The Germ Growers: An Australian story of adventure and mystery by Robert Potter (best historical fiction books of all time .txt) 📖

reason the other battery has been provided. The smaller battery wastes in less than twenty-four hours, the other lasts, I believe, about four weeks. But the speed of the larger is not much more than half the speed of the smaller. Now, if we do overshoot the wire, a spare battery of the smaller kind would fail us in the midst of the bush, while the larger one would enable us to reach some settlement.

“Just one word more. We are now at full speed, and I found the machinery fixed for full speed when we came on board. Besides, the wind has not in any way changed since the middle of the day, and it is full in [241] our favour now. Our speed is at the very highest, and whosoever put in the battery must have known that it would be so; even if the wind were to fall the difference would not be very great. Now, what do you say?”

Easterley. I think we must go as we are going until dawn of day anyway. If we are not pursued before then, we shall not be pursued at all.

Wilbraham. Why do you think that?

Easterley. It seems to be the way of these fellows to keep as clear of civilised men as is consistent with the pursuit of their malevolent purposes.

Wilbraham. What do you suppose to be their motive?

Easterley. Well, it doesn’t seem very far to seek. Among civilised men there is very little belief in the existence of such beings; what little there is is usually not active, and so far as it is active it attributes to them, just as the belief of savage men does, powers greatly in excess of those which they really possess. Either state of mind is highly favourable to their ends, and anything substituted for either; a state of mind like neither would of course be avoided by them. They might almost live among savages without in any way detracting from a highly exaggerated view of their powers; but any decisive appearance of them among civilised men; any experience such as we have had, if established and [242] accepted, would cause their powers to be examined and understood.

Wilbraham. I see; we should take their measure and know how to manage them.

Easterley. That’s it; as Mr. Morley says of the clergy, we should explain them.

Wilbraham. And that would be worse for them than a sheer denial of their existence?

Easterley. Very much worse. Their motives and purposes would be known and canvassed like other matters of fact, and much that holds up its head in the world now would be discredited in consequence.

Wilbraham. In short, we may put our confidence in Leäfar’s opinion, and we may conclude that they will not pursue us into the civilised settlements.

Easterley. I think so, and therefore my opinion is that when daylight comes if we find no trace of pursuit we may slack speed, and lower the car and look for the wire.

Wilbraham. Agreed. And now what do you think? Shall we be followed?

Easterley. On the whole I think we shall, but it depends on circumstances that we can only guess at.

Wilbraham. Why do you think we shall be followed?

[243] Easterley. Well, it seems to me likely that patrols of some kind are kept, and in that case the absence of the car will be discovered, perhaps is now discovered.

Wilbraham. And what then?

Easterley. Then our quarters will be searched, and our escape will immediately become known.

Wilbraham. How can they tell in which direction to follow us?

Easterley. They cannot tell, but they may very well conclude that we shall make either for the west coast or for the wire, and they may send after us both ways. I wonder if Leäfar knows which course we have taken?

Wilbraham. Yes, he knows. I thought you were not attending when I said it, but I spoke plainly enough. I said, “If we escape shall we go eastward or westward? My purpose is to make for the wire.” And he said in reply “Yes, that is the better course.” It was near the end of his talk.

“Well, now,” said I, “suppose we get through safely, what shall we do with the car?”

“I have thought that over, Bob,” he said, “and I have come to rather an odd conclusion.”

Easterley. Do you mind telling a fellow what it is?

Wilbraham. Not at all. Suppose now that we should [244] steer this car to Melbourne or to Sydney and exhibit it. We should make a great noise, no doubt, and perhaps a pot of money, but we should ruin ourselves for all that. Even if we go to work like gentlemen, even if we make no attempt to make money out of it, but simply hand over the car to some public body with any statement we like to make, we shall be ruined all the same.

Easterley. I dare say you are right.

Wilbraham. Yes, I am right. For in the first place suppose we make a true statement, and neither of us would consent to do else, what will follow? Either we shall be set down as impostors without any more ado, or else an expedition will be organized to examine the country we have been in. But if Leäfar is right, as no doubt he is, nothing will be found to justify our story. Suppose we warn them beforehand that they will find nothing, that will be accepted as only one proof more that we are lying.

Suppose, now, for the sake of argument, that we do lie, and say that we ourselves invented and constructed the car, then we shall be expected and invited to make another. But we know next to nothing about the manner of producing the gas which inflates the balloons or about the constitution of the batteries. If we should [245] attempt to substitute larger balloons filled with hydrogen, and batteries of such construction as we understand, the almost certain result would be that our car would be added to the long list of discredited flying machines, and ourselves to the much longer list of exposed impostors. How do you like the prospect?

