The Mark Of Cain Part 21

"You will find a history of it in Bamus. This fly would leap from the hands of the great Begimonta.n.u.s, flutter and buzz round the heads of his guests a.s.sembled at supper, and then, as if wearied, return and repose on the finger of its maker."

"You don't mean to say you believe _that_?" asked Barton.

"Why not, sir; why not? Did not Archytas of Tarenturn, one of Plato's acquaintances, construct a wooden dove, in no way less miraculous? And the same Regimonta.n.u.s, at Nuremberg, fas.h.i.+oned an eagle which, by way of triumph, did fly out of the city to meet Charles V. But where was I? Oh, at Bishop Wilkins. Cardan doubted of the iron fly of Regimonta.n.u.s, because the material was so heavy. But Bishop Wilkins argues, in accordance with the best modern authorities, that the weight is no hindrance whatever, if proportional to the motive power. A flying machine, says Professor Bell, in the _Encyclopodia Britannica_--(you will not question the authority of the _Encyclopodia Britannica_?)--a flying machine should be 'a compact, moderately heavy, and powerful structure.' There, you see, the Bishop was right."

"Yours was deuced powerful," remarked Barton. "I did not expect to see two limbs of you left together."

"It _is_ powerful, or rather it _was_," answered Winter, with a heavy sigh; "but it's all to do over again--all to do over again! Yet it was a n.o.ble specimen. 'The pa.s.sive surface was reduced to a minimum,' as the learned author in the _Encyclopodia_ recommends."

"By Jove! the pa.s.sive surface was jolly near reduced to a mummy. _You_ were the pa.s.sive surface, as far as I could see."

"Don't laugh at me, please sir, after you've been so kind. All the rest laugh at me. You can't think what a pleasure it has been to talk to a scholar," and there was a new flush on the poor fellow's cheek, and something watery in his eyes.

"I beg your pardon, my dear sir," cried Barton, greatly ashamed of himself. "Pray go on. The subject is entirely new to me. I had not been aware that there were any serious modern authorities in favor of the success of this kind of experiment."

"Thank you, sir," said Winter, much encouraged, and taking Barton's hand in his own battered claw; "thank you. But why should we run only to modern authorities? All great inventions, all great ideas, have been present to men's minds and hopes from the beginning of civilization.

Did not Empedocles forestall Mr. Darwin, and hit out, at a stroke, the hypothesis of natural selection?"

"Well, he _did_ make a shot at it," admitted Barton, who remembered as much as that from "the old coaching days," and college lectures at St.

Gatien's.

"Well, what do we find? As soon as we get a whisper of civilization in Greece, we find Daedalus successful in flying. The pragmatic interpreters pretend that the fable does but point to the discovery of sails for s.h.i.+ps; but I put it to you, is that probable?"

"Obvious bosh," said Barton.

"And the meteorological mycologists, sir, _they_ maintain that Daedalus is only the lightning flying in the breast of the storm!"

"There's nothing those fellows won't say," replied Barton.

"I'm glad you are with me, sir. In Daedalus _I_ see either a record of a successful attempt at artificial flight, or at the very least, the expression of an aspiration as old as culture. _You_ wouldn't make Daedalus the evening clouds accompanying Minos, the sun, to his setting in Sicily, in the west?" added Winter anxiously.

"I never heard of such nonsense," said Barton.

"Sir Frederick Leighton, the President of the Royal Academy, is with me, sir, if I may judge by his picture of Daedalus."

"Every sensible man must be with you," answered Barton.

"Well, sir, I won't detain you with other famous flyers of antiquity, such as Abaris, mounted on an arrow, as described by Herodotus.

Doubtless the arrow was a flying machine, a novelty to the ignorant Scythians."

"It _must_ have been, indeed."

"Then there was the Greek who flew before Nero in the circus; but he, I admit, had a bad fall, as Seutonius recounts. That character of Lucian's, who employed an eagle's wing and a vulture's in his flight, I take to be a mere figment of the satirist's imagination. But what do you make of Simon Magus? He, I cannot doubt, had invented a machine in which, like myself, he made use of steam or naphtha. This may be gathered from Arn.o.bius, our earliest authority. He mentions expressly _currum Simonis Magi et quadrigas igneas_, the chariot of Simon Magus and his _vehicles of flame_--clearly the naphtha is alluded to--which vanished into air at the word of the Apostle Peter. The latter circ.u.mstances being miraculous, I take leave to doubt; but certainly Simon Magus had overcome the difficulties of aerial navigation. But, though Petrus Crinitus rejects the tradition as fabulous, I am prepared to believe that Simon Magus actually flew from the Capitol to the Aventine!

"'The world knows nothing of its greatest men,'" quoted Barton.

