A Honeymoon in Space | Page 6

moment the gangway was drawn up
again, the sliding glass doors clashed to, the Astronef leapt a couple of
thousand feet into the air, swept round to the westward in a magnificent
curve, and vanished into the gloom of the upper mists.
CHAPTER I

The situation was one which was absolutely without parallel in all the
history of courtship from the days of Mother Eve to those of Miss Lilla
Zaidie Rennick. The nearest approach to it would have been the
old-fashioned Tartar custom which made it lawful for a man to steal his
best girl, if he could get her first, fling her across his horse's crupper
and ride away with her to his tent.
But to the shocked senses of Mrs. Van Stuyler the present adventure
appeared a great deal more terrible than that. Both Zaidie and herself
had sprung to their feet as soon as the upward rush of the Astronef had
slackened and they were released from their seats. They looked down
through the glass walls of what may be called the hurricane
deck-chamber of the Astronef, and saw below them a snowy sea of
clouds just crimsoned by the rising sun.
In this cloud-sea, which spread like a wide-meshed veil between them
and the earth, there were great irregular rifts which looked as big as
continents on a map. These had a blue-grey background, or it might be
more correct to say under-ground, and in the midst of one of these they
saw a little black speck which after a moment or two took the shape of
a little toy ship, and presently they recognised it as the
eleven-thousand-ton liner which a few moments ago had been their
ocean home.
Mrs. Van Stuyler was shaking in every muscle, afflicted by a sort of St.
Vitus' dance induced by physical fear and outraged propriety. Quite
apart from these, however, she experienced a third sensation which
made for a nameless inquietude. She was a woman of the world, well
versed in most of its ways, and she fully recognised that that single
bound from the bridge-rail of the St. Louis to the other side of the
clouds had already carried her and her charge beyond the pale of
human law.
The same thought, mingled with other feelings, half of wonder and half
of re-awakened tenderness, was just then uppermost in Miss Zaidie's
mind. It was quite obvious that the man who could create and control
such a marvellous vehicle as this could, morally as well as physically,
lift himself beyond the reach of the conventions which civilised society

had instituted for its own protection and government.
He could do with them exactly as he pleased. They were utterly at his
mercy. He might carry them away to some unexplored spot on one of
the continents, or to some unknown island in the midst of the wide
Pacific. He might even transport them into the midst of the awful
solitudes which surround the Poles. He could give them the choice
between doing as he wished, submitting unconditionally to his will, or
committing suicide by starvation.
They had not even the option of jumping out, for they did not know
how to open the sliding doors; and even if they had done, what
feminine nerves could have faced a leap into that awful gulf which lay
below them, a two-thousand-foot dive through the clouds into the
waters of the wintry Atlantic?
They looked at each other in speechless, dazed amazement. Far away
below them on the other side of the clouds the St. Louis was steaming
eastward, and with her were going the last hopes of the coronet which
was to be the matrimonial equivalent of Miss Zaidie's beauty and
Russell Rennick's millions.
They were no longer of the world. Its laws could no longer protect
them. Anything might happen, and that anything depended absolutely
on the will of the lord and master of the extraordinary vessel which, for
the present, was their only world.
"My dearest Zaidie," Mrs. Van Stuyler gasped, when she at length
recovered the power of articulate speech, "what an entirely too awful
thing this is! Why, it's abduction and nothing less. Indeed it's worse, for
he's taken us clean off the earth, and there's no more chance of rescue
than if he took us to one of those planets he said he could go to. If I
didn't feel a great responsibility for you, dear, I believe I should faint."
By this time Miss Zaidie had recovered a good deal of her usual
composure. The excitement of the upward rush, and what was left of
the momentary physical fear, had flushed her cheeks and lighted her
eyes. Even Mrs. Van Stuyler thought her looking, if possible, more

beautiful than she had done under the most favourable of