E-text prepared by MFR, Craig Kirkwood, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made
available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org)



Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
      file which includes the original illustrations.
      See 54096-h.htm or 54096-h.zip:
      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/54096/54096-h/54096-h.htm)
      or
      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/54096/54096-h.zip)


      Images of the original pages are available through
      Internet Archive. See
      https://archive.org/details/olgaromanoff00grif


Transcriber’s note:

      Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

      Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).

      A dtailed Transcriber’s Note is at the end.





OLGA ROMANOFF

       *       *       *       *       *

MORRISON AND GIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: EVIL IN SUCH A SHAPE MIGHT BE SOMETHING MORE THAN GOOD.
(_Frontispiece._) _See page 176._]


OLGA ROMANOFF.

by

GEORGE GRIFFITH.

Author of
“The Angel of the Revolution,” “The Outlaws of the Air,”
“Valdar the Oft-Born,” “Briton or Boer?” “The Romance of
Golden Star,” etc., etc.

  “_And so they waited--waited while the ages-old snow and
  ice melted from the bare, black rocks under the fierce
  breath of the fire-storm; while the ocean of flame
  seethed and roared and eddied about them, licking up the
  seas and melted snows, and fighting with them as fire
  and water have fought since the world began; while the
  foundations of the Southern Pole quivered and rocked
  beneath their feet, and the walls of their refuge quaked
  and cracked with the throes of the writhing earth, and
  cosmos was dissolved into chaos once more._”--p. 368.

With Sixteen Illustrations by Fred T. Jane.






London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., Ltd.

1897.

Copyrighted Abroad.] [All Foreign Rights Reserved.

       *       *       *       *       *

  TO HIRAM STEVENS MAXIM

  THE FIRST MAN WHO HAS FLOWN BY MECHANICAL MEANS AND SO
  APPROACHED MOST NEARLY TO THE LONG-SOUGHT IDEAL OF AERIAL
  NAVIGATION

  THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR




CONTENTS.


                                            PAGE

          PROLOGUE                             1

    CHAP.

       I. THE SURRENDER OF THE WORLD-THRONE    8

      II. A CROWNLESS KING                    14

     III. TSARINA OLGA                        26

      IV. A SON OF THE GODS                   35

       V. A VISION FROM THE CLOUDS            47

      VI. DEED AND DREAM                      53

     VII. THE SPELL OF CIRCE                  66

    VIII. THE NEW TERROR                      75

      IX. THE FLIGHT OF THE “REVENGE”         83

       X. STRANGE TIDINGS TO AERIA            94

      XI. THE SNAKE IN EDEN                  102

     XII. THE BATTLE OF KERGUELEN            110

    XIII. THE SYREN’S STRONGHOLD             129

     XIV. FROM THE SEA TO THE AIR            138

      XV. OLGA IN COUNCIL                    146

     XVI. KHALID THE MAGNIFICENT             159

    XVII. AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE                 174

   XVIII. A MOMENTOUS COMMISSION             188

     XIX. FACE TO FACE AGAIN                 202

      XX. THE CALL TO ARMS                   215

     XXI. THE HOME-COMING                    226

    XXII. THE EVE OF BATTLE                  243

   XXIII. THE FIRST BLOW                     253

    XXIV. WAR AT ITS WORST                   271

     XXV. A MESSAGE FROM MARS                289

    XXVI. SENTENCE OF DEATH                  303

   XXVII. ALMA SPEAKS                        314

  XXVIII. THE SIGN IN THE SKY                319

    XXIX. THE TRUCE OF GOD                   325

     XXX. THE SHADOW OF DEATH                338

    XXXI. THE LAST BATTLE                    350

   XXXII. THE SHE-WOLF TO HER LAIR           359

          EPILOGUE                           369




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


                                                                 PAGE

  EVIL IN SUCH A SHAPE MIGHT BE SOMETHING MORE THAN GOOD
                                                       _Frontispiece_

  NOT A VESTIGE OF OUR AIR-SHIP OR HER CREATORS REMAINED           22

  AS SHE GAZED UPON IT, THE FIRES DIED AWAY                        57

  FLINGING LONG STREAMS OF RADIANCE FOR MILES INTO THE SKY         83

  THE CLOUDS WERE RENT AND ROLLED UP INTO VAST SHADOWY BILLOWS    122

  THE COMBINED SQUADRONS SWEPT ACROSS THE MOUNTAIN BARRIER        237

  BATTERIES WHICH WOULD BE ABLE TO SURROUND AERIA WITH A ZONE OF
    STORM AND FLAME                                               248

  THE FOUR HUNDRED BATTLESHIPS OF THE TWO SQUADRONS ROSE INTO
    THE AIR                                                       252

  THREE OF THE AIR-SHIPS SEEMED TO BREAK-UP AND ROLL OVER         259

  A GREAT BATTLESHIP LEAPT UP OUT OF THE NETHER WATERS            266

  THE “ISMA” SWOOPED DOWN                                         281

  A FEARFUL SCENE UNFOLDED ITSELF AS THEY SWEPT UP OVER PARIS     286

  “ONLY YOU CAN BID ME LIVE, ALMA”                                317

  STILL THE FIGHT WENT ON AT LONG RANGES                          354

  THE BLAZING SKY WAS LITERALLY RAINING FIRE OVER SEA AND LAND    367

  OLGA ROMANOFF HAD SURVIVED THE DOOM OF THE WORLD                374

       *       *       *       *       *

OLGA ROMANOFF.




PROLOGUE. THE PROPHECY OF NATAS.


  _These are the last words of Israel di Murska, known in the days of
  strife as Natas, the Master of the Terror, given to the Children
  of Deliverance dwelling in the land of Aeria, in the twenty-fifth
  year of the Peace, which, in the reckoning of the West, is the year
  nineteen hundred and thirty._

MY life is lived, and the wings of the Angel of Death overshadow me
as I write; but before the last summons comes, I must obey the spirit
within me that bids me tell of the things that I have seen, in order
that the story of them shall not die, nor be disguised by false
reports, as the years multiply and the mists gather over the graves of
those who, with me, have seen and wrought them.

For this reason the words that I write shall be read publicly in the
ears of you and your children and your children’s children, until they
shall see a sign in heaven to tell them that the end is at hand. No man
among you shall take away from that which I have written, nor yet add
anything to it; and every fifth year, at the Festival of Deliverance,
which is held on the Anniversary of Victory,[1] this writing of mine
shall be read, that those who shall hear it with understanding may lay
its warnings to heart, and that the lessons of the Great Deliverance
may never be forgotten among you.

It was in the days before the beginning of peace that I, Natas the Jew,
cast down and broken by the hand of the Tyrant, conceived and created
that which was known as the Terror. The kings of the earth and their
servants trembled before my invisible presence, for my arm was long and
my hand was heavy; yet no man knew where or when I should strike--only
that the blow would be death to him on whom it should fall, and that
nowhere on earth should he find a safe refuge from it.

In those days the earth was ruled by force and cunning, and the nations
were armed camps set one against the other. Millions of men, who had
no quarrel with their neighbours, stood waiting for the word of their
rulers to blast the fair fields of earth with the fires of war, and to
make desolate the homes of those who had done them no wrong.

In the third year of the twentieth century, Richard Arnold, the
Englishman, conquered the empire of the air, and made the first ship
that flew as a bird does, of its own strength and motion. He joined the
Brotherhood of Freedom, then known among men as the Terrorists, of whom
I, Natas, was the Master, and then he built the aerial fleet which,
in the day of Armageddon, gave us the victory over the tyrants of the
earth.

At the same time, Alan Tremayne, a noble of the English people, into
whose soul I had caused my spirit to enter in order that he might serve
me and bring the day of deliverance nearer, caused all the nations of
the Anglo-Saxon race to join hands, from the West unto the East, in a
league of common blood and kindred; and they, in the appointed hour,
stood between the sons and daughters of men and those who would have
enslaved them afresh.

The chief of these was Alexander Romanoff, last of the Tsars, or
Tyrants, of Russia, whose armies, leagued with those of France, Italy,
Spain, and certain lesser Powers, and assisted by a great fleet
of war-balloons that could fly, though slowly, wherever they were
directed, swept like a destroying pestilence from the western frontiers
of Russia to the eastern shores of Britain; and when they had gained
the mastery of Europe, invaded England and laid siege to London.

But here their path of conquest was brought to an end, for Alan
Tremayne and his brothers of the Terror called upon the men of
Anglo-Saxondom to save their Motherland from her enemies, and they rose
in their wrath, millions strong, and fell upon them by land and sea,
and would have destroyed them utterly, as I had bidden them do, but
that Natasha, who was my daughter and was known in those days as the
Angel of the Revolution, pleaded for the remnant of them, and they were
spared.

But the Russians we slew without mercy to the last man of those who had
stood in arms against us, saving only the Tyrant and his princes and
the leaders of his armies. These we took prisoners and sent, with their
wives and their children, to die in their own prison-land in Siberia,
as they had sent thousands of innocent men and women to die before them.

This was my judgment upon them for the wrong that they had done to me
and mine, for in the hour of victory I spared not those who had not
known how to spare. Now they are dead, and their graves are nameless.
Their name is a byword among men, for they were strong and they used
their strength to do evil.

So we made an end of tyranny among the nations, and when the world-war
was at length brought to an end, we disbanded all the armies that were
upon land and sank the warships that were left upon the sea, that
men might no more fight with each other. War, that had been called
honourable since the world began, we made a crime of blood-guiltiness,
for which the life of him who sought to commit it should pay; and as a
crime, you, the children of those who have delivered the nations from
it, shall for ever hold it to be.

We leave you the command of the air, and that is the command of the
world; but should it come to pass--as in the progress of knowledge it
may well do--that others in the world outside Aeria shall learn to
navigate the air as you do, you shall go forth to battle with them and
destroy them utterly, for we have made it known through all the earth
that he who seeks to build a second navy of the air shall be accounted
an enemy of peace, whose purpose it is to bring war upon the earth
again.

Forget not that the blood-lust is but tamed, not quenched, in the
souls of men, and that long years must pass before it is purged from
the world for ever. We have given peace on earth, and to you, our
children, we bequeath the sacred trust of keeping it. We have won our
world-empire by force, and by force you must maintain it.

In the day of battle we shed the blood of millions without ruth to
win it, and so far the end has justified the means we used. Since the
sun set upon Armageddon, and the right to make war was taken from the
rulers of the nations, we have governed a realm of peace and prosperity
which every year has seen better and happier than that which went
before.

No man has dared to draw the sword upon his brother, or by force or
fraud to take that which was not his by right. The soil of earth has
been given back to the use of her sons, and their wealth has already
multiplied a hundredfold on every hand. Kings have ruled with wisdom
and justice, and senates have ceased their wranglings to soberly seek
out and promote the welfare of their own countries, and to win the
respect and friendship of others.

Yet many of these are the same men who, but a few years ago, rent each
other like wild beasts in savage strife for the meanest ends; who
betrayed their brothers and slaughtered their neighbours, that the rich
might be richer, and the strong stronger, in the pitiless battle for
wealth and power. They have become peaceful and honest with each other,
because we have compelled them to be so, and because they know that
the penalty of wrong-doing in high places is destruction swift and
certain as the stroke of the hand of Fate itself.

They know that no man stands so high that our hand cannot cast him down
to the dust, and that no spot of earth is so secret and so distant
that the transgressor of our laws can find in it a refuge from our
vengeance. We stand between the few strong and cunning who would
oppress, and the many weak and simple who could not resist them; and
when we are gone, you will hear the voice of duty calling you to take
our places.

When you stand where we do now, remember who you are and the tremendous
trust that is laid upon you. You are the children of the chosen out of
many nations, masters of the world, and, under Heaven, the arbiters
of human destiny. You shall rule the world as we have ruled it for a
hundred years from now. If in that time men shall not have learnt the
ways of wisdom and justice, you may be sure that they will never learn
them, and deserve only to be left to their own foolishness. Since the
world began, the path of life has never lain so fair and straight
before the sons of men as it does now, and never was it so easy to do
the right and so hard to do the wrong.

So, for a hundred years to come, you shall keep them in the path in
which we have set them, and those that would wilfully turn aside from
it you shall destroy without mercy, lest they lead others into misery
and bring the evil days upon earth again.

At the twenty-fifth celebration of the Festival of Deliverance, you
shall give back the sceptre of the world-empire into the hands of the
children of those from whom we took it,--because they wielded it for
oppression, and not for mercy. At that time you shall make it known
throughout the earth that men are once more free to do good or evil,
according to their choice, and that as they choose well or ill so shall
they live or die.

And woe to them in those days if, knowing the good, they shall turn
aside to do evil! Beyond the clouds that gather over the sunset of
my earthly life, I see a sign in heaven as of a flaming sword, whose
hilt is in the hand of the Master of Destiny, and whose blade is
outstretched over the habitations of men.

As they shall choose to do good or evil, so shall that sword pass away
from them or fall upon them, and consume them utterly in the midst of
their pride. And if they, knowing the good, shall elect to do evil, it
shall be with them as of old the Prophet said of the men of Babylon the
Great: Their cities shall be a desolation, a dry land and a wilderness;
a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither shall any son of man pass
thereby.

For from among the stars of heaven, whose lore I have learned and whose
voices I have heard, there shall come the messenger of Fate, and his
shape shall be that of a flaming fire, and his breath as the breath of
a pestilence that men shall feel and die in the hour that it breathes
upon them.

Out of the depths beyond the light of the sun he shall come, and
your children of the fifth generation shall behold his approach. The
sister-worlds shall see him pass with fear and trembling, wondering
which of them he shall smite, but if he be not restrained or turned
aside by the Hand which guides the stars in their courses, it shall go
hard with this world and the men of it in the hour of his passing.

Then shall the highways of the earth be waste, and the wayfaring of
men cease. Earth shall languish and mourn for her children that are no
more, and Death shall reign amidst the silence, sole sovereign of many
lands!

But you, so long as you continue to walk in the way of wisdom, shall
live in peace until the end, whether it shall come then or in the ages
that shall follow. And if it shall come then, you shall await it with
fortitude, knowing that this life is but a single link in the chain of
existence which stretches through infinity; and that, if you shall be
found worthy, you shall be taught how a chosen few among your sons and
daughters shall survive the ruin of the world, to be the parents of the
new race, and replenish the earth and possess it.

Out of the Valley of the Shadow of Death I stretch forth my hands in
blessing to you, the children of the coming time, and pray that the
peace which the men of the generation now passing away have won through
strife and toil in the fiery days of the Terror, may be yours and
endure unbroken unto the end.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] The 8th of December, on which day, in the year 1904, the armies
of the Anglo-Saxon Federation and the aerial navy of the Terrorists
defeated and almost annihilated the hosts of the Franco-Slavonian
League, then besieging London under the command of Alexander Romanoff,
last of the Tsars of Russia, and so made possible the universal
disarmament which took place the following year.--_The Angel of the
Revolution_, chap. xlvi.




CHAPTER I. THE SURRENDER OF THE WORLD-THRONE.


A HUNDRED years had passed since Natas, the Master of the Terror,
had given into the hands of Richard Arnold his charge to the future
generations of the Aerians--as the descendants of the Terrorists who
had colonised the mountain-walled valley of Aeria, in Central Africa,
were now called; since the man, who had planned and accomplished the
greatest revolution in the history of the world, had given his last
blessing to his companions-in-arms and their children, and had “turned
his face to the wall and died.”

It was midday, on the 8th of December 2030, and the rulers of all the
civilised States of the world were gathered together in St. Paul’s
Cathedral to receive, from the hands of a descendant of Natas in the
fourth generation, the restoration of the right of independent national
rule which, on the same spot a hundred and twenty-five years before,
had been taken from the sovereigns of Europe and vested in the Supreme
Council of the Anglo-Saxon Federation.

The period of tutelage had passed. Under the wise and firm rule of the
Council and the domination of the Anglo-Saxon race, the Golden Age had
seemed to return to the world. For a hundred and twenty-five years
there had been peace on earth, broken only by the outbreak and speedy
suppression of a few tribal wars among the more savage races of Africa
and Malaysia. Now the descendants of those who had been victors and
vanquished in the world-war of 1904, had met to give back and assume
the freedom and the responsibility of national independence.

The vast cathedral was thronged, as it had been on the momentous day
when Natas had pronounced his judgment on the last of the Tyrants of
Russia, and ended the old order of things in Europe. But it was filled
by a very different assembly to that which had stood within its walls
on the morrow of Armageddon.

Then the stress and horror of a mighty conflict had set its stamp
on every face. Hate had looked out of eyes in which the tears were
scarcely dry, and hungered fiercely for the blood of the oppressor. The
clash of arms, the stern command, and the pitiless words of doom had
sounded then in ears which but a few hours before had listened to the
roar of artillery and the thunder of battle. That had been the dawn of
the morrow of strife; this was the zenith of the noon of peace.

Now, in all the vast assembly, no hand held a weapon, no face was there
which showed a sign of sorrow, fear, or anger, and in no heart, save
only two among the thousands, was there a thought of hate or bitterness.

For three days past the Festival of Deliverance had been celebrated all
over the civilised world, and now, in the centre of the city which had
come to be the capital, not only of the vast domains of Anglo-Saxondom,
but of the whole world, a solemn act of renunciation was to be
performed, upon the issues of which the fate of all humanity would
hang; for the members of the Supreme Council had come through the skies
from their seat of empire in Aeria to abdicate the world-throne in
obedience to the command of the dead Master, from whom their ancestors
had derived it.

At a table, drawn across the front of the chancel, sat the President
and the twelve men who with him had up to this hour shared the empire
of the human race. Below the steps, on the floor of the cathedral,
sat, in a wide semicircle, the rulers of the kingdoms and republics
of the earth, assembled to hear the last word of their over-lords,
and to receive from them the power and responsibility of maintaining
or forfeiting, as the event should prove, the blessings which had
multiplied under the sovereignty of the Aerians.

The President of the Council was the direct descendant not only of Alan
Tremayne, its first President, but also of Richard Arnold and Natasha;
for their eldest son, born in the first year of the Peace, had married
the only daughter of Tremayne, and their first-born son had been his
father’s father.

Although the average physique of civilised man had immensely improved
under the new order of things, the Aerians, descendants of the pick of
the nations of Europe, were as far superior to the rest of the assembly
as the latter would have been to the men and women of the nineteenth
century; but even amongst the members of the Council, the splendid
stature and regal dignity of Alan Arnold, the President, stamped him
as a born ruler of men, whose title rested upon something higher than
election or inheritance.

At the last stroke of twelve, the President rose in his place, and, in
the midst of an almost breathless silence, read the message of Natas to
the great congregation. This done, he laid the parchment down on the
table and, beginning from the outbreak of the world-war, rapidly and
lucidly sketched out the vast and beneficent changes in the government
of society that its issues had made possible.

He traced the marvellous development of the new civilisation, which, in
four generations, had raised men from a state of half-barbarous strife
and brutality to one of universal peace and prosperity; from inhuman
and unsparing competition to friendly co-operation in public, and
generous rivalry in private concerns; from horrible contrasts of wealth
and misery to a social state in which the removal of all unnatural
disabilities in the race of life had made them impossible.

He showed how, in the evil times which, as all men hoped, had been
left behind for ever, the strong and the unscrupulous ruthlessly
oppressed the weak and swindled the honest and the straightforward. Now
dishonesty was dishonourable in fact as well as in name; the game of
life was played fairly, and its prizes fell to all who could win them,
by native genius or earnest endeavour.

There were no inequalities, save those which Nature herself had imposed
upon all men from the beginning of time. There were no tyrants and no
slaves. That which a man’s labour of hand or brain had won was his,
and no man might take toll of it. All useful work was held in honour,
and there was no other road to fame or fortune save that of profitable
service to humanity.

“This,” said the President in conclusion, “is the splendid heritage
that we of the Supreme Council, which is now to cease to exist as such,
have received from our forefathers, who won it for us and for you on
the field of the world’s Armageddon. We have preserved their traditions
intact, and obeyed their commands to the letter; and now the hour has
come for us, in obedience to the last of those commands, to resign our
authority and to hand over that heritage to you, the rulers of the
civilised world, to hold in trust for the peoples over whom you have
been appointed to reign.

“When I have done speaking I shall no longer be President of the
Senate, which for a hundred and twenty-five years has ruled the world
from pole to pole and east to west. You and your parliaments are
henceforth free to rule as you will. We shall take no further part in
the control of human affairs outside our domain, saving only in one
concern.

“In the days when our command was established, the only possible basis
of all rule was force, and our supremacy was based on the force that
we could bring to bear upon those who might have ventured to oppose us
or revolted against our rule. We commanded, and we will still command,
the air, and I should not be doing my duty, either to my own people or
to you, if I did not tell you that the Aerians, not as the world-rulers
that they have been, but as the citizens of an independent State, mean
to keep that power in their own hands at all costs.

“The empire of earth and sea, saving only the valley of Aeria, is yours
to do with as you will. The empire of the air is ours,--the heritage
that we have received from the genius of that ancestor of mine who
first conquered it.

“That we have not used it in the past to oppress you is the most
perfect guarantee that we shall not do so in the future, but let all
the nations of the earth clearly understand, that we shall accept any
attempt to dispute it with us as a declaration of war upon us, and that
those who make that attempt will either have to exterminate us or be
exterminated themselves. This is not a threat, but a solemn warning;
and the responsibility of once more bringing the curse of war and all
its attendant desolation upon the earth, will lie heavily upon those
who neglect it.

“A few more needful words and I have done. The message of the Master,
which I have read to you, contains a prophecy, as to the fulfilment of
which neither I nor any man here may speak with certainty. It may be
that he, with clearer eyes than ours, saw some tremendous catastrophe
impending over the world, a catastrophe which no human means could
avert, and beneath which human strength and genius could only bow with
resignation.

“By what spirit he was inspired when he uttered the prophecy, it is not
for us to say. But before you put it aside as an old man’s dream, let
me ask you to remember, that he who uttered it was a man who was able
to plan the destruction of one civilisation, and to prepare the way for
another and a better.

“Such a man, standing midway between the twin mysteries of life and
death, might well see that which is hidden from our grosser sight. But
whether the prophecy itself shall prove true or false, it shall be well
for you and for your children’s children if you and they shall receive
the lesson that it teaches as true.

“If, in the days that are to come, the world shall be overwhelmed with
a desolation that none shall escape, will it not be better that the end
shall come and find men doing good rather than evil? As you now set the
peoples whom you govern in the right or the wrong path, so shall they
walk.

“This is the lesson of all the generations that have gone before us,
and it shall also be true of those that are to come after us. As the
seed is, so is the harvest; therefore see to it that you, who are
now the free rulers of the nations, so discharge the awful trust and
responsibility which is thus laid upon you, that your children’s
children shall not, perhaps in the hour of Humanity’s last agony, rise
up and curse your memory rather than bless it. I have spoken!”




CHAPTER II. A CROWNLESS KING.


LATE in the evening of the same day two of the President’s
audience--the only two who had heard his words with anger and
hatred instead of gratitude and joy--were together in a small but
luxuriously-furnished room, in an octagonal turret which rose from one
of the angles of a large house on the southern slope of the heights of
Hampstead.

One was a very old man, whose once giant frame was wasted and shrunken
by the slow siege of many years, and on whose withered, care-lined
features death had already set its fatal seal. The other was a young
girl, in all the pride and glory of budding womanhood, and beautiful
with the dark, imperious beauty that is transmitted, like a priceless
heirloom, along a line of proud descent unstained by any drop of
base-born blood.

Yet in her beauty there was that which repelled as well as attracted.
No sweet and gentle woman-soul looked out of the great, deep eyes,
that changed from dusky-violet to the blackness of a starless night as
the sun and shade of her varying moods swept over her inner being. Her
straight, dark brows were almost masculine in their firmness; and the
voluptuous promise of her full, red, sensuous lips was belied by the
strength of her chin and the defiant poise of her splendid head on the
strongly-moulded throat, whose smooth skin showed so dazzlingly white
against the dark purple velvet of the collar of her dress.

It was a beauty to enslave and command rather than to woo and win; the
fatal loveliness of a Cleopatra, a Lucrezia, or a Messalina; a charm to
be used for evil rather than for good. In a few years she would be such
a woman as would drive men mad for the love of her, and, giving no love
in return, use them for her own ends, and cast them aside with a smile
when they could serve her no longer.

The old man was lying on a low couch of magnificent furs, against whose
dark lustre the grey pallor of his skin and the pure, silvery whiteness
of his still thick hair and beard showed up in strong contrast. He
had been asleep for the last four hours, resting after the exertion
of going to the cathedral, and the girl was sitting watching him with
anxious eyes, every now and then leaning forward to catch the faint
sound of his slow and even breathing, and make sure that he was still
alive.

A clock in one of the corners of the room chimed a quarter to nine,
as the old man raised his hand to his brow and opened his eyes. They
rested for a moment on the girl’s face, and then wandered inquiringly
about the room, as though he expected someone else to be present. Then
he said in a low, weak voice--

“What time is it? Has Serge come yet?”

“No,” said the girl, glancing up at the clock; “that was only a quarter
to nine, and he is not due until the hour.”

“No; I remember. I don’t suppose he can be here much before. Meanwhile
get me the draught ready, so that I shall have strength to do what has
to be done before”--

“Are you sure it is necessary for you to take that terrible drug? Why
should you sacrifice what may be months or even years of life, to gain
a few hours’ renewed youth?”

The girl’s voice trembled as she spoke, and her eyes melted in a sudden
rush of tears. The one being that she loved in all the world was this
old man, and he had just told her to prepare his death-draught.

“Do as I bid you, child,” he said, raising his voice to a querulous
cry, “and do it quickly, while there is yet time. Why do you talk to me
of a few more months of life--to me, whose eyes have seen the snows
of a hundred winters whitening the earth? I tell you that, drug or no
drug, I shall not see the setting of to-morrow’s sun. As I slept, I
heard the rush of the death-angel’s wings through the night, and the
wind of them was cold upon my brow. Do as I bid you, quick--there is
the door-telephone. Serge is here!”

As he spoke, a ring sounded in the lower part of the house. Accustomed
to blind obedience from her infancy, the girl choked back her rising
tears and went to a little cupboard let into the wall, out of which she
took two small vials, each containing about a fluid ounce of colourless
liquid. She placed a tumbler in the old man’s hand, and emptied the
vials into it simultaneously.

There was a slight effervescence, and the two colourless liquids
instantly changed to deep red. The moment that they did so, the dying
man put the glass to his lips and emptied it at a gulp. Then he threw
himself back upon his pillows, and let the glass fall from his hand
upon the floor. At the same moment a little disc of silver flew out at
right angles to the wall near the door, and a voice said--

“Serge Nicholaivitch is here to command.”

“Serge Nicholaivitch is welcome. Let him ascend!” said the girl,
walking towards the transmitter, and replacing the disc as she ceased
speaking.

A few moments later there was a tap on the door. The girl opened
it and admitted a tall, splendidly-built young fellow of about
twenty-two, dressed, according to the winter costume of the time, in
a close-fitting suit of dark-blue velvet, long boots of soft, brown
leather that came a little higher than the knee, and a long, fur-lined,
hooded cloak, which was now thrown back, and hung in graceful folds
from his broad shoulders.

As he entered, the girl held out her hand to him in silence. A bright
flush rose to her clear, pale cheeks as he instantly dropped on one
knee and kissed it, as in the old days a favoured subject would have
kissed the hand of a queen.

“Welcome, Serge Nicholaivitch, Prince of the House of Romanoff! Your
bride and your crown are waiting for you!”

The words came clear and strong from the lips which, but a few minutes
before, had barely been able to frame a coherent sentence. The strange
drug had wrought a miracle of restoration. Fifty years seemed to have
been lifted from the shoulders of the man who would never see another
sunrise.

The light of youth shone in his eyes, and the flush of health on
his cheeks. The deep furrows of age and care had vanished from his
face, and, saving only for his long, white hair, if one who had seen
Alexander Romanoff, the last of the Tsars of Russia, on the battlefield
of Muswell Hill could have come back to earth, he would have believed
that he saw him once more in the flesh.

Without any assistance he rose from the couch, and drew himself up to
the full of his majestic height. As he did so the young man dropped
on his knee before him, as he had done before the girl, and said in
Russian--

“The honour is too great for my unworthiness. May heaven make me worthy
of it!”

“Worthy you are now, and shall remain so long as you shall keep
undefiled the faith and honour of the Imperial House from which you are
sprung,” replied the old man in the same language, raising him from his
knee as he spoke. Then he laid his hands on the young man’s shoulders,
and, looking him straight in the eyes, went on--

“Serge Nicholaivitch, you know why I have bidden you come here
to-night. Speak now, without fear or falsehood, and tell me whether you
come prepared to take that which I have to give you, and to do that
which I shall ask of you. If there is any doubt in your soul, speak it
now and go in peace; for the task that I shall lay upon you is no light
one, nor may it be undertaken without a whole heart and a soul that is
undivided by doubt.”

The young man returned his burning gaze with a glance as clear and
steady as his own, and replied--

“It is for your Majesty to give and for me to take--for you to command
and for me to obey. Tell me your will, and I will do it to the death.
In the hour that I fail, may heaven’s mercy fail me too, and may I die
as one who is not fit to live!”

“Spoken like a true son of Russia!” said the old man, taking his hands
from his shoulders and beckoning the girl to his side. Then he placed
them side by side before an _ikon_ fastened to the eastern wall, with
an ever-burning lamp in front of it. He bade them kneel down and join
hands, and as they did so he took his place behind them and, raising
his hands as though in invocation above their heads, he said in slow,
solemn tones--

“Now, Serge Nicholaivitch and Olga Romanoff, sole heirs on earth of
those who once were Tsars of Russia, swear before heaven and all its
holy saints that, when this body of mine shall have been committed to
the flames, you will take my ashes to Petersburg and lay them in the
Church of Peter and Paul, and that when that is done, you will go to
the Lossenskis at Moscow, and there, in the Uspènski Sobōr, where your
ancestors were crowned, take each other for wedded wife and husband,
according to the ancient laws of Russia and the rites of the orthodox
church.”

The oath was taken by each of the now betrothed pair in turn, and then
Paul Romanoff, great-grandson of Alexander, the Last of the Tsars,
raised them from their knees and kissed each of them on the forehead.
Then, taking from his neck a gold chain with a small key attached to
it, he went to one of the oak panels, from which the walls of the room
were lined, and pushed aside a portion of the apparently solid beading,
disclosing a keyhole into which he inserted the key.

He turned the key and pulled, and the panel swung slowly out like a
door. It was lined with three inches of solid steel, and behind it was
a cavity in the wall, from which came the sheen of gold and the gleam
of jewels. A cry of amazement broke at the same moment from the lips of
both Olga and Serge, as they saw what the glittering object was.

Paul Romanoff took it out of the steel-lined cavity, and laid it
reverently on the table, saying, as he did so--

“To-morrow I shall be dead, and this house and all that is in it will
be yours. There is my most precious possession, the Imperial crown
of Russia, stolen when the Kremlin was plundered in the days of the
Terror, and restored secretly to my father by the faith and devotion of
one of the few who remained loyal after the fall of the Empire.

“In a few hours it will be yours. I leave it to you as a sacred
heritage from the past for you to hand on to the future, and with it
you shall receive and hand on a heritage of hate and vengeance, which
you shall keep hot in your hearts and in the hearts of your children
against the day of reckoning when it comes.

“Now sit down on the divan yonder, and listen with your ears and your
hearts as well, for these are the last words that I shall speak with
the lips of flesh, and you must remember them, that you may tell them
to your children, and perchance to their children after them, as I
now tell them to you; for the hour of vengeance may not come in your
day nor yet in theirs, though in the fulness of time it shall surely
come, and therefore the story must never be forgotten while a Romanoff
remains to remember it.”

The old man, on whom the strange drug that he had taken was still
exercising its wonderful effects, threw himself into an easy-chair
as he spoke, and motioned them with his hand towards a second low
couch against one of the walls, covered with cushions and draped with
neutral-tinted, silken hangings.

Olga, moving, as it seemed, with the unconscious motion of a
somnambulist, allowed her form to sink back upon the cushions until
she half sat and half reclined on them; and Serge, laying one of the
cushions on the floor, sat at her feet, and drew one of her hands
unresistingly over his shoulder, and kept it there as though she were
caressing him. Thus they waited for Paul Romanoff to teach them the
lesson that they had sworn to teach in turn to the generations that
were to come.

The old man regarded them in silence for a moment or two, and as he did
so the angry fire died out of his eyes, and his lips parted in a faint
smile as he said, rather in soliloquy to himself than to them--

“As it was in the beginning, it is now and for ever shall be until the
end! Empires wax and wane, and dynasties rise and fall! Revolutions
come and go, and the face of the world is changed, but the mystery of
the sex, the beauty of woman, and the love of man, endure changeless as
Destiny, for they are Destiny itself!”

As he spoke, the fixed, rigid look melted from Olga’s face. The bright
flush rose again to her cheeks, and she bowed her royal head, and
looked almost tenderly at the blond, ruddy, young giant at her feet.
After all, he was her fate, and she might well have had a worse one.

Then after a brief pause, Paul Romanoff began to speak again, slowly
and quietly, with his eyes fixed on the glittering symbol of the
vanished sovereignty of his House, as though he were addressing it, and
communing with the mournful memories that it recalled from the past.

“It is a hundred and twenty-five years since the hand of Natas, the
Jew, came forth out of the unknown, and struck you from the brow of the
Last of the Tsars. On the day that Natas died, I was born, a hundred
years ago. There are barely a score of men left on earth who have seen
and spoken with the men who saw the Great Revolt and the beginning
of the Terror, and I alone, of the elder line of Romanoff, remain to
pass the story of our House’s shame and ruin on, so that it may not be
forgotten against the day of vengeance, that I have waited for in vain.

“But I have no time left for dreams or vain regrets. Listen, Children
of the Present, and take my words with you into the future that it is
not given to me to see.”

He passed his hands upwards over his eyes and brow, and then went on,
speaking now directly to Olga and Serge, in a quick, earnest tone, as
though he feared that his fictitious strength would fail him before he
could say what he had to say--

“When Alexander, the last of the crowned Emperors of Russia, fell down
dead on the morning after he reached the mines of Kara, to which the
Terrorists had exiled him as a convict for life, those who remained
of his family, and who had taken no part in the war, were allowed to
return to Europe, on condition that they lived the lives of private
citizens and sought no share in the government of any country to which
they were allied by marriage or otherwise.

