Steampunk Holmes: Legacy of the Nautilus by P.C. Martin

former speed.
    As we left the dim lights of the dockyards behind us, I became aware of something churning the sky above us as we raced along over the pitted ground, skirting rocks and gullies, after our game. I looked up, and in amazement beheld the ponderous under-gusset of a huge dirigible, its rotors whipping the air like a mighty Aeolus of ancient mythology, illuminated from below by the reddish light of several lanterns at the stern and prow of its cabin. It passed over our heads and preceded the Widow easily enough, though our speed could not have been, at that moment, less than fifty miles per hour, and then, slackening its velocity, the airship hovered close above the vehicles we pursued.
    In that whole desolate countryside no lights penetrated the dense darkness all around us, save those emitted by the headlights of the various ground vehicles, and the lanterns attached to the airship. My eyes, however, were not too dim to perceive that a human transfer was being enacted from a gurney to the airship, even as we bumped and jostled our way over the rough knolls at indecent speeds. A long rope ladder, it appeared, had been let down from the flying ship, and by this convenient, if somewhat dangerous, means, a man was endeavoring to climb from certain death or capture into the hallowed freedom of the skies. We were close enough, by that time, to our prey's vehicles, to clearly glimpse the escaping man's face as it came within the glow of the airship's lanterns. It was Pierre Nemo.
    When he had vaulted over the side of the elongated cabin, the airship arrested its forward motion, and, performing a perfectly executed about-face, glided over our heads in a south-westerly course. Holmes veered the Widowmak'r around at once in the direction of the city of London, and leaving the remaining occupants of the gurneys to the attention of the agents of the law, whose vehicles I could see racing furiously in the fugitives' tracks with all the velocity they could muster, we resumed our pursuit of the airborne dirigible.
    Holmes was compelled to pay closer attention than was his wont to the terrain over which we sped, for the ground was pitted with rocks and deep gashes, and more than once I felt the sickening feeling of weightlessness as we sailed headlong over protrusions in our path, or skidded precariously across ridges lined with brambles. Thankfully, Holmes was an expert cross-country driver, and the Widowmak'r was by no means a machine that required delicate handling. The thought of an upset while driving at high speed in the countryside frightened me far less than the prospect of a violent collision with a team of draft horses pulling pig iron in the heart of a busy London thoroughfare. Nevertheless, as we careened and pitched our way over the uneven ground, I braced my body tightly and committed my health and that of my companion to Heaven's keeping.
    As space, matter and time flew past in a billowing, almost shapeless, rush, I despaired that we should ever catch our quarry, nor even approach the airship nearly enough for me to get a decent shot at it; however, its steady course seemed to be affected by a change in the wind currents upon which it had apparently relied hitherto, for we presently found ourselves gaining rapidly on the massive sky-bound vehicle. By this time the Widow was hurtling through the silent streets of some factory town on the outskirts of the Metropolis, which enabled us to greatly increase our speed, but if we had left the dangers of the uneven Kentish countryside behind us, the greater peril yet preceded us in the sky, and every yard we advanced brought us closer within the range of the airship's guns.
    An enormous moon broke through the clouds, and by its radiance I saw that the airship's deck was teeming with Rajput warriors, recognizable by their helmets, and armed with the fluted rifle peculiar to their order, which I knew to be capable of firing explosive bullets more than half an inch in diameter.