloud had suddenly covered it,—the “Sound-Ray” vanished, and the Voice ceased.

She rose at once from her knees, alert and ready for action—her face was pale, her lips set, her eyes luminous.

“I must not hesitate”—she said—“If I can save him I will!”

She left the chapel and hurried home, where as soon as she reached her own private room she wrote to the Marchese Rivardi the following note, which was more than unpleasantly startling to him when he received it.

“I shall need you and Gaspard for a long journey in the ‘White Eagle.’ Prepare everything in the way of provisioning and other necessary details. No time must be lost, and no expense need be spared. We must start as quickly as possible.”

This message written, sealed and dispatched by one of her servants to the Marchese’s villa, she sat for some moments lost in thought, wistfully looking out on her flower-filled gardens and the shimmering blue of the Mediterranean beyond.

“I may be too late!” she said, speaking aloud to herself—“But I will take the risk! He will not care—no!—a man like that cares for nothing but himself. He would have broken my life—(had I given him the chance!)—for the sake of an experiment. Now—if I can—I will rescue his for the sake of an ideal!”

CHAPTER XXI

“There shall be no more wars!—there CAN be none!”

Roger Seaton said these words aloud with defiant emphasis, addressing the dumb sky. It was early morning, but an intense heat had so scorched the earth that not the smallest drop of dew glittered on any leaf or blade of grass; it was all arid, brown and burned into a dryness as of fever. But Seaton was far too much engrossed with himself and his own business to note the landscape, or to be troubled by the suffocating closeness of the atmosphere,— he stood gazing with the idolatry of a passionate lover at a small, plain metal case, containing a dozen or more small plain metal cylinders, as small as women’s thimbles, all neatly ranged side by side, divided from contact with one another by folded strips of cotton.

“There it is!” he went on, apostrophising the still air—“Complete,- perfected! If I sold that to any nation under the sun, that nation could rule the world!-could wipe out everything save itself and its own people! I have wrested the secret from the very womb of Nature!- it is mine-all mine! I would have given it to Britain—or to the United States—but neither will accept my terms—so therefore I hold it—I, only!—which is just as well! I—just I—am master of destiny!—the Power we call God, has put this tiling into my hands! What a marvel and shall I not use it? I will! Let Germany but stir an inch towards aggression, and Germany shall exist no longer!—The same with any other nation that starts a quarrel—I—I alone will settle it!”

His eyes blazed with the light of fanaticism—he was obsessed by the force of his own ideas and schemes, and the metal case on the table before him was, to his mind, time, life, present and future. He had arrived at that questionable point of intellectual attainment when man forgets that there is any existing force capable of opposing him, and imagines that he has but to go on in his own way to grasp all worlds and the secrets of their being. At this juncture, so often arrived at by many, a kind of super-sureness sets in, persuading the finite nature that it has reached the infinite. The whole mental organisation of the man thrilled with an awful consciousness of power. He said within himself “I hold the lives of millions at my mercy!”

Other thoughts—other dreams had passed away for the moment—he had forgotten life as it presents itself to the ordinary human being. Now and again a flitting vision of Morgana vaguely troubled him,— her intellectual capacity annoyed him, and yet he would have been glad to discuss with her the scientific unfolding of his great secret—she would understand it in all its bearings,—she might advise—Advice!—no!—he did not need the advice of a woman! As for Manella, he had not seen her since her last violent outburst of what he called “temper”—and he had no wish for her presence. For now he had a thing to do which was of paramount importance,—and this was, to deposit the treasured discovery of his life in a secret hiding- place he had found for it, till he should be ready to remove it to safer quarters—or—TILL HE RESOLVED TO USE IT. Had he been a religious man, of such humility as should accompany true religion, he would have prayed that its use should never be called upon,—but he had trained himself into an attitude of such complete indifferentism towards life and the things of life, that to him it seemed useless to pray for what did not matter. Sometimes the thought, appalling in its truth, flashed across his brain that the force he had discovered and condensed within small compass might as easily destroy half the world as a nation! The fabled thunderbolts of Jove were child’s play compared with those plain-looking, thimble-like cylinders which contained such terrific power! A touch of hesitation—of pure human dread affected his nerves for the moment,—he shivered in the sultry air as with cold, and looked about him right and left as though suspecting some hidden witness of his actions. There was not so much as a bird or a butterfly in sight, and he drew a long deep breath of relief. The day was treading in the steps of dawn with the full blazonry of burning Californian sunlight, and away in the distance the ridges and peaks of distant mountains stood out sharply clear against the intense blue of the sky. There was great stillness everywhere,—a pause, as it seemed, in the mechanism of the universe. The twitter of a bird or the cry of some wild animal would have been a relief,—so Seaton felt, though accustomed to deep silence.

“Better get through with this at once”—he said, aloud—“Now that a safe place is prepared.” Here he looked at his watch. “In a couple of hours they will be sending up from the Plaza to know if I want anything—Irish Jake or Manilla will be coming on some trivial matter—I’d better take the opportunity of complete secrecy while I can.”

For the next few minutes or so he hesitated. With the sudden fancy that he had forgotten something, he turned out his pockets, looking for he scarcely knew what. The contents were mixed and various, and among them was a crumpled letter which he had received some days since from Sam Gwent. He smoothed it out carefully and re-read it, especially one passage—

“I think the States will never get involved in another war, but I am fairly sure Germany will. If she joins up with Russia look out for squalls. In your old country, which appears to be peopled by madmen, there’s a writing chap who spent a fortnight in Russia, not long enough to know the ins and outs of a village, yet assuming to know everything about the biggest territory in Europe, and the press is puffing up his ignorance as if it were wisdom. Germany has her finger on the spot—so perhaps your stuff will come in useful. But don’t forget that if you make up your mind to use it you will ruin America, commercially speaking. And many other countries besides. So think it well over,—more than a hundred times! Lydia Herbert, whom perhaps you remember, and perhaps you don’t, has caught her ‘ancient mariner’—that is to say, her millionaire,—and all fashionable New York is going to the wedding, including yours truly. I had expected Morgana Royal to grace the function, but I hear she is quite engrossed with the decoration and furnishing of her Sicilian palace, as well as with her advising artist, a very good-looking Marquis or Marchese as he is called. It is also whispered that she has invented a wonderful air-ship which has no engines, and creates its own motive power as it goes! Sounds rather tall talk!—but this is an age of wonders and we never know what next. There is a new Light Ray just out which prospects for gold, oil and all ores and minerals, and finds them in a fifty-mile circuit—so probably nobody need be poor for the future. When we’ve all got most things we want, and there’s nothing left to work for, I wonder what the world will be worth!”

Seaton left off reading and thrust the letter again in his pocket.

“What will the world be worth?” he soliloquised—“Why, nothing!”

Suddenly struck by this thought, which had not always presented itself with such sharp and clear precision as now, he took time to consider it. Capital and Labour, the two forces which are much more prone to rend each other than to co-operate—these would both possibly be non-existent if Science had its