“Only two of those who had survived the march to Siberia were able to
avail themselves of this permission, and these were Olga, the daughter
of Alexander, and Serge Nicholaivitch, the youngest son of his nephew
Nicholas. These two settled at the Court of Denmark, and there, two
years later, Olga married Prince Ingeborg. Her first-born son, the only
one of her children who lived beyond infancy, was my father, as my own
first-born son was yours, Olga Romanoff.

“Serge married Dagmar, the youngest daughter of the House of Denmark,
three years later, and from him you, Serge Nicholaivitch, are descended
in the fourth generation. Thus in you will be united the only two
remaining branches of the once mighty House of Romanoff. May the day
come when, in you or your children, its ancient glories shall be
restored!”

“Amen!” said Olga and Serge in a single breath, and as she uttered
the words, Olga’s eyes fell on the lost crown upon the table, and for
the moment they seemed to flame with the inner fires of a quenchless
rage. Paul Romanoff’s eyes answered hers flash for flash, for the same
hatred and longing for revenge possessed them both--the old man who had
carried the weight of a hundred years to the brink of the grave, and
the young girl whose feet were still lingering on the dividing line
between girlhood and womanhood.

Then he went on, speaking with an added tone of fierceness in his
voice--

“From the day of my birth until this, the night of my death, it has
been impossible to do anything to recover that which was lost in the
Great Revolt. Not that stout hearts and keen brains and willing hands
have been wanting for the work; but because the strong arm of the
Terror has encircled the earth with unbreakable bonds; because its eye
has never slept; and because its hand has hurled infallible destruction
upon all who have dared to take the first step towards freedom.

“Natas spoke truly when he said that the Terrorists had ruled the world
by force, and Alan Arnold to-day spoke truly after him when he said
that the supremacy of the Aerians was based upon the force that they
could bring to bear upon any who revolted against them, through their
possession of the empire of the air.

“It is this priceless possession that gives them the command of the
world, and for a hundred years they have guarded it so jealously, that
they have slain without mercy all who have ventured to take even the
first step towards an independent solution of the mighty problem which
Richard Arnold solved a hundred and twenty-six years ago.

“The last man who died in this cause was my only son, and your father,
Olga. Remember that, for it is not the least item in the legacy of
revenge that I bequeath to you to-night. He had devoted his life, as
many others had done before him, to the task of discovering the secret
of the motive power of the Terrorists’ air-ships.

“The year you were born, success had crowned the efforts of ten years
of tireless labour. Working with the utmost secrecy in a lonely hut
buried in the forests of Norway, he and six others, who were, as he
thought, devoted to him and the glorious cause of wresting the empire
of the world from the grasp of the Terrorists, had built an air-ship
that would have been swifter and more powerful than any of their aerial
fleet.

“Two days before she was ready to take the air, one of his men
deserted. The traitor was never seen again, but the next night a
Terrorist vessel descended from the clouds, and in a few minutes not
a vestige of our air-ship or her creators remained. Only a blackened
waste in the midst of the forest was left to show the scene of their
labours. Within forty-eight hours, it was known all over the civilised
world that Vladimir Romanoff and his associates had been killed by
order of the Supreme Council, for endeavouring to build an air-ship in
defiance of its commands.

[Illustration: NOT A VESTIGE OF OUR AIR-SHIP OR HER CREATORS REMAINED.
_Page 22._]

“Such are the enemies against whom you will have to contend. They are
still virtually the masters of the world, and the task before you
is to wrest that mastery from them. It is no light task, but it is not
impossible; for these Aerians are, after all, but men and women as you
are, and what they have done, other men and women can surely do.

“The Great Secret cannot always remain theirs alone. While they
actively controlled the nations, nothing could be done against them,
for their hand was everywhere and their eyes saw everything. But now
they have abdicated the throne of the world, and left the nations to
rule themselves as they can. For a time things will go on in their
present grooves, but that will not be for long.

“I, who am their bitterest enemy on earth, am forced to confess that
the Terrorists have proved themselves to be the wisest as well as
the strongest of despots. Under their rule the world has become a
paradise--for the _canaille_ and the multitude. But they have curbed
the mob as well as the king, and abolished the demagogue as well as the
despot. Now the strong hand is lifted and the bridle loosed; and before
many years have passed, the brute strength of the multitude will have
begun to assert itself.

“The so-called kings of the earth, who rule now in a mockery of
royalty, will speedily find that the real kings of the old days ruled
because, in the last resource, they had armies and navies at their
command and could enforce obedience. These are but the puppets of
the popular will, and now that the moral and physical support of the
Supreme Council and its aerial fleet is taken from them, they will see
democracy run rampant, and, having no strength to stem the tide, they
will have to float with it or be submerged by it.

“In another generation the voice of the majority, the blind, brute
force of numbers, will rule everything on earth. What government there
may be, will be a mere matter of counting heads. Individual freedom
will by swift degrees vanish from the earth, and human society will
become a huge machine, grinding all men down to the same level until
the monotony of life becomes unendurable.

“Hitherto all democracies in the history of the world have been ended
by military despotisms, but now military despotism has been made
impossible, and so democracy will run riot, until it plunges the world
into social chaos.

“This may come in your time or in your children’s, but it is the
opportunity for which you must work and wait. Even now you will find in
every nation, thousands of men and women who are chafing against the
limitations imposed on individual aspirations and ambition; and as the
rule of democracy spreads and becomes heavier, the number of these will
increase, until at last revolt will become possible, nay, inevitable.

“Of this revolt you must make yourselves the guiding-spirits. The work
will be long and arduous, but you have all your lives before you, and
the reward of success will be glorious beyond all description.

“Not only will you restore the House of Romanoff to its ancient glories
in yourselves and your children, but you will enthrone it in an even
higher place than that which your ancestor had almost won for it, when
these thrice-accursed Terrorists turned the tide of battle against him
on the threshold of the conquest of the world.

“Do not shrink from the task, or despair because you are now only two
against the world. Think of Natas and the mighty work that he did, and
remember that he was once only one against the world which in the day
of battle he fought and conquered.

“Above all things, never let your eyes wander from the land of the
Aerians. That once conquered and the world is yours to do with as
you will. To do that, you must first conquer the air as they have
done. Aeria itself, by all reports, is such a paradise as the sun
nowhere else shines upon. Some day, whether by force or cunning, it
may be yours; and when it is, the world also will be yours to be your
footstool and your plaything, and all the peoples of the earth shall be
your servants to do your bidding.

“Yes, I can see, through the mists of the coming years and beyond the
grave that opens at my feet, aerial navies, flying the Eagle of Russia
and scaling the mighty battlements of Aeria, hurling their lightnings
far and wide in the work of vengeance long delayed! Behind the battle,
I see darkness that my weak eyes cannot pierce, but yours shall see
clearly where mine are clouded with the falling mists of death.

“The shadows are closing round me, and the sands in the glass are
almost run out. Yet one thing remains to be done. Since Alexander
Romanoff died at the mines of Kara, no Tsar of Russia has been crowned.
Now I, Paul Romanoff, his rightful heir, will crown myself after the
fashion of my ancestors, and then I will crown you, the daughter of my
murdered son, and you will place the diadem on your husband’s brow when
God has made you one!”

So saying, the old man rose from his seat, with his face flushed and
his eyes aglow with the light of ecstasy. Olga and Serge rose to
their feet, half in fear and half in wonder, as they looked upon his
transfigured countenance.

He lifted the Imperial crown from the table, and then, drawing himself
up to the full height of his majestic stature, raised it high above his
head, and lowered it slowly down towards his brow.

The jewelled circlet of gold had almost touched the silver of his snowy
hair when the light suddenly died out of his eyes, leaving the glaze
of death behind it. He gasped once for breath, and then his mighty
form shrank together and pitched forward in a huddled heap at their
feet, flinging the crown with a dull crash to the floor, and sending it
rolling away into a corner of the room.

“God grant that may not be an omen, Olga!” said Serge, covering his
eyes with his hands to shut out the sudden horror of the sight.

“Omen or not, I will do his bidding to the end,” said the girl slowly
and solemnly. Then her pent-up passion of grief burst forth in a long,
wailing cry, and she flung herself down on the prostrate form of the
only friend she had ever known and loved, and laid her cheek upon his,
and let the welling tears run from her eyes over those that had for
ever ceased to weep.




CHAPTER III. TSARINA OLGA.


THREE days after his death, the body of Paul Romanoff was reduced to
ashes in the Highgate Crematorium, a magnificent building, in the
sombre yet splendid architecture of ancient Egypt, which stood in
the midst of what had once been Highgate Cemetery, and what was now
a beautiful garden, shaded by noble trees, and in summer ablaze with
myriads of flowers.

Not a grave or a headstone was to be seen, for burial in the earth had
been abolished throughout the civilised world for nearly a century.
In the vast galleries of the central building, thousands of urns,
containing the ashes of the dead, reposed in niches inscribed with
the name and date of death, but these mostly belonged to the poorer
classes, for the wealthy as a rule devoted a chamber in their own
houses to this purpose.

The body was registered in the great Book of the Dead at the
Crematorium as that of Paul Ivanitch, and the only two mourners signed
their names, “Serge Ivanitch and Olga Ivanitch, grand-children of the
deceased.” The reason for this was, that for more than a century the
name of Romanoff had been proscribed in all the nations of Europe. It
was believed that the Vladimir Romanoff who had been executed by the
Supreme Council, for attempting to solve the forbidden problem, was the
last of his race, and Paul had taken great pains not to disturb this
belief.

Long before his son had met with his end, he had called himself Paul
Ivanitch, and settled in London and practised his profession as a
sculptor, in which he had won both fame and fortune. Olga had lived
with him since her father’s death, and Serge, who at the time the
narrative opens had just completed his studies at the Art University of
Rome, had passed as her brother.

They took the urn containing the ashes of the old man back with them
to the house, which now belonged, with all its contents, to Olga and
Serge. On the morning after his death, a notice, accompanied by an
abstract of his will, had been inserted in _The Official Gazette_, the
journal devoted exclusively to matters of law and government.

Paul Romanoff had, however, left two wills behind him, one which had to
be made public in compliance with the law, and one which was intended
only for the eyes of Olga and Serge. This second will reposed, with
the crown of Russia, in the secret recess in the wall of the octagonal
chamber; and the instructions endorsed upon it stated that it was to
be opened by Serge in the presence of Olga, after they had brought
his ashes back to the house and had been legally confirmed in their
possession of his property.

Consequently, on the evening of the 11th, the two shut themselves into
the room, and Olga, who since her grandfather’s death had worn the key
of the recess on a chain round her neck, unlocked the secret door and
gave the will to Serge. As she did so, a sudden fancy seized her. She
took the crown from its resting-place, and, standing in front of a long
mirror which occupied one of the eight sides of the room from roof to
floor, poised it above the lustrous coils of her hair with both hands,
and said, half to Serge and half to herself--

“What age could not accomplish, youth shall do! By my own right, and
with my own hands, I am crowned Tsarina, Empress of the Russias in
Europe and Asia. As the great Catherine was, so will I be--and more,
for I will be Mistress of the West and the East. I will have kings for
my vassals and senates for my servants, and I will rule as no other
woman has ruled before me since Semiramis!”

As she uttered the daring words, whose fulfilment seemed beyond the
dreams of the wildest imagination, she placed the crown upon her brow
and stood, clothed in imperial purple from head to foot, the very
incarnation of loveliness and royal majesty. Serge looked up as she
spoke, and gazed for a moment entranced upon her. Then he threw himself
upon his knees before her, and, raising the hem of her robe to his
lips, said in a voice half choked with love and passion--

“And I, who am also of the imperial blood, will be the first to salute
you Tsarina and mistress! You have taken me as your lover, let me also
be the first of your subjects. I will serve you as woman never was
served before. You shall be my mistress--my goddess, and your words
shall be my laws before all other laws. If you bid me do evil, it
shall be to me as good, and I will do it. I will kill or leave alive
according to your pleasure, and I will hold my own life as cheap as any
other in your service; for I love you, and my life is yours!”

Olga looked down upon him with the light of triumph in her eyes. No
woman ever breathed to whom such words would not have been sweet; but
to her they were doubly sweet, because they were a spontaneous tribute
to the power of her beauty and the strength of her royal nature, and an
earnest of her future sway over other men.

More than this, too, they had been won without an effort, from the lips
of the man whom she had always been taught to look upon as higher than
other men, in virtue of his descent from her own ancestry, and the
blood-right that he shared with her to that throne which it was to be
their joint life-task to re-establish.

If she did not love him, it was rather because ambition and the
inborn lust of power engrossed her whole being, than from any lack of
worthiness on his part. Of all the men she had ever seen, none compared
with him in strength and manliness save one--and he, bitter beyond
expression as the thought was to her, was so far above her as she was
now, that he seemed to belong to another world and to another order of
beings.

As their eyes met, a thrill that was almost akin to love passed through
her soul, and, acting on the impulse of the moment, she took the crown
from her own head and held it above his as he knelt at her feet, and
said--

“Not as my subject or my servant, but as my co-ruler and helpmate, you
shall keep that oath of yours, Serge Nicholaivitch. We have exchanged
our vows, and in a few days I shall be your wife. We will wed as
equals; and so now I crown you, as it is my right to do. Rise, my lord
the Tsar, and take your crown!”

Serge put up his hands and took the crown from hers at the moment that
she placed it on his brow. He rose to his feet, holding it on his head
as he said solemnly--

“So be it, and may the God of our fathers help me to wear it worthily
with you, and to restore to it the glory that has been taken from it by
our enemies!”

Then he laid it reverently down on the table and turned to Olga, who
was still standing before the mirror looking at her own lovely image,
as though in a dream of future glory. He took her unresisting in his
arms, and kissed her passionately again and again, bringing the bright
blood to her cheeks and the light of a kindred passion to her eyes, and
murmuring between the kisses--

“But you, darling, are worth all the crowns of earth, and I am still
your slave, because your beauty and your sweetness make me so.”

“Then slave you shall be!” she said, giving him back kiss for kiss,
well knowing that with every pressure of her intoxicating lips she
riveted the chains of his bondage closer upon his soul.

To an outside observer, what had taken place would have seemed but
little better than boy-and-girl’s play, the phantasy of two young and
ardent souls dreaming a romantic and impossible dream of power and
glory that had vanished, never to be brought back again. And yet, if
such a one had been able to look forward through little more than a
single lustrum, he would have seen that, in the mysterious revolutions
of human affairs, it is usually the seemingly impossible that becomes
possible, and the most unexpected that comes to pass.

The secret will of Paul Romanoff, to the study of which the two lovers
addressed themselves when they awoke from the dream of love and empire
into which Olga’s phantasy had plunged them both, would, if it had been
made public, have given a by no means indefinite shape to such vague
dreams of world-revolution as were inspired in thoughtful minds, even
in the thirty-first year of the twenty-first century.

It was a voluminous document of many pages, embodying the result of
nearly eighty years of tireless scheming and patient research in the
field of science as well as in that of politics. Paul Romanoff had
lived his life with but one object, and that was, to prepare the way
for the accomplishment of a revolution which should culminate in the
subversion of the state of society inaugurated by the Terrorists, and
the re-establishment, at anyrate in the east of Europe, of autocratic
rule in the person of a scion of the House of Romanoff. All that he had
been able to do towards the attainment of this seemingly impossible
project was crystallised in the document bequeathed to Olga and Serge.

It was divided into three sections. The first of these was mostly
of a personal nature, and contained details which it would serve no
purpose of use or interest to reproduce here. It will therefore suffice
to say, that it contained a list of the names and addresses of four
hundred men and women scattered throughout Europe and America, each of
whom was the descendant of some prince or noble, some great landowner
or millionaire, who had suffered degradation or ruin at the hands of
the Terrorists during the reorganisation of society, after the final
triumph of the Anglo-Saxon Federation in 1904.

The second section of the will was of a purely scientific and technical
character. It was a theoretical arsenal of weapons for the arming of
those who, if they were to succeed at all, could only do so by bringing
back that which it had cost such an awful expenditure of blood and
suffering to banish from the earth in the days of the Terror. The
designs of Paul Romanoff, and the vast aspirations of those to whom he
had bequeathed the crown of the great Catherine, could have but one
result if they ever passed from the realm of fancy to that of deeds.

If the clock was to be put back, only the armed hand could do it, and
that hand must be so armed that it could strike at first secretly, and
yet with paralysing effect. The few would have to array themselves
against the many, and if they triumphed, it would have to be by the
possession of some such means of terrorism and irresistible destruction
as those who had accomplished the revolution of 1904 had wielded in
their aerial fleet.

By far the most important part of this section of the will consisted of
plans and diagrams of various descriptions of air-ships and submarine
vessels, accompanied by minute directions for building and working
them. Most of these were from the hand of Vladimir Romanoff, Olga’s
father; but of infinitely more importance even than all these was a
detailed description, on the last page but two of the section, of the
solution of a problem which had been attempted in the last decade of
the nineteenth century, but which was still unsolved so far as the
world at large was concerned.

This was the direct transformation of the solar energy locked up
in coal into electrical energy, without loss either by waste or
transference. How vast and yet easily controlled a power this would
be in the hands of those who were able to wield it, may be guessed
from the fact that, in the present day, less than ten per cent. of the
latent energy of coal is developed as electrical power even in the most
perfect systems of conversion.

All the rest is wasted between the furnace of the steam-engine and
the dynamo. It was to electrical power, obtained direct from coal and
petroleum, that Vladimir Romanoff trusted for the motive force of his
air-ships and submarine vessels, and which he had already employed
with experimental success as regards the former, when his career was
cut short by the swift and pitiless execution of the sentence of the
Supreme Council.

The remainder of this section was occupied by a list of chemical
formulæ for the most powerful explosives then known to science, and
minute instructions for their preparation. At the bottom of the page
which contained these, there was a little strip of parchment, fastened
by one end to the binding of the other sheets, and covered with very
small writing.

Olga’s eyes, wandering down over the maze of figures which crowded the
page, reached it before Serge’s did. One quick glance told her that it
was something very different to the rest. She laid one hand carelessly
over it, and with the other softly caressed Serge’s crisp, golden
curls. As he looked round in response to the caress, their eyes met,
and she said in her sweet, low, witching voice--

“Dearest, I have a favour to ask of you.”

“Not a favour to ask, but a command to give, you mean. Speak, and you
are obeyed. Have I not sworn obedience?” he replied, laying his hand
upon her shoulder and drawing her lovely face closer to his as he spoke.

“No, it is only a favour,” she said, with such a smile as Antony might
have seen on the lips of Cleopatra. “I want you to leave me alone for
a little time--for half an hour--and then come back and finish reading
this with me. You know my brain is not as strong as yours, and I feel a
little bewildered with all the wonderful things that there are in this
legacy of my father’s father.

“Before we go any further, I should like to read it all through again
by myself, so as to understand it thoroughly. So suppose you go to your
smoking-room for a little, and leave me to do so. I shall not take very
long, and then we will go over the rest together.”

“But we have only a couple more pages to read, sweet one, and then I
will go over it all again with you, and explain anything that you have
not understood.”

As he spoke, Serge’s eyes never wavered for a moment from hers. Could
he but have broken their spell, he might have seen that she was hiding
something from him under her little, white hand and shapely arm.
She brought her red, smiling lips still nearer to his as she almost
whispered in reply--

“Well, it is only a girl’s whim, after all, but still I am a girl.
Come, now, I will give you a kiss for twenty minutes’ solitude, and
when you come back, and we have finished our task, you shall have as
many more as you like.”

The sweet, tempting lips came closer still, and the witching spell of
her great dusky eyes grew stronger as she spoke. How was he to know
what was hanging in the balance in that fateful moment? He was but a
hot-blooded youth of twenty, and he worshipped this lovely, girlish
temptress, who had not yet seen seventeen summers, with an adoration
that blinded him to all else but her and her intoxicating beauty.

He drew her yielding form to him until he could feel her heart beating
against his, and as their lips met, the promised kiss came from hers
to his. He returned it threefold, and then his arm slipped from her
shoulder to her waist, and he lifted her like a child from her chair,
and carried her, half laughing and half protesting, to the door,
claimed and took another kiss before he released her, and then put her
down and left her alone without another word.

“Alas, poor Serge!” she said, as the door closed behind him; “you are
not the first man who has lost the empire of the world for a woman’s
kiss. Before, I saw that you were my equal and helpmate, now you and
all other men--yes, not even excepting he who seems so far above me
now--shall be my slaves and do my bidding, so blindly that they shall
not even know they are doing it.

“Yes, the weapons of war are worth much, but what are they in
comparison with the souls of the men who will have to use them!”

In half an hour Serge came back to finish the reading of the will
with her. The little slip of paper had been removed so skilfully that
it would have been impossible for him to have even guessed that it had
ever been attached to the parchment, or that it was now lying hidden in
the bosom of the girl who would have killed him without the slightest
scruple to gain the unsuspected possession of it.




CHAPTER IV. A SON OF THE GODS.


ON the day but one following the reading of Paul Romanoff’s secret
will, Olga and Serge set out for St. Petersburg, to convey his ashes
to their last resting-place in the Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul in
the Fortress of Petropaulovski, where reposed the dust of the Tyrants
of Russia, from Peter the Great to Alexander II. of Russia, now only
remembered as the chief characters in the dark tragedy of the days
before the Revolution.

The intense love of the Russians for their country had survived the
tremendous change that had passed over the face of society, and it was
still the custom to bring the ashes of those who claimed noble descent
and deposit them in one of their national churches, even when they had
died in distant countries.

The station from which they started was a splendid structure of
marble, glass, and aluminium steel, standing in the midst of a vast,
abundantly-wooded garden, which occupied the region that had once been
made hideous by the slums and sweating-dens of Southwark. The ground
floor was occupied by waiting-rooms, dining-saloons, conservatories,
and winter-gardens, for the convenience and enjoyment of travellers;
and from these lifts rose to the upper storey, where the platforms and
lines lay under an immense crystal arch.

Twelve lines ran out of the station, divided into three sets of four
each. Of these, the centre set was entirely devoted to continental
traffic, and the lines of this system stretched without a break from
London to Pekin.

The cars ran suspended on a single rail upheld by light, graceful
arches of a practically unbreakable alloy of aluminium, steel, and
zinc, while about a fifth of their weight was borne by another single
insulating rail of forged glass,--the rediscovery of the lost art of
making which had opened up immense possibilities to the engineers of
the twenty-first century.

Along this lower line the train ran, not on wheels, but on lubricated
bearings, which glided over it with no more friction than that of a
steel skate on ice. On the upper rail ran double-flanged wheels with
ball-bearings, and this line also conducted the electric current from
which the motive-power was derived.

The two inner lines of each set were devoted to long-distance, express
traffic, and the two outer to intermediate transit, corresponding to
the ordinary trains of the present day. Thus, for example, the train by
which Olga and Serge were about to travel, stopped only at Brussels,
Berlin, Königsberg, Moscow, Nijni Novgorod, Tomsk, Tobolsk, Irkutsk,
and Pekin, which was reached by a line running through the Salenga
valley and across the great desert of Shamoo, while from Irkutsk
another branch of the line ran north-eastward viâ Yakutsk to the East
Cape, where the Behring Bridge united the systems of the Old World and
the New.

The usual speed of the expresses was a hundred and fifty miles an
hour, rising to two hundred on the long runs; and that of the ordinary
trains, from a hundred to a hundred and fifty. Higher speeds could of
course be attained on emergencies, but these had been found to be quite
sufficient for all practical purposes.

The cars were not unlike the Pullmans of the present day, save that
they were wider and roomier, and were built not of wood and iron,
but of aluminium and forged glass. Their interiors were, of course,
absolutely impervious to wind and dust, even at the highest speed
of the train, although a perfect system of ventilation kept their
atmosphere perfectly fresh.

The long-distance trains were fitted up exactly as moving hotels, and
the traveller, from London to Pekin or Montreal, was not under the
slightest necessity of leaving the train, unless he chose to do so,
from end to end of the journey.

One more advantage of railway travelling in the twenty-first century
may be mentioned here. It was entirely free, both for passengers
and baggage. Easy and rapid transit being considered an absolute
necessity of a high state of civilisation, just as armies and navies
had once been thought to be, every self-supporting person paid a small
travelling tax, in return for which he or she was entitled to the
freedom of all the lines in the area of the Federation.

In addition to this tax, the municipality of every city or town through
which the lines passed, set apart a portion of their rent-tax for the
maintenance of the railways, in return for the advantages they derived
from them.

Under this reasonable condition of affairs, therefore, all that an
intending traveller had to do was to signify the date of his departure
and his destination to the superintendent of the nearest station, and
send his heavier baggage on in advance by one of the trains devoted to
the carriage of freight. A place was then allotted to him, and all he
had to do was to go and take possession of it.

The Continental Station was comfortably full of passengers when Olga
and Serge reached it, about fifteen minutes before the departure of the
Eastern express; for people were leaving the Capital of the World in
thousands just then, to spend Christmas and New Year with friends in
the other cities of Europe, and especially to attend the great Winter
Festival that was held every year in St. Petersburg in celebration of
the anniversary of Russian freedom.

Ten minutes before the express started, they ascended in one of the
lifts to the platform, and went to find their seats. As they walked
along the train, Olga suddenly stopped and said, almost with a gasp--

“Look, Serge! There are two Aerians, and one of them is”--

“Who?” said Serge, almost roughly. “I didn’t know you had any
acquaintances among the Masters of the World.”

The son of the Romanoffs hated the very name of the Aerians, so
bitterly that even the mere suspicion that his idolised betrothed
should have so much as spoken to one of them was enough to rouse his
anger.

“No, I haven’t,” she replied quietly, ignoring the sudden change in his
manner; “but both you and I have very good reason for wishing to make
their distinguished acquaintance. I recognise one of these because he
sat beside Alan Arnold, the President of the Council, in St. Paul’s,
when they were foolish enough to relinquish the throne of the world in
obedience to an old man’s whim.

“The taller of the two standing there by the pillar is the younger
counterpart of the President, and if his looks don’t belie him, he can
be no one but the son of Alan Arnold, and therefore the future ruler
of Aeria, and the present or future possessor of the Great Secret. Do
you see now why it is necessary that we should--well, I will say, make
friends of those two handsome lads?”

Olga spoke rapidly and in Russian, a tongue then scarcely ever heard
and very little understood even among educated people, who, whatever
their nationality, made English their language of general intercourse.
The words “handsome lads” had grated harshly upon Serge’s ears, but he
saw the force of Olga’s question at once, and strove hard to stifle the
waking demon of jealousy that had been roused more by her tone and the
quick bright flush on her cheek than by her words, as he answered--

“Forgive me, darling, for speaking roughly! Their hundred years of
peace have not tamed my Russian blood enough to let me look upon my
enemies without anger. Of course, you are right; and if they are going
by the express, as they seem to be, we should be friendly enough by the
time we reach Königsberg.”

“I am glad you agree with me,” said Olga, “for the destinies of the
world may turn on the events of the next few hours. Ah, the Fates
are kind! Look! There is Alderman[2] Heatherstone talking to them. I
suppose he has come to see them off, for no doubt they have been the
guests of the City during the Festival. Come, he will very soon make us
known to each other.”

A couple of minutes later the Alderman, who had been an old friend
of Paul Ivanitch, the famous sculptor, had cordially greeted them
and introduced them to the two Aerians, whose names he gave as Alan
Arnoldson, the son of the President of the late Supreme Council, and
Alexis Masarov, a descendant of the Alexis Mazanoff who had played such
a conspicuous part in the war of the Terror. They were just starting on
the tour of the world, and were bound for St. Petersburg to witness the
Winter Festival.

Olga had been more than justified in speaking of them as she had done.
Both in face and form, they were the very ideal of youthful manhood.
Both of them stood over six feet in the long, soft, white leather boots
which rose above their knees, meeting their close-fitting, grey tunics
of silk-embroidered cloth, confined at the waist by belts curiously
fashioned of flat links of several different metals, and fastened in
front by heavy buckles of gold studded with great, flashing gems.

From their broad shoulders hung travelling-cloaks of fine, blue cloth,
lined with silver fur and kept in place across the breast by silver
chains and clasps of a strange, blue metal, whose lustre seemed to come
from within like that of a diamond or a sapphire.

On their heads they wore no other covering than their own thick,
curling hair, which they wore somewhat in the picturesque style of
the fourteenth century, and a plain, broad band of the gleaming blue
metal, from which rose above the temples a pair of marvellously-chased,
golden wings about four inches high--the insignia of the Empire of the
Air, and the sign which distinguished the Aerians from all the other
peoples of the earth.

As Olga shook hands with Alan, she looked up into his dark-blue eyes,
with a glance such as he had never received from a woman before--a
glance in which he seemed instinctively to read at once love and hate,
frank admiration and equally undisguised defiance. Their eyes held each
other for a moment of mutual fascination which neither could resist,
and then the dark-fringed lids fell over hers, and a faint flush rose
to her cheeks as she replied to his words of salutation--

“Surely the pleasure will rather be on our side, with travelling
companions from the other world! For my own part, I seem to remind
myself somewhat of one of the daughters of men whom the Sons of the
Gods”--

She stopped short in the middle of her daring speech, and looked up at
him again as much as to say--

“So much for the present. Let the Fates finish it!” and then, appearing
to correct herself, she went on, with a half-saucy, half-deprecating
smile on her dangerously-mobile lips--

“You know what I mean; not exactly that, but something of the sort.”

“More true, I fancy, of the daughter of men than of the supposed Sons
of the Gods,” retorted Alan, with a laugh, half startled by her words,
and wholly charmed by the indescribable fascination of the way in which
she said them; “for the daughters of men were so fair that the Sons of
the Gods lost heaven itself for their sakes.”

“Even so!” said Olga, looking him full in the eyes, and at that moment
the signal sounded for them to take their places in the cars.

A couple of minutes after they had taken their seats, the train drew
out of the station with an imperceptible, gliding motion, so smooth and
frictionless that it seemed rather as though the people standing on the
platform were sliding backwards than that the train was moving forward.
The speed increased rapidly, but so evenly that, almost before they
were well aware of it, the passengers were flying over the snow-covered
landscape, under the bright, heatless sun and pale, steel-blue sky of
a perfect winter’s morning, at a hundred miles an hour, the speed ever
increasing as they sped onward.

The line followed the general direction of the present route to Dover,
which was reached in about half an hour. Without pausing for a moment
in its rapid flight, the express swept out from the land over the
Channel Bridge, which spanned the Straits from Dover to Calais at a
height of 200 feet above the water.

Travelling at a speed of three miles a minute, seven minutes sufficed
for the express to leap, as it were, from land to land. As they swept
along in mid-air over the waves, Olga pointed down to them and said to
Alan, who was sitting in the armchair next her own--

“Imagine the time when people had to take a couple of hours getting
across here in a little, dirty, smoky steamboat, mingling their sorrows
and their sea-sickness in one common misery! I really think this
Channel Bridge is worthy even of your admiration. Come now, you have
not admired anything yet”--

“Pardon me,” said Alan, with a look and a laugh that set Serge’s teeth
gritting against each other, and brought the ready blood to Olga’s
cheeks; “on the contrary, I have been absorbed in admiration ever since
we started.”

“But not apparently of our engineering triumphs,” replied Olga frankly,
taking the compliment to herself, and seeming in no way displeased with
it. “It would seem that the polite art of flattery is studied to some
purpose in Aeria.”

“There you are quite wrong,” returned Alan, still speaking in the same
half-jocular, half-serious vein. “Before all things, we Aerians are
taught to tell the absolute truth under all circumstances, no matter
whether it pleases or offends; so, you see, what is usually known as
flattery could hardly be one of our arts, since, as often as not, it is
a lie told in the guise of truth, for the sake of serving some hidden
and perhaps dishonest end.”

The blow so unconsciously delivered struck straight home, and the flush
died from Olga’s cheek, leaving her for the moment so white that her
companion anxiously asked if she was unwell.

“No,” she said, recovering her self-possession under the impulse of
sudden anger at the weakness she had betrayed. “It is nothing. This is
the first time for a year or so that I have travelled by one of these
very fast trains, and the speed made me a little giddy just for the
instant. I am quite well, really, so please go on.

“You know, that wonderful fairyland of yours is a subject of
everlasting interest and curiosity to us poor outsiders who are
denied a glimpse of its glories, and it is so very rarely that one of
us enjoys the privilege that is mine just now, that I hope you will
indulge my feminine curiosity as far as your good nature is able to
temper your reserve.”

As she uttered her request, Alan’s smiling face suddenly became grave
almost to sternness. The laughing light died out of his eyes, and she
saw them darken in a fashion that at once convinced her that she had
begun by making a serious mistake.

He looked up at her, with a shadow in his eyes and a slight frown on
his brow. He spoke slowly and steadily, but with a manifest reluctance
which he seemed to take little or no trouble to conceal.

“I am sorry that you have asked me to talk on what is a forbidden
subject to every Aerian, save when he is speaking with one of his own
nation. I see you have been looking at these two golden wings on the
band round my head. I will tell you what they mean, and then you will
understand why I cannot say all that I know you would like me to say.

“They are to us what the toga virilis was to the Romans of old, the
insignia of manhood and responsibility. When a youth of Aeria reaches
the age of twenty he is entitled to wear these wings as a sign that he
is invested with all the rights and duties of a citizen of the nation
which has conquered and commands the Empire of the Air.

“One of these duties is, that in all the more serious relations of life
he shall remain apart from all the peoples of the world save his own,
and shall say nothing that will do anything to lift the veil which it
has pleased our forefathers in their wisdom to draw round the realm of
Aeria. Before we assume the citizenship of which these wings are the
symbol we never visit the outside world save to make air voyages, for
the purpose of learning the physical facts of the earth’s shape and the
geography of land and sea.

“Immediately after we have assumed it we do as Alexis and I are now
doing--travel for a year or so through the different countries of the
outside world, in order to get our knowledge of men and things as they
exist beyond the limits of our own country.

“The fact that we do so,--under a pledge solemnly and publicly given,
of never revealing anything which could lead even to a possibility of
other peoples of the earth overtaking us in the progress which we have
made in the arts and sciences,--is my excuse for refusing to tell you
what your very natural curiosity has asked.”

