Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon (Burton & Swinburne) Read Online Free

Bendyshe—his demise was utterly unforeseen—but for Sir Richard Francis Burton and his expedition, which was leaving en route for Africa later in the week.
    Fryston, which dated from the Elizabethan Age, lacked a ballroom but behind its stone-mullioned windows there were many spacious oak-panelled chambers, warmed by inglenook fireplaces, and these were filled with costumed guests. They included the Pre-Raphaelite artists, leading Technologists, authors and poets and actors, government ministers, Scotland Yard officials, and members of the Royal Geographical Society. A number of high-ranking officers from His Majesty's Airship Orpheus were in attendance, and among the female notables were Miss Isabella Mayson, Sister Sadhvi Raghavendra, Mrs. Iris Angell, and the famous Eugenicist—now Geneticist—Nurse Florence Nightingale, making for a very well-attended soiree, such as Monckton Milnes was famous for.
    In the smoking room, Bendyshe, in a black hooded cloak and a skull mask, spent the minutes leading up to his death happily pranking the Greek god Apollo. The diminutive flame-haired Olympian, actually the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne, dressed in a toga, with a laurel wreath upon his head and the gold-tipped arrow of Eros pushed through his waistband, was standing near a bay window with the Persian King Shahryār, Oliver Cromwell, Harlequin, and a cavalier; otherwise Sir Richard Francis Burton, the Secretary for War Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Monckton Milnes, and the Technologist captain of the Orpheus , Nathaniel Lawless.
    Swinburne had just received a full glass of brandy from a passing waiter, who, like all the staff, was dressed in a Venetian Medico Della Peste costume, complete with its long-beaked bird mask. The poet took a gulp, placed the glass on an occasional table at his side, and turned back to Captain Lawless, saying: “But isn't it rather a large crew? I was under the impression that rotorships are flown by seven or eight, not—how many?”
    “Counting myself,” the captain replied, “there are twenty-six, and that's not even a full complement.”
    “My hat! How on earth do you keep yourselves occupied?”
    Lawless laughed, his pale-grey eyes twinkling, his straight teeth whiter even than his snowy, tightly clipped beard. “I don't think you've quite grasped the size of the Orpheus,” he said. “She's Mr. Brunel's biggest flying machine. A veritable titan. When you see her tomorrow, I'll wager she'll take your breath away.”
    The Technologist Daniel Gooch joined the group. As always, he was wearing a harness from which two extra mechanical arms extended. Swinburne had already expressed the opinion that the engineer should have outfitted himself as a giant insect. As a matter of fact, though, Gooch was dressed as a Russian Cossack. He said, “She's magnificent, Mr. Swinburne. Luxurious, too. Designed for passenger cruises. She'll carry the expedition, the supplies, and both your vehicles, with plenty of room to spare.”
    Bendyshe, standing just behind the poet, with his back to him and conversing with Charles Bradlaugh—who was done up as Dick Turpin—surreptitiously took the brandy glass from the table. He slipped it beneath his mask, drained it in a single gulp, put it back, and winked at Bradlaugh through his mask's right eye socket.
    “Are all the crew positions filled, Captain?” Burton asked. “I hear you had some problems.”
    Lawless nodded. “The two funnel scrubbers supplied to us by the League of Chimney Sweeps proved rather too young and undisciplined for the job. They were playing silly beggars in the ventilation pipes and caused some considerable damage. I dismissed them at once.” He addressed Gooch, who was serving as chief engineer aboard the vessel: “I understand the replacements will join us at Battersea?”
    “Yes, sir, and they'll bring with them a new length of pipe from the League.” One of his mechanical hands dipped into his jacket pocket and withdrew a