"Simon Magus has been the victim, sir, of theological acrimony, his character blackened, his flying machine impugned, or ascribed, as by the credulous Arn.o.bius, to diabolical arts. In the dark ages, naturally, the science of Artificial Flight was either neglected or practised in secret, through fear of persecution. Busbequius speaks of a Turk at Constantinople who attempted something in this way; but he (the Turk, I mean), was untrammelled by ecclesiastical prejudice. But why should we tarry in the past? Have we not Mr. Proctor with us, both in _Knowledge_ and the _Cornhill_? Does not the preeminent authority, Professor Pettigrew Bell, himself declare, with the weight, too, of the _Encyclopodia Britannica_, that 'the number of successful flying models is considerable. It is not too much to expect,' he goes on, 'that the problem of artificial flight will be actually solved, or at least much simplified.' What less can we expect, as he observes, in the land of Watt and Stephenson, when the construction of flying machines has been 'taken up in earnest by practical men?'"

"We may indeed," said Barton, "hope for the best when persons of your learning and ingenuity devote their efforts to the cause."

"As to my learning, you flatter me," said Winter. "I am no scholar; but an enthusiast will study the history of his subject Did I remark that the great Dr. Johnson, in these matters so sceptical, admits (in a romance, it is true) the possibility of artificial flight? The artisan of the Happy Valley expected to solve the problem in one year's time.

'If all men were equally virtuous,' said this artist, 'I should with equal alacrity teach them all to fly.'"

"And you will keep your secret, like Dr. Johnson's artist?"

"To _you_ I do not mind revealing this much. The vans or wings of my machine describe elliptic figures of eight."

"I've seen them do _that_, said Barton.

"Like the wings of birds; and have the same forward and downward stroke, by a direct piston action. The impetus is given, after a descent in air--which I effected by starting from a height of six feet only--by a combination of heated naphtha and of india rubber under torsion. By steam alone, in 1842, Philips made a model of a flying-machine soar across two fields. Penaud's machine, relying only on india rubber under torsion, flies for some fifty yards. What a model can do, as Bishop Wilkins well observes, a properly weighted and proportioned flying-machine, capable of carrying a man, can do also."

"But yours, when I first had the pleasure of meeting you, was not carrying you at all."

"Something had gone wrong with the mechanism," answered Winter, sighing.

"It is always so. An inventor has many things to contend against.

Remember Ark-wright, and how he was puzzled hopelessly by that trifling error in the thickness of the valves in his spinning machine. He had to give half his profits to Strutt, the local blacksmith, before Strutt would tell him that he had only to chalk his valves! The thickness of a coating of chalk made all the difference. Some trifle like that, depend on it, interfered with my machine. You see, I am obliged to make my experiments at night, and in the dark, for fear of being discovered and antic.i.p.ated. I have been on the verge--nay, _over_ the verge--of success. 'No imaginable invention,' Bishop Wilkins says, 'could prove of greater benefit to the world, or greater glory to the author.' A few weeks ago that glory was mine!"

"Why a few weeks ago?" asked Barton. "Was your machine more advanced then than when I met you?"

"I cannot explain what had happened to check its motion," said Winter, wearily; "but a few weeks ago my _machine acted_, and I may say that I knew the sensations of a bird on the wing."

"Do you mean that you actually _flew_?"

"For a very short distance, I did indeed, sir!"

Barton looked at him curiously: two currents of thought--one wild and credulous, the other practical and professional--surged and met in his brain. The professional current proved the stronger for the moment.

"Good-night," he said. "You are tiring and over-exciting yourself. I will call again soon."

He _did_ call again, and Winter told him a tale which will be repeated in its proper place.

CHAPTER XIV.--Found.

"All precious things, discovered late, To those that seek them issue forth; For Love, in sequel, works with Fate, And draws the veil from hidden worth."

--The Sleeping Beauty.

That Margaret and Barton were losing their hearts to each other could not, of course, escape the keen eye of Mrs. St. John Deloraine. She noticed that Margaret, though perfectly restored to health, and lacking only the clear brown over the rose of her cheeks, was by no means so light of heart as in the very earliest days of her recovery. Love makes men and women poor company, and, to speak plainly, takes the fun out of them. Margaret was absent-minded, given to long intervals of silence, a bad listener--all of them things hateful to Mrs. St. John Delo-raine, but pardoned, in this instance, by the benevolent lady. Margaret was apt to blush without apparent cause, to start when a knock came to the door, to leave the room hurriedly, and need to be sought and brought back, when Barton called. Nor was Barton himself such good company as he had been. His manner was uncertain and constrained; his visits began to be paid at longer intervals; he seemed to have little to say, or talked in fits and starts; and yet he did not know how to go away.

Persons much less clear-sighted than Mrs. St John Deloraine could have interpreted, without difficulty, this awkward position of affairs.

Now, like most women of her kindly and impulsive character (when it has not been refined away into nothing by social hypocrisies), Mrs. St. John Deloraine was a perfectly reckless match-maker. She believed in love with her whole heart; it was a joy to her to mark the beginnings of inclination in two young souls, and she simply revelled in an "engagement." All considerations of economy, prudence, and foresight melted away before the ardor of her enthusiasm: to fall in love first, to get engaged next, and to be married as soon as possible afterward, without regard to consequences of any kind, were, in this lady's mind, heroic actions, and almost the whole duty of men and women.

In her position, and with her opportunities, she soon knew all that was to be known about Margaret's affections, and also about Barton's.

"He's as much in love with you as a man can be, my dear," she said to Margaret "Not worthy of him? Your past a barrier between you and him?