Olga saw instantly that she had struck a false note, and was not slow
to make good her mistake. She laid her hand upon his arm, with that
pretty gesture which Serge knew so well, and watched now with much
bitter feelings, and said, in a tone that betrayed no trace of the
consuming passion within her--

“Forgive me! Of course, you will see that I did not know I was
trenching on forbidden grounds. I can well understand why such secrets
as yours must be, should be kept. You have been masters of the world
for more than a century, and even now, although you have formally
abdicated the throne of the world, it would be absurd to deny that you
still hold the destinies of humanity in your hands.

“The secrets which guard so tremendous a power as that may well be
religiously kept and held more sacred than anything else on earth.
Still, you have mistaken me if you thought I asked for any of these.
All I really wanted was, that you should tell me something that would
give me just a glimpse of what human life is like in that enchanted
land of yours”--

Alan laid his hands upon hers, which was still resting upon his arm,
and interrupted her even more earnestly than before.

“Even that I cannot tell you. With us, the man who gives a pledge
and breaks it, even in the spirit though not in the letter, is not
considered worthy to live, and therefore I must be silent.”

Instead of answering with her lips, Olga turned her hand palm upwards,
and clasped his with a pressure which he returned before he very well
knew what he was doing; and while the magic of her clasp was still
stealing along his nerves, Serge broke in, with a harsh ring in his
voice--

“But pardon me for interrupting what seems a very pleasant conversation
with my--my sister, I should like to ask, with all due deference to the
infinitely superior wisdom of the rulers of Aeria, whether it is not
rather a risky thing for you to travel thus about the world, possessing
secrets which any man or woman would almost be willing to die even to
know for a few minutes, when, after all, you are but human even as the
rest of humanity are?

“You, for instance, are only two among millions; how would you protect
yourselves against the superior force of numbers? Supposing you were
taken unawares under circumstances which make your superior knowledge
unavailing. You know, human nature is the same yesterday, to-day, and
to-morrow, despite the superficial varnish of civilisation.

“The passions of men are only curbed, not dead. There may be men
on earth to-day who, to gain such knowledge as you possess, would
even resort to the tortures used by the Inquisition in the sixteenth
century. Suppose you found yourself in the power of such men as that,
what then? Would you still preserve your secret intact, do you think?”

Alan heard him to the end without moving a muscle of his face, and
without even withdrawing his hand from Olga’s clasp. But at the last
sentence he snatched it suddenly away, half-turned in his seat, and
faced him. Then, looking him straight in the eyes, he said in a tone
as cold and measured as might have been used by a judge sentencing a
criminal to death--

“We do not fear anything of the sort, simply because each one of us
holds the power of life and death in his hands. If you laid a hand on
me now in anger, or with an intent to do me harm, you would be struck
dead before you could raise a finger in your own defence.

“Do you think that we, who are as far in advance of you as you are
in advance of the men of a hundred years ago, would trust ourselves
amongst those who might be our enemies were we not amply protected
against you? Tell me, have you ever read a book, written nearly two
hundred years ago in the Victorian Age, called _The Coming Race_?”

“Yes,” said Serge, thinking, as he spoke, of the possibilities
contained in the secret will of Paul Romanoff, “I have read it, and so
has Olga. What of it?”

“Well,” said Alan quietly, without moving his eyes from those of Serge.
“I had better tell you at once that we have realised, to all intents
and purposes, the dream that Lytton dreamt when he wrote that book.
I can tell you so much without breaking the pledge of which I have
spoken. All that the Vril-Ya did in his dream we have accomplished in
reality, and more than that.

“Our empire is not bounded by the roofs of subterranean caverns, but
only by the limits of the planet’s atmosphere. We can soar beyond the
clouds and dive beneath the seas. We have realised what he called the
Vril force as a sober, scientific fact; and if I thought that you, for
instance, were my enemy, I could strike you dead without so much as
laying a hand on you. And if a dozen like you tried to overcome me by
superior brute force, they would all meet with the same fate.

“I’m afraid this sounds somewhat like boasting,” he continued in a
more gentle tone, and dropping his eyes to the floor of the car, “but
the turn the conversation has taken obliged me to say what I have
done. Suppose we give it another turn and change the subject. We have
unintentionally got upon rather uncomfortable ground.”

Serge and Olga were not slow to take the pointed hint, and so the talk
drifted into general and more harmless channels.

FOOTNOTE:

[2] The good old word had now regained its ancient and uncorrupted
meaning.




CHAPTER V. A VISION FROM THE CLOUDS.


AT Königsberg, which was reached in nine hours after leaving London,
that is to say, soon after seven o’clock in the evening, the Eastern
express divided: five of the cars went northward to St. Petersburg,
carrying those passengers who were going to participate in the Winter
Festival, while the other five which made up the train went on to
Moscow and the East.

During the twenty minutes’ stop at Berlin, Olga had found an
opportunity of having a few words in private with Serge, and had
succeeded in persuading him, much against his will, of the necessity of
postponing their marriage, and therefore their visit to Moscow, for the
execution of a daring and suddenly-conceived plan which she had thought
out, but which she had then no time to explain to him.

Serge, though very loath to postpone even for a day or two the
consummation of his hopes and the hour which should make Olga
irrevocably his, so far as human laws could bind her to him, was so far
under the domination of her imperious will that, as soon as he saw that
she had determined to have her own way, he yielded with the best grace
he could.

Olga chided him gently and yet earnestly for his outbreak of temper
towards Alan, and told him plainly that, where such tremendous
issues were concerned as those which were involved in the struggle
which sooner or later they must wage with the Aerians, no personal
considerations whatever could be permitted a moment’s serious thought.
If she could sacrifice her own feelings, and disguise her hatred of the
tyrants of the world under the mask of friendliness, for the sake of
the ends to which both their lives were devoted, surely he, if he were
at all worthy of her love, could so far trust her as to restrain the
unreasoning jealousy of which he had already been guilty.

Either, she told him, he must trust to her absolutely for the present,
or he must take the management of affairs into his own hands; and,
as she said in conclusion, he must find some influence stronger than
hers in their dealings with him who would one day be the ruler of
Aeria, and, therefore, the real master of the world, should it ever be
possible to dispute the empire of Earth with the Aerians.

From the influence which she exercised over himself, Serge knew only
too well that he could not hope to rival her in this regard where a man
was concerned, and so he perforce agreed to her proposal, and for the
present left the conduct of affairs in her hands.

A telephonic message was therefore sent from Königsberg to the friends
who expected them at Vorobièvŏ, near Moscow, to tell them of the
change in their plans; and when the train once more glided out over the
frozen plains of the North, the four were once more seated together in
the brilliantly-lighted car, which flashed like a meteor through the
gathering darkness of the winter’s night.

About half an hour after they had passed what had once been the
jealously-guarded Russian frontier, a dazzling gleam of light suddenly
blazed down from the black darkness overhead, and Olga, who was sitting
by one of the windows of the car, bent forward and said--

“Look there! What is that? There is a bright light shining down out of
the clouds on the train.”

Alan saw the flash across the window, and, without even troubling to
look up at its source, said--

“Oh, I suppose that’ll be the air-ship that was ordered to meet us at
St. Petersburg. You know, we usually have one of them in attendance,
when we trust ourselves alone among our possible enemies of the outer
world.”

The last sentence was spoken with a quiet irony, which brought home
both to Olga and Serge the not very pleasant conviction that their
previous conversation had by no means been forgotten. Serge, perhaps
fearing to give utterance to his thoughts, remained silent, but Olga
looked at Alan with a half-saucy smile, and said almost mockingly--

“Your Majesties of Aeria may well esteem yourselves impregnable, while
you have such a bodyguard as that at your beck and call. I suppose that
air-ship would not have the slightest difficulty in blowing this train,
and all it contains, off the face of the earth at a moment’s notice, if
it had orders to do so?”

“Not the slightest,” said Alan quietly. “But in proof of the fact that
it has no such hostile intentions, you shall, if you please, take
a voyage beyond the clouds in it the day after to-morrow, from St.
Petersburg.”

“What!” said Olga, her cheeks flushing and her eyes lighting up at the
very idea of such an experience. “Do you really mean to say that you
would permit a daughter of the earth, as I am told you call the women
who have not the good fortune to be born in Aeria, to go on board one
of those wonderful air-ships of yours, and taste the forbidden delights
of spurning the earth and sharing, even for an hour, your Empire of the
Air?”

“Why not?” replied Alan, with a laugh. “What harm would be done by
taking you for a trip beyond the clouds? We are not so selfish as all
that; and if the novel experience would give you any pleasure, we have
a perfect right to ask you to enjoy it. Will you come?”

“Surely there is scarcely any need for me to say ‘yes.’ Why, do you
know, I believe I would give five years of my life for as many hours on
board that air-ship of yours,” said Olga; “and if you will do as you
say, you will make me your debtor for ever. Indeed, how could a poor
earth-dweller such as I am repay a favour like that.”

“Ah, if only you were an Aerian, I should not have much difficulty in
telling you how you could do that,” retorted Alan, with almost boyish
candour. “As it is, I am afraid I must be satisfied for my reward with
the pleasure of knowing that I have given you a pleasurable experience.”

“Your Majesty has put that so prettily, that it almost atones for
the sense of hopeless inferiority which, I need hardly tell you, is
just a trifle bitter to my feminine pride,” said Olga, in the same
half-bantering tone she had used all along.

Before a reply had risen to Alan’s lips, the conversation was
interrupted by the air-ship suddenly swooping down from the clouds to
the level of the windows of the train, which was now flying along over
a wide, treeless plain at a speed of fully two hundred miles an hour.

As the search-lights of the aerial vessel flashed along the windows
of the cars, the blinds, which had been drawn down at nightfall, were
sprung up again by the passengers, who were all eager to get a glimpse
of one of the marvellous vessels which so rarely came within close view
of the dwellers upon earth.

The air-ship, on which all eyes were now bent with such intense
curiosity, was a beautifully-proportioned vessel, built chiefly of some
unknown metal, which shone with a brilliant, pale-blue lustre. Her hull
was about two hundred feet from stem to stern, not counting a long,
ramlike projection which stretched some twenty-five feet in front of
the stem, with its point level with the keel, or rather, with the three
keels,--the centre one shallow and the two others very deep,--which
were obviously shaped so as to enable the craft either to stand upright
on land or to sail upon the water if desired.

From each of her sides spread out two great wings, not unlike
palm-leaves in shape, measuring some hundred feet from point to point,
and about twice the width of the vessel’s deck, which was, as nearly as
could be judged, twenty feet amidships.

These wings were made of some white, lustrous material, which shone
with a somewhat more metallic sheen than silk would have done, and
were divided into a vast number of sections by transverse ribs. These
sections vibrated and undulated rhythmically from front to rear with
enormous rapidity, and evidently not only sustained the vessel in the
air, but also aided in her propulsion.

Three seemingly solid discs, which glittered brilliantly in the light
from the train, marked the positions of the air-ship’s propellers, of
which one revolved on a shaft in a straight line with the centre of
the deck, while the shafts of the other two were inclined outwards at
a slight angle from the middle line. From the deck rose three slender,
raking masts, apparently placed there for ornament rather than use,
unless indeed they were employed for signalling purposes.

The whole deck was covered completely from end to end by a curved roof
of glass, and formed a spacious chamber pervaded by a soft, diffused
light, the origin of which was invisible, and which showed about half
a dozen figures clad in the graceful costume of the Aerians, and all
wearing the headdress with golden wings. From under the domed, crystal
roof projected ten long, slender guns,--two over the bows, two over the
stern, and three over each side, at equal intervals.

Such was the wonderful craft which swept down from the darkness of the
wintry sky, in full view of the passengers in the cars, and lighted up
the snowy landscape for three or four miles ahead and astern with the
dazzling rays of her two search-lights.

Although, as has been said, the express was moving at quite two
hundred miles an hour, the air-ship swept up alongside it with as
much apparent ease as though it had been stationary. Amid the murmurs
of irrepressible admiration which greeted it from the passengers, it
glided smoothly nearer and nearer, until the side of one of its wings
was within ten feet of the car windows.

Alan and Alexis stood up and saluted their comrades on the deck, then
a few rapid, unintelligible signals made with the hand passed between
them, a parting salute was waved from the air-ship to the express; and
then, with a speed that seemed to rival that of the lightning-bolt, the
cruiser of the air darted forward and upward, and in ten seconds was
lost beyond the clouds.

“Well, now that you have seen one of our aerial fleet at close
quarters,” said Alan, turning to Olga and Serge, “what do you think of
her?”

“A miracle!” they both exclaimed in one breath; and then Olga went on,
her voice trembling with an irresistible agitation--

“I can hardly believe that such a marvel is the creation of merely
human genius. There is something appalling in the very idea of the
awful power lying in the hands of those who can create and command
such a vessel as that. You Aerians may well look down on us poor
earth-dwellers, for truly you have made yourselves as gods.”

She spoke earnestly, and for once with absolute honesty, for the
vision of the air-ship had awed her completely for the time being.
Alan appeared for the moment as a god in her eyes, until she saw his
lips curve in a very human smile, and heard his voice say, without the
slightest assumption of superiority in its tone--

“No, not as gods; but only as men who have developed under the most
favourable circumstances possible, and who have known how to make the
best of their advantages.”

“God or man,” said Olga in her soul, while her lips were smiling
acknowledgment of his modesty, “by this time to-morrow you shall be my
slave, and I will be mistress both of you and your air-ship!”




CHAPTER VI. DEED AND DREAM.


WHEN Olga went to her room that night in St. Petersburg, instead of
going to bed, she unpacked from her valise a series of articles which
seemed strange possessions for a young girl of not quite seventeen to
travel with on her wedding journey.

First came a tiny spirit furnace from which, by the aid of an
arrangement something like the modern blow-pipe, an intense heat could
be obtained. Then a delicate pair of scales, a glass pestle and mortar,
and a couple of glass liquid-measures, and lastly, half a dozen little
phials filled with variously-coloured liquids, and as many little
packets of powders, that looked like herbs ground very finely.

When she had placed these out on the table, after having carefully
locked the door of her room, and seen that the windows were completely
shuttered and curtained, she drew from the bosom of her dress a gold
chain, at the end of which was fastened, together with the key of
the secret recess in the wall of the turret chamber of the house at
Hampstead, a small bag of silk, out of which she took a little roll
of parchment,--the slip which she had abstracted from Paul Romanoff’s
secret will after she had persuaded Serge, with her false kisses, to
leave her alone for a while.

She seated herself at the table, drew the electric reading-lamp which
stood on it close to her, laid the slip down in front of her, keeping
it unrolled by means of a couple of little weights, and studied it
intently for several minutes. Then she made a series of calculations
on another sheet of paper, and compared the result carefully with some
figures on the slip.

She made them three times over before she was satisfied that they were
absolutely correct, and then, with all the care and deliberation of
a chemical analyst performing a delicate and important experiment,
she proceeded to weigh out tiny quantities of the powders, and to mix
them very carefully in the little glass mortar. This done, she emptied
the mixture into a little platinum crucible, which she placed on the
furnace, at the same time applying a gentle heat.

Then she turned her attention to the phials, measuring off quantities
of their contents with the most scrupulous exactitude, mixing them two
and two, and adding this mixture to a third, and so on, in a certain
order which was evidently prearranged, as she constantly referred to
the slip of parchment and her own calculations as she was mixing them.

By the time she finished this part of her work, she had obtained from
the various coloured liquids one perfectly colourless and odourless, of
a specific gravity apparently considerably in excess of that of water,
although, at the same time, it was extremely mobile and refractive.
She held it up to the light, looking at it with her eyelids somewhat
screwed up, and with a cruel smile on her pretty lips.

“So far, so good,” she said in a voice little higher than a whisper.
“The lives of fifty strong men in that couple of ounces of harmless
looking fluid! If anyone could see me just now, I fancy they would take
me rather for a witch or a poisoner of the fifteenth century than for a
girl of the twenty-first.

“Well, my friend Alan, your mysterious power may kill more quickly,
but not more surely than this; and this, too, will take a man out of
the world so easily that not even he himself will know that he is
going,--not even when he sinks into the sleep from which he will awake
on the other side of the shadows.

“So much for the bodies of our enemies, and now for their souls! I
don’t want to kill wholesale, at least, not just yet; and as for you,
my Alan, you are far too splendid, too glorious a man to be killed, to
say nothing of your being so much more useful alive. No, I have a very
much pleasanter fate in store for you.”

Just then a little cloud as of incense smoke began to rise from the
crucible in which were the mixed powders, and a faint, pleasant perfume
began to diffuse itself. She stopped her soliloquy, measured off
exactly half of the liquid, and patiently poured it, drop by drop, into
the crucible, at the same time gradually increasing the heat.

The vapour gradually disappeared, and the perfume died away. When she
had poured in the last drop, she began slowly stirring the mixture
with a glass rod. It gradually assumed the consistency of thick syrup,
and after stirring it for three minutes by her watch, which lay on the
table beside her, she extinguished the electric lamp and waited.

In a few seconds a pale, orange-coloured flame appeared hovering over
the crucible. As its ghostly light fell upon her anxious features, she
caught sight of herself in a mirror let into the wall on the opposite
side of the table. She started back in her chair with an irrepressible
shudder. For the first time in her life she saw herself as she really
was.

The weird, unearthly light of the flame changed the clear, pale olive
of her skin into a sallow red, and cast what looked like a mist of
vapour tinged with blood across the dark lustre of her dusky eyes. It
seemed as though the light that she had called forth from the darkness
had melted the beautiful mask which hid her inner self from the eyes
of men, and revealed her naked soul incarnate in the evil shape that
should have belonged to it.

Suddenly the flame vanished, she turned on the switch of the lamp,
placed a platinum cover over the crucible with a pair of light, curved
tongs, and, with a quick half-turn, screwed it hermetically down. Then
she turned the heat of the furnace on to the full, rose from her chair,
and stretched herself, with her linked hands above her head, till her
lithe, girlish form was drawn up to its full height in front of the
mirror.

She looked dreamily from under her half-closed lids at the perfect
picture presented by the reflection, and then her tightly-closed lips
melted into a smile, and she said softly to herself--

“Ah, that is a different sort of picture. I wonder what Alan would
have thought if he could have seen _that_ one? I don’t think I should
have taken my trip in the air-ship to-morrow if he had done. Well, I
have seen myself as I am--what four generations of inherited hate and
longing for revenge have made me.

“In the light of that horrible flame I might have sat for the portrait
of the lost soul of Lucrezia Borghia. Ah, well, if mine is lost, it
shall be lost for something worth the exchange. ‘Better to rule in Hell
than serve in Heaven,’ as old Milton said, and after all--who knows?

“Bah! that is enough of dreaming, when the time for doing is so near. I
must get some sleep to-night, or my eyes will have lost some of their
brightness by to-morrow.”

So saying, she busied herself putting away her phials, and powders, and
apparatus. The half of the colourless liquid she had left she carefully
decanted into a tiny flask, over the stopper of which she screwed a
silver cap that had a little ring on the top, and this she hung on
the chain round her neck. She replaced the slip of parchment in its
silken bag, and carefully burnt the paper on which she had made her
calculations.

By this time the bottom of the crucible was glowing red hot. She noted
the time that had elapsed since she had screwed the cap down, waited
five minutes longer, and then extinguished the furnace, undressed, and
got into bed, and in half an hour was sleeping as quietly as a little
child. She had set the chime of her repeating watch to sound at six,
and hung the watch close above her head.

Calm as her sleep was at first, it was by no means dreamless, and her
dreams were well fitted to be those of a guilty soul slumbering after a
work of death.

She saw herself standing with Alan on the glass-domed deck of the
air-ship, beneath the light of a clear, white moon sailing high in the
heavens, and a host of brilliant stars glittering out of the deep-blue
depths beyond it. Far below them lay an unbroken cloud-sea of dazzling
whiteness, which stretched away into the infinite distance on all
sides, until it seemed to blend with the moonlight and melt into the
sky.

Then the scene changed, and the air-ship swept downwards in a wide,
spiral curve, and plunged through the noiseless billows of the shadowy
sea. As she did so, a fearful chorus of sounds rose up from the earth
below.

The moonlight and starlight were gone, and in their place the lurid
glare of burning cities and blazing forests cast a fearful radiance up
through the great eddying waves of smoke, and reflected itself on the
under surface of the clouds; now the air-ship swept hither and thither
with bewildering rapidity, like the incarnation of some fearful spirit
of destruction. Alan had vanished, and she was giving orders rapidly,
and men were working the long, slender guns in a grim silence that
contrasted weirdly with the horrible din that rose from the earth.

She saw neither smoke nor flame from the guns, nor heard any sound as
they were discharged, but every time she raised her hand, the motion
was followed within a few seconds by a shaking of the atmosphere, a
dull roar from the earth, and the outburst of vast, dazzling masses of
flame, before which the blaze of the conflagration paled.

She looked down with fierce exultation upon the scene of carnage and
destruction; and as she gazed upon it, the fires died away, the roar of
the explosions began to sound like echoes in the distance, and when the
landscape of her dreamland took definite shape again, the air-ship was
hovering over a vast, oval valley, walled in by mighty mountain masses,
surmounted by towering peaks, on some of which crests of everlasting
snow and ice shone undissolved in the rays of the tropical sun.

[Illustration: AS SHE GAZED UPON IT, THE FIRES DIED AWAY. _Page 57._]

The valley itself was of such incomparable and fairy-like beauty, that
it seemed to belong rather to the realm of imagination than to the
world of reality. A great lake lay in the centre, its emerald shores
lined with groves of palms and orange-trees, and fringed with verdant
islets spangled with many coloured flowers.

On the northern shore of the lake lay a splendid city of marble
palaces, surrounded by shady gardens, and divided from each other by
broad, straight streets, smooth as ivory and spotless as snow, and
lined with double rows of wide-spreading trees, which cast a pleasant
shade along their sides.

In the midst of a vast square, in the centre of the city, rose an
immense building of marble of perfect whiteness, surmounted by a great
golden dome, which in turn was crowned by the silver shape of a woman
with great spreading wings, which blazed and scintillated in the
sunlight as though they had been fashioned of sheets of crystal, pure
and translucent as diamonds.

All over the valley, villas and palaces of marble were scattered in
cool ravines and on shaded, wooded slopes; and as far as her eye could
reach, vast expanses of garden land, emerald pastures, and golden corn
fields stretched away over hill and vale, until the most remote were
met by the cool, dark forests which clothed the middle slopes of the
all-encircling mountains, and themselves gave place higher up to dark,
frowning precipices, vast walls of living rock, rising thousands of
feet sheer upwards, and ending in the mighty peaks which stood like
eternal sentinels guarding this enchanted realm.

If she had had her will, she would have gazed for ever upon this
delightful scene; but the spirit of the dream was not to be controlled,
and it faded from her sight just as the picture of death and desolation
had done. As it faded away, Alan, who had now come back to her side,
laid his hand upon her shoulder, and, looking at her with mournful
eyes, said wearily--

“That was your first and last glimpse of heaven. Now comes the
judgment!”

As he spoke, the air-ship soared upwards again, and was instantly
enveloped in a cloud of impenetrable darkness. She sped on and on in
utter silence through the gloom, which was so dense that it seemed
to cast the rays of the ship’s electric lights back upon her as she
floated amidst it. Presently the deathlike silence was broken by a low,
weird sound, that seemed like a wail of universal agony rising up from
the earth beneath.

Then, far ahead and high up in the sky, appeared a faint light, which
grew and brightened until the darkness melted away before it; and Olga
saw the air-ship floating near enough to the earth for her to see that
all its vegetation was withered and yellow, and the beds of its streams
almost dry, with only little, thin rivulets trickling sluggishly along
them.

Millions of people seemed wandering listlessly and aimlessly about the
streets of the cities and the parched fields of the open country, ever
and anon stretching their hands as though in appeal up to the dark,
moonless sky, in which the fearful shape of light and fiery mist was
growing every moment brighter and vaster.

It grew and grew until it arched half the horizon with its tremendous
curve; and then out of the midst of it came a huge, dazzling globe of
fire, from the rim of which shot forth great flames of every colour,
some of which seemed to descend to the surface of the earth like long
fiery tongues that licked up the seething lakes in wreathing clouds of
steam, which hissed and roared as they rose like ascending cataracts.

She looked down between them at the earth. The myriads of figures were
there still, but now they lay prone and lifeless on the ground, as
though the last agony of mankind were past. The light of the blazing
globe grew more and more dazzling, and the heat more and more intense.
The speed of the air-ship slackened visibly, although the wings and
propellers were working at their utmost speed, and it was falling
rapidly, as though there was no longer any air to support it.

She gasped for breath in the choking, burning atmosphere of the deck
chamber, and then a swift, vivid wave of light seemed to sweep through
her brain, and she woke with a choking gasp of terror, with the chimes
of her watch ringing sweetly in her ears, telling her that the vision
had been but a dream of a night that had passed.

Wide awake in an instant, she got out of bed and turned on the electric
lamp. As the room had been perfectly warmed all night by the electric
conduction-stoves, which were then in almost universal use, she only
stopped to throw a fur-lined cloak round her shoulders before she went
to remove the cap of the crucible.

She peered anxiously into the vessel, and saw about two fluid ounces of
a dark, glittering liquid, from the surface of which the light of the
lamp was reflected as though from a mirror. With hands that trembled
slightly, in spite of the great effort she made to keep her nerves in
check, she poured the precious fluid into one of the glass measures
that she had used the night before.

Seen through the glass, its colour was a deep, brilliant blue, and,
like the white liquid first prepared, shone as though with an inherent,
light-giving power of its own. She held it up admiringly to the light,
and said to herself, with the same cruel smile that had curved her lips
when she had contemplated the other fluid--

“How beautiful it is! It might be made of sapphires dissolved in some
potent essence. In reality, it is an elixir capable of dissolving the
souls of men. Ah, my proud Masters of the World, we shall soon see how
much your boasted powers avail you against this and a woman’s wit and
hatred!

“And you, my splendid Alan, before to-morrow night you shall be at my
feet! Two drops of this, and that proud, strong soul of yours shall
melt away like a snowflake under warm rain, and you shall be my slave
and do my bidding, and never know that you are not as free as you are
now.

“The days have gone by when men sought the Elixir of Life, but Paul
Romanoff sought and found the Elixir of Death,--death of the body or
of the soul, as the possessor of it shall will; and he is gone, and I,
alone of all the children of men, possess it!”[3]

She set the measure down on the table, and took out of her valise a
similar little flask to the one which held the white liquid. In this
she carefully poured the contents of the measure, screwed the cap on as
before, and hung it with the other on the chain round her neck. Then,
woman-like, she turned to the mirror, threw back her cloak a little,
and gazed at the reflection of the two flasks, which shone like two
great gems upon her white skin.

“There is such a necklace as woman never wore before, since woman first
delighted in gems,--a necklace that all the jewels in the world could
not buy. How pretty they look!”

So saying, she turned away from the mirror and carefully put away all
traces of the work she had been engaged in, then she threw off her
cloak and turned the lamp out and got into bed again, to wait until the
attendant called her at eight o’clock as she had directed.

She did not go to sleep again, but lay with wide-open eyes looking at
the darkness, and conjuring out of it visions of love and war, and the
world-wide empire which she believed to be now almost within her grasp.
In all these visions, two figures stood out prominently--those of Serge
and Alan, her lover that had been and the lover that was to be,--if
only the elixir did its work as its discoverer had said it would.

As such thoughts as these passed through her brain, a new and perhaps
a nobler conception of her mission of revenge took possession of her.
In the past, Natasha had won the love of the man whose genius had made
possible, nay, irresistible, the triumph of that revolution which had
subverted the throne of her ancestors, and sent the last of the Tsars
of Russia to die like a felon in chains amidst the snows of Siberia.

What more magnificent vengeance could she, the last surviving daughter
of the Romanoffs, win than the enslavement of the man descended not
only from Natasha and Richard Arnold, but also from that Alan Tremayne
whose name he bore, and who, as first President of the Anglo-Saxon
Federation, had ensured the victory of the Western races over the
Eastern?

The empire of freedom and peace, which Richard Arnold had won for
Natasha’s sake, this son of the line of Natas should convert, at her
bidding, into an empire such as she longed to rule over,--an empire in
which men should be her slaves and women her handmaidens. For her sake
the wave of Destiny should flow back again; she would be the Semiramis
of a new despotism.

What was the freedom or the happiness of the mass of mankind to her?
If she could raise herself above them, and put her foot upon their
necks, why should she not do so? By force the leaders of the Terror had
overthrown the despotisms of the Old World; why should not she employ
the self-same force to seat herself, with the man she loved in spite of
all her hereditary hatred, upon the throne of the world, and reign with
him in that glorious land whose beauties had been revealed to her in
the vision which surely had been something more than a dream?

Thus thinking and dreaming, and illumining the darkness with her own
visions of glories to come, she lay in a kind of ecstasy, until a knock
at the door warned her that the time for dreaming had passed and the
hour for action had arrived.

A brief half-hour sufficed for her toilet, and she entered the room
of the hotel, in which Serge was awaiting her, dressed to perfection
in her plain, clinging robe of royal purple, and self-composed as
though she had passed the night in the most innocent and dreamless of
slumbers. She submitted to his greeting kiss with as good a grace as
possible, and yet with an inward shrinking which almost amounted to
loathing, born of the visions which were still floating in her mind.

She shuddered almost invisibly as he released her from his embrace, and
then the bright blood rose to her cheeks, and a sudden light shone in
her eyes, as the thought possessed her, that not many hours would pass
before a far nobler lover would take her in his arms, and would press
sweeter kisses upon her lips,--the lips which had sworn fealty and
devotion to the enemies of his race.

Serge, with the true egotism of the lover, took the blush to himself,
and said, with a laugh of boyish frankness--

“Travelling and Russian air seem to agree with your Majesty. Evidently
you have slept well your first night on Russian soil. I was half
afraid that what happened yesterday, and your conversation with that
golden-winged braggart from Aeria, would have sufficiently disturbed
you to give you a more or less sleepless night, but you look as fresh
and as lovely as though you had slept in the most perfect peace at
home.”

The anger that these unthinking words awoke in her soul, brought back
the bright flush to Olga’s cheeks and the light into her eyes, and
again Serge mistook the sign, as indeed he might well have done; and
so he entirely mistook the meaning of her words when she replied, with
a laugh, of the true significance of which he had not the remotest
conception--

“On the contrary, how was it possible that I could have anything
but the sweetest sleep and the most pleasant dreams, after such a
delightful journey and the making of such pleasant acquaintances?
Do you not think the Fates have favoured us beyond our wildest
expectations, in thus bringing our enemies so unconsciously across our
path at the very outset of our campaign against them?

“But really, these Aerians are delightful fellows. No, don’t frown at
me like that, because you know as well as I do, that in that chivalrous
good-nature of theirs lies our best hope of success.”

As she spoke she went up to him, and laid her two hands upon his
shoulder, and went on looking up into his eyes with a seductive
softness in hers.

“I am afraid I made you terribly jealous yesterday; but really, Serge,
you must remember that in diplomacy, and diplomacy alone, lies our only
chance of advantage in the circumstances which the kindly Fates appear
to have specially created for our benefit.

“The time for you to act will come later on, and when it comes, I know
you will acquit yourself like the true Romanoff that you are; but for
the present--well, you know these Aerians are men, and where diplomacy
alone is in the question, it is better that a woman should deal with
them. You will trust me for the present,--won’t you, Serge?”

For all answer, he took her face between his hands, put her head back,
and kissed her, saying as he released her--

“Yes, darling; I will trust you not only now, but for ever. You are
wiser than I am in these things. Do as you please; I will obey.”

As he spoke, the door opened, and an attendant came in with two little
cups of coffee on a silver salver. He placed it on the table, told
them that breakfast would be ready for them in the morning-room in ten
minutes, and retired. As they sipped their coffee, Olga said to Serge--

“Now, we shall meet our enemies at breakfast, and I want you to be a
great deal more cordial and friendly than you were yesterday. Our own
feelings concern ourselves alone, but in our outward conduct we owe
something to the sacred cause which we both have at heart. You can
imagine how great a sacrifice I am making in my relations with those
whom I have been taught to hate from my cradle.

“I can see as well as you do, perhaps better, that this future ruler of
Aeria admires me in his own boyish way. If I can bring myself to appear
complaisant, surely it is not too much to ask you to look upon it with
indifference, or even with interest,--a brotherly interest, you know;
for you must remember that he knows me only as your sister.

“Now, I want you to ask them to come and have breakfast with us at
our table, and to exert yourself to appear agreeable to them, even as
I shall; and above all things, promise me that you will fall in with
any suggestions that I may make as regards our trip in this wonderful
air-ship which we are to make to-morrow.

“There is no time now to explain to you what I mean, but I swear to
you, by the blood that flows in both our veins, that if I can only
carry through, without any let or hindrance, the plans that I have
already formed--that before forty-eight hours have passed that air-ship
shall no longer be under Alan Arnoldson’s command.”

He looked at her for a moment with almost incredulous admiration. She
returned his inquiring glance with a steady, unwavering gaze, which
made suspicion impossible. All his life he had grown up to look upon
her as sharing with him the one hope that was left of restoring the
ancient fortunes of their family. More than this they had been lovers
ever since either of them knew the meaning of love.

How then could he have dreamt that behind so fair an appearance lay
as dark and treacherous a design as the brain of an ambitious woman
had ever conceived? Intoxicated by her beauty and the memory of
his lifelong love, he took a couple of steps towards her, took her
unresisting into his arms again, and said passionately--

“Give me another kiss, darling, and on your lips I will swear to trust
you always and do your bidding even to the death.”

She returned his kiss with a passion so admirably simulated that his
resolve was thrice strengthened by it, and then she released herself
gently from his embrace, saying--

“Even so, unto the death if needs be,--as I shall serve our sacred
cause to the end, cost what it may! Come, it is time that we went down
to breakfast.”

FOOTNOTE:

[3] Such a poison as this is no figment of the imagination. It has
been known to Oriental adepts in poisoning for many centuries, and the
Borghias were certainly familiar with it. A kindred drug was used by
the Russian agents who kidnapped the late Prince Alexander of Bulgaria,
though in his case the injury was permanent. It reduced him from one
of the most able and daring princes in Europe to a mental and moral
cripple, who was perfectly content to live in the obscurity to which
his enemies had consigned him.