Easterley. Not at all; and I believe you are right. But what do you propose to do?

Wilbraham. If we discover the wire I propose to go back two or three miles and abandon the car. I should like to break it up but we have no tools. I can dismantle it, however, so that nobody will be able to make anything of it if it is found.

Easterley. But if we escape we must give some account of our escape; we are not going to tell lies.

Wilbraham. Not lies; we shall tell the whole truth about the blacks, and for the rest we shall confine ourselves to generalities which will be true as far as they go. They may think us a little bit off our heads, “a shingle short,” as Tim Blundell would say, but that won’t matter, it will be set down to our wanderings in the bush. For the present at least we had better keep the whole matter as quiet as we can. If we ever see a chance of doing any good by speaking out we shall speak out. But now to more immediate business. [246] Can we try to estimate the rate at which we are travelling?

By this time it was much brighter, the clouds were quite cleared away, and the moon, which was only two or three days past the full, was fairly well up in the sky.

So I said to Jack, “Lower the car a little, then take the steering gear in hand and let me try to estimate our speed.” He let the car descend slowly until he could distinguish the trees and other prominent features of the landscape. Then he took the steering gear into his own hand and I looked over the side of the car. The forest was thick in parts, but there were wide spaces of treeless plain; and we were just passing over a range of hills which I think I am right in identifying with a range that we had observed at a distance of several miles when we were among the blacks.

I took particular notice of the larger trees, trying to guess their distance each from the other and referring to my watch every few seconds.

“What do you make of it?” said Jack at last, when he had raised the car to its former height.

“It is hard to fix it,” said I, “but I cannot think that we are travelling less than twenty-five miles an hour and I should say much more probably thirty.”

[247] Wilbraham. Ah! and how far do you suppose that we have to travel from the start?

Easterley. Say fifteen days passed from our parting with Mr. Fetherston until we reached the valley, and I am pretty sure we made an average of thirty miles a day. But of course that was nearly all westing. I don’t think that our furthest point could be quite as much as three hundred miles from the wire. I don’t think that your own estimate can be much out of the way, but we are perhaps a little under the mark.

Wilbraham. Ah! if the figures are right the sum is easy; we ought to cross the wire about six o’clock.

Easterley. Yes, but look here; thirty miles an hour is possibly an overestimate of our speed; and three hundred miles is possibly an underestimate of our distance. Besides, we shall not be able to keep up our present speed. The wind is already falling, and may be against us in an hour or two. That would knock, say, ten miles an hour off the rate of speed at which we are now travelling.

Wilbraham. It might, but that is another overestimate; we may fairly reckon on travelling all night at within five miles of our present rate of speed.

Easterley. I suppose so. Nevertheless, the chances are that if we stop the car about sunrise we shall still [248] be west of the wire. Then we can lower the car, move north, and watch for the wire, then go slowly, still eastward, keeping a sharp look-out as we go.

We were now both very tired, and as there were still some hours to pass before we could expect to get sight of the wire, we agreed to divide the time till dawn into half-hour watches. Each of us wished the other to take the first rest, and so we had to settle the dispute by lot. I told Jack to hide some lozenges, and to let me guess odd or even. Jack won, but our mode of settling the question was not without important effects. For Jack said, when he was putting back the lozenges into his pocket, “By-the-way, I may as well put these with the others in the car pocket,” and he did so.

When my turn came I lay down on the floor of the car, as Jack had done, with my hat for a pillow. The lozenges in my pocket were a little in my way; not much, but just enough to remind me of what Jack had done. Still, I didn’t rise, only turned over. Then some of the lozenges rolled out of my pocket. Then I jumped up, and said, “I may as well put mine with yours.” I did so, and lay down again and slept.

So now we had all our eggs in one basket, and it [249] never occurred to us that we were incurring any risk at all.

It was eleven o’clock when Jack lay down for his first sleep, and we took regular half-hour turns until five o’clock, when my sixth half-hour was up. It was now dawn, and the light was increasing rapidly. We had had enough rest, and it was getting near sunrise. It was time to think of lowering the car and reconnoitring. The morning was very fine, but there was rather a heavy bank of clouds in the east where the sun was rising. We lowered the car a little, and slackened our speed. Presently we disconnected the battery, and so stopped the car. Then we rested at about four to five hundred feet from the ground. I swept the whole field of sight with the car’s glasses in search of the wire, but could find no trace of it. Then I looked westward long and anxiously, but could see nothing specially worthy of notice. At last I fell to admiring the beauty of the clouds; they were beginning to reflect the glory of the sun which was now risen, but still hidden by them. There was in the air that sort of shimmering which portends a dry, hot day. I picked out a small