had much in common didn’t make Slade like Stieber any better. One always hates most in others what one hates most about oneself. And there was too much bad blood between Slade and Stieber, too many offenses that neither could forgive.
My own spirits rose during a spectacular sunset. Floating through a sky colored orange and red, beneath lavender clouds, I felt as if I were experiencing the glory of God at close hand. But night came fast, and we were engulfed in darkness. We traveled by compass and the faint light from the stars, the moon, and the lamps twinkling on earth. At about eight o’clock we finally neared London.
The city was unrecognizable, its vast spread almost hidden beneath a pall of smoke tinged yellow by the thousands of lights in buildings and along streets. I glimpsed a few tall towers and church spires, but the only familiar landmark I could make out was the Thames, a black curve that divided the city and glittered in the moonlight.
“Where is the Great Exhibition?” Stieber asked.
“In Hyde Park,” I said.
“But which way is that?” Dr. Crick said.
As he and Slade took turns peering through binoculars, trying to get their bearings, the wind picked up. The balloon blew back and forth. The basket swayed. I clung to the edge.
“We’ll have to land soon,” Dr. Crick said. “If the wind gets any stronger, I won’t be able to steer the airship.”
A loud boom rocked the night. Everyone started.
“Someone is shooting at us!” Wagner cried. He threw himself on the floor beside Friedrich.
Slade, Stieber, Dr. Crick, and I watched a red fountain of stars burst in the sky. More booms preceded fountains, cartwheels, and sprays of red, green, and white lights.
“It’s fireworks,” Slade said.
Now I saw, beneath them, a structure that glittered and reflected like a long, cross-shaped block of ice. “There,” I said, pointing. “The Crystal Palace!”
40
Getting to the Crystal Palace was not easy. The wind buffeted the airship, sending us off course. Dr. Crick set the engine on full power. He and Slade and Stieber hauled on the rudder line, straining to turn the balloon. The basket swung violently while I hung on for dear life. Wagner clasped his hands, closed his eyes, and prayed aloud in German. Friedrich moaned. Somehow we managed to regain our course. The Crystal Palace grew larger as we approached. The rockets boomed louder, exploded closer. I could see streamers of smoke trailing the colored stars as they fell.
The engine clattered, coughed, and died. The propeller slowed, then ceased.
“We’ve lost power.” Dr. Crick tried to restart the engine, but couldn’t. “We have to land now, or I’m afraid we’ll be blown out over the ocean.”
He opened the vent on the balloon’s underside. Gas hissed out. The airship began to descend. We dropped through a dimly glowing, acrid veil of smoke. Then we were below it, above the great expanse of Hyde Park. There, people milled about; gaslights burned along roads full of carriages. The Crystal Palace glittered in the distance. Treetops rushed up to meet us. My heart was in my throat; my lungs constricted with fear.
“Pull!” Dr. Crick shouted.
Slade and Stieber heaved on the rudder line. We veered away from the trees, over a broad lawn. People below us spotted the airship descending. They scattered. When we were some ten feet above ground, a gust of wind rolled the balloon sideways. The basket tipped. We tumbled out, screaming. I landed so hard on my hands and knees that my teeth slammed together and my spectacles were knocked askew. I righted them and saw Wagner facedown beneath me. I heard Slade calling, “Charlotte! Are you all right?”
I struggled to my feet. “Yes.”
Slade was standing, too. But Friedrich lay groaning and clutching his thigh. “My leg is broken!” Wagner didn’t move; he was either unconscious or dead. Even though I disliked him, I was horrified to think I’d accidentally killed him. Stieber sat, dazed. He rubbed his head. People surrounded us, staring and exclaiming.
Dr. Crick knelt, his watch in his hand; he chortled with glee. “I flew the first steam-powered airship from Portsmouth to London in five hours and thirty-nine minutes! I’ve made history!” Then he looked up and said, “Oh, dear!”
Without passengers to weigh it down, the airship rose into the sky, just as the fireworks began their grand finale. Rocket after rocket launched. The balloon soared straight through the booming cascades of colored sparks. They burned through its fabric. The gas inside ignited with a cataclysmic blast.
A mass of orange flames shot through by the fireworks roiled over Hyde Park. It lit the sky as brightly as the sun. My horrified cry joined the uproar from the crowd. Burning cloth fragments flew apart. They glowed and fluttered, like fiery birds. The ropes curled like flaming snakes as they fell. The basket crashed to the earth, engulfed in fire, like Icarus’s chariot.
Dr. Crick burst into tears. “My airship!”
The crowds ran from the burning debris that drifted down from the sky. A police constable sped toward us. “Hey! You weren’t authorized to land a balloon here. This is quite a serious offense!”
Slade and I backed away. The constable fixed on Stieber, grabbed him by the collar, and said, “You’re under arrest.”
Slade caught up my hand. We bolted. I heard Stieber say, “Let me go!” and the constable say, “Ah, you’re a foreigner. What’s your name? Was this an attack on England?”
We ran through the crowds and the smoking wreckage of the airship, toward the Crystal Palace. So did many other people. To take shelter in a glass house might have seemed absurd, but the Crystal Palace was the only building nearby. Mobs jostled us, trampled on my feet. We joined a huge crush at the door. Elbows jabbed me as Slade muscled our way past a tight pack of angry men, crying women, and frightened children, through the odor of hot, sweaty flesh and the shrill of frantic voices. Inside the building, the Great Exhibition was even more crowded than it had been on the day I’d visited it with the Smith family, and night had transformed the place.
Thousands of burning lamps reflected in the glass walls and ceiling. The air smelled of gas fumes and shimmered with heat. Flickering shadows distorted the faces of the people that Slade and I passed as we fought our way along the main aisle down the transept. The Great Exhibition had become an inferno populated by ghouls.
“If Niall Kavanagh is here, how will we find him?” I asked.
“It’s too bad Stieber has the map,” Slade said. “Can you remember the places Kavanagh marked?”
“I’ll try.”
Guided by my faint memory of the map and the Great Exhibition, I led Slade down the west nave, where I thought I’d seen an X. We entered the display from Turkey. Beneath swags of red drapery, glass cases held hookahs, knives and swords with curved blades, and a camel saddle. A party of foreign gentlemen had taken refuge there. They spoke excitedly in French, discussing the explosion of the airship. But we didn’t see Niall Kavanagh.
Slade hurried me away, saying, “I remember an arrow pointing in the vicinity of that exhibit.”
It was the China Court, which contained ceramic vases, painted lanterns, embroidered screens, and jade figurines. These were surrounded by frightened, sobbing women-a church group from a country parish. Again we found no Niall Kavanagh and no bomb, but when we left the court, Stieber came striding down the aisle. He’d escaped the constable. He carried a pistol. Spying us, he broke into a run.
Slade and I turned and fled. Hand in hand, we ran past the towering zinc Amazon on horseback and a mob gathered around the Koh-i-noor, the biggest diamond in the world. We hid in the machinery exhibit, behind a cotton-spinning machine. Stieber did not reappear.
“I think we’ve shaken him off,” Slade said.
A man wandered down a nearby aisle. He was so nondescript that I might not have noticed him, except that he had with him a brown leather suitcase mounted on wheels, which he was pulling by a long handle. It was a