CHAPTER VII. THE SPELL OF CIRCE


BREAKFAST passed off very pleasantly, and by the time it was over Serge
was upon much better terms with the two Aerians than he had been on the
previous day. He had taken Olga’s warning and appeal to heart, and he
had done so all the more easily for the reason that he felt somewhat
ashamed of himself for the ill-temper and bad manners of which he had
been guilty, and which their two new acquaintances had repaid with such
dignified courtesy and good humour.

His frankly-expressed apology was accepted with such perfect good
nature, unmixed with even a suspicion of condescension, that he felt at
ease with them at once, and even began to regret that his destiny made
it impossible for him to be their friend instead of their enemy.

The discussion of their plans for the day occupied the rest of
the meal. They had a whole twenty-four hours before them, for the
_Ithuriel_ would not be back from San Francisco, where she was going
when she passed the train, until ten o’clock on the following morning,
so it was arranged that they would begin the day with a sleigh drive--a
luxury which not even Aeria could afford,--then the two Aerians were to
see the sights of the city under the guidance of Olga and Serge, and
perform the chief of the duties that brought them to St. Petersburg.

After luncheon they were to have a couple of hours on the ice in the
park, into which the Yusupoff Gardens of the nineteenth century had
been expanded, after which they would see the ice palaces illuminated
at dusk, then dine, and finish the day at the opera. When the air-ship
arrived, a rapid flight was to be taken across Europe over the Alps
and back to Moscow, across Italy, Greece, and the Black Sea, which
would enable Alan and Alexis to deposit their guests with their Moscow
friends soon after nightfall.

The sleigh drive took the form of a race, on the plain stretching
towards Lake Ladoga, between the two troikas driven by Serge and Olga,
who had so managed matters that she had Alan for a companion, and who,
not a little to Serge’s disgust, won it, after a desperate struggle,
by a head. The race was a revelation to the two Aerians, and when Alan
handed Olga out of the sleigh after they had trotted quietly back to
the city, the interest which she had excited in him during the railway
journey had already begun to deepen into a sentiment much more pleasing
and dangerous.

The rest of the morning was devoted to driving about the city, and to
paying a visit to the ancient fortress of Peter and Paul, which alone
of all the fortress prisons of Russia had been preserved intact as
a fitting monument of fallen despotism and a warning to all future
generations. Once at least in his life every man in Aeria visited this
fortress, as good Moslems visit Mecca, and this was the duty which Alan
and Alexis were now performing.

In one of the horrible dungeons deep down in the foundations of the
fortress, under the waters of the Neva, they were shown a massive gold
plate riveted on to the rough, damp, stone wall. Its surface was kept
brightly polished, and it looked strangely incongruous with the gloom
and squalor of the cell. On it stood an inscription in platinum letters
let into the gold:

“_In this cell Israel di Murska, afterwards known as Natas, the Master
of the Terror, was imprisoned in the year 1881, previous to his exile
to Siberia by order of Alexander Romanoff the last of the Tyrants of
Russia._”

With feelings wide asunder as love and hate, or gratitude and revenge,
the descendant of Natas and the daughter of the Romanoffs stood in
front of this memorial plate, and read the simple and yet pregnant
words. Alan and Alexis both bent their heads as if in reverence for
a moment, but Olga and Serge gazed at it with heads erect and eyes
glowing with the fires of anger, in a silence that was broken by Alan
saying--

“Liberty surely never had a stranger temple than this, and yet this
dungeon is to us what the Tomb of the Prophet is to the Moslems. I
wonder what the Last of the Tsars would have thought if he could have
foreseen even a little part of all that sprang from the tragedy that
was begun in this dismal cell?”

“He would have killed him,” said Olga, carried away for the moment by
an irrepressible burst of passion, “and then there would have been no
Natas, no Terror, and no Terrorist air-fleet, and Alexander Romanoff
would have died master of the world instead of a chained felon in
Siberia! Your ancestor, Richard Arnold, would have starved in his
garret, or killed himself in despair, as many other geniuses did before
him, and”--

“And the world would have remained the slave-market of tyrants and the
shambles of murderous men. Let us thank God that Natas lived to do his
work!” said Alan in a tone of solemn reverence, wondering not a little
at Olga’s strange outburst, and yet not having the remotest idea of its
true cause.

Neither Olga nor Serge could reply to this speech. They would have
bitten their tongues through rather than say “Amen” to it, and
anything else they dare not have said. After a moment more of somewhat
constrained silence, Olga turned towards the door and said--

“Come! Let us go, the air of this place poisons me!”

When they got on the ice after lunch, Olga was not a little astonished
to find that, perfect as she and Serge were in skating, the two Aerians
were little inferior to them, despite the fact that they had just left
their tropical home for the first time.

“How is this?” said Olga to Alan, as, hand in hand, they went sweeping
over the ice in long, easy curves. “I suppose you manufacture your ice
for skating purposes in Aeria?”

“No,” he said. “Some of our mountains rise above the snow-line, and in
their upper valleys they have little lakes, so, when we want a skating
surface, we just pump the water up and flood them and let it freeze.
Besides this--I don’t think there is any harm in my telling you that we
have a sort of wheel-skate which runs quite as easily as steel does on
ice.”

“Ah,” said Olga, possessed by a sudden thought. “Then I suppose that
is why the streets of your splendid city are so broad, and white, and
smooth?”

Quietly as the words were spoken, Alan’s hand tightened upon hers as he
heard them with a grip that almost made her cry out with pain. It was
some moments before he recovered from his astonishment sufficiently to
ask her the meaning of her unexpected and amazing question. She greeted
his question with a saucy smile and a mocking, upward glance, and said
quietly--

“Simply because I have seen them!”

It was a bow drawn at a venture. She had suddenly determined to test
the truth of her vision and hazard a description from it of the unknown
land.

“You have seen them?” cried Alan, now more amazed than ever. “But,
pardon me, even at the risk of contradicting you I must tell you that
that is impossible. No one not a born Aerian has set eyes on Aeria for
more than a hundred years.”

“So you think perhaps,” she said in the same quiet, half-mocking tone.
“Well now, listen and tell me whether this description is entirely
incorrect. If it is correct you need say nothing, if it is not you can
tell me so.”

And then she began, while he listened in a silence of utter
stupefaction, and described the valley and city of Aeria as she had
seen them in her dream-vision. When she had finished he was silent for
several moments, and then said in a voice that told her that she had
really seen it as though with the eyes of flesh--

“What are you? A sorceress, or--No, you cannot be an Aerian girl in
disguise, for none ever leaves the country till she is married.”

“Then as I cannot be the latter,” said Olga, “you must, I suppose,
consider me the former. Now I shall take my revenge for your reticence
in the train yesterday, and tell you no more. We are quits to that
extent at least, and now we will go back to my brother, if you please.”

With this Alan was forced to be content. Indeed, he could not have
pursued the subject without breaking his oath, and so a few minutes
later it came about that Olga and Serge were skating together in an
unfrequented part of the lake, and here Olga took an opportunity that
she might not have again of telling him as much as she thought fit for
him to know of her plans for capturing the air-ship on the following
day.

“I needn’t tell you,” said she, “that this air-ship is worth everything
to us, and that therefore we must be ready to go to any extremities to
get possession of it. It is the first step to the command of the world,
for you heard Alan say to-day that she is the swiftest vessel in the
whole Aerian fleet.”

“But to do that we must first overcome the crew,” said Serge, looking
anxiously about to see if there was anyone within earshot. “How are we
going to do that--two of us against ten or a dozen, armed with powers
we know nothing about?”

“We must find means to drug them--to poison them, if necessary, during
to-morrow’s voyage,” came the reply, in a whisper that made his heart
stand still for the moment with utter horror.

“Good God! is that really necessary? It seems a horrible thing to do,
when they are trusting us and taking us as their guests,” he said in a
low, trembling tone.

“Yes,” she replied, with a well simulated shudder; “it is horrible, I
know, but it is necessary. Remember that we have solemnly sworn war to
the knife against this people, and that, armed as they are, all open
assault is impossible; therefore they must be struck in secret, or not
at all.

“Now listen. I have brought with me a flask which my grandfather gave
me a day or two before he died. It contains enough of a tasteless,
powerful narcotic to send twenty people to sleep so that nothing will
wake them for several hours. I will give you half of this to-night and
keep half myself, and one of us must find an opportunity to get the
crew to take it in their wine, or whatever they may drink, for they are
sure to have one or two meals while we are on board.

“To-night I will send instructions in cypher to the Lossenskis in
Vorobièvŏ to tell them that as many as possible of the Friends must be
ready for action by eight to-morrow night, and must wait, if necessary,
night after night till we come. If all goes well we shall select the
new crew of the _Ithuriel_ from them before we see two more sunrises.
In fact, by the time we return from our voyage we must have absolute
control of the vessel.

“Such an opportunity as this will never offer itself again, and I, for
my part, am determined to risk anything, not excepting life itself,
to take the best advantage of it. It would be madness to allow any
scruples to stand in our way when the Empire of the Air is almost
within our grasp.”

“And none shall, so far as I am concerned,” replied Serge in a low,
steady voice that showed that his horror at the deed they contemplated
had succumbed, at least for the moment, to the tremendous temptation
offered by the prospect of success.

“Spoken like a true Romanoff!” said Olga, looking up at him with a
sweet smile of approval. “As the deed is so shall the reward be. Now
we must get back to our friends. We will find a means to get an hour
together before to-night to arrange matters further, and we will have
Alan and Alexis to supper with us after the opera, and then I will
begin my share of the work. Once the air-ship is ours, we can hide
her in one of the ravines of the Caucasus, hold a council of war in
the villa at Vorobièvŏ, and set about the work of the Revolution in
regular fashion.”

The rest of the day was spent in accordance with the plans already
agreed on. Olga and Serge had tea together in their private room before
going to the theatre, and put the finishing touches to their plans for
the momentous venture of the following day; and Alan and Alexis, all
unsuspecting, accepted their invitation to supper after their return
from the opera-house.

The seemingly innocent and pleasant little supper, which passed off so
merrily in the private sitting-room occupied by Olga and Serge, had
but one incident which calls for description here, and even that was
unnoticed not only by the two guests, but by Serge himself.

Just before midnight, Olga proposed that, in accordance with the
ancient custom of Russia, they should drink a glass of punch, brewed
in the Russian style; and as she volunteered to brew it herself, it is
needless to say that the invitation was at once accepted.

The apparatus stood upon a little table in one corner of the room. For
a single minute her back was turned to the three sitting at the table
in the centre; her share in the conversation was not interrupted for
an instant, and no one saw a couple of drops of sparkling, blue liquid
fall into each of three of the glasses from the little flask that she
held concealed in the palm of her hand, and when she turned round
with the little silver tray on which the glasses stood, the flask was
resting at the bottom of her dress-pocket.

She handed a glass to each of them, and then took her own up from the
side-table where she had left it. She went to her place, and, holding
her glass up, said simply--

“Here’s to that which each of us has nearest at heart!” and drank.

All followed suit, and as the clock chimed twelve a few minutes later,
the two Aerians took their leave, and left Olga and Serge alone.

“You said you would begin your share of the work to-night,” said he, as
soon as they were alone. “Have you done so?”

“If you do your work to-morrow as successfully as I have done mine
to-night,” replied Olga, looking steadily into his eyes as she spoke,
“the Empire of the Air will no longer be theirs.”

Serge returned her glance in silence. He wanted to speak, but some
superior power seemed to have laid a spell upon his will, and as long
as Olga’s burning eyes were fixed on his, his tongue was paralysed,
nay, more than this, his mind even refused to shape the sentences that
he would have liked to speak. Olga held him mute before her for several
minutes, and then she said quietly, still keeping her eyes fixed on
his--

“Now speak, and tell me what you would do if I told you that I
preferred Alan as a lover to you, and that I would rather a thousand
times be his slave and plaything than your wife.”

“I should say that you are the mistress of my destiny, that I have no
law but your will, and that it is for you to give me joy or pain, as
seems good to you.”

Serge spoke the unnatural words in a calm, passionless tone, rather
as though he were speaking in a sort of hypnotic trance than in full
command of his senses. A strange, subtle influence had been stealing
through his veins and over his nerves ever since he had drunk the
liquor which Olga had prepared.

He seemed perfectly incapable of resisting any suggestion that
might have been made to him. His will was paralysed, but even the
consciousness of this fact was fading from his mind. All his passions
were absolutely in abeyance. Even his love for Olga failed to inspire
him with any jealous resentment of words which half an hour before
would have goaded him to frenzy. He heard them as though they concerned
someone else.

The ruin of his life’s hopes, which they implied so distinctly, had
no meaning for him; so far as his volition was concerned he was an
automaton, ready to obey without question the dictates of her imperious
will.

“That will do,” said Olga, in the tone of a mistress addressing a
servant. “Now go to bed and sleep well, and remember the work that lies
before you to-morrow.”

“I will,” said Serge, and without another word, without attempting to
take his customary good-night kiss, he walked out of the room, leaving
her to the enjoyment of her victory and the contemplation of triumphs
that now seemed almost certain to her.

Punctual to its appointed time, the air-ship appeared in mid-air over
the city a few minutes before ten the next morning. It sank slowly and
gracefully to within a hundred feet of the ground over the garden of
the hotel in which the two Aerians and their new friends were staying.

Signals were rapidly exchanged as before between Alan and one of the
crew standing on the afterpart of the deck. Then it sank down on to one
of the snow-covered lawns of the garden, a door opened in the glass
covering of the deck, a short, light, folding ladder with hand-rails
dropped out of it to the ground, and Alan, springing up three or four
of the steps, held out his hand to Olga, saying--

“Come along! we shall have a crowd round us in another minute.”

This was true, for the appearance of the air-ship had already attracted
hundreds of people in the streets, and many of them had already made
their way into the gardens of the hotel in order to get a closer view
of her.

Olga, feeling not a little like a queen ascending a throne, ran lightly
up the steps, followed by Serge and Alexis. The moment they got on to
the deck the ladder was drawn up, the glass door slid noiselessly to,
and Alan at once presented them to his friends on deck.

While the introductions were taking place, the wings of the air-ship
began to vibrate and undulate with a wavy motion from forward aft, at
first slowly, and then more and more swiftly, her propeller whirled
round, and the wonderful craft rose without a jar or a tremor from the
earth. Then the propellers began to revolve faster and faster, and
she shot forward and upward over the trees amid the admiring murmurs
of the crowds in the streets about the hotel. But little did those
light-hearted sightseers dream, any more than did the captain and
crew of the _Ithuriel_, that this aerial pleasure-cruise was destined
to mark the beginning of a tragedy that would involve the whole of
civilised humanity in a catastrophe so colossal that the like of it had
never been seen or even dreamt of on earth before. From the wit of a
woman and the weakness of a man were now to be evolved the elements of
destruction that ere long should lay the world in ruins.




CHAPTER VIII. THE NEW TERROR.


FIVE years had passed since the _Ithuriel_ had vanished like a cloud
from the sky, leaving, so far as the air-ship itself was concerned, no
more trace than if she had soared into space beyond the sphere of the
earth’s attraction and departed to another planet.

All the rest of the winter of 2030-1, tidings had been sought most
anxiously, but in vain, by the kindred and friends of those who
had formed her crew during the ill-fated voyage on which she had
disappeared into the unknown. The earth had been ransacked east and
west, north and south, by the aerial fleet in search of the missing
_Ithuriel_, but without result.

She had been traced to St. Petersburg and Vorobièvŏ, but there, like
the phantom craft of the Flying Dutchman, she had melted into thin
air so far as any result of the search could show. But when the snows
thawed on the mountains of Norway, and the bodies of eight Aerians
who had formed her crew on her last fatal voyage were discovered by a
couple of foresters in a melting snowdrift on the very spot on which
Vladimir Romanoff had been killed with his companions by order of the
Supreme Council, a thrill both of horror and excitement ran through the
whole civilised world.

That their death was intimately connected with the disappearance of the
air-ship was instantly plain to everyone, and the only inference which
could be drawn from such a conclusion was that at last some power,
silent, mysterious, and intangible, had come into existence prepared to
dispute the empire of the world with the Aerians, and, more than this,
had already struck them a deadly blow which it was utterly beyond their
power to return.

The effects of this discovery were exactly what Olga had anticipated.
From the first time since their ancestors had conquered the earth and
made war impossible, the supreme authority of the Aerians was called
into question. It was quite beyond their power to conceal the fact
that their flagship had either deserted or been captured, incredible
as either alternative seemed. The Central Council therefore wisely
accepted the situation, and immediately after the discovery of the
bodies the President published a full account of her last voyage, as
far as was known, in the columns of _The European Review_, the leading
newspaper of the day in the Old World.

The only clue to the fate of the air-ship seemed to lie in the fact
that at St. Petersburg a youth and young girl with whom Alan and Alexis
had made friends on their journey from London had gone on board the
_Ithuriel_ for a trip to the clouds. But this led to nothing. Who was
to recognise the daughter of the Tsar and the last male scion of the
House of Romanoff in Olga and Serge Ivanitch, who had never been known
as anything but the orphan grandchildren of Paul Ivanitch, the sculptor.

More than this, even to entertain for a moment the supposition that
this boy and girl--for they were known to be little more--could by any
possible means have overcome the ten Aerians, armed as they were with
their terrible death-power, and then have vanished into space with the
air-ship would have been to shatter the supremacy of the Aerians at a
blow.

Even as it was, the wildest and most dangerous rumours began to fly
from lip to lip and nation to nation all round the world, and for the
first time since the days of the Terror the “Earth Folk” began to think
of the Aerians rather as men like themselves than as the superior race
which they had hitherto regarded them.

The President of Aeria at once issued a proclamation asking, in the
interests of peace and public security, for the assistance of all the
civilised peoples of the earth in his efforts to discover the lost
air-ship, and also conditionally declaring a war of extermination on
any Power or nation which either concealed the whereabouts of the
_Ithuriel_ or gave any assistance to those who might be in possession
of her. This proclamation was published simultaneously in all the
newspapers of the world, and produced a most profound sensation
wherever it was read.

The terrible magic of the ominous word “war” roused at once the
deathless spirit of combativeness that had lain dormant for all these
years. It was impossible not to recognise the fact that this mysterious
power, which had come unseen into existence and had snatched the finest
vessel in the Aerian navy from the possession of the Council with such
daring and skill that not a trace of her was to be found, could have
but one object in view, and that was to dispute the Empire of the Air
with the descendants of the Terrorists.

This could mean nothing else than the outbreak, sooner or later, of
a strife that would be a veritable battle of the gods, a struggle
which would shake the world and convulse human society throughout its
whole extent. The general sense of peace and security in which men had
lived for four generations was shattered at a stroke by the universal
apprehension of the blow that all men felt to be inevitable, but which
would be struck no man knew when or how.

A year passed, and nothing happened. The world went on its way in
peace, the Aerian patrols circled the earth with a moving girdle of
aerial cruisers, ready to give instantaneous warning of the first
reappearance of the lost _Ithuriel_; but nothing was discovered. If
she still existed, she was so skilfully concealed as to be practically
beyond the reach of human search.

Then without the slightest warning, while Anglo-Saxondom was in
the midst of the hundred and thirtieth celebration of the Festival
of Deliverance, the civilised world was started out of the sense of
security into which it had once more begun to fall by the publication,
in _The European Review_, of the following piece of intelligence:--

  A MYSTERY OF THE SEA.

  DISAPPEARANCE OF THREE TRANSPORTS.

  It is our duty to chronicle the astounding and disquieting fact that
  the three transports, _Massilia_, _Ceres_, and _Astræa_, belonging
  respectively to the Eastern, Southern, and Western Services, have
  disappeared.

  The first left New York for Southampton four days ago, and should
  have arrived yesterday. The Central Atlantic signalling station
  reported her “All well” at midday on Tuesday, and this is the last
  news that has been heard of her. The second was reported from Cape
  Verd Station on her voyage from Cape Town to Marseilles, and there
  all trace of her is lost, as she never reached the Canary Station.
  The third was last heard of from Station No. 2 in the Indian Ocean,
  which is situated at the intersection of the 80th meridian of east
  longitude with the 20th parallel of south latitude; she was on her
  way from Melbourne to Alexandria, and should have touched at Aden two
  days ago.

  The disappearance of these three magnificent vessels, filled as
  they were with passengers and loaded with cargoes of enormous value
  both in money and material, can only be described as a calamity of
  world-wide importance. Unhappily, too, the mystery which surrounds
  their fate invests it with a sinister aspect which it is impossible
  to ignore.

  That their loss is the result of accident or shipwreck it is almost
  impossible to believe. They represented the latest triumphs of modern
  shipbuilding. All were over forty thousand tons in measurement, and
  had engines capable of driving them at a speed of fifty nautical
  miles an hour through the water.

  For fifty years no ocean transport has suffered shipwreck or even
  serious injury, so completely has modern engineering skill triumphed
  over the now conquered elements. Added to this, no storms of even
  ordinary violence have occurred along their routes. After passing the
  stations at which they were last reported, they vanished, and that is
  all that is known about them.

  The President of Aeria has desired us to state that he has ordered
  his submarine squadrons stationed at Zanzibar, Ascension, and Fayal,
  to explore the ocean beds along the routes pursued by the transports.
  Until we receive news of the result of their investigation it will be
  well to refrain from further comment on this mysterious misfortune
  which has suddenly and unexpectedly fallen upon the world, and in
  doing so we shall only express the fervent desire of all civilised
  men and women when we express the hope that this calamity, grievous
  as it is, may not be the precursor of even greater misfortunes to
  come.

It would be almost impossible for us of the present day to form any
adequate estimate of the thrill of horror and consternation which this
brief and temperately-worded narration of the mysterious loss of the
three transports sent through the world of the twenty-first century.
Not only was it the first event of the kind that had occurred within
the memory of living men, but, saving the loss of the _Ithuriel_, it
was the first dark cloud that had appeared in the clear heaven of peace
and prosperity for more than a hundred and twenty years.

But terrible as was the state of excitement and anxiety into which it
threw the nations of the world, it gave place to a still deeper horror
and bewilderment when day after day passed and no tidings were received
of the three submarine squadrons, consisting of three vessels each,
which had been sent to inquire into the fate of the transports. They
dived beneath the waves of the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic, and that
was the last that was ever seen of them.

Month after month went by, every week bringing news of some fresh
calamity at sea--of the disappearance of transport after transport
along the great routes of ocean travel, of squadron after squadron
of submarine cruisers which plunged into the abysses of the sea to
discover and attack the mysterious enemy of mankind that lay hidden in
the depths, and which never reappeared on the surface. Whether they
were captured or destroyed it was impossible to say, simply because no
member of their crews ever returned to tell the tale.

Whatever doubt there had been as to the existence or hostile nature
of this ocean terror that was paralysing the trade of the world was
speedily set at rest by a discovery made in the spring of the year 2032
by a party of divers who descended to repair a fault in one of the
Atlantic cables about two hundred miles west of Ireland.

There, lying in the Atlantic ooze, they found the shattered fragments
of the _Sirius_, a transport which had disappeared about a month
before. The great hull of the splendid vessel had been torn asunder by
some explosive of tremendous power, and, more than this, her hold had
been rifled of all its treasure and the most valuable portions of its
cargo. After this there no longer remained any doubt that the depths
of the ocean were the hunting-ground of some foe of society, one at
least of whose objects was plunder.

The President and Council of Aeria found themselves at last confronted
and baffled by an enemy who could neither be seen nor reached in his
hiding-place, wherever it might be, beneath the surface of the waters.
Thousands of lives had been sacrificed, and treasure in millions had
been lost by the end of the first year of what men had now come to call
the New Terror.

New fleets of submarine cruisers were built and held in readiness
in all the great ports of the world, and these scoured the ocean
depths in all directions with no further result than the swift and
silent annihilation of vessel after vessel by some power which struck
irresistibly out of the darkness and then vanished the moment that the
blow had been delivered.

As yet, however, no enemy appeared on land or in the air, nor were any
tidings heard of the lost _Ithuriel_, or her captain and lieutenant.
The Aerians had replaced her with ten almost identical vessels and had
raised the strength of their navy to two hundred and fifty vessels,
one hundred of which were kept in readiness in Aeria, while the other
hundred and fifty were distributed in small squadrons at twenty-four
stations, half of which were in the Western hemisphere and half in the
Eastern.

The submarine warfare had now practically ceased. Nearly two hundred
vessels belonging to Aeria, Britain, and America, had been captured or
destroyed by an enemy which at the period at which this portion of the
narrative opens was as supreme throughout the realm of the waters as
the Aerians were in the air. To the menace of the air-ships this hidden
foe replied by severing all the oceanic cables and paralysing the
communication of the world save overland and through the air.

Thus, at the end of six years after the capture of the _Ithuriel_ by
Olga Romanoff more than half the work of those who had brought peace on
earth after the Armageddon of 1904 had been undone. All over the world,
not even excepting in Aeria, men lived in a state of constant anxiety
and apprehension, not knowing where or how their invisible enemy would
strike them next.

The Masters of the World were supreme no longer, for a new power had
arisen which, within the limits of the seas, had proved itself stronger
than they were. Communication between continent and continent had
almost ceased, save where the Aerian air-ships were employed. In six
short years the peace of the world had been destroyed and the stability
of society shaken.

Among the nations of Anglo-Saxondom the change had manifested itself by
a swift decadence into the worst forms of unbridled democracy. Men’s
minds were unhinged, and the most extravagant opinions found acceptance.

Parliaments had already been made annual and were fast sinking into
machines for registering the ever-changing opinions of rival factions
and their leaders. Sovereigns and presidents were little better than
popular puppets existing on sufferance. In short, all that Paul
Romanoff had prophesied was coming to pass more rapidly than even he
had expected so far as the area of the Anglo-Saxon Federation was
concerned.

In the Moslem Empire affairs were different, but no less threatening.
The Sultan Khalid the Magnificent, as he was justly styled by his
admirers, saw clearly that the time must come when this mysterious
enemy would emerge from the waters and attempt the conquest of the
land, and for three years past he had been manufacturing weapons
and forming armies against the day of battle which he considered
inevitable, and which he longed for rather than dreaded.

Thus, while Anglo-Saxondom was lapsing into the anarchy of unrestrained
democracy, the Moslem monarch was preparing to take advantage of the
issue of events which, skilfully turned to account, might one day make
him master of the world.

Such was the condition of affairs throughout the world on the 1st of
May 2036, and then the long-expected came in strange and terrible
shape. At midnight a blaze of light was seen far up in the sky over
the city of Aeria. A moment later something that must have been a
small block of metal fell from a tremendous height in the square in the
centre of the city, and was shivered to fragments by the force of its
fall.

On the splintered pavement where it fell was found a little roll of
parchment addressed to the President. It was taken to him, and he
opened it and read these words:--

  To Alan Arnold, President of Aeria.

  If you want your son Alan and his friend Alexis, go and look for them
  on an island which you will find near the intersection of the 40th
  parallel of south latitude and the 120th meridian of west longitude
  in the South Pacific. They have served my turn, and I have done with
  them. Perhaps they will be able to tell you how I have conquered the
  Empire of the Sea. Before long I shall have wrested the Empire of the
  Air from you as well.

  OLGA ROMANOFF.




CHAPTER IX. THE FLIGHT OF THE “REVENGE.”


ASTOUNDING, almost stupefying, as were the tidings conveyed by this
letter, which had dropped like a veritable bolt from the blue, the
challenge contained in the last sentence and the ominous name with
which it was signed were matters of infinitely greater and more instant
importance.

Alan Arnold was the responsible President of Aeria first and a father
afterwards. He lost not a moment in speculating upon the strange fate
of his son and first-born. The safety not only of Aeria, but of the
world, demanded his first attention, and he gave it.

Crushing the missive in his hand he took two swift strides to a
telephone in the wall of the room in which he had received the message
from the skies and delivered several rapid orders through it. If they
had been the words of a demi-god instead of those of a man their
effects could scarcely have been more instantaneous or marvellous.

On a hundred mountain-peaks all round the great valley of Aeria
enormous lights blazed out simultaneously, flinging long streams
of radiance, dazzling and intense, for miles into the sky towards
all points of the compass, and at the same moment fifty air-ships
soared up from their stations all round the mountains, flashing their
search-lights ahead and astern in all directions.

[Illustration: FLINGING LONG STREAMS OF RADIANCE FOR MILES INTO THE
SKY. _Page 83._]

It was a scene of unearthly wonder and magnificence, a scene such as
could only have been made possible by the triumphant genius of a race
of men, heirs of all the best that earth could give them, who had
turned the favour of circumstance to the utmost advantage.

Three minutes sufficed for the aerial cruisers to clear the mountains,
and as they did so the wide-sweeping rays of fifty search-lights,
assisted by the blazing orbs which crowned every mountain-peak,
illuminated the darkness for many miles outside the valley. In the
midst of the sea of light thus projected through the semi-darkness
of the starlit heavens the flying shape of an air-ship was detected
speeding away to the south-eastward.

Instantly the prows of the whole squadron were turned towards her,
and the first aerial race in the history of the world began. The
pursuing air-ships spread themselves out in a huge semicircle, at the
extremities of which were the two swiftest vessels in the fleet, almost
exact counterparts of the lost _Ithuriel_. One of these bore the same
name as the stolen flag-ship, and the other had been named the _Ariel_,
after the first vessel built by Richard Arnold, the conqueror of the
air, a hundred and thirty-two years before.

These two vessels carried ten guns each, and were capable of a maximum
speed of five hundred miles an hour, the highest velocity that it had
so far been found possible to attain. The others were somewhat smaller
craft, mounting eight guns each, and capable of a speed of about four
hundred miles an hour. The chase, either because she could not travel
faster or for some hidden reason, allowed the pursuing squadron to gain
upon her until she was only some five miles ahead of its two foremost
vessels, which were travelling at the highest speed attainable by the
whole flotilla.

She showed no lights, and so in order to keep her in view it was
necessary for her pursuers to keep their search-lights constantly
sweeping the skies ahead of them, lest they should lose sight of her in
the semi-darkness.

This placed the Aerian fleet at a serious disadvantage, which very
soon became apparent, for before the pursuit had lasted an hour the
chase opened fire with her stern guns and shell after shell charged
with some terrific explosive began bursting along the line of the
pursuing squadron, producing fearful concussions in the atmosphere, and
causing the pursuers to rock and toss in the shaken air like ships on a
stormy sea.

The _Ithuriel_ and the _Ariel_, at the two extremities of the
semicircle, replied with a rapid converging fire from their bow guns
in the hope of reaching the now invisible chase. All the projectiles
were, of course, time-shells, but the speed at which the vessels were
travelling not only made the aim hopeless, but caused such an in-rush
of air into the muzzles of the guns that the projectiles, checked in
their course through the barrels, flew wild and exploded at random,
often in dangerous proximity to the vessels themselves.

Hence, after about a dozen shots had been fired, the commanders of the
two vessels found themselves compelled to cease firing, and to trust to
speed alone to overtake the enemy. On the other hand, this disadvantage
to them was all in favour of the chase, which was able to work her
two stern guns without the slightest impediment. Before long she got
the range of her pursuers, and at last a shell burst fairly under
one of the smaller vessels. A brilliant flash of light, blue as the
lightning-bolt, illuminated her for an instant, and in that instant her
companions saw her stop and shiver like a stricken bird in mid-air, and
then plunge downwards like a stone to the earth.

Olga Romanoff, standing on the deck of what had once been the
_Ithuriel_, flag-ship of the Aerian fleet, and now renamed the
_Revenge_, saw this catastrophe, as the others had done, through her
night-glasses. She lowered them from her eyes, and said to a dark-eyed,
black-haired young fellow, who was commanding the gun that had done the
execution--

“Bravo, Boris Lossenski! Did you sight that gun?”

Boris drew himself up and saluted, saying--

“Yes, Majesty, I did.”

“Then for that you shall be a Prince henceforth, and if you can bring
another down you shall command an air-ship of your own when this fight
is over.”

Boris saluted again, and ordered the gun to be reloaded. Before
it could be discharged a shell from the port gun, which had been
fired as Olga spoke, struck another of the Aerian vessels square on
the fore-quarter. The flash of the exploding projectile was almost
instantaneously followed by the outburst of a vast dazzling mass of
flame which illumined for the instant the whole scene of the aerial
battle.

The air-ship with all its cargo of explosives blew up like one huge
shell, and the frightful concussion of the atmosphere induced by the
explosion hurled the two vessels that were close on either side of her
like feathers into space, turning them completely over and flinging
them to the earth six thousand feet below. A few moments later they
struck the ground simultaneously, two great spouts of flame shot up
from the spots where they struck, and when the darkness closed over
them again four of the pursuing squadron had been annihilated.

“Better still, Levin Ostroff!” cried Olga, as she saw the awful effects
of this last shot. “For that you too shall be a Prince of the Empire
and command an air-ship on our next expedition. Now, Boris, let us see
if you can beat that!”

“Yes, Majesty,” said Boris again, knitting his brows and clenching
his teeth in anger at his rival’s superior success. He glanced along
the line of the pursuers and saw four of the Aerian squadron flying
close together. He brought the gun to bear upon the two inner ones,
took careful aim, and despatched the projectile on its errand of
destruction. The moment he had released it he said to the two men who
were working under him--

“Load again, quickly!”

The command was instantly obeyed, and scarcely had the explosion of
the first blazed out than a second shell was sent after it. The very
firmament seemed split in twain by the frightful results of the two
well-aimed shots, each of which had found its mark on the two inner
vessels with fatal accuracy.

Great sheets of flame leapt out in all directions from the focus of the
explosion, and in the midst of their dazzling radiance those on board
the _Revenge_ saw the two outside air-ships of the four roll over and
dive head foremost into the dark abyss below them. They struck the
earth as the others had done, and vanished into annihilation in the
midst of the momentary mist of fire.

This last catastrophe made it plain to the commanders of the _Ithuriel_
and the _Ariel_ that to continue the chase under such conditions meant
the destruction in detail of all the smaller ships of the squadron.
Those on board the _Revenge_ saw signals rapidly flash from one end of
the line, and instantaneously answered from the other end.

“Ah!” said Olga. “My Lords of the Air seem to have had enough of it for
the present. Look, the small fry are falling to the rear; our reception
has been a little too hot for them. I wonder what they are going to do
now. Cease firing, and let us watch them. You two gunners have done
gloriously and earned quite enough laurels for your first battle.”

It soon became evident that the Aerians had decided to send their
smaller craft back. From the speed of the _Revenge_, and the terrible
accuracy and destructiveness of her guns, the commanders of the
squadron were now convinced that she was either the lost _Ithuriel_, or
some vessel even superior to her, built upon the same plan.

This being so, to have continued the pursuit under such conditions with
the smaller craft would simply have been to court destruction for them
in detail. It was impossible for them to use their guns effectively at
the speed at which they were travelling, while, as had been so terribly
proved, the chase could use hers with perfect ease.

The flying fight could thus only result under present conditions in the
ignominious defeat of the squadron by the single vessel as long as she
was able to keep ahead. The only hope of success lay, therefore, in a
trial of speed and manœuvring skill between her and the _Ithuriel_ and
_Ariel_, so orders were flashed to the smaller vessels to return to
Aeria with the mournful tidings of the destruction of eight of their
number.

As they vanished into the darkness behind, Olga divined instantly the
tactics that were to be adopted. She saw the converging search-lights
of the two remaining air-ships begin to glow brighter and brighter in
the rear of the _Revenge_, proving that they had increased their speed.

“So, it is going to be a race, is it!” she said, half to herself.
“Well, we will see if we can lead them into the trap. How fast are we
going, Boris?”

He went to the engine-room, and returned saying--

“Four hundred miles an hour, Majesty.”

“Make it five,” replied Olga.

He saluted, and transmitted the order to the engineer. The lights of
the pursuers immediately began to recede again, then they seemed to
stop.

“That will do!” said Olga. “They have reached the limit of their speed.
Keep to the southward, and see that they come no nearer.”

The three air-ships were, in fact, now travelling at their utmost
speed. If anything, the advantage was slightly in favour of the
_Revenge_, thanks to the high efficiency of the motive-power which had
been applied to her in accordance with the directions left by Olga’s
father, and transmitted in the will of Paul Romanoff.

So all the rest of the night and on into the next day pursuers and
pursued sped on with fearful velocity through the air. They passed over
Africa and out above the ocean, and still on and on they swept until
the Southern Sea was crossed and the mighty ice-barrier that fences in
the South Pole gleamed out white upon the horizon.

This was passed, and still they rushed on over the dreary wastes of
Antarctica. The pole was crossed along the 40th meridian, and then they
swept northward until the smoke-cloud that crowned the crest of Mount
Erebus rose above the snow-clouds that hid the earth. The _Revenge_
headed straight towards this and swept over it, followed at a distance
of about ten miles by her pursuers.

Then with a mighty upward sweep she leapt two thousand feet higher
still, came to equilibrium, and discharged a shell downwards on to
the ice. The explosion was answered by the rising of a flotilla of
air-ships, which seemed to have sprung out of the bowels of the earth.

Thirty vessels as large as herself rose simultaneously through the
clouds and spread themselves out in a wide circle round the two Aerian
vessels, which thus found themselves surrounded by an overwhelming
force and dominated by the _Revenge_ floating far above them with her
ten guns pointed down upon them.

To an observer so placed as to be able to command a view of the
situation it would have seemed that nothing short of the surrender or
annihilation of the _Ithuriel_ and the _Ariel_ could have been the
outcome of it.

So evidently thought Olga and those in command of the Russian aerial
fleet, for, although for one brief instant the two Aerian vessels lay
at their mercy, they failed to take advantage of it, and in losing
this one precious moment they reckoned without the superior skill and
perfect control of their air-ships possessed by those of whom they
thought to make an easy prey.

What really happened took place with such stupefying suddenness that
they were taken completely off their guard. The _Ithuriel_ and the
_Ariel_ lay end on to each other in the midst of the circle of their
enemies. Each mounted ten guns, and of these every one was available.
The crews of both vessels, trained by constant practice to the highest
point of efficiency, knew exactly what to do without so much as an
order being given.

Automatically the twenty guns were trained in the twinkling of an eye,
each on a Russian vessel, and discharged simultaneously. A moment later
the two vessels sank like stones through the thick clouds below them;
and while the heavens above were shaken with the combined explosions
of the twenty projectiles, each of which had found its mark with
unerring accuracy, they had regained their equilibrium a thousand feet
from the surface of the ice, and darted away full speed northward.

To such a fearful pitch of efficiency had their guns and projectiles
been brought that, while the aim was unerring if once a fair sight was
obtained, nothing shaped by human hands could withstand the impact of
their shells without destruction. Twenty out of the thirty vessels of
the Russian fleet collapsed, and, as it were, shrivelled up under the
frightful energy of the Aerian projectiles. Twenty masses of flame
blazed out over the grey surface of the cloud-sea, and in another
moment the fragments of the vessels it had taken so many months of
labour and such wondrous skill to construct were lying scattered far
and wide over the snow and ice of the Antarctic desert.

The awful suddenness with which this destruction had been accomplished
deprived Olga and her subordinates of all power of thought for the
moment. They heard the roar of the explosions, and saw a mist of flame
burst out round them as though all the fires of Mount Erebus had broken
loose at once, and then came the silence of speechless horror and
stupefaction. It was more like the work of omnipotent fiends than of
men. The bolts of heaven themselves could have done nothing like it.

Then the moment of the shock passed, and those who survived remembered
what they ought never to have forgotten--that, armed as they were
with weapons which under favourable circumstances were absolutely
irresistible, the first shot meant victory for those who fired it, and
destruction for their enemies. Odds of mere numbers went for nothing,
for each air-ship was equal to ten others provided she could send her
ten projectiles home first, and this is just what had happened.

All this had passed in a twentieth of the time that it has taken to
describe it, and by the time Olga and her subordinates grasped the
extent of the calamity that had overtaken them the two Aerian vessels,
darting through the air at five hundred miles an hour, had swept
far out of range of their guns, and were moreover so hidden by the
cloud-sea, that they had no idea which course they had taken.

Olga stamped her foot upon the deck, and, in a paroxysm of unrestrained
passion, literally screamed with rage as she ordered the _Revenge_ to
sink below the clouds. Less than two minutes sufficed for the remains
of the fleet, that had been thirty-one strong five minutes before and
now only numbered eleven vessels, to sink through the clouds.

A rapid glance round showed them the _Ithuriel_ and the _Ariel_, tiny
specks far out over the waste of snow and ice, speeding away to the
northward. To give chase was out of the question, for scarcely had they
sighted them than they vanished as completely as though they had melted
into the atmosphere; and so Olga signalled for her remaining vessels
to proceed to their secret haven in the snowy solitudes of the South,
while the _Ithuriel_ and her consort sped onward on their homeward
voyage, to carry the news of the terrible vengeance that they had taken
for the destruction of the eight air-ships which had been annihilated
by the guns of the _Revenge_.

Twenty hours sufficed for the two Aerian vessels to pass over a quarter
of the earth’s circumference, and carry their tidings of vengeance
and victory to Aeria, and shortly after noon on the day but one after
Olga had dropped her challenge from the skies, a meeting of the Ruling
Council was held at the President’s house in order to consider the
startling and pregnant events which had taken place, and to determine
the plan of the war which, after a hundred and thirty years of
unquestioned supremacy, they were now called upon to wage not only for
the mastery of the world, but for the very lives and liberties of the
citizens of Aeria.

It had of course been impossible to conceal from the inhabitants of the
valley the gravity of the startling events which had taken place in
such rapid succession, nor did the President and Council consider any
such concealment desirable. There were no demagogues and no politics
in Aeria, and therefore there was no need for any State secrets save
those which contained the essentials of aerial navigation.

There was also no fear of panic in a community which contained no
ignorant or criminal classes, and so, while the Council was sitting,
the strange tidings were promulgated throughout the length and breadth
of the valley. Marvellous and disquieting as they were they yet gave
rise to very few external signs of excitement. They were gravely,
earnestly, and even anxiously discussed, for they brought with them a
prophecy of calamities to come, the probability of whose realisation
was too plain to be ignored.

But ever since the days of the Terror each generation of Aerians had
been carefully trained to recognise the fact that the progress of
science and the restlessness of human invention in the world outside
their borders must, sooner or later, produce some challenge to their
supremacy and some attempt to dispute with them the Empire of the Air.
Now, after four generations--in spite of all the elaborate precautions
that had been taken, the stringent laws that had been enacted and more
than once mercilessly enforced--the crisis had come.

It was now impossible to doubt that by some means, which so far seemed
almost superhuman, the flag-ship of their fleet had been stolen, and
the son of the President kidnapped with his greatest friend. More than
this, the news brought back by the _Ithuriel_ and the _Ariel_ proved
beyond all doubt that means had been found to build a large fleet of
aerial warships without even arousing the suspicions of the Council.
And, worst and most sinister sign of all, there was also the fact,
proved by Olga’s letter to the President, that the moving spirit in
this defiant revolt against the supremacy of Aeria was one who bore the
ill-omened and still hated name of Romanoff.

As has been said, there was no panic that night in Aeria, but still
many a man and woman anxiously asked, either aloud or in his or her
own soul, whether in the mysterious revolution of human affairs it
might not be about to come to pass that she who had wrought this
apparent miracle might not yet be able to avenge the terrible fate
of her ancestor, the Last of the Tsars. Then, with this thought
came a universal revulsion of horror at the prospect of such a crime
against humanity and a deep resolve to exact the penalty for it to the
uttermost.

If war was to be brought once more upon the earth, those who brought
it would find Aeria worthy of its splendid traditions and ready, if
necessary, to reconquer the earth as the founders of its empire had
done in the Armageddon of 1904. Fierce as that mighty struggle had
been, its horrors would pale before those of a conflict in which
conquest would mean extermination, for if Aeria was forced once more
to draw the sword it would not be sheathed until there was peace again
on earth, even if that peace were to be but the silence of universal
desolation.




CHAPTER X. STRANGE TIDINGS TO AERIA.


THE sitting of the Council lasted until nightfall, and just as the
western mountains were throwing their huge shadows over the lovely
valley, two more air-ships passed between two of the southward peaks
and alighted in the great square in the centre of the city. They were
the two vessels which had been sent to the island indicated in Olga’s
letter to bring back the long-lost Alan and Alexis.

It would be vain to attempt to describe the feelings with which the
President and the father of Alexis went, as they thought, to receive
their sons, but the air-ships had returned without them, and in
their stead they brought a written message which conveyed tidings no
less strange and startling than those brought from Antarctica by the
_Ithuriel_ and her consort.

It was a letter from Alan to his father, and as soon as he received it
from the captain of one of the air-ships, who had found it nailed to a
tree on the island, he took his friend into his library, and there the
two fathers read it together.

After briefly but circumstantially recounting the capture of the
flag-ship by Olga by means of her subtle drugs, and showing how, by
using the power they gave her, she had kept them in mental slavery
for years, forcing them to employ their skill and knowledge in aiding
her to build her aerial and submarine fleets out of the spoils of
the destroyed ocean transports, from which the latter had taken an
incalculable amount of treasure, Alan’s letter concluded thus:--

  I will now tell you the reason why Alexis and myself have not waited
  for the air-ship which we knew you would send for us as soon as you
  received the message which Olga Romanoff told us she would despatch
  to you. We consider that by our weakness and folly--or, in truth, I
  should rather say mine, for it was I who invited these treacherous
  guests on board the _Ithuriel_--we have not only brought endless
  calamities upon the world, but we have also forfeited our right to
  the citizenship of Aeria.

  What the judgment of the Council would be upon us I don’t know, but
  we are resolved that, whatever it might have been, you and Alexis’s
  father shall be spared the sorrow of pronouncing sentence upon your
  own sons. Some day perhaps we may win at least the right to plead our
  cause before you. At present we have none, and until we have won it
  you shall not see us again unless you capture us by force.

  We were sent here in the _Narwhal_, the swiftest and most powerful
  vessel of the Russian submarine fleet. Only a few days ago an
  accident revealed to Alexis for the first time during our long mental
  slavery the means which this woman, who is as beautiful as an angel
  and as merciless as a fiend, had used to keep us in subjection. We
  took the utmost care to give her no suspicion of his discovery, and
  although we drank no more of her poison we acted exactly as though we
  were still under its influence.

  In what could only have been mockery she gave us back our belts and
  coronets, bidding us wear them “when we returned to our kingdom,” as
  she put it. We shall never wear the winged circlets again till we
  have regained the right to do so, but the belts and a couple of brace
  of magazine pistols which we took before we left her stronghold in
  Antarctica stood us in good stead.

  We have killed the crew of the _Narwhal_, and taken possession of
  her. She is far swifter and more powerful than any vessel in our
  submarine navy, for she can be driven at a hundred and fifty miles an
  hour through the water, and can destroy anything that floats in or
  on the sea with a blow of her ram, and, more than this, she carries
  a torpedo battery which has an effective range of two miles, and can
  strike and destroy anything within that distance without giving the
  slightest warning of her presence.

  There are fifty vessels of this type in the Russian fleet, but the
  _Narwhal_ is at least thirty miles an hour faster than any of them.
  An attack will probably be made by the Russians on our station at
  Kerguelen Island within a week by submarine vessels and a small
  squadron of air-ships, and there we shall begin our operations
  against the enemy. If you have any reply to make to this letter we
  will wait for it at sea off Kerguelen, and then begin the campaign we
  have planned. We shall never rest until we have either destroyed the
  Russian fleet in detail or have died in the attempt to do so.

  If we ever return it will be to restore to you the supremacy of the
  sea, and then, and not till then, we will ask you to pardon our fault
  and will willingly submit to such further conditions as you may see
  fit to impose upon us before you give us back--if ever you do--the
  rights which we have lost.

  With all love and duty to yourself, and loving remembrances to the
  dear ones in Aeria, your son

  ALAN.

At the foot of the letter was a postscript signed by Alexis, indorsing
all that Alan had said, save with regard to his sole responsibility for
the calamity that had ensued from the admission of Olga and Serge on
board the _Ithuriel_.

The two fathers discussed the strange, and, to them, most affecting
communication for nearly an hour in private, and then another meeting
of the Council was called to consider it and pronounce authoritatively
upon it. The President read the letter aloud in a voice which betrayed
no trace of the deep emotion that moved his inmost being, and then left
the Council chamber with Maurice Masarov, so that their presence might
not embarrass their colleagues.

The simple, manly straightforwardness of Alan’s letter appealed far
more eloquently to the Council than excuses or prayers for forgiveness
would have done. It was plain, too, that after the first indiscretion
of taking the strangers on board the air-ship, no moral responsibility
or blame could be laid on Alan and Alexis for what they had done under
the influence of a drug which had paralysed their moral sense.

The Council, therefore, not only accepted the conditions of the letter,
but without a dissentient voice, agreed to confer the first and second
commands of the Aerian submarine fleets and stations for the time being
upon Alan and Alexis, with permission to call in the aid of the nearest
aerial squadron when necessary. This decision was despatched forthwith
by an air-ship to Kerguelen, and within an hour all Aeria was talking
of nothing else than the strange fate of the two youths who for five
years had been mourned as dead.

Later on that evening, when the twin snow-clad peaks which towered
high above the city of Aeria had lost the pink afterglow of the
departed sunlight, and were beginning to gleam with a whiter radiance
in the level beams of the newly-risen moon, a girl was standing on
the spacious terrace of a marble villa which stood on the summit of a
rounded eminence a couple of miles from the western verge of the city.

She had just crossed the threshold of womanhood. The next sun that
would rise would be that of her twentieth birthday. Yet for two years
she had worn the silver circle and crystal wings, for in Aeria a girl
became of legal age at eighteen, though she took no share in the civil
life of the community until she was married, an event which, as a
rule, took place not long after she was invested with the symbol of
citizenship.

It was an exceedingly rare event for an Aerian girl to reach the eve
of her twentieth year unmarried, for the sexes in the Central-African
paradise were very evenly balanced, and, as was natural in a very high
state of civilisation, where families seldom exceeded three or four
children, celibacy in either sex was looked upon as a public misfortune
and a private reproach.

But Alma Tremayne, the girl who was standing on the terrace of her
father’s house on this most eventful evening, had become an exception
to the rule through circumstances so sad and strange that her
loneliness was an honour rather than a reproach. There were many of the
wearers of the golden wings who had sought long and ardently to win her
from the allegiance which forbade her to look with favouring eyes upon
any of them.

She was beautiful in a land where all women were fair, a land where,
under the most favourable conditions that could be conceived, a race
of almost more than human strength and beauty had been evolved, and
she came of a family scarcely second in honour even to that of the
President, for she was the direct descendant in the fifth generation of
Alan Tremayne, first President of the Anglo-Saxon Federation, through
his son Cyril born two years after the daughter who had married the
first-born son of Natasha and Richard Arnold.

More than five years before she and Alan had plighted their
boy-and-girl troth on the eve of his departure on the fateful voyage
from which he had never returned, and of which no tidings had reached
Aeria until a few hours before. To the simple vow which her girlish
lips had then spoken she had remained steadfast even when, as the years
went by and still no tidings came of her lost lover, she, in common
with her own kindred, had begun to mourn him as dead.

It is true that she was in love rather with a memory than with a man,
yet with some natures such a love as this is stronger than any other,
more ideal and more lasting, and exempt from the danger of growing cold
in fruition. So strong was the hold that this ideal love had taken upon
her being that the idea of even accepting the love and homage of any
other man appeared as sacrilegious to her as the embrace of an earthly
lover would have seemed to a nun of the Middle Ages.

And so, with a single companion in her solitary state, she stood aside
and watched with patient, unregretful eyes the wedded happiness of her
more fortunate friends. This companion was Isma Arnold, Alan’s sister,
who had a double reason for doing as Alma had done.

Not only had she resolved never to marry while her brother’s fate
remained uncertain, but she, too, had also made her choice among the
youths of Aeria, and in such matters an Aerian girl seldom chose twice.
So she waited for Alexis as Alma did for Alan, hoping even against her
convictions, and keeping his memory undefiled in the sacred shrine of
her maiden soul.

No artist could have dreamed of a fairer picture than Alma standing
there on the terrace overlooking the stately city and the dark shining
lake at her feet. She was clad in soft, clinging garments of whitest
linen and finest silk of shimmering, pearly grey, edged with a dainty
embroidery of gold and silver thread.

Her dress, confined at the waist with a girdle of interlinked azurine
and gold, clothed without concealing the beauties of her perfect
form, and her hair, crowned by her crystal-winged coronet, flowed
unrestrained, after the custom of the maidens of Aeria, over her
shoulders in long and lustrous waves of dusky brown. There was a shadow
in the great deep grey eyes which looked up as though in mute appeal to
the starlight, the shadow of a sorrow which can never come to a woman
more than once.

All these years she had loved in cheerful patience and perfect faith
the man for whose memory she had lived in maiden widowhood--and now,
who could measure the depth of the darkness, darker than the shadow of
death itself, that had fallen across her life, severing the past from
the present with a chasm that seemed impassable, and leaving the future
but a barren, loveless waste to be trodden by her in weariness and
loneliness until the end!

All these years she had loved an ideal man, one of her own splendid
race, the very chosen of the earth, as pure in his unblemished manhood
as she was in the stainless maidenhood that she had held so sacred
for his sake even while she thought him dead--and, lo! the years had
passed, and he had come back to life, but how? Hers was not the false
innocence of ignorance. She knew the evil and the good, and because she
knew both shrank from contamination with the horror born of knowledge.

She had seen both Olga’s letter and Alan’s, and those two terrible
sentences, “They have served my turn, and I have done with them,” and
“She is as beautiful as an angel and as merciless as a fiend,” kept
ringing their fatal changes through her brain in pitiless succession,
forcing all the revolting possibilities of their meaning into her
tortured soul till her reason seemed to reel under their insupportable
stress.

Mocking voices spoke to her out of the night, and told her of the
unholy love that such a woman would, in the plenitude of her unnatural
power, have for such a man; how she would subdue him, and make him
not only her lover but her slave; how she would humble his splendid
manhood, and play with him until her evil fancy was sated, and then
cast him aside--as she had done--like a toy of which she had tired.

Better a thousand times that he had died as his murdered comrades had
died--in the northern snowdrift into which this Syren of the Skies had
cast them, to sleep the sleep that knew neither dreams nor waking!
Better for him and her that he had gone before her into the shadows,
and had remained her ideal love until, hand in hand, they could begin
their lives anew upon a higher plane of existence.

As these thoughts passed and repassed through her mind with pitiless
persistence, her lovely face grew rigid and white under the starlight,
and, but for the nervous twining and untwining of her fingers as her
hands clasped and unclasped behind her, her motionless form might have
been carved out of stone. For the first time since peace had been
proclaimed on earth, a hundred and thirty-two years ago, the flames of
war had burst forth again, and for the first time in the story of her
race the snake had entered the now no longer enchanted Eden of Aeria.

It was hers to suffer the first real agony of soul that any woman of
her people had passed through since Natasha, in the palm-grove down
yonder by the lake, had told Richard Arnold of her love on the night
that he had received the Master’s command to take her to another man to
be his wife.

There were no tears in the fixed, wide-open eyes that stared almost
sightlessly up to the skies, in which the stars were now paling in the
growing light of the moon. The torment of her torturing thoughts was
too great for that.

She was growing blind and dizzy under the merciless stress of them,
when--it might have been just in time to save her from the madness that
seemed the only outcome of her misery--the sweet, silvery tones of a
girl’s voice floated through the still, scented air uttering her name--

“Alma!”

The sound mercifully recalled her wandering senses in an instant. It
was the voice of her friend, of the sister of her now doubly-lost
lover, and it reproved the selfishness of her great sorrow by reminding
her that she was not suffering alone. As the sound of her name reached
her ear the rigidity of her form relaxed, the light came back to her
eyes, and turning her head she looked in the direction whence it came.

There was a soft whirring of wings in the still air of the tropic
night, and out of the half-darkness floated a shape that looked like a
realisation of one of the Old-World fairy-tales. It was a vessel some
twenty-five feet long by five wide, built of white, polished metal, and
shaped something like an old Norse galley, with its high, arching prow
fashioned like the breast and neck of a swan.

From the sides projected a pair of wide, rapidly-undulating wings, and
in the open space between these stood on the floor of the boat the
figure of a girl whose loose, golden hair floated out behind her with
the rapid motion of her fairy craft.

There was no need for words of greeting between the two girl friends.
Alma knew the kindly errand on which Isma had come, and as she stepped
out she went towards her with hands outstretched in silent welcome.

As their hands met, and the two girls stood face to face, motionless
for a moment, they made an exquisite contrast of opposite types of
womanly beauty--Alma tall and stately, with a proudly-carried head,
clear, pale skin, grey eyes, and perfectly regular features, and Isma,
a year younger and a good inch shorter, slender of form yet strong and
lithe of limb, with golden, silky hair and sunny-blue eyes, fresh, rosy
skin, and mobile features which scarcely ever seemed to wear the same
expression for a couple of minutes together--as sweet a daughter of
delight as ever man could look upon with eyes of love and longing.

But she was grave enough now, for her friend’s sorrow was hers too, and
its shadow lay with equal darkness upon her. The ready tears welled
up under her dark lashes as she looked upon Alma’s white, drawn face
and dry, burning eyes, and her low, sweet voice was broken by a sob
as, passing her arm round her waist, she drew her towards the boat and
said--

“Come, dear, this sorrow belongs to me as well as you and we must help
each other to bear it. I have brought my new boat so that we can take
a flight round the valley and talk about it quietly. If two heads are
better than one, so are two hearts.”

Alma’s only reply to the invitation was a sad, sweet smile, and a
gentle caress, but the welcome, loving sympathy had come when it was
most sorely needed, and so she got into the aerial boat with Isma, and
a few moments later the beautiful craft was bearing them at an easy
speed southward down the valley.




CHAPTER XI. THE SNAKE IN EDEN.


NO more perfect place could have been imagined for an exchange of
confidences and sympathy between two girls situated as Alma and Isma
were than the oval, daintily-cushioned interior of the _Cygna_, as Isma
had called her swan-prowed craft.

Skirting the mountains, at a distance of about five hundred yards from
them, and at a height of about as many feet from the summits of the
undulating foothills below, the _Cygna_ sped quietly along at a speed
of some twenty-five miles an hour. The temperature of the tropic night
was so soft and warm, and the air was so dry that it was not even
necessary for them to make use of the light wraps that lay in the stern
of the boat.

Isma reclined in the after part of the broad, low seat which ran round
the inside, with one hand resting lightly upon a little silver lever
which could be used for working the rudder-fan, in addition to the
tiller-ropes, which she held in her hands while standing up. Alma sat
almost upright amidships, with one hand clasped on the rail of polished
satin-wood which ran round the well of the boat, her head turned away
from Isma and her eyes fixed upon two dim points of light far away to
the southward, which marked the position of the two moonlit, snowy
peaks which guarded the southern confines of the valley.

For several minutes they proceeded thus in silence, which neither
seemed inclined to break. At length Isma looked up at a planet that
was shining redly over the northern mountains, and, possessed by a
sudden inspiration, said--

“Look, Alma, there is Mars returning to our skies!”

“Yes,” said Alma, turning round and gazing from beneath her
slightly-frowning brows at the ruddy planet; “it is a fitting time
for him to come back now that, after all these years of peace and
happiness, human wickedness and ambition have brought the curse of war
back again on earth.”

“Yes,” said Isma. “If there were anything in what the old astrologers
used to say we could look upon his rising as an omen. And yet we have
very little reason surely for taking as an emblem of war a world in
which wars have been unheard of for thousands of years.”

“I wonder when that time will come on earth?” said Alma bitterly. “If
ever it does! We terrestrials seem to be too hopelessly wicked and
foolish for such wisdom as that.

“Mankind will never have a fairer opportunity of working out its
redemption than it had after the Terror, and yet here, after four
generations of peaceful happiness and prosperity, the wickedness of one
woman is able to set the world ablaze again. Our forefathers were wise,
but they would have been wiser still if they had stamped that vile
brood out utterly. Their evil blood has been the one drop of venom that
has poisoned the whole world’s cup of happiness!”

As Alma spoke these last words her grey eyes grew dark with sudden
passion under her straight-drawn brows. Her breast heaved with a sudden
wave of emotion, and the sentences came quickly and fiercely from the
lips which Isma had never heard speak in anger before.

“Yes,” she replied, rather sadly than angrily, “perhaps it would have
been better for the world if they had done so, or, at anyrate, if they
had shut them up for life, as they did the criminals and the insane in
the middle of the last century. But we must remember, even in our own
sorrow and anger, that this Olga Romanoff is in her way not altogether
unlike our own Angel was in hers.”

“Surely you’re speaking sacrilege now!” interrupted Alma. “How can the
evil be like the good under any circumstances?”

“No, I am not,” said Isma, with a smile. “Remember how Natasha was
trained up by the Master in undying hate of Russian tyranny, and how
she inherited the legacy of revenge from her mother and him. No doubt
this Olga has done the same, and she has been taught to look upon us as
the Terrorists looked upon the Tsar and his family.

“We are the descendants of those who flung her ancestor from his
throne, extinguished his dynasty, and sent him to die in Siberia. I
would kill her with my own hand if I could, and believe that I was
ridding the world of a curse, but surely we two daughters of Aeria are
wise enough to be just even to such an enemy as she is.”

“But she has done worse than kill us,” Alma almost hissed between her
clenched teeth. “If she had a thousand lives and we took them one by
one they would not expiate her crime against us, or equal the hopeless
misery that she has brought upon us.

“What is mere death, the swift transition from one stage of existence
to another, compared with the hopeless death-in-life to which her
wanton wickedness has condemned you and me, or to the calamities which
she has brought upon the world?”

“It is nothing, I grant you,” said Isma. “But still I do not agree with
you about that hopeless death-in-life, as you call it. Our present
sorrow is great and heavy enough, God knows, but for me at least it is
not hopeless, nor will it be for you when the first stress of the storm
is over.”

“What do you mean?” cried Alma, almost as fiercely as before, and
leaning forward and looking through the dusk into her face as though
she hardly credited her ears. “Do you mean to say that either you or I
could ever”--

“Yes,” said Isma, interrupting her, and speaking now with eager
animation. “Yes, I mean just what you were going to say. And some day,
I believe, you will think as I do.”

Alma shook her head in mournful incredulity, and Isma noticing the
gesture went on--

“Yes, you will! The reason that you do not agree with me now is that
yours is a deeper and stronger nature than mine. You are like the sea,
and I am like the lake. Your grief and anger struck you dumb at first.

“You were in a stupor when I found you on the terrace, and now the
depths of your nature are broken up and the storm is raging, and until
it is over you will see nothing but your own sorrow and anger.

“But with me the storm broke out at once, and I ran to my room and
threw myself upon my bed and sobbed and wailed until my mother thought
I was going mad. You have not wept yet, and it will be well for you
when you do. Your nature is prouder than mine, and it will take longer
to melt, but it must melt some time, for we are both women, after all,
and then you will see hope through your tears, as I did.”

Alma shook her head again, and said in a low, sad, steady voice--

“I can never see hope until I can see Alan as he was when he left me,
and you know that is impossible.”

“You will never see him again as he was,” replied Isma gently. “But
that is no reason why you should not see him better than he was.”

“Better?” exclaimed Alma, with an involuntary note of scorn in her
voice, which brought a quick flush to Isma’s cheek, and a flash into
her eyes for her brother’s sake. “Better! How can that be?”

“Just as the man who has fallen and risen again of his own native
strength, is better and stronger than the man who has never been
tempted,” replied Isma almost hotly.

“Remember the lessons we have learnt from the people of Mars since we
learnt to communicate with them. You know how they have gone through
civilisation after civilisation until they have refined everything out
of human nature that makes it human except their animal existence and
their intellectual faculties.

“They have no passions and they make no mistakes. What we call love
they call sexual suitability, the mechanical arrangement into which
they have refined our ruling passion. Do you remember how almost
impossible Vassilis, after he had perfected the code of signals, found
it to make even their brightest and most advanced intellects understand
the meaning of jealousy?”

The skilfully-aimed shot struck home instantly. A bright wave of colour
swept from Alma’s throat up to her brow. Her eyes shone like two pale
fires in the dusk, and her hand grasped the rail on which it was
resting till the bones and sinews stood out distinct in it. She seemed
to gasp for breath a moment before she found her voice, but when she
spoke her tone seemed to ring and vibrate like a bell in the sudden
strength of her unloosed passion.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, you innocent-looking little Isma! You are wiser
than I am after all. I did not know the meaning of that word till
Olga’s letter fell from the sky, but I know it now. My God, how I hate
that woman!”

“She is not a woman,” replied Isma, speaking in the unconscious pride
of her pure descent. “She is a baseborn animal, for she has used her
beauty for the vilest ends, yet I am glad to hear you say that you hate
her for Alan’s sake, as I do, and--and for Alexis’s. While you can hate
you can love, and some day you will love Alan--the real Alan, not your
ideal lover--all the better because you have hated Olga for his sake.”

“What?” almost wailed Alma, in the intensity of her anger and misery.
“After he has held her in his arms--after his lips have kissed
hers--after”--

“Yes, even after that. When your first bitterness has passed, as mine
has, you will be more just, and remember the influence under which he
did so--if he did. Do you hold yourself responsible for what you think
or do in your dreams, or do you not believe what Alan said in his
letter about the drug? You know too much about chemistry not to know
that such horrible poisons have existed for centuries.”

“Yes, yes, I know that, and I know that he has no share in the moral
guilt; but how can I ever forget he has been what those cruel words
of Olga’s told us she had made of him?” replied Alma, her face growing
cold and hard again as she spoke.

“Alma,” said Isma, with gentle dignity, yet with a note of keen
reproach in her voice, “surely you are forgetting that you are speaking
of my brother as well as of your lover. No, I am not angry, for I
am too sad myself not to understand your sorrow. But I want you to
remember that I who have lost both a lover and a brother am asking you
to be patient and to hope with me.

“We have never seen Alan and Alexis as they are. We only remember them
as two handsome boys who had never seen or known evil. When we meet
them again, as I firmly believe we shall, they will be men who have
passed through the fire; for if they do not pass through it and come
out stronger and better than they were, rest assured we shall never
meet on earth again.

“Alan would no more come to you now than you would go to him. When he
believes himself worthy of you he will come for you as Alexis will come
for me, and then”--

She stopped short in her eloquent pleading, for Alma, at last melted
and overcome by her sweet unselfishness and loving logic, had felt the
springs of her own woman’s nature unloosed, and with a low, wailing cry
had sunk down upon the cushions towards her, and was sobbing out her
sorrow on her lap. Isma said nothing more, for her end was achieved.
She laid her left hand caressingly on Alma’s hair, and with her right
she pulled the steering-lever back and swung the _Cygna_ round until
her prow pointed towards home again.

When they reached the villa they found the President’s private yacht
resting on the terrace, for Alan’s father and mother had come over
after the Council meeting to discuss with Alma’s parents the more
intimate family aspect of the strange events which had cleared up in
such terrible fashion the mystery which had so long shrouded the fate
of the sons of the two chief families in Aeria.

So revolting was the idea of their mental servitude to such an enemy
of the human race as they could not but believe Olga Romanoff to be,
and so frightful were the consequences that must infallibly befall
humanity in consequence of it, that their parents would rather have
known them dead than living under such degrading circumstances. To the
Aerians, far advanced as they were beyond the standards of the present
day, both in religion and philosophy, the conception of death was one
which included no terrors and no more regret than was natural and
common to all humanity at parting with a kinsman or a friend.

As they were destined to prove, when face to face with a crisis
unparalleled in the history of humanity, they regarded death merely
as a natural and necessary transition from one state of existence to
another, which would be higher or lower according to the preponderance
of good or evil done in this life.

If, therefore, the parents and kinsmen of those who were now exiles
and wanderers upon the ocean wastes could have chosen, they would
infinitely rather have known that Alan and Alexis had shared the fate
of their companions in the Norwegian snowdrift than they would have
learnt that for six years they had been the slaves and playthings of a
woman who, as they guessed from Alan’s letter, combined the ambition
of a Semiramis with the vices of a Messalina, and who had used the
skill and knowledge which they had acquired and inherited as Princes of
the Air with the avowed purpose of subverting the dominion of Aeria,
undoing all that their ancestors had done, and bringing back the evil
era of strife, bloodshed, and political slavery.

So, too, with Alma. As she had told Isma, she would a thousand times
rather have seen her lover dead than degraded to such base uses.
Although she, like everyone else in Aeria, admitted that the strange
circumstances absolved both Alan and Alexis from all moral blame and
responsibility, she, in common with her own father and mother, and
perhaps, also, with others not less intimately concerned, found it
impossible to forget or ignore the taint of such an association, and to
look upon it as a stain that might never be washed away.

Indeed, the only member of the family council who openly proclaimed
her belief that the two exiles would, if ever they returned, come back
to Aeria better and stronger men than those who had known no evil was
Isma, who repeated, with all the winning eloquence at her command, all
the arguments that she had used to Alma during their cruise together.
Whether Alma and the others would ever come round to her view could of
course only be proved by time, but it is nevertheless certain that when
the family council at last separated the hearts of its members were
less sore than they would have been had Alan and Alexis not possessed
such an advocate as the girl who had so good a double reason for
pleading their causes.




CHAPTER XII. THE BATTLE OF KERGUELEN.


THE Council of Aeria possessed, as has already been said,
four-and-twenty stations, scattered over the oceans of the world, which
it used as depôts for the submarine fleets, by means of which, acting
in co-operation with its aerial squadrons, it had made any attempt at
naval warfare hopeless until the disasters described at the beginning
of this book proved that an enemy, in this respect at least, more
powerful than itself, had successfully challenged its empire of the sea.

Of these stations the most important in the Southern hemisphere
was that on Kerguelen Island, or Desolation Land, situated at the
intersection of the 49th parallel of south latitude with the 69th
meridian of east longitude. This lonely fragment of land in the midst
of the ocean, barren of surface, and swept by the almost constant
storms of long winters, had been chosen, first, because of its
situation on the southern limits of the Indian Ocean, equidistant
between Africa and Australia, and, secondarily, because of its numerous
and sheltered deep-water harbours, so admirably adapted for vessels
which were perfectly independent of storm.

Added to this, the island contained large supplies of coal, from which
the motive-power of both the submarine vessels and the air-ships was
now derived by direct conversion of its solar energy into electrical
force through the secret processes known only to the President and two
members of the Council.

So far the Russians had not ventured to make any attack upon this
stronghold, so strongly was it defended, not only by its submarine
squadrons and systems of mines, guarding the entrances to all the
harbours, but also by the large force of air-ships which had been
stationed there since the new naval warfare had broken out.

The warning which Alan had conveyed in his letter to his father was
based on the knowledge that a general attack was soon to be made upon
it both by air and sea, with the object of crippling the power of the
Aerians in the Southern Ocean. No time had been lost in acting upon
this warning. The aerial squadron was increased to forty, with the
_Ariel_ as flagship, and twenty new submarine vessels, the largest and
best possessed by the Aerians, had been despatched from Port Natal to
reinforce the fleet of thirty-five already at Kerguelen Island. With
these must of course be counted the _Narwhal_, under the command of
Alan and Alexis.

The strength of the attacking force could only be guessed at, as even
Alan did not know it, but it was not expected that, however strong a
force the Russians might bring up by sea, they would be able, after the
disaster of Antarctica, to muster more than a dozen air-ships.

The Aerian headquarters was at Christmas Harbour, on the northern shore
of the island. This is an admirably-sheltered inlet running westward
into the land between Cape François and Arch Point, and its upper and
narrower half forms an oval basin nearly a mile long by a quarter of
a mile broad, walled in by high perpendicular basaltic cliffs, and
containing a depth of water varying from two to sixteen fathoms, as
compared with twenty-five to thirty fathoms in its outer half.

North of the harbour, Table Mount rises to a height of thirteen hundred
feet, and to the south is a huge mass of basalt over eleven hundred
feet high. On both of these elevations were mounted batteries of guns
capable of throwing projectiles of great size and enormous explosive
energy to a distance of several miles. There were altogether twelve of
these batteries placed on various heights about the island, and the
guns composing them were mounted on swivels, which enabled them to be
trained so as to throw the projectile either into the sea or high up
into the air.

Soon after daybreak on the fourth day after Alan’s letter had been
received the outlook on Cape François, a bold mass of basalt to
the north of the outer bay, telephoned “_Narwhal_ in sight” to the
settlement at the head of the harbour. Immediately on this message
being received the commander of the station, named Max Ernstein, a
man of about thirty-four, and the most daring and skilful submarine
navigator and engineer in the service of the Council, went on board his
own vessel, the _Cachalot_, and set out to welcome the long-lost son of
the President and convey to him the commission which had been sent out
by air-ship from Aeria.

The _Cachalot_, which may as well be described here as elsewhere as
a type of the submarine warship of the time, was a double-pointed
cylinder, built of plates of nickelised aluminium steel, not riveted,
but electrically fused at the joints, so that they formed a continuous
mass equally impervious all over, and presenting no seams or overlaps.

The cylinder was a hundred and fifty feet from point to point, with
a midship’s diameter of forty feet. The forward end was armed with a
sheathing of azurine, the metal peculiar to the mines of Aeria, which
would cut and pierce steel as a diamond cuts glass. This sheathing
formed a ram, which was by no means the least formidable portion of the
warship’s armament.

The upper part of the cylinder was flattened so as to form an oval deck
forty feet long by fifteen wide. A centre section of this deck, three
feet wide, could be opened by means of a lateral slide which allowed
of the elevation of a gun twenty-five feet long, which could be used
either for discharging torpedoes by water or for throwing projectiles
through the air.

It could be aimed and fired from below the deck without the
artillerists even seeing the objects aimed at, save in an arrangement
of mirrors, so adjusted that when the object appeared in the centre of
the lowest of them, the gun could be fired with the certainty of the
projectile reaching its mark. Four underwater torpedo tubes, two ahead
and two astern, completed the armament of the submarine warship.

When under water the deck could be hermetically closed, and sliding
plates could be drawn over the opening of the torpedo tubes, so that
from stem to stern of the cylinder there were no excrescences to impede
the progress of the vessel through the water with the sole exception
of a dome of thick forged glass just forward of the deck, under which
stood the helmsman, who gave place to the commander of the vessel when
she went into action. Her powerful four-bladed screw, driven by engines
almost precisely similar to those of the air-ships, gave her a maximum
speed of a hundred miles an hour.

The _Cachalot_ ran at twenty-five miles an hour down the harbour, and
as soon as he got abreast of Cape François Captain Ernstein, who was
standing on deck, saw a small red flag apparently rising from the waves
about a mile to seaward. A similar flag was soon flying from a movable
flagstaff on the _Cachalot_, and a few minutes later she was lying
alongside the _Narwhal_.

This vessel was a very leviathan of the deep, and as she lay three
parts submerged in the water Captain Ernstein calculated that she
could hardly be less than two hundred feet in length and forty-five in
diameter amidships. She appeared to be built on very much the same plan
as the _Cachalot_ and of the same materials, saving only, of course,
the ram of azurine, which was replaced by one of nickel steel.

As the _Cachalot_ got alongside, a slide was drawn back in the
deck of the _Narwhal_ and the head and shoulders of a man dressed
in close-fitting seal-fur appeared. It was Alan, little changed in
physical appearance since the fatal day that he invited Olga Romanoff
on board the _Ithuriel_, save that he had grown a moustache and beard,
which he wore trimmed somewhat in the Elizabethan style, and that the
frank, open expression of the boy had given place to a grave, almost
sad, sternness, which marked the man who had lived and suffered.

Max Ernstein recognised him at once and saluted as though greeting
a superior officer, for, although all the Aerians were friends and
comrades, the etiquette of rank and discipline was scrupulously
observed amongst them when on active service.

“What do you salute me for?” said Alan gravely, as he reached the deck
and came to the side on which the _Cachalot_ lay. “Do you not see that
I am no longer wearing the golden wings? Are you the officer in command
of the station?”

“Yes, Admiral Arnold,” returned the other, in the same formal tone and
at the same time presenting the letter from the Council. “I suppose you
have forgotten me. I am Max Ernstein, in command of the naval fleet at
Kerguelen. That letter will explain why I saluted and why I have come
to hand over my command to you.”

Before he replied Alan ran his eye rapidly over the letter. As he did
so the pale bronze of his face flushed crimson for a moment, and he
turned his head away from Ernstein, brushed his hand quickly across his
eyes, and then read the letter again more deliberately. Then he turned
and said in a voice that he vainly strove to keep steady--

“This is more than I have deserved or could expect, but obedience is
the first duty, so I accept the command. Come on board, Ernstein; of
course I recognised you, but until I knew how I stood with the Council
I looked upon myself as an outlaw, and therefore no friend or comrade
for you.”

The captain of the _Cachalot_ had a gangway-plank brought up and passed
from one vessel to the other, and in another moment he was standing
beside Alan on the deck of the _Narwhal_, and their hands were joined
in a firm clasp.

“That’s the first honest hand that I have grasped for six years, except
Alexis’,” said Alan, as he returned the clasp with a grip that showed
his physical forces had been by no means impaired by his long mental
servitude. “Come down into the cabin, we shall find him there.”

He led the way below, and as soon as Alexis had been told the
unexpected good news, which seemed to affect him even more deeply than
it had Alan, the three sat down at the table in the saloon of the
_Narwhal_, a plain but comfortably furnished room, about twenty-five
feet long by fifteen broad and ten high, to discuss a plan of
operations in view of the expected attack on the station.

Alan at once assumed the authority with which he had been invested by
the Council, and made minute inquiries into the nature and extent of
the defending force at his disposal.

“I think that ought to be quite sufficient, not only to defeat, but
pretty well destroy any force that the Russians can bring against us,”
said Alan, as soon as Ernstein had finished his description. “We have
much more to fear from the air-ships than from the submarine boats,
because the _Narwhal_ would give a very good account of them, even by
herself. Have any more vessels of the type of the _Ithuriel_ been built
since the old _Ithuriel_ was lost?”

“Yes,” replied Ernstein; “but only ten, I am sorry to say. One of them
is here, as I told you just now, but we have forty of the others, and I
don’t suppose the Russians can bring more than a dozen against us.”

“What do you mean?” said Alan. “They have fifty, every one of them
as fast and as powerful as the old _Ithuriel_. I ought to know,” he
continued grimly, “for they were every one of them built under my own
eyes.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Ernstein. “I ought to have told you before
now that we have already won our first victory, and that though we lost
eight vessels we destroyed twenty of the Russians’.” And then he went
on to give Alan and Alexis a rapid description of the pursuit of the
_Revenge_, and the havoc wrought at the end of it by the _Ithuriel_ and
the _Ariel_.

“That is glorious news!” said Alan. “But they have thirty ships at
their disposal still, and I expect they will bring at least twenty of
these against us, and they are all swifter than ours saving only the
_Ariel_. Of course my command ends with the shore, but I think it will
be as well if the captain of the _Ariel_ were to come on board the
_Narwhal_ so that we could arrange our plans of defence together--I for
the sea, and he for the air.”

“But why not come ashore and see him?” said Ernstein. “He and all of us
will be delighted to see you on the island.”

“No,” said Alan, shaking his head. “Alexis and I have promised each
other never to leave the _Narwhal_ until the Russian sea power is
crippled. The day that we set foot on dry land again will be the day
that we give back the supremacy of the sea to the Council, so if we two
Admirals of the Sea and Air are to meet, the commander of the _Ariel_
must come here.”

“Very well,” said Ernstein. “I understand you. Write a note and I will
send the _Cachalot_ back with it. She will bring him back in under half
an hour, for he was up at the settlement when I left.”

Alan wrote the letter forthwith, and the _Cachalot_ departed,
returning, as her captain had said, in less than half an hour, with
Edward Forrest, the commander of the _Ariel_. He was a lean, wiry,
active man of about forty-five, of mixed English, Scotch, and Aerian
descent, with short, crisp, curly black hair and smooth-shaven face,
rather sharp, regular features, and a pair of keen grey eyes which
seemed to look into the very brain of the person he was talking to--a
man of prompt decisions and few words, and one of the most able aerial
navigators that Aeria could boast of.

He held the rank of admiral, and was responsible for the station of
Kerguelen, and the command of the southern seas. He greeted Alan and
Alexis courteously, but a trifle stiffly, as though he thought that
their indiscretion had been somewhat lightly dealt with by the Council.
This, however, was no business of his, for the first law of Aeria
was that the decisions of the President and Council were not open to
criticism by any private or official citizen whatever his rank or
experience.

Therefore, after reading, as a matter of form, the commission sent to
Alan and Alexis, he addressed himself at once to the business of the
moment, and before they had been discussing the plan of defence for
many minutes he was forced to admit to himself that the President’s
son, young as he was, was more than his master both in aerial and naval
tactics.

For the greater part of the morning plan after plan was suggested,
thrashed out, and either accepted or thrown aside, and when he took his
leave he shook hands with both Alan and Alexis far more cordially than
he had done in greeting, and said with brief, blunt candour--

“This is not the first time that a woman has used a man to upset the
peace of the world, and I tell you honestly that I once thought you
had both turned traitors. I don’t think so now, and I am heartily glad
you are back. If you could only have returned three years ago a lot of
trouble might have been saved, but I must confess that you have both
learnt more in five years than I have in twenty. I will follow your
instructions to the letter.”

“What is done is done,” said Alan, smiling, and yet with a grave
dignity that showed Admiral Forrest that, despite all that had
happened, he was standing in the presence of his master. “The work in
hand now is to regain what we have lost, and if every man does his duty
we shall do so. I think everything is arranged now, and as we have no
time to lose I will say good-morning.”

He held out his hand as he spoke, and Admiral Forrest took his
dismissal and his leave at the same time.

Captain Ernstein took six men out of the _Cachalot_ and placed them at
the disposal of Alan and Alexis, for the working of the _Narwhal_, and
then took his leave to execute his part of the plan of defence.

It was a bitterly cold day, for the southern winter had already
set in in all its severity. The sea to the north of the island was
comparatively smooth, but swept every now and then with violent gusts
of wind from the southward. The sky was entirely covered by thick
masses of cold grey cloud, every now and then torn up into great
rolling masses by the sudden blasts of icy wind from the pole, which
drove fierce storms of hard frozen snow across the bare and desolate
island.

But the roughness of the elements was a matter of small concern to
the crews of the air-ships and the submarine cruisers, for both were
independent alike of sea and storm. The former could literally ride
upon the wings of the fiercest gale that ever blew. Their interiors
were warm and wind-proof, and their machinery was powerful enough to
drive them four and five times as fast as the air-currents in which
they floated, while the latter had only to sink a few feet below the
level of the waves to find perfect calm.

The days, in short, were past when men had been at the mercy of the
elements, and so the atmospheric conditions which would have made a
modern naval attack upon a rocky and exposed coast almost impossible
were not even taken into account in preparing to meet the threatened
assault on Kerguelen Island.

No one knew when or how the first assault would be delivered. All that
was known was that, unless Olga and her advisers had completely altered
their plans, the attack would take place either that day or the next,
and consequently ceaseless vigilance was necessary on sea and land and
in the air.

In accordance with the plan arranged on board the _Narwhal_, ten
air-ships rose above the clouds to an altitude of five thousand
feet, and from each of these an electric thread hung down to as many
signal-stations on the island, all of which were connected with the
headquarters at the top of Christmas Harbour.

Twenty cruisers patrolled the coast at a distance of a mile from the
land, and two miles outside these the _Narwhal_ ran to and fro along
the northern shore. All the more important inlets which had sufficient
depth of water for submarine attack were guarded with mines and chains
of torpedoes, so disposed that no vessel could possibly enter without
firing them, and so giving warning of the locality of the attack.

The afternoon passed without any alarm, and at nightfall the clouds
sent down a blinding storm of snow, which, added to the intense
darkness, made vision impossible both on land and sea, although high
above the clouds the ten air-ships floated in a calm, clear atmosphere,
under the brilliant constellations of the southern hemisphere.

No attack seemed possible without warning, either by sea or above the
clouds, for the hostile air-ships could not approach without being seen
from a great distance through the clear, starlit sky, and without their
lights, which would instantly betray their presence, it was impossible
for the submarine vessels even to find the coast.

Hour after hour passed, and still no hostile sign rewarded the
vigilance of the defenders. No one of the present day could have
guessed that all the preparations had been made for such a battle as
had never been fought before on sea or land, or in the air.

Nothing was visible but the snow-covered earth and the storm-swept sea,
for the sentinel ships, floating far above the clouds, were beyond
the reach of vision. And yet, if the combined fleets of the modern
world had attacked Kerguelen that night, not a ship would have escaped
to tell the tale of annihilation, so terrible were the engines of
destruction which waited but the signal of battle to strike their swift
and irresistible blows.

It was about half-past six o’clock the next morning when Alexis, who
was on watch in the conning-tower of the _Narwhal_, saw a faint beam of
light illuminating the water a long way ahead. He instantly signalled
to Alan--“Enemy in sight. Back. I am going to ram.”

Alan, unwilling to leave the new crew, who were not yet perfectly
acquainted with the working of the machinery, had taken command of the
engine-room alternately with Alexis, who was now taking his four hours’
watch in the conning-tower, and to whom the fortune of war had given
the honour of striking the first blow. The _Narwhal_ backed rapidly,
and as she did so Alexis turned a small wheel in the side of the
conning-tower, and the whole chamber sank into the hull of the vessel.

As soon as it stopped he pulled a lever and a heavy steel sheet slid
over the opening where the glass dome had been. In front of him as he
stood at the steering-wheel was a long, very slender needle hung with
extreme delicacy on a pivot, up which an electric current constantly
passed.

This needle was terrestrially insulated by a magnet which always swung
opposite to the magnetic pole, and when acted upon only by the steel of
the vessel’s fabric, swung indifferently as long as there was no other
vessel within a thousand yards of the _Narwhal_. But the moment one
came within that distance the needle pointed towards it with unerring
accuracy, as it was doing at the present moment.

Alexis allowed the vessel to back until he saw the needle begin to
waver. Then he knew that the thousand-yard limit had been reached, and
signalled--

“Full speed ahead.”

The next moment the engines were reversed and the _Narwhal_ bore down
on her invisible prey. The needle became rigid again. Alexis kept it
pointing dead ahead as the _Narwhal_ gathered way and rushed silently
but with irresistible force upon her victim.

She passed over the thousand yards in forty seconds. Then came a dull,
rending crash, a slight shiver of the mighty fabric, and then she
swept on her way as though she had passed through a couple of inches
of planking instead of the steel hull of a submarine warship more than
two-thirds her own size.

And so in silence and darkness, without the discharge of a gun or the
flash of a shot or an audible cry of human pain, the work of death and
destruction began and ended. In the passing of an instant a warship
had been destroyed which could have annihilated a fleet of modern
battleships in detail without once appearing above the surface of the
water.

The moment that the shock told Alexis that the ram of the _Narwhal_
had done its work, he signalled “Stop,” and as the vessel slowed down
he watched the momentous fluctuations of the needle in front of him.
It oscillated for an instant and then became still again, pointing to
another victim hidden away somewhere under the dark waters. He brought
the vessel round until it pointed ahead again, and then once more the
leviathan plunged forward at full speed on her errand of destruction.

Thirty seconds later a rasping tearing sound, told him that he had
ripped the side out of a second Russian vessel; and again he stopped,
and again the fatal tell-tale needle pointed to a mark on which he
hurled his irresistible ram. So the work went on, and vessel after
vessel was torn to pieces and sunk in the midst of the darkness and
silence of the wintry sea, without even a warning having been given
either to the consorts of the destroyed vessels or to those nearer in
shore, all of which were, of course, outside the range of the needle’s
indication. But for this fact Alexis would have been unable to do his
work, for he would not have known whether he was ramming friend or foe.

When the ram had found its mark for the twelfth time, the needle
oscillated vaguely to and fro, showing that within a thousand-yards
radius at least there were no more victims to be found. Then the
_Narwhal_ rose to the surface of the water, and Alexis resumed his
watch as the vessel patrolled the coast again at a speed of fifty miles
an hour.

Alan now came and relieved Alexis from his watch. As he entered the
conning-tower he said--

“How many is that you’ve settled? A dozen, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Alexis, “but I can hardly think they can have been anything
but scouts, and so we shall have the main fleet to tackle yet.”

“Do you think any of them have got through?” said Alan. “You know they
may have approached from east and west as well, and if so they are
lying inside of us.”

“No,” replied Alexis, “I don’t think they would do that. You see we
have the advantage of them in this way. They can’t see ten yards in
front of them unless there is bright sunshine on the water, or unless
they turn their lights on to the full, in which case they would betray
their presence at once.

“Then they don’t know what has become of the _Narwhal_, and probably
think that she has been attacked by an overwhelming force, or blown up
by some lucky torpedo. They daren’t go inshore in force for fear of
springing a mine, and so you may depend upon it the twelve we have
destroyed were scouts, prowling about very slowly and waiting for
daylight to examine the coast and find a way into Christmas Harbour.

“They must have been in single line, and we had the luck to catch one
of the end ones first, and so we sank the lot in the order in which
they were floating. I don’t think we can do anything more till daylight
except run up and down the coast and keep a sharp look-out to seaward
and on the needle.”

“I suppose you’re right,” said Alan. “You’d better go and get an hour’s
sleep if you can.”

“There won’t be much sleep for any of us till to-night,” said Alexis
quickly, pointing to the clouds over the island. “Look! the row has
begun in the air already.”

Alan glanced up and saw a series of intensely bright flashes stream
downwards through the clouds, which at the same moment were rent and
rolled up into vast shadowy billows by some tremendous concussion of
the atmosphere above them. There could be only one explanation of this.
The attack on the island had begun from the air, and the flashes were
those of the first shots of the aerial bombardment.

[Illustration: THE CLOUDS WERE RENT AND ROLLED UP INTO VAST SHADOWY
BILLOWS. _Page 122._]

What had really happened was this.

A fleet of fifty submarine warships, under the command of Michael
Lossenski, the eldest son of Orloff Lossenski, who was now Olga
Romanoff’s chief adviser in the conduct of the war that she had
commenced with the Aerians, had reached the northern coast of Kerguelen
Island about four o’clock in the morning in order to co-operate with
an aerial squadron of fifteen vessels led by the _Revenge_, under the
command, nominally, of Lossenski’s second son Boris, but really of Olga
herself.

As Alexis had surmised, the twelve vessels destroyed by the _Narwhal_
were scouts sent out to, if possible, feel their way to the entrance
of Christmas Harbour, which was known to be the headquarters of the
station.

These were to have returned to the fleet with all the intelligence they
could get as to bearings and soundings, and the position of mines
and the defending fleet. Then at daybreak, that is to say about eight
o’clock, the whole squadron was to have advanced to the entrance to the
harbour, ramming any of the defenders who barred their way, and then,
after sending a swarm of torpedoes into the mouth of the bay to explode
the mines and blow up any submarine defences that might exist, to have
made a rush for the inner bay at the same time that the air-ships
engaged the land defences.

The naval portion of the programme was completely frustrated by the
destruction of the scouts, while the aerial attack was foiled by the
look-outs stationed above the clouds. Soon after seven it became light
enough at their altitude for the powerful glasses of their commanders
to make out the fifteen Russian air-ships coming up from the southward
at a distance of about twenty miles.

A few minutes later they were themselves discovered by the Russians,
and Olga, to her intense chagrin, saw at a glance that all hope of a
surprise was gone. By some means or other the Aerians had received
intelligence of the attack, and were ready for it.

The terrible experience taught by the disaster of Antarctica warned her
and her lieutenants that any approach, now that they were seen, must be
made with the utmost caution, for they had no precise knowledge as to
the range of the Aerian guns. All they knew was that it was very great,
and that where one of their projectiles found its mark destruction
followed instantly.

Added to this, there was another difficulty. The dense masses of cloud
completely hid both sea and land from their view, and made accurate
shooting at the land defences impossible. Consequently there was
nothing for it but to fight the battle out in the upper regions of the
air, against a force of whose actual strength they were ignorant. They
dare not attempt to surround the ten air-ships, which hung stationary
over the island, for this meant bringing all their guns into play,
while they could only use half of their own.

While they were debating on a plan of operations, two new factors in
the coming struggle were swiftly and unexpectedly brought into play. As
soon as the news of their arrival had been telegraphed to headquarters,
the _Ariel_ took the air and passed under the clouds to the rear of
the Russian squadron. Ten miles behind them, she swept round sharply,
and with her wings inclined to the utmost, and her engines working at
the fullest capacity, she took a mighty upward swoop, passed through
the clouds like a flash of light, and before the Russians knew what
had happened, she was floating three thousand feet above them, out of
reach of their guns, and hurling projectile after projectile into their
midst. Three of their ships, struck almost simultaneously, were torn
into a thousand fragments, and vanished through the clouds.

It was the glare and shock of this explosion that Alexis had seen
from the conning-tower of the _Narwhal_. The remaining Russian ships
instantly scattered and sank through the clouds to seek a refuge from
the foe whose deadly blows they were completely unable to return.

But the moment they appeared on the under-side of the cloud-sea, all
the guns of the land batteries opened fire in all directions with
time-shells, and so rapid were the discharges, and so terrible the
energy of the explosives, that the whole firmament above the island
seemed ablaze with them, while the concussions of the nether atmosphere
were so tremendous and continuous, that it would have been madness for
the Russian air-ships to have approached within the zone of fire with
which the Aerians had covered and encircled their positions.

The clouds were torn and broken up into vast whirling masses, which
completely obscured the view of the Russians, and rendered anything
like accurate shooting in the direction of the island impossible. Worse
than this, the range of the great land guns, fired at an elevation
of forty-five degrees, was so enormous that they were forced by the
incessantly exploding projectiles, which were hurled up into the air in
all directions, to retire to a distance which, beyond the most random
shooting, the results of which were spent upon the rocks of the island
and the sea, rendered their own guns useless.

Rise up through the clouds they dare not, for they knew the _Ariel_ was
still there, and that the first ship that showed herself would be an
almost helpless mark for one of the ten guns which, for the time being,
commanded the heavens. There seemed nothing for it but an ignominious
retreat, for, as Boris Lossenski said to Olga when, furious with rage
and mortification, she reproached him with a lack both of skill and
courage, an attack upon a volcano in full eruption would have been
child’s play to an assault at close quarters on Kerguelen Island.

Their one hope of success had lain in a surprise, and that, by some
unaccountable means, had been made impossible. They had reckoned only
on the air-ships and the submarine defences, and even these they had
expected to take unawares. The terrible power of the battery guns,
which were able to spread their seas of fire through the air and to
shake the very firmament itself with their projectiles, had been a
revelation to them.

They could not train their own guns without seeing their mark, and
neither flame nor smoke betrayed the position of the batteries, while
on the other hand the artillerists on the island had simply to surround
the station with a zone of fire and a continuous series of atmospheric
convulsions through which no air-ship could have passed without the
risk of overturning or completely collapsing.

So Olga was at last convinced that her choice lay between abandonment
of the attack or running the gauntlet of fire in the almost forlorn
hope of engaging the land batteries and an aerial fleet of unknown
strength at close quarters.

Baffled and defeated, and yet convinced that to continue the unequal
contest under its present conditions would be merely to court still
more disastrous defeat, and even probable destruction, Olga at last
allowed Lossenski to give the signal for retreat, and the Russian
squadron withdrew to a position twelve miles northward of the island.
Its departure was seen both from the air and the land, and the
cannonade immediately stopped.

Meanwhile Alan had run the _Narwhal_ into the mouth of Christmas
Harbour flying his red flag. He was met by the _Cachalot_, and,
after telling Captain Ernstein what he had done, and learning of the
repulse of the Russians in the aerial battle, he directed forty of the
submarine vessels to follow him out to sea to look for the Russian
flotilla.

All the craft were furnished with tell-tale needles similar to the
one on board the _Narwhal_, for it is impossible to see a sufficient
distance under water to effectively attack an enemy as agile as the
submarine warships were, and this fact had led to the universal
employment of the needles.

As it was now quite light, the whole Aerian squadron, with the
exception of five vessels whose duty it was to act as scouts under
water, proceeded seaward on the surface of the waves, keeping a
sharp look-out for the remains of the Russian fleet, which they soon
discovered lying about five miles off the island. They could make out
thirty-five of the long, black, half-submerged hulls lying together
like a school of whales with the waves breaking over them as over
sunken rocks.

Alan immediately signalled from his conning-tower in the manual
sign-language, used by the Aerians to communicate between their
air-ships, to his consorts, and ordered them to scatter and form a wide
circle round the Russian squadron at a distance of a mile, and a depth
of two fathoms, but on no account to approach within a thousand yards
of them. When they had reached their positions they were to rise to the
surface and each was to discharge a couple of torpedoes towards the
centre of the circle. After that they were to retire and leave the rest
to him.

The moment the order had been passed through the fleet, everyone of the
vessels disappeared and proceeded to her station. The _Narwhal_ sank
at the same time until nothing but the glass dome of her conning-tower
remained above the water.

By carefully noting the course steered by the compass, and accurately
measuring the distance travelled by the number of revolutions of the
propeller, each captain was able to place his craft in the desired
position.

So perfectly, indeed, was the manœuvre performed that when the vessels
rose to the surface they formed a circle two miles in diameter, in the
centre of which lay, within a space of about two hundred yards square,
the Russian flotilla, the commanders of which, afraid to advance nearer
to the shore without the intelligence which they still awaited from
their scouts, and confounded by the awful spectacle presented by the
aerial battle, of the issue of which they were utterly ignorant, were
waiting in bewilderment and indecision the issue of the events which
had taken such a marvellous and unexpected turn.

The manœuvre ordered by Alan had been executed so promptly and secretly
that the Russians were not even aware that they were surrounded until
torpedo after torpedo, coming in from all points of the compass, began
exploding in their midst, hurling vast masses of water and foam up
into the air, tearing their plates and crippling their propellers, and
disabling half their number before they had time to recover from the
confusion into which the sudden attack had thrown them.

To communicate signals from one vessel to another under such
circumstances was impossible, and so united action was out of the
question. All that the captains of the vessels could see was that
there were enemies upon all sides of them. The explosion of the eighty
torpedoes had churned the water up into a mass of seething foam, in the
midst of which fifteen vessels were lying crippled and helpless on the
surface, while six more had been sent to the bottom.

This was bad enough, but while the captains of those which had escaped
were recovering from the stupefaction into which this sudden disaster
had thrown them Alan saw his chance, and as soon as the last torpedo
had exploded headed the _Narwhal_ full speed into the midst of them.
Then followed a scene which would have beggared all description.

The great ship, moving at a speed of nearly three miles a minute, tore
her way through the half-crippled squadron, hurling everything she
struck to the bottom of the sea. Every Russian vessel that was able to
do so after the first assault sank out of the way of the terrible ram
of the _Narwhal_ and headed off at full speed into the open sea.

But for those that were partially or wholly disabled there was no
escape. Alan standing in his conning-tower, his teeth clenched and his
blue eyes almost black with the fierce passion of battle and revenge,
whirled his steering-wheel this way and that, and as the steel monster
swung round in rapid curves in obedience to the rudder, he hurled her
again and again upon his practically helpless victims, piercing them
through and through as though their plates had been cardboard instead
of steel.

When the last one had gone down he left the conning-tower, hoisted his
flagstaff, and flew a signal to his consorts to return to harbour. What
had become of the Russian vessels that had escaped he neither knew nor,
for the present, cared.

The victory of the Aerians both at sea and in the air was complete, and
he was certain that the Russians had received such a lesson as would
convince them that Kerguelen Island was impregnable to any assault that
they could make upon it, unless they were able to take its defenders by
surprise--a contingency which was justly considered impossible.




CHAPTER XIII. THE SYREN’S STRONGHOLD.


AS soon as the first pitched battle in the world-war was over, a
lengthy and detailed report of the attack on Kerguelen and its repulse
was drawn up by Alan, Captain Ernstein, and Admiral Forrest for
presentation to the Council. To this report Alan added a supplement,
which is here reproduced in his own words.

“From what I know of the designs of Olga Romanoff and her advisers I
am convinced that the defeats which have been inflicted upon them will
merely have the effect of checking, and not putting a stop to, their
operations against the peace and freedom of the world.

“I have seen and heard enough during the last five years to feel
satisfied that there exists a very widespread conspiracy, the object
of which is the restoration of the Romanoff dynasty, in the person
of Olga, the breaking up of the Anglo-Saxon Federation, and the
inauguration of an era of personal despotism and popular slavery.

“As far as we have been able to learn, this conspiracy embraces
practically all the descendants of those families who lost their
rank, official position, or property during the reconstitution of
Russia after the fall of the Romanoffs. These people have, of course,
everything to gain and not much to lose by the destruction of the
present order of things, and Olga has promised them, no doubt quite
sincerely, that in the event of her triumph they shall be restored to
all that their ancestors lost.

“As a matter of fact, the greater part of Russia will be divided
amongst them should she ever accomplish her designs. The old order
of things, as it existed before the days of Alexander II., is to be
completely reinstated. The lower orders of the people are to be reduced
once more to serfdom, and the trading classes to a condition very
little better.

“If they resist they are to be terrorised into submission by the
air-ships, and all who raise their voices for freedom are to be
banished to Siberia, which is once more to be the prison-land of the
Russian Empire. A large standing army is to be kept constantly on the
war-footing, while the sea navy and the aerial fleet are to be kept up
to such a strength as to be able to hold the rest of the Continent in
practical subjection.

“In short, Olga aspires to nothing less than the throne of an empire
which shall stretch from the Yellow Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. I am
afraid, too, that there can be no doubt but that this conspiracy is
not only favoured, but actually assisted, by large numbers of people
throughout the Federation area.

“In fact, during the latter part of our stay at Mount Terror, the
stronghold was visited by men of all nations, who, of course, came
and went away in the submarine vessels, and who openly promised to do
everything they could to further what they called the cause of the
New Revolution in their own countries, on the understanding that the
old evils of capitalism and private ownership of land by which their
ancestors had grown wealthy are to be restored.

“This will, I trust, be enough to show you that the triumph of Olga
Romanoff means nothing less than the complete undoing of all the work
that was done in the days of the Terror.

“We have proved so far that Kerguelen, and, therefore, Aeria, is
impregnable to attack save by surprise, which will now, of course,
be impossible. But, on the other hand, the force at the disposal of
Olga and her allies is still so strong that all our present resources
will have to be kept constantly employed to protect ourselves, and
this leaves the world at the mercy of any Power which can obtain
the assistance of the Russians’ aerial navy, which still numbers
twenty-seven vessels, all equal to our best ships.

“In addition to these they possess a submarine navy of at least forty
vessels, all of which are swifter and more powerful than ours, with the
exception of the _Narwhal_. I therefore suggest that the whole of the
resources at the command of the Council shall at once be devoted to the
building of at least fifty air-ships of the _Ithuriel_ type, and the
same number of submarine battleships like the _Narwhal_, complete plans
of which I enclose.

“Until this additional force is at our command, I think it would
be useless to attempt the destruction of the Russian stronghold in
Antarctica, and until this is destroyed there can be no hope of
peace. This stronghold, which I will now attempt to describe for the
information of the Council, is one of the most marvellous places on
earth.

“It lies in and about Mount Terror and the Parry Mountains, which run
from it towards the pole behind the ice-barrier of Antarctica. Nearly
ten years ago a Russian explorer named Kishenov reached the ice-barrier
and made the discoveries which have enabled the Russian revolutionists
to create their stronghold. In addition to his ship, he took with him
three aerostats, which were chiefly constructed during his voyage, and
also a small submarine vessel, which he took out in sections and put
together at sea.

“He skirted the coast of Victoria Land, and was stopped by the ice in
latitude 78°, as all other Antarctic explorers by sea have been since
the voyage of Sir James Ross. The season was a singularly fine and open
one, and two days after his arrival he inflated one of his aerostats
and crossed the great barrier, to make a thorough exploration of the
unknown land. Kishenov was the first man, not an Aerian, who had ever
seen what there was on the other side of the Antarctic ice-wall.

“But he discovered far more than our explorers did, for while he was
in the neighbourhood of Mount Terror an earthquake, accompanying a
violent eruption of Mount Erebus, made a huge fissure in the south
side of Mount Terror. After waiting three days to make sure that
the earthquake had subsided, he and two of his officers entered the
crevice, which they found to be over two hundred feet wide at the level
of the land ice.

“Furnished with storage batteries and electric lights, they penetrated
into the interior of the mountain and found that it was pierced in
all directions with great galleries and enormous chambers, hollowed
out by volcanic forces during the period of Mount Terror’s activity.
Four days were spent altogether in exploring this subterranean region,
the existence of which was kept a profound secret by Kishenov and his
officers.

“Not the least strange and, as it has proved, one of the most valuable
portions of his discovery was the finding of a subterranean lake in the
heart of Mount Terror, the temperature of which was kept far above the
freezing point by the heat which the interior of the mountain derived
from the neighbouring fires of Mount Erebus. Finding the lake to be
salt water, he concluded that it must have some connection with the
open sea, and so the next day he and the same two officers entered the
submarine boat and penetrated underneath the ice-barrier.

“After a search of five hours, the search-lights of the boat revealed
a huge tunnel leading south-west into the land, that is to say, direct
for Mount Terror. They followed this tunnel up for a distance of nearly
five miles, and then struck the end. They now rose, and finally found
themselves floating on the surface of the lake in the interior of the
mountain.

“One of Kishenov’s officers, a man named Louis Khemski, was a member
of the Russian Revolutionary Society, whose existence only became
known five years ago. After the capture of the _Ithuriel_ the heads
of this society met, and to them this man communicated the secret
of Mount Terror. Kishenov and the other officer refused to join the
revolutionists, and were assassinated.

“Khemski was at once taken on board the _Ithuriel_, now renamed the
_Revenge_, and guided her to the fissure leading into Mount Terror. Its
outer portion was of course filled and covered with ice and snow, but
as soon as Khemski had found its position by his landmarks, a couple
of shells speedily reopened it, and it was here that the _Revenge_ lay
hidden while you were ransacking the world for her.

“Olga inherited from her grandfather, the father of the Vladimir
Romanoff who was executed for disobeying the order of the Council, all
the plans and directions necessary for the building both of air-ships
and submarine vessels, and as soon as this perfect stronghold and
hiding-place was discovered, her accomplices in the conspiracy for the
restoration of the Russian monarchy at once devoted their fortunes to
the supply of money and materials. The _Revenge_ made one more voyage
to Russia, and by travelling at full speed at a great elevation managed
to make it unobserved.

“The services of the cleverest engineers and most skilful craftsmen
among the revolutionists were secured. Transports were chartered and
sent out to Antarctica loaded with materials. On the shores of the
subterranean lake the first squadron of submarine vessels was built,
and then began the system of ocean terrorism which soon paralysed the
trade of the world.

“Piracy was carried on with utter ruthlessness. Transports were sunk by
the vessels, and then plundered by divers of the treasure which they
carried, and which was employed to purchase new materials and to repay
those who had furnished the first funds.

“Alexis and myself were kept by Olga, as I said in my first letter,
under the influence of a drug which completely paralysed our volitional
power, and were compelled to reveal all we knew concerning our own
air-ships, submarine vessels, guns, and explosives. And in this manner
was created and equipped the force which will be employed to dispute
with us the empire of the world unless we are able to extirpate it
utterly.”

While the despatch to the Council was being drawn up, the _Narwhal_
had been lying in the inner basin of Christmas Harbour, renewing her
store of motive power from the generating station ashore. As soon
as the engineer in charge reported that her power-reservoirs were
full, and Alan had delivered the despatch for conveyance to Aeria by
air-ship, Alexis, who had been apparently buried in a brown study for
the last two hours or so, asked Alan to come with him into his private
cabin, and as soon as the two friends were alone together he said to
him--

“Look here, old man! While you fellows have been drawing up that
despatch, and talking about the impossibility of attacking the
stronghold at Mount Terror, I’ve been doing some thinking, and I’ve
come to the conclusion that as far as an under-sea attack is concerned,
it isn’t quite so hopeless as you’ve made out.”

“I shall be only too delighted to hear you prove us wrong,” replied
Alan, his eyes brightening at the prospect, for he knew Alexis too
well not to be sure that he would not have spoken in this way unless
he had pretty solid reasons for doing so. “Say on, my friend; I am all
attention.”

“Get out to sea, then, as fast as ever you can,” said Alexis, “for
there’s not an hour to be lost if you adopt my plan, and if you don’t
we can just come back.”

“Very well,” said Alan. “What’s the course?”

“Clear the islands and head away southward as hard as you can go,”
replied Alexis briefly.

The excitement of the battle in which he had played such a terrible
part had left Alan in just the frame of mind to listen to the project
of a desperate adventure, such as he instinctively knew was now in his
friend’s mind. Without hesitating further he went into the saloon,
summoned the crew of the _Narwhal_, and said to them--

“Alexis and I have decided upon an enterprise which will end either in
very great injury to our enemies or our own destruction. You have seen
enough to-day to know that in the warfare we are engaged in there are
only two choices: victory or destruction. We don’t want to take anyone
against his will to what may be certain death. Those who care to go
ashore may do so.”

Not a man moved. An athletic sailor named George Cosmo, who held the
post of chief engineer, saluted, and said briefly--

“We shall all go, sir. What are the orders?”

“Get out of the harbour as fast as you can, and as soon as you are
clear of the islands sink two fathoms, steer a straight course due
south-east, and put her through the water as hard as she’ll go,”
replied Alan.

Cosmo saluted again, and left the room with his comrades to execute the
order.

“Now, my friend,” said Alan, turning to Alexis as soon as they were
alone again, “what is your plan?”

“Simply this,” replied Alexis. “Mount Terror, or at any rate the
mouth of the submarine tunnel, is in round numbers three thousand
geographical miles from here. Our speed is thirty miles an hour faster
than that of Olga’s squadron. That means that even if they go back at
once and at full speed we shall be there four or five hours before them.

“They, I think, have had quite enough fighting for to-day, and I don’t
believe they’ll attack the island again--first, because they know that
they can’t take our sea defences by surprise, and, second, because they
think the _Narwhal_ will remain on guard.

“Either they will go off on a raiding expedition somewhere else with
the air-ships--in which case we can’t follow them, for we don’t know
where they’re going--or they will return to Mount Terror at an easy
speed of fifty or sixty miles an hour. They will never dream that
you and I will venture to attack the stronghold single-handed, and,
therefore, that is just what I propose to do.”

“That will be odds of about forty to one against the _Narwhal_,”
replied Alan, somewhat gravely. “Unless we can destroy it completely
before they get back. But go on. Let’s hear the rest. I don’t think you
can propose anything too desperate for me now that I have really tasted
the blood of the enemy.”

“Well, what I propose is not to destroy the stronghold, simply because
it would be impossible to do that by sea. I merely propose to get
quietly into the tunnel, go to that narrow part about two miles from
the entrance, fix a dozen torpedoes with time-fuses up against the roof
of the tunnel, and then clear out into the open water.

“When those twelve torpedoes go off if they don’t bring a few thousand
tons of rock down into the tunnel and block it pretty securely I’ll
grant I know very little about explosives.”

“Good so far, very good!” said Alan. “I confess I envy you that idea.
What next?”

“Well, after that,” replied Alexis. “You see we shall have shut in the
vessels that are inside and shut out those that are outside. The ones
inside will be no use for some time, for it will take the divers a good
many days to open the tunnel again, even if they ever do.

“As for those outside, we can lie in wait for them if they return, and
trust to the _Narwhal’s_ speed and strength to sink as many of them as
we can, or else, if they don’t put in an appearance, we can come home
with the consciousness that we have done about all the damage in our
power. Now, what do you think?”

Alan was silent for a few moments, weighing the pros and cons of the
desperate venture--for desperate it was, in spite of the incomparable
speed and strength of the splendid vessel he commanded.

It was easy enough, always supposing that it could be accomplished
without interruption; but to be caught in the tunnel, as was quite
possible, between a force inside and one outside meant almost certain
destruction, for if the _Narwhal_ was not rammed and sunk in a space
too narrow for her to turn she would be certain to be blown up by the
torpedoes which would be launched against her.

In the end, the very character of the desperate venture, combined with
the magnitude of the injury it would do to the enemy, overcame the
scruples of his prudence. He put his hand on Alexis’ shoulder, and
giving him a gentle shake, said with a laugh--

“Bravo, old philosopher! You’ve done more with your thinking than we
have with our talking and writing. We’ll do it, if there isn’t a square
foot of the _Narwhal_ left when the business is over.”

“I knew you’d say that,” said Alexis. “Now let’s have some dinner and
go to sleep, for we shall want it.”

It was then very nearly midday, and the _Narwhal_ had cleared the
islands, and, with her prow pointed direct for the north-eastern
extremity of Wilkes’s Land, was rushing at full speed through the
water about twelve feet below the surface of the sea. For twenty hours
she sped silently and swiftly and unseen on her way, swept round the
ice-barrier that fences the northern promontory of Victoria Land and
into the bay dominated by the fiery crest of Mount Erebus.




CHAPTER XIV. FROM THE SEA TO THE AIR.


TWENTY-FOUR hours after she had reached Mount Terror the _Narwhal_ came
into the inner basin of Christmas Harbour, running easily along the
surface, with the red flag flying at her flagstaff. The news spread
rapidly through the little settlement, the dwellers in which had been
wondering greatly at her sudden disappearance, and there was quite a
crowd on the jetty as she ran alongside. Max Ernstein was among it, and
as the battleship came to a standstill he saw to his amazement Alan
spring ashore and come towards him with outstretched hands.

“Why, what does this mean?” he said, as he grasped his hand. “I thought
you told me you were never going to leave the _Narwhal_ until”--

“Until we had done what we have done,” said Alan with a laugh, as he
returned his hand-clasp with a grip that made the bones crack. “We have
destroyed a good half of what remained of the Russian sea navy, and,
what’s more, we’ve blown up the entrance to their submarine dockyard,
and completely crippled them as far as building or equipping new
vessels is concerned until they can find a new harbour.”

“Magnificent!” exclaimed Ernstein. “Glorious! You’ll be wearing the
golden wings again in forty-eight hours.”

“If I am,” said Alan, flushing with pleasure at the thought, “the
credit will be due to Alexis, and not to me. It was his idea entirely.
But never mind that now. We’ve suffered rather badly, and only just
escaped with our lives. Five out of six of the _Narwhal’s_ crew are
disabled, and I want you to get them out and send them away to Aeria as
soon as possible. Meanwhile Alexis and I will write our despatch to the
Council.”

His instructions were obeyed at once, and the invalids were transferred
to the _Vega_, the air-ship that was to convey them to Aeria, and in
her luxurious state-rooms their hurts were attended to by the best
skill on the island while the despatch was being drawn up.

It was brief, plain, almost formal in language, and confined entirely
to statement of bare fact, and in little more than an hour after the
arrival of the _Narwhal_ at Christmas Harbour the _Vega_ had risen into
the air, and was speeding on her way towards Aeria.

Meanwhile the news of the daring venture and brilliant exploits of Alan
and Alexis and their comrades spread like wildfire through the island,
and everyone who was not engaged on duties that could not be left came
to the settlement to see and congratulate the two heroes of the hour,
whose strange and romantic fate, so well known to every Aerian, had
thus suddenly been glorified by the triumph of the genius and daring
which had proved capable of wresting victory from defeat and glory from
misfortune.

Although some were more demonstrative, none were heartier or more
sincere in their congratulations than Edward Forrest, the admiral of
the station, and, unknown to Alan and Alexis, he and Ernstein had
sent a joint despatch by the _Vega_, strongly urging both the justice
and the policy of at once restoring to the full rights of citizenship
the two men who had proved themselves possessed of such extraordinary
ability.

If the battle for the empire of the world was to be fought over again,
the command of the forces of Aeria could not be entrusted to any hands
so able and so daring as those of the President’s son and his friend
and companion in misfortune and victory. The triumphs at Kerguelen and
Antarctica had really been due to them alone. They had given warning
of the attack on the station, and it was due to the skill and boldness
of their strategy that it had been foiled with such disaster to the
enemy.

This of itself was much, but it had not satisfied either their ambition
or their devotion, for, after it had been accomplished, they had
carried the war almost single-handed in the Russian stronghold, and
there, under circumstances of unparalleled danger to themselves, they
had struck a blow which could not fail to cripple the sea-power of the
enemy, and so influence to an incalculable extent the ultimate issue of
the war which, ere long, might be raging over the whole world.

That night, while the almost constant storms of the southern winter
were sweeping over the barren surface of Desolation Land, a feast was
held in the central hall of the headquarters at Christmas Harbour in
honour of the double victory and the return of the two chief heroes
of it from their long captivity. The next day was spent in a rigorous
inspection of all the defences of the island and the machinery and
ammunition of the air-ships and submarine vessels. At six o’clock
in the evening, twenty-six hours after she had started, the _Vega_
returned from Aeria, bringing the reply of the Council to the
despatches which she had taken.

  The Council has heard with great satisfaction of the repulse of the
  attack on the station at Kerguelen and of the distinguished services
  rendered by Alan Arnold and Alexis Mazarov, both at Kerguelen and
  Mount Terror.

  In recognition of the great skill and devotion they have displayed,
  the Council invites them to assume the command of the air-ship
  _Ithuriel_, and to make use of that vessel to execute such plans and
  purposes as in their discretion will best serve the interests of the
  State of Aeria for a period of one year from the present date. They
  will be supplied with motive power and all stores and materials of
  war at any of the oceanic stations.

  The Council accepts the recommendation contained in the supplement to
  the first despatch, and has given orders for the immediate building
  of a hundred air-ships of the _Ithuriel_ class and the same number
  of submarine battleships of the _Narwhal_ type. These are expected
  to be ready for service at the end of the year, by which time the
  Council hopes to be able to call upon Alan Arnold and Alexis Mazarov
  to assume the duties of admiral and vice-admiral of the aerial
  navies, and at the same time to restore to them full privileges of
  citizenship in Aeria.

  The admiral and officers of Kerguelen will give all assistance in
  the carrying out of these directions, and will make and transmit all
  necessary reports in connection with them. No further hostilities
  are to be undertaken for the present by the aerial or sea forces, but
  they will maintain a strict watch against all possible surprises on
  the part of the enemy, and be ready to repel any assault which may be
  made. This order does not apply to the air-ship _Ithuriel_.

  Given in the Council Hall of Aeria on the Eleventh day of May in the
  hundred and thirty-second year of the Deliverance.

  ALAN ARNOLD, President.
  FRANCIS TREMAYNE, Vice-President.

  To Edward Forrest,
     Admiral in Command at the Station of Kerguelen.

Such was the reply of the Council to the news of the daring foray
made by the _Narwhal_ upon the stronghold of Mount Terror, and the
suggestions of Admiral Forrest and Captain Ernstein. Although it did
not precisely adopt the latter, which, indeed, the Council was well
justified in looking upon as inspired rather by enthusiasm than the
judicial spirit proper to the occasion, it was even more satisfactory
both to Alan and Alexis than an immediate recall would have been.

True, they had done great and brilliant service in the first few days
of their return to freedom. They had virtually crippled the Russian
sea-power by the blows which they had so skilfully, so swiftly, and so
daringly struck, but neither of them felt that this was a sufficient
achievement to warrant their full restoration to all that they had lost
through the fatal error that they had made on board the old _Ithuriel_.

Both, indeed, longed ardently for just such further opportunity of
devoting themselves to the service of their race and country as this
order offered them. In command of the new _Ithuriel_, one of the
swiftest and most formidable aerial warships in existence, there was no
telling the damage that they might do to the enemy or what service they
might render to their friends.

They knew that, as regarded the Russian force, the odds against them
were about twenty-four to one, and they also knew that Olga and her
lieutenants would lose no time in increasing their navy to the utmost
extent in their power in preparation for the war of extermination that
was now inevitable.

They had a year before them during which they would have an absolutely
free hand, and all the supplies that the resources of Aeria could give
them. True, it was a year of exile and probation, but they gladly
welcomed the test of fidelity and devotion which it offered, and which,
worthily passed through, would mean restoration of all they had lost,
and a return to their friends and kindred in their beloved valley of
Aeria armed with powers and responsibilities which would make them
practically the arbiters of the destinies of their people, and perhaps
of the whole human race.

But the _Vega_ had brought something more to the two friends and exiles
than the reply of the Council to their despatches, for immediately he
landed her captain handed to Alan a small sealed packet addressed to
him in the handwriting of his sister Isma. When he opened it, as he
did at the first opportunity that found him alone, he found that it
contained two letters and two chromatic photographs.

The letters were from his parents and sister. His father’s was, as may
well be imagined, very different from the cold and formal despatch that
he had signed as President of the Council. It was full of tender and
loving sympathy for him in the strange fate that had overtaken him,
and, while it entirely absolved them of all moral blame for the loss of
the flagship and the lives of his companions, it exhorted him earnestly
to apply himself without useless regrets to the work of the year of
probation which the Council had seen fit to impose upon him, and it
ended with an assurance that the happiest day that had been known in
Aeria within the memory of its citizens would be that on which the
golden wings would be replaced on their foreheads in the Council Hall
of the city.

To this letter was added another, written by Alan’s mother, and written
as only a mother can write to her son. Strong and well tried as he was,
there were tears in Alan’s eyes when he had finished reading these two
letters, but they did not remain there long after he had begun the one
from his sister.

Isma, proud beyond measure of the exploits of her brother and the man
she still looked upon as her lover, and absolutely assured that when
the time came both would return covered with honour, wrote in the
highest spirits. As it was an invariable rule of life among the Aerians
to be perfectly frank with one another, and to take every precaution to
avoid those misunderstandings which in a less perfect state of society
had produced so much personal and social suffering, she told him in
plain yet tender language exactly what had passed between her and Alma
on the night that his first letter had been received.

Yet she said nothing that in any way committed either Alma or himself
to a renewal of the troth which had been broken by the designs of Olga
Romanoff, and though she sent her remembrances to Alexis, she sent them
as though to a friend, tacitly giving both to understand that no words
of love must pass between the two exiles and their former sweethearts
until they met again upon equal terms.

But there was another message not contained in the letter, or written
in any words, which said more than all that she had written, and this
was conveyed by the photographs, which she sent without a word of
allusion to them. As Alan looked upon them the six years of mental
slavery and degrading servitude to the daughter of the enemies of his
race passed away for the moment, and he saw himself standing with Alma
in one of the groves of Aeria plighting his boyish troth on the night
before he started on his fatal voyage in the _Ithuriel_.

The face that looked at him with such marvellous lifelikeness, with all
its perfection of form and exquisite colouring, reproduced with the
most absolute fidelity, was the same face that had been upturned to his
to receive his kisses on that never-to-be-forgotten night. And yet, in
another sense, it was not the same.

That had been the sunny, smiling face of a girl to whom sorrow and evil
were as absolutely unknown as they would be to an angel in heaven, but
this was the face of a woman who had lived and thought and suffered.

And when he remembered that whatever of sorrow or suffering she had
known had been on his account, the last lingering traces of the vile
spells of the evilly beautiful Syren of the Skies, who had so fatally
bewitched him, vanished from his soul, and the old love revived within
him pure and strong, and intensified tenfold by the knowledge of the
great reparation that he owed to the girl upon whose life he had
brought the only shadow it had ever known.

He knew that their hands would never meet again until all that had been
lost was regained, at whatever cost of labour or devotion that might
be necessary on his part, but he also knew that in all these years no
other man had been found worthy to fill the place that he had once
occupied, and which he was resolved to win back or die in the attempt,
and this knowledge made him look forward to the mighty struggle which
lay before him with an eagerness that augured well for its issue.

He had gone into his own cabin on board the _Ithuriel_, which was being
rapidly prepared for her roving commission, to read his letters in
solitude. He put Alma’s photograph on the table, and sat before it with
his eyes fixed upon it until every line of form and tint of colour was
indelibly impressed anew upon his memory.

Then he kissed it as reverently as a devotee of old might have kissed
a sacred relic, and then he attached the oval miniature to a chain of
alternate links of azurine and gold, and hung it round his neck inside
his tunic, registering a mental vow that if death came before he once
more wore the golden wings, it should find it lying nearest his heart.

“This,” he said, speaking to himself, as he took Isma’s photograph up
from the table, and looked fondly upon the radiantly lovely face that
looked out from its frame, “is evidently not intended for me. Isma
doesn’t say who it’s for, but I fancy that there is some one on board
the _Ithuriel_ who has a very much better right to it than I have. I
wonder if Alexis is in his room?”

So saying, he left his cabin and found his friend still deep in the
perusal of two lengthy letters from his father and mother.

“So you have had letters from home as well, old man? I hope they’ve
been as pleasant reading as mine have,” he said, going to the couch on
which Alexis was sitting, and holding one hand behind his back.

“Yes, they’re from my father and mother, and so they can scarcely be
anything else, so far as what they do say. It’s what they don’t say
that gives me the only cause to find fault with them. But still that, I
suppose, would be expecting too much under the circumstances.”

He ended with something very like a sigh, and Alan replied as gravely
as he could--

“And what might that be, my knight of the rueful countenance? Don’t you
think the Council have treated us splendidly, and given us a glorious
opportunity of winning back all that the daughter of the Tsar has
robbed us of?”

“Of course, I do,” replied Alexis, looking up at him with a flush on
his cheeks. “But for all that there is one thing still, something that
I am not ashamed to say I value above everything else that I have lost
or can regain.”

“And that is--?”

“Well, to put it plainly,” replied Alexis, the flush deepening as he
spoke, “these two letters don’t contain one single word about Isma.
Now you know what I mean. Of course, I am ready to do everything that
the Council may call upon us to do, and the moment that I know I have
won back the right to wear the golden wings will be the proudest of my
life, but it will be far from the happiest if I only go back to Aeria
to find Isma another man’s wife, and what else can I think when they
don’t so much as mention her name?”

“Be of good cheer, my friend,” replied Alan with a laugh, putting one
hand on his shoulder, and taking the other from behind his back. “You
will never find that, I can promise you. I am the bringer of good
tidings. There, take those and feast your eyes and your heart on them
in solitude as I have just been doing on something else.”

So saying he put Isma’s letter and photograph into Alexis’ hand, and
without another word left him to gather courage and comfort from them
as he had himself done.




CHAPTER XV. OLGA IN COUNCIL.


THE remains of the Russian submarine squadron, numbering now only
seventeen vessels, headed out northward into the open sea, after
leaving their disabled consorts to their fate. In the brief space
occupied by her first rush they had recognised the _Narwhal_ both
by her size and speed, and one of the captains avowed that he had
recognised Alan Arnold, Olga’s late captive, standing under the
glass dome of the conning-tower, steering the great vessel upon her
devastating course.

Twenty miles out from the island they rose to the surface and made
out the aerial fleet some five miles to the southward, hovering at an
elevation of about a thousand feet, and evidently on the look-out for
them. Michael Lossenski, who had escaped the ram of the _Narwhal_, ran
up his flagstaff, and flew a signal which soon brought the air-ships
bearing down upon them. The _Revenge_ sank down to the surface of the
water, and took Lossenski off his ship in order that he might report
himself.

Olga and his father received the first news of the defeat of their
naval forces with cold displeasure; but when Michael told them that
more than half the fleet had been destroyed by the _Narwhal_, and that
it was believed that Alan was in command of her, Olga’s anger blazed
out into fury, and she cried passionately--

“You fools and cowards to have fled like that from one ship and one
man! Could not seventeen of you have overcome that one vessel? Had you
no rams, no torpedoes, that you fled before this single foe?”

He took the bitter rebuke in silence. He knew that he had failed both
in duty and courage, and that a reply would only make matters worse.
Olga looked at him for a moment, with eyes burning with scorn and
anger. Then she rose from her seat, and, pointing to the door of the
saloon, said--

“Go! You have disgraced yourself and us. Take your ships back to Mount
Terror, and await our further commands.”

With bowed head and face flushed with shame, the disgraced man walked
in silence out of the saloon and left Olga alone with his father. As
soon as he had gone Olga began striding up and down the saloon, her
hands clenched and her eyes, black with passion, glittering fiercely
under her straight-drawn brows.

Orloff Lossenski knew her too well not to let her anger take its course
uninterrupted, so he sat and watched her, and waited for her to speak
first. At last she stopped in front of him, and said in a low fierce
voice, that was almost hoarse with the strength of her passion--

“So! you were right, my friend. I was a fool, an idiot, to let those
two escape. I ought to have killed them, as you advised. They were of
no further use to us, and we could have done without them. Yes, truly I
was a fool, such a fool as love makes of every woman!”

“Not of every woman, Majesty,” replied Lossenski in a low soothing
tone, that was not without a trace of irony. “If I may say it without
disrespect, your ancestress, the great Catherine, knew how to combine
love and wisdom. When she wearied of a lover, or had no further use for
a man, she never left him the power of revenging his dismissal.”

“Yes, yes,” she replied. “I know that; but I did not weary of this man,
this king among men, for whose love I would have sold my soul. I only
wearied of my own attempts to win it. You know what I mean, Lossenski,
and you can understand me, for you have confessed that he was well
worthy of the sacrifice.

“You know that when he seemed my lover he was only my slave--that I
could not compel the man to love me, but only the passive machine that
I had made of him, and you know, too, that the moment I had let him
regain his freedom of will he would have loathed and cursed me, as no
doubt he is doing now.

“Why did I not kill him? How could I, when I loved him better than my
own life, and all my dreams of empire? Why, I could not even kill the
other one because he was Alan’s friend, and because he would have hated
me still more for doing so.

“But, after all,” she continued, speaking somewhat more calmly, “it is
not setting them free that has done the mischief. It is the treason
or the miracle that enabled them to capture the _Narwhal_. I would
give a good deal to know how that was done. They cannot have done it
themselves, for I had given them enough of the drug to deprive them of
all will-power for at least twenty-four hours, and I told that traitor,
Turgenieff, who must have betrayed the attack on Kerguelen, to give
them more when he landed them on the island.”

“But is your Majesty sure that they took the drug?” said Lossenski,
interrupting her for the first time. “Did you give it with your own
hand, or see them take it with your own eyes?”

“No!” said Olga, with a start. “I did not. I sent it to them by my
maid, Anna, but she swore that she put it in their wine, and when they
had finished their last meal the decanter was empty.”

“That was a grave mistake, Majesty,” said Lossenski, in a tone of
respectful reproof, “and one which may yet cost you the empire of the
world. It is such trifles as that which destroy the grandest schemes.”

“I know! I know!” said Olga impatiently. “You may think me a fool and
a weakling, but I could not bring myself to see or speak to Alan again
after I had at last resolved to give up the hopeless task of winning
him, and send him away.

“But for that mistake the _Narwhal_ would still have been ours, and we
should have taken Kerguelen unawares. He could have told his people
nothing else that would have harmed us, for the more he tells them
about Mount Terror the more impossible they will see any attack upon
it to be. No, no, it was all that one fatal mistake! But there, it
tortures me to talk about it! Tell me, my old friend and counsellor,
what we are to do to repair the damage?”

Exhausted by her fierce and sudden outburst of passion, and the
bitterness of her regret, Olga threw herself into a chair and sat
waiting for Lossenski to speak. He remained silent for several moments,
buried in thought, and then he began speaking in the low, deliberate
tone of a man who has weighty counsels to impart.

“We cannot deny, Majesty, that we have been worsted in our two first
encounters with these Aerians, but we must learn wisdom and patience
from defeat. It seems plain to me that the Aerians are too strong for
us as we are.

“When we attacked them we forgot that, while we are children in
warfare, they are perfect masters of it. They have preserved the
traditions of their fathers, and for four generations they have been
trained in the use of the weapons which we have only just learnt to
use. Therefore my advice is that we do not attack them again for the
present.”

“But,” interrupted Olga, “in any case, they will attack us, and we
shall still have to fight.”

“Not of necessity, your Highness,” replied Lossenski. “You see they
have not pursued us, and the reason for this is that they know that
both our air-ships and our submarine vessels are swifter and more
powerful than theirs, with two or three exceptions.

“They will not attack us till they can do so on equal terms, and we
must take care that they never do that. You have plenty of treasure and
plenty of men at your command. Let us retire to our stronghold again
and devote ourselves to increasing our strength both by sea and in the
air, until we have made ourselves invulnerable.

“And remember, too, Majesty,” he continued with an added meaning
in his tone, “Aeria is not the world. There are vast possibilities
before you in other directions. I am convinced now that we have made a
mistake in attacking the Aerians first. Russia is ripe for revolt, and
great quantities of arms have already been manufactured. The tribes
of Western Asia need only a leader to take the field, and the Sultan
Khalid could put an army millions strong into the field within a few
months.

“On the other hand, Anglo-Saxondom is a babel of conflicting opinions,
and the mob rules throughout its length and breadth. Where everyone is
master there can be no leaders, and those who are without leaders are
the natural prey of the strong hand.

“They are wealthy and weak, and divided among themselves. The Aerians
have given them over to their own devices. Why should you not, when we
have repaired the damage we have suffered, take your aerial squadron to
Moscow, proclaim the new revolution, and crown yourself Tsarina in the
Kremlin?”

In speaking thus Orloff Lossenski was really only putting into formal
shape the project which it had all along been the aim of Olga and her
adherents to carry out. There was nothing new in the suggestion save
the proposition that the revolution should be proclaimed in Russia, and
that Olga should crown herself Tsarina before, instead of after, the
attempted subjugation of Aeria.

Up to the present it had been believed that nothing could possibly be
done until the power of the Aerians was either crushed or crippled,
but the battle of Kerguelen had clearly shown that this was a task far
beyond their present resources. Even the mastery of the sea was now no
longer theirs, thanks to the two fatal mistakes which Olga had made,
first in setting Alan and Alexis free, and second in sending them away
from Mount Terror in the swiftest and most powerful vessel in their
sea-navy.

Why she had been guilty of this last imprudence she could not even
explain to herself. It was one of those mistakes, made in pure
thoughtlessness, which again and again have marred the greatest schemes
of conquest. Another vessel would have done just as well, save that she
would not have performed the errand quite so quickly; but the _Narwhal_
happened to be in readiness at the moment, and as Peter Turgenieff, her
commander, was one of Olga’s most trusted sea-captains, she had given
him the order to convey Alan and Alexis to the island, and so the fatal
error had been committed.

It must, however, be remembered that when she made it, it was
impossible for her to foresee its disastrous outcome. She implicitly
believed that the two Aerians were completely under the influence of
the will-poison, and so utterly unable to think or act independently,
or to form and execute the daring design which they had so successfully
accomplished.

But now that the mistake had been made, Orloff Lossenski saw that
the course he suggested to his mistress offered the only hope of
counteracting it. His advice pointed out the shortest road to the
attainment of the designs of Olga and her followers; and he gave it
in all sincerity, for he was absolutely devoted to Olga’s person and
fortune, and the realisation of her ambition was the dearest dream of
his own life.

It meant, too, the restoration of his own order to all its ancient
rights and privileges with the added wealth and dignity that would be
won by conquest. It meant the establishment of a Russian empire far
greater and more powerful than that of the last of the Tsars, for its
power would extend from the Pacific coast of Asia to the Atlantic coast
of Europe.

Olga heard him with flushed cheeks and shining eyes, and, when he had
done speaking, she rose to her feet again and faced him, looking every
inch a queen, in the ripe beauty of her perfect womanhood, and said,
in tones from which every trace of her former anger and sorrow had
vanished--

“Well spoken, Orloff Lossenski! That is worthy counsel for you to give
and for me to hear. I will follow it, for it is wise as well as bold,
and the day that I crown myself in the Kremlin you shall be the first
noble in Russia. But, stop--what of the Sultan? Surely he and his
armies will have to be reckoned with?”

“True,” said Lossenski. “But if he will not listen to reason, cannot
your air-ships destroy his armies like swarms of locusts, lay his
cities in ruins, and sweep him and his dynasty from the face of the
earth?”

“Yes, that is true again,” replied Olga. “Provided that the Aerians did
not come to his aid.”

“They would not do that, I think,” he replied.

“But to make that impossible why should you not make an alliance with
him and offer to help him with your air-ships and submarine navy to
the conquest of the world, on the condition of the restoration of the
Russian Empire and the division of the world between you? Remember that
as long as you kept the command of your navies of the air and the sea
you could always keep him to the terms when once made.”

As the old man ceased speaking Olga laid her hand upon his shoulder,
and said in a low, clear, steady voice that spoke of a great resolution
finally taken--

“My friend, you are the wisest of counsellors, and when I regain my
throne you shall be the first Minister of the Empire. I will pardon
your son for his failure to-day for the sake of his father’s wisdom,
and we will say no more about disaster and defeat. We will look forward
only to victory and the empire that it will bring us!”

But when the defeated squadrons arrived at Mount Terror Olga was rudely
awakened from her dreams of empire by the tidings of the disaster that
had occurred during her absence.

The damage inflicted by the _Narwhal_ was speedily proved to be
irreparable. For a distance of nearly a mile the roof of the tunnel had
sunk bodily down, blocking it for ever. Millions of tons of rock and
earth had fallen into the submarine channel, and all hope of clearing
it again was out of the question.

The explosion of the twelve torpedoes had not only brought down all
the rocks in their vicinity, but it had so shaken the earth in both
directions that a general subsidence had taken place, forming a barrier
which was so vast and massive that its removal, even if possible, would
have taken many months of labour; and so there was no avoiding the
dismal conclusion that their submarine dockyard was useless, and, for
the present at least, their sea-power crippled.

The effects of the explosion in the interior of the mountain, though
bad enough, were much less serious. Nearly seventy men, or more than
half the total garrison that had been left behind, had been either
killed or maimed for life. The six submarine warships that had been
lying in the lake were, of course, useless now that their way to the
sea was barred, and five of the twelve air-ships which had been lying
in the vast cavern whose floor formed the shores of the subterranean
lake were so seriously injured that considerable repairs would be
necessary for them.

The whole of the lower level of the vast system of chambers and
galleries which pierced the interior of the mountain in all directions
had been flooded by the volumes of water projected from the lake by the
explosion. Workshops, laboratories, and building-slips had been wrecked
or thrown into complete confusion, and the appearance of the whole of
the level was that of a place which had been swept by a tornado.

As soon as the amount of the damage done had been estimated, Olga
called a council of war, composed of twelve of her most skilled and
trusted adherents, in a chamber which was led up to by a path sloping
steeply up from the shores of the lake. This chamber was an almost
perfect oval, about sixty feet long by twenty wide, and about thirty
high.

Neither its temperature nor its internal appointments would have given
any idea of the fact that it was situated at the uttermost end of the
earth, and buried under the eternal snows of Antarctica. The rough rock
walls had been smoothed and hung with silken hangings, against which
statues of the purest marble gleamed white, and pictures, some of vast
size and exquisite execution, brought the scenes of sunnier lands to
the eyes of the occupants.

Electric light-globes hung in festoons all around, shedding a mild
diffused lustre over the luxurious furniture of the chamber. The floor
of lava, smoothed and polished, was covered with priceless carpets into
whose thick pile the foot sank noiseless, as though into soft, shallow
snow.

Treasures, both of art and luxury, which had been plundered from ocean
transports that had fallen victims to the rams of the submarine
cruisers were scattered about in lavish profusion that was almost
barbaric in its excess. Behind the hangings of the walls ran an
elaborate system of pipes which circulated fresh air drawn from the
exterior of the mountain, and, heated by passing through electric
furnaces, at once warmed and ventilated this council-chamber of the
extraordinary woman who, in virtue of her strange conquest of the air,
had come to be known among her followers as the Syren of the Skies.

Human art and science had completely conquered both the ruggedness of
Nature and the inclemency of the elements, and had transformed these
gloomy caverns, excavated by the volcanic fires of former ages out of
the heart of Mount Terror, into warm, well-lighted, and airy abodes,
capable of sheltering several hundred human beings from the rigours
even of the Antarctic winter.

This subterranean retreat and stronghold was roughly divided into two
levels, on the lower of which were situated the chambers and galleries
which served for the performance of all the work necessary for the
building of the air-ships and submarine vessels, while the upper was
devoted to store-rooms and dwelling-places for the followers and
assistants of the Queen of this strange realm.

No other region could have presented such a marvellous contrast to the
sunlit and flower-scented paradise which was the home of their mortal
enemies, the race with which they had dared to dispute the empire of
the world. The powers of darkness and of light could hardly have been
better typified than were these two contending forces by the different
characters of their respective strongholds.

When the Council of War, summoned at Olga’s bidding by Orloff
Lossenski, had assembled in the Central Chamber, a pair of heavy purple
velvet curtains parted, and the Syren entered from the gallery, which
had been hewn through the solid rock and which communicated with her
private suite of apartments. The members of the Council rose as she
entered and greeted her as subjects were wont to greet their sovereigns
in the days before the Terror.

She acknowledged their reverence with a royal condescension, and took
her seat on a raised divan at the inner end of the chamber. Beckoning
Lossenski to her side, she exchanged a few words with him in an
undertone, and then called upon Andrei Levin, the Secretary of the
Council, to enumerate the nature and extent of the losses they had
sustained in their brief but disastrous first attempt to cope with the
mighty race which had dominated the world for nearly a century and a
half.

When Levin had finished, it was found that, in addition to the
irreparable damage done to the submarine dockyard, no less than
thirty-five submarine cruisers had been destroyed or rendered useless,
while twenty-three air-ships had been annihilated by the projectiles
of the Aerians. This left an available fighting force of twenty-eight
submarine and twenty-four aerial warships fit for service.

It had been calculated that it would take at least a month of hard work
to get the subterranean arsenal into such working order as would enable
them to repair their losses, and after this at least twelve months
would have to elapse before they had brought their fighting force up to
the strength it had possessed but five short days before.

In addition to their losses in ships and war materials, more than a
hundred of Olga’s chosen and most devoted followers had lost their
lives in the terrible warfare which knew no sparing of life, and it
would be necessary to draft more men from Russia to replace them before
the work could be carried on upon an adequate scale.

Olga listened to the catalogue of disasters with frowning brows and
eyes gleaming with hardly-suppressed fury. When it was over, she rose
and spoke in a voice whose wonderful music and witchery seemed to charm
all sense of misfortune for the time being out of the hearts of her
listeners. A born queen of men, she knew when to wither with her scorn
or to charm with her sweetness, and she was well aware that this hour
of defeat and disaster was no time for reproaches or rebuke.

So her voice was low and sweet, and almost pleading, as she reviewed
the situation, which, for the moment, seemed so dark, and appealed to
her followers, through those who commanded them, not to yield before a
sudden and temporary misfortune, but to learn from defeat the lessons
of victory. She reminded them of all that their ancestors and hers had
lost at the hands of the Terrorists, the forefathers of the hated and
arrogant Aerians, and she painted in glowing colours the glory and the
boundless wealth that would be the reward of victory.

Heavy as their losses had been, there was no reason why they should
not repair them. She reminded them how, five years before, they had
possessed but a single air-ship, and were only a weak and scattered
body of revolutionaries. Now they possessed, even after all they had
lost, an aerial fleet superior to all the vessels of the Aerian navies
save two, and submarine cruisers swifter and more powerful than any
that floated, save only the stolen _Narwhal_. More than this, they were
now supported by a vast organisation numbering thousands of devoted men
and women, any one of whom would give his or her life for the cause for
which they were fighting.

She only spoke for a quarter of an hour or so, but every word went
home, and when she concluded with an appeal to their loyalty and
devotion, the twelve members of the Council rose with one accord
to their feet, and there and then spontaneously renewed the oaths
of fealty to her person and dynasty which they had taken when they
enlisted in her service. Every man of them was a scion of some once
noble Russian house, and her cause was theirs in virtue of personal
interest as well as that sentiment of blind, unreasoning loyalty which
even four generations of freedom had failed to eradicate from the
Russian blood.

Olga thanked them with a tremor in her voice which, whether it was
real or not, spoke to them with far greater eloquence than words, and
then she bade Lossenski lay before the Council the plans which she
had already discussed with him for the future conduct of the vast
enterprise which had opened so inauspiciously.

Lossenski rose at once, and for over two hours unfolded a vast and
subtly-conceived scheme, which has been very briefly outlined in a
previous chapter, and the results of the working out of which will
become apparent in due course.

At the end of the discussion which followed it was decided that a
transport should be purchased as soon as possible in a Russian port and
sent out to Antarctica with fresh supplies of men and materials.

A flotilla of twelve marine cruisers was told off to convoy her on her
voyage, and protect her from possible attack in case the Aerians should
suspect or discover the purpose to which she was devoted.

As no more submarine vessels could be built in Antarctica--for
the fearful cold of the outside waters made such work totally
impossible--all efforts were to be concentrated upon the increase of
the aerial navy, and a hundred air-ships, in addition to those already
in existence, was fixed upon as the minimum strength that it would be
safe to depend upon, when the hour for the final struggle came.

No force was to be wasted, if possible, upon minor attacks or isolated
engagements, for the Russians, like the Aerians, had learnt that, under
the conditions of the new warfare, skirmishes only meant destruction in
detail and loss of strength entirely disproportionate to the advantage
gained.

Thus virtually the same decisions were arrived at in Aeria and
Antarctica. Both sides resolved to husband their resources and increase
their strength, and then to risk everything upon the issue of one
mighty conflict, a veritable struggle of the gods, in which both
equally recognised that the defeated would be annihilated and the
victors would remain undisputed masters of the world.

Finally, it was decided that Orloff Lossenski should depart at once
with a formal offer of alliance to the Sultan of the Moslem Empire,
and that a day later Olga should follow with a squadron of twenty
air-ships and give him the alternative of alliance or immediate war.

If, as was confidently expected, he chose alliance, five submarine
cruisers were to be given to him, so that he might use them as models
for the construction of a fleet which should be powerful enough to
sweep the Aerian warships from the seas, and which would be supplied
with the secret motive power at a station to be established at Larnaka
under Russian control.

Then, when all was in readiness for the world-war, Olga was to be
proclaimed Tsarina in Moscow, and the standard of absolute monarchy
once more reared over the re-erected throne of the House of Romanoff.
Anglo-Saxondom was to be invaded and conquered, and Aeria itself
attacked and either subdued or depopulated and laid waste.




CHAPTER XVI. KHALID THE MAGNIFICENT.


A FEW minutes before midnight on the fifteenth of May, in the year
2036, Khalid the Magnificent, lord and master of the greatest and most
splendid realm that had ever been ruled over by a single man since
the world began, stood alone on the spacious terrace of his palace
in Alexandria, gazing up at the myriads of stars that shone in the
cloudless firmament above him, and dreaming one of those dreams of
world-wide empire which had haunted the soul of such men as he from the
days of Rameses the Great until his own.

He was a man of thirty-four, tall, swarthy, and athletic, with the
proud aquiline features of the Arab, the dark, alternately flashing and
melting eyes of the Circassian, and the strong, reposeful dignity of
the Turk--a man whom women looked upon with love and men with respect
that was often akin to dread.

The lord of seven hundred million subjects who, even in those days, so
strong was still the faith and loyalty of the Moslem, looked upon him
only as something less than Allah and the Prophet whose sacred blood
flowed in his veins, his soaring ambition was not content even with the
splendid inheritance that he had received from his ancestors.

In his being were closely blended those elements of religious
enthusiasm and worldly ambition which had made the men of the Golden
Age of Islam such irresistible conquerors and such mighty rulers of
men. He had pondered over the past history of his faith and his people
from the times of the Prophet down to his own, until he had come to
believe himself the man chosen by Destiny to subjugate the world, and
to compel all men, from pole to pole, and east to west, to accept
the rule and faith of Islam, and to confess the unity of God and the
apostleship of Mohammed.

He saw in the vast area of the Anglo-Saxon Federation, which now, in
name at least, dominated Europe, America, and Australasia, only a
collection of democratic and ill-governed States in which the mob ruled
by blind counting of heads, and in which religion had been refined into
a mere philosophy of life and morals, the last word of which seemed to
him to be: Make the best of to-day, lest to-morrow should never come.

In his own breast the flame of the fierce, uncompromising faith of
Islam burnt, undimmed by the mists of the centuries that had passed
since the first Moslem armies had emerged from the deserts of Arabia to
conquer the greater part of the Roman world.

Why should he not send forth his armies, as the Khalifs of old had
done, to plant the banner of the Crescent over the subjugated realms of
Christendom, and rule, the greatest of the Commanders of the Faithful,
sovereign lord of a Moslem world?

It was a splendid destiny, but there was a power in the world, located
in one tiny spot of earth, and yet, so far as he knew, universal
and irresistible, before which the armies which he had called into
existence would be as helpless as a swarm of locusts before a forest
fire.

This power possessed the empire of the air, and therefore of the earth.
In the days of the Terror it had led the Anglo-Saxon race to the
conquest of the world. Would it sit idly now behind the bulwarks of
Aeria and watch his armies conquering the domains of Anglo-Saxondom?

Was it not far more likely that those terrible air-ships would be sent
forth to hurl their destroying lightnings from the skies and overwhelm
his armies and his cities in irretrievable ruin? These Aerians had
ruled the world for a hundred and twenty-five years, and yet had
committed no act of aggression upon the rightful liberties of any
nation. How, therefore, could he believe that they would hold their
mighty hand while he carried fire and sword through the habitations of
their blood and kindred?

If he gave the word for war, within forty-eight hours after he had
spoken more than ten millions of men, armed with weapons of fearful
precision and destructive power, would stand ready to do his bidding
and to carry the banner of the Crescent to the uttermost ends of the
earth; but of what use would be their numbers, their valour, or their
devotion with a squadron of aerial cruisers wheeling above them and
hurling death and destruction upon them from the inaccessible heights
of the sky?

He remembered how his ancestor Mohammed Reshad had been stopped in his
career of conquest, and how his victorious armies had been decimated
and thrown into confusion by a flotilla of air-ships and war-balloons
which a dozen cruisers of the present Aerian navy would have swept
from the skies in a few minutes. Intolerable as the thought was to his
haughty soul, the truth remained that, in the midst of all his power
and splendour, he was as helpless as a child before the real masters of
the world. He had armies and fleets, but he could not make war without
their permission or the assurance of their neutrality, save with the
certainty of disaster and defeat.

What would he not give for a squadron of these aerial battleships? Half
his empire, willingly, and yet he knew that even an attempt to build a
single air-ship would be the signal for his own death and the end of
the dominion of his dynasty.

He had no knowledge of the momentous events which had just been taking
place on the other side of the world. He still believed implicitly
in the unquestioned supremacy of the Aerians throughout the domain
of the skies, although he was well aware that some mysterious power
had successfully disputed with them the command of the seas, and he
remembered the stern threat of immediate war and annihilation that the
President of Aeria had promulgated against any who should even help in
the concealment of the air-ship that had been lost six years before,
and, so far as the world at large was concerned, had never been heard
of since.

Anglo-Saxondom, and therefore Christendom, lay at his mercy but for
this guardian power of the air. Its millions were unarmed and its
wealth unprotected. Its indolent and luxurious democracies, occupied
solely with social experiments and the increase of their material
magnificence, would be crushed almost without resistance by his
splendidly armed and disciplined legions.

The Crescent would replace the Cross above their temples, and the world
would be a Moslem planet but for this empire of the air, universal and
unconquerable, which barred his way to the dominion of the world and
the final triumph of his faith.

For the hundredth time he had revolved the hopeless dilemma in his
mind, alternately looking upon the conquests he longed for, and on the
splendid but useless forces at his command, when a huge, strange shape
dropped swiftly and silently out of the sky overhead, and, as though in
answer to the unspoken call of his intense longing, one of those very
air-ships of which he had been thinking with such angry despair swept
with a majestic downward sloping curve out of the dusk of the night,
and ran up close alongside the low parapet of the terrace on which he
was standing.

It was the first time he had ever seen one of these marvellous vessels,
which were the talk and the wonder of the world, at such close
quarters. Paralysed for the moment by mingled curiosity and amazement,
he recoiled with a startled invocation to the Prophet on his lips, and
then stood staring at it in silence, wondering whether the strange
apparition meant the visit of a friend or an enemy.

While he was standing thus the air-ship drifted as silently as a shadow
over the parapet, and sank gently down until it rested on the marble
floor of the vast terrace. Then a sliding door opened in the after-part
of the glass dome which covered the deck from stem to stern, a light
metal stairway fell from it, and three men richly and yet simply
dressed descended to the terrace and advanced to where he stood.

Two of them halted at a respectful distance, and the third, a man whose
dignity of bearing was enhanced by the snowy whiteness of his hair and
beard, advanced alone, and with a grave and courteous gesture of salute
said in English, the language of universal intercourse--

“Am I right in believing this to be the palace of his Majesty the
Sultan?”

It was some moments before Khalid recovered his composure sufficiently
to answer the question, simple as it was. His wonder was increased
tenfold when he saw that his visitor from the skies did not wear the
golden wings which were the insignia of the Aerians.

Was it possible that some other inhabitants of the earth had, in spite
of the rigid prohibition of the Supreme Council, managed to build an
aerial navy? His heart leapt with exultation at the thought. Obeying
the impulse of the moment, he took a stride forward and held out his
hand, saying--

“I know not who you are, or whence you come, but if you come in
friendship there is my hand in welcome. This is the palace, and I am
Khalid, the Commander of the Faithful. What is your errand?”

His visitor took the outstretched hand, and, bending low over it,
replied in a tone of the deepest respect--

“I am honoured and fortunate beyond measure! I trust your Majesty will
pardon the strangeness of my coming for the importance of the mission
that brings me.”

“Say on, sir, and tell me freely who you are and what your mission is,
for I am all impatience to know,” said the Sultan, speaking even more
cordially than before.

“I am Orloff Lossenski,” replied the ambassador from the skies, “and I
am the bearer of a message from my mistress, Olga Romanoff, by right of
descent Tsarina of the Russias, and deprived of her lawful rights of
rule by the Terrorists who reign in Aeria.”

“Then you are enemies of the Aerians?” broke in the Sultan, “and you
possess air-ships like that marvellous craft yonder! How have you--but
pardon me, I have interrupted you. You can satisfy my curiosity later
on.”

“Her Majesty, my mistress, possesses a large fleet of air-ships, of
which this is one,” replied Lossenski, “and she has sent me as her
envoy to give your Majesty this letter which will explain my mission in
full. At this hour to-morrow night the Tsarina will come in person to
receive your answer to it.”

As he spoke he presented a letter to the Sultan, and then drew back a
pace. Khalid took the missive without a word and walked towards one of
the electric lamps with which the terrace was lighted, breaking the
seal as he went. This is what he read--

  To Khalid the Magnificent,
     Sultan of the Moslems.

  You have dreams of world-wide conquest, but the fear of the power of
  the Aerians restrains you from putting them into action. You command
  armies and fleets, but they are useless and helpless because you
  cannot fight in the air as well as on land and sea.

  I can give you the power of doing this, and I will help you to the
  conquest of the world if you will help me to regain the dominions
  that were stolen from my ancestors in the days of the Terror.

  Twenty-four hours after you receive this I will come for your answer
  to it. If you agree to the general terms I have no fear but that the
  details will be easily arranged between us. This is brought to you by
  Orloff Lossenski, my chief counsellor and responsible minister, who,
  at your Majesty’s desire, will lay the particulars of my proposals
  before you in full.

  OLGA ROMANOFF,
  Tsarina of the Russias.

Hardly had the Sultan finished the perusal of this strangely curt and
yet all-pregnant letter when a cry from Lossenski’s two attendants
caused him to look up. If what he had seen but a few minutes before had
amazed him, what he saw now fairly stupefied him. A second air-ship,
similar in size and shape to the first, but with a hull of a strangely
lustrous blue metal, had dropped without sign or sound out of space,
and was hovering exactly above Lossenski’s vessel with her ten long
slender guns pointing in all directions.

A moment later she seemed to drop bodily on to the Russian air-ship,
splintering her thin steel masts with the weight of her hull, and yet
stopping in her descent before she crushed in the glass dome of the
deck. The next instant a score of men slipped swiftly over the side and
gained the open door of the Russians’ deck-chamber. Then there came a
sound of fierce cries and oaths, and the quick crackling reports of
repeating pistols.

The envoy’s two companions turned as though to fly, but two shots fired
in quick succession brought them down before they had made a couple
of strides. Then a dozen men leapt down upon the terrace and covered
Lossenski and the Sultan with their pistols before they had time to
recover from the stupefaction into which the suddenness of the attack
had thrown them.

The next moment a man, whose splendid stature raised him a good head
above the Russian and the Moslem, came down the steps from the deck of
the now captured air-ship. As he advanced towards them Khalid, brave
and haughty as he was, looked up at him almost as he might have looked
upon the visible shape of one of the angels of his faith.

He was dressed in the Aeria costume, save for the fact that, instead of
azurine and gold, his winged coronet was black and lustrous as polished
jet. In his left hand he carried a magazine pistol, and in his right
a long slender rapier with a blade of azurine that gleamed with an
intense blue radiance in the light of the electric lamps.

“Orloff Lossenski, you are our prisoner! Go back to your ship or you
will be shot where you stand. Sultan Khalid, have you received that
letter in your hand from this man?”

Alan’s words came quick and stern, but before they were spoken the
Sultan had put a golden whistle to his lips and blown a shrill call, in
instant obedience to which a stream of armed guards issued from a door
of the palace opening on to the terrace, spread out into a semi-circle,
and in turn Alan and his companions were covered by a hundred rifles.

“Now, sir, whoever you are,” exclaimed the Sultan, recovering at once
his courage and his composure, “you are _my_ prisoner! Throw down your
arms, or”--

“Stop!” cried Alan, in a voice that rang clearly over the whole
terrace. “Don’t you see that your palace is under our guns? Fire a
shot, and in an hour it shall be a heap of ruins.”

Khalid had forgotten the air-ships for the moment. He glanced up at the
two rows of guns, and saw in the lighted interiors of the deck-chambers
men standing ready to rain death and ruin in every direction.

Lossenski, too, grasped the suddenly changed situation in an instant.
He knew far better than the Sultan did what would be the effect of
a discharge of that awful artillery upon the palace and the city,
and more than this, he saw the hopeless ruin of his mistress’s plans
that would follow the death of the Sultan. He turned to him with an
appealing gesture, and said--

“Your Majesty, for the sake of all you hold dear, send back your
guards! I surrender to save you!” and then, with a glare of impotent
hate at Alan, he turned and walked quickly towards the air-ships.

Nothing could have brought the terrible power of the Aerians home to
the mind of Khalid the Magnificent more convincingly than the position
in which he now stood. Absolute master of the greatest empire on earth,
he stood on the terrace of his own palace, in the midst of his own
capital, and with thousands of soldiers within call, as helpless as a
child.

But before he could force the words of surrender from his reluctant
lips an event occurred which, brave as he was, struck terror to his
heart. Alan had raised his rapier to command the attention of his men
at the guns, and the captain of the Sultan’s guards, thinking he was
going to strike his master, rushed forward and struck at the uplifted
blade with his scimitar. As the steel rang upon the azurine the
Damascus blade splintered to the hilt.

With a cry half of rage and half of fear the Moslem whipped a pistol
out of his sash, but before he could level it the bright blue blade
descended swiftly, and when its point was within a foot of his
assailant’s eyes Alan dropped his own pistol and pressed a jewel in the
centre of his belt-clasp. As he did so a pale blue flame leapt from the
point of his sword, and the Moslem, without as much as a sigh, dropped
dead on the floor of the terrace.

“Mashallah!” cried the Sultan, recoiling in ungovernable terror. “What
are you, man or fiend, that you carry the lightnings in your hand?”

“A man like yourself, Sultan, and one who wishes your Majesty no evil,”
replied Alan. “I am Alan Arnold, the son of the President of Aeria, and
therefore your friend, unless you choose to make me your enemy. I am at
present in command of the cruiser _Ithuriel_, and we have followed that
Russian vessel for over five thousand miles to find out what his errand
was. When he landed on your palace we guessed it, I think, pretty
nearly. Lossenski came to propose an alliance between your Majesty and
his mistress, Olga Romanoff, did he not?”

Before he replied the Sultan, seeing some of his guards advancing
again, and being now convinced that resistance was both unnecessary and
impossible, ordered them to take away the body of their comrade and
those of the two Russians who had been shot. Then he turned to Alan,
and said with politeness that was perhaps more Oriental than sincere--

“Pardon my ignorance, Prince of the Air! I did not know that I was
speaking to the son of one who is above all the kings of the earth.
That slave deserved his death for raising his arm against your
Highness. Yes, you are right. The Russian came to me with such a
proposal from her you name. Here is her letter. She styles herself
Tsarina of the Russias, but I have never heard her name before. Who is
she?”

“I will tell your Majesty,” said Alan, taking the letter which the
Sultan now held out to him without hesitation, “for no one can tell
you better than I can. She is the last living child of the House
of Romanoff. She is beautiful beyond description, and evil beyond
comprehension. She aspires to rule in fact as what she styles herself
in name, and to bring back the gloom of despotism and oppression on the
earth.

“She and her accomplices are responsible for that terrorism of the seas
which has paralysed international commerce for more than five years,
and they are also in possession of a fleet of about thirty air-ships.
How they were enabled to construct them there is now no time to
explain. Suffice it to say that they have them, that they have dared to
challenge the forces of Aeria to a contest for the empire of the world,
and that during the fortnight they have been fighting they have had
very much the worst of it.

“We have practically crippled their sea-power, blown up their submarine
dockyard, and destroyed about half of their aerial fleet. I tell you
this in order that you may receive her proposals with your eyes open.
The course of events has made your Majesty to a great extent the
arbiter of the destinies of humanity.

“Olga Romanoff knows that you have a splendid army at command, that you
have illimitable wealth to spend on war material, and that an alliance
between you would be irresistible. As an independent sovereign it is,
of course, within your right, as it is within your power, to conclude
this alliance if you think fit. Do so if you choose; but remember that
if you do you must assume the tremendous responsibility of plunging the
whole world into war, and bringing inconceivable desolation upon your
fellow-creatures. You will be allying yourself with the worst enemies
of humanity--nay, with the only enemies that humanity has on earth.

“This Olga Romanoff is called by her followers the Syren of the Skies,
and the name is an apt one, for she is a very syren, armed with arts
that can charm a man’s heart out of his breast, make him forget his
duty to himself and his loyalty to his race, and, like Circe of old,
reduce him to an animal that exists only for the execution of her will
and the gratification of her desires. I speak with knowledge; for I
have felt, and through me the world will feel, the terrible force of
her spells, and I tell you frankly, as man speaking honestly with man,
that if you make this alliance there will be war between your people
and mine to the death.

“As far as a single man can do so, you hold the fate of mankind in your
hand, and within the next forty-eight hours you will decide it. Now I
have done my duty, and given you such warning as I can. You will answer
for your decision at the bar of God, and it is not for me to say more.

“Whether we meet again as enemies or not, let us part friends, and let
me implore you, for the love of God and your kind, to rest content with
what the Fates have already given you. You have raised the Moslem power
to a pitch of splendour and dominion far beyond all its former glories.
You have all that man could ask for”--

“Yes, as a man,” interrupted the Sultan, who up to this point had
listened with silent attention to Alan’s quick, earnest words. “But not
all that the Commander of the Faithful may be content with. I know not
what the religion of your people is, but you know that the laws of mine
command me, as they command every true Moslem, to plant the banner of
the Prophet over the habitations of the infidel and to give the enemies
of the Faith the choice between the sword and the Koran.

“It is not for mere conquest that I have created my armies and my
fleet. It is in obedience to the commands of Heaven, which has given me
the means of conquering the earth for Islam.”

Khalid spoke rapidly and fiercely with heaving breast and eyes blazing
with the lurid light of fanaticism. Alan heard him out in silence. Then
his hand fell heavily on the Moslem’s shoulder, and holding him at
arm’s length he looked him straight in the eyes and said, slowly and
deliberately--

“Sultan, a man’s faith, by whatever name it may be called, is no
concern of ours. He is responsible for it to his God, and there is an
end of it. But when you tell me that your faith commands you to force
it with fire and sword upon the consciences of those who hold another
creed, then I tell you to your face that you are a fanatic and a
persecutor.

“Blood enough and to spare has been shed in the wars of creeds, and
if I believed that you meant to revive the warfare between Cross and
Crescent, I would strike you dead where you stand, as I struck your
slave down just now. But I cannot believe it either of you or any other
enlightened man.

“I am not in any mood to utter empty threats, but I am speaking no
idle words when I tell you that the hour in which you make war on
Christendom, either for political or religious conquest, shall be the
hour in which you will hear the voice of Destiny speaking your own doom.

“More than that, I ask you now to pledge me your word as an honest
man and a ruling King that for twelve months from now, at the very
least, you will neither draw a sword nor fire a shot either against
Anglo-Saxondom or any other Power.”

He stopped, and took his hand from the Sultan’s shoulder. Khalid
recoiled and drew himself up to the full height of his royal stature as
he replied--

“Prince of the Air--demi-god almost as you are--you must learn that
the Commander of the Faithful is not to be dictated to on the roof of
his own palace, even by you. Am I your slave that you should lay these
commands upon me?”

Before he made any reply in words Alan communicated a few rapid orders
to those in command of the two air-ships in the Aerian sign-language.
The _Ithuriel_ rose from above the _Vindaya_, as the Russian air-ship
was named, and both vessels ranged themselves alongside the front of
the terrace. The Sultan watched this manœuvre in helpless silence, well
knowing that whatever it imported he was powerless to resist. Then Alan
went on--

“Not my slave, Sultan, but my fellow-man, and as such I will, if I
can, and by any means within my power, prevent you from committing such
a colossal crime as that which I am afraid I must now believe you are
contemplating. Now listen well, for my words mean much.

“Those two air-ships could lay your capital, vast and splendid as it
is, in ruins before to-morrow’s sun rises, and as surely as those stars
are shining above us they shall do so unless you give me the pledge I
ask for. I ask it in the name of all humanity, and I will not spare a
few thousands of lives to enforce it.”

“If you could!” ejaculated the Sultan, half involuntarily. “I have
heard much of your wonderful air-ships, but do you know that I have a
hundred thousand soldiers in the city, and that I have hundreds of guns
which will hurl their projectiles for miles into the air? If only one
of the hundreds struck either of those vessels of yours, she would fall
like a stone and be dashed to pieces on the earth. The fighting would
not be all on one side.”

His tone grew more and more defiant as he went on, and Alan saw that
some stern lesson would be necessary to induce him to give the pledge
upon which the safety of millions depended. In quiet, even tones, that
contrasted strongly with those of the Moslem, he said--

“We of Aeria are not accustomed to boast our prowess lightly, and I
am threatening nothing that I cannot do. Still, I do not wish you to
give the pledge I ask save in the fullest knowledge. If you will trust
yourself with me on board the _Ithuriel_ for an hour under my pledge of
your safe return I will prove to you to demonstration that your city
would be as defenceless beneath our guns as a collection of tents would
be. The moon is high enough now to give us plenty of light for the
experiment if you think fit to make it.”

The Sultan hesitated for a few moments, as though in doubt whether
he would be permitted to return if he once allowed the _Ithuriel_ to
carry him away from the earth. Then he remembered that no man had ever
known the Aerian who had broken his word. He looked into Alan’s strong,
frank face, and read there an absolute assurance that his safety would
be respected. Then, with a slight inclination of his head, he said--

“Your words are wise. I will come, and if you convince me that you can
do as you say I will swear by the holy name of the Prophet that I will
make no war upon any man for a year from now.”

Alan signalled to the _Ithuriel_, which ran in close to the terrace.
The door of the deck-chamber opened, a gangway was run out, and for the
first time in his life Sultan Khalid trod the deck of a cruiser of the
air. The _Ithuriel_ and the _Vindaya_ at once mounted up into the now
brightly moonlit atmosphere.

The Sultan saw the myriad lights of his splendid capital sink swiftly
down into a vast abyss that seemed to open beneath him. The dim horizon
widened out until it enclosed an immense expanse of pale grey desert to
the south, while to the north a dark stretch of sea spread out farther
than the eye could reach. Up and up the air-ships soared until the
lights of Alexandria glimmered like a faint white mist at the bottom of
a seemingly unfathomable gulf. At length Alan, who was standing beside
him, pointed down and said--

“There is your city. If I gave the word, a hundred shells a minute
would be rained on to it from here. Do you think your guns could reach
us?”

“No,” said the Sultan, striving in vain to repress a shudder at the
fearful prospect disclosed by Alan’s words. “But how could your shells
strike that little patch of light which is miles away, and thousands of
feet below us?”

“That, too, I will prove to you, but not at the expense of your city.”

He sent an order to the engine-room, and the _Ithuriel_ swerved round
to the northward and, followed by the _Vindaya_, swept out over the
Mediterranean, in the direction of Crete.

Half an hour’s flight at full speed brought them in sight of a small
rocky islet which showed like a black spot on the surface of the
moonlit sea. The two air-ships were stopped six thousand feet above
the water, and about four miles from the heap of rocks. Alan then gave
orders for each of the ships to train four guns upon it.

“Now,” he said to the Sultan, “fix your glass on that mass of rocks
down yonder and watch what happens.”

As he spoke he raised his hand and the eight guns were discharged
simultaneously. The Sultan heard no report and saw no flash, but a few
seconds later he saw through the night glasses that Alan had given him
a vast mass of flame of dazzling brilliancy burst out over the islet,
covering it completely, for the moment, with a mist of fire.

“Now you shall see the effects of our shells,” said Alan. The two
vessels sank rapidly down in a slanting direction towards the spot
where the projectiles had struck. A hundred feet from the surface of
the water they stopped, and Alan said--

“Now look for the island.”

Khalid swept the sea with his glass. The islet had vanished, the waves
were breaking over what seemed to be a sunken reef, and that was all.
With hands that trembled, in spite of all that he could do to keep them
steady, he took the glass from his eyes, saying in a voice that was
shaken by irresistible emotion--

“God is great, and I am but a man, while you are as demigods. It is
enough! I will give the pledge you ask for.”




CHAPTER XVII. AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE.


WITHIN a couple of hours after the destruction of the islet Sultan
Khalid was back in his palace, and the _Ithuriel_ and the _Vindaya_ had
departed with their prisoners of war for Kerguelen.

Alan, quite content with the advantage he had gained by obtaining the
Sultan’s pledge of peace for a year, in comparison with which even the
capture of one of the Russian air-ships was of trifling importance, had
determined not to run the needless risk of an encounter with Olga’s
fleet, for he had learnt the strength of it from Lossenski, and saw
that it would be madness to attack it.

Added to this there was far more important work in hand for him to
do, for it was absolutely imperative that a full report of what he
had discovered with regard to the proposed alliance between Olga and
the Sultan should be laid before the Council with as little delay as
possible, for if it ever became an accomplished fact it could not fail
to enormously complicate the coming struggle for the mastery of the
world.

Therefore, as soon as he had placed a prize crew on board the
_Vindaya_, under the command of Alexis, he gave orders for the two
air-ships to proceed southward at full speed, having bidden the Sultan
farewell on the terrace of his palace, and left him to draw what moral
he could from the brief but startling experience that the midnight
hours had brought him.

A few minutes before twelve on the following night the inhabitants of
Alexandria were thrown into a state of the most intense excitement by a
marvellous appearance in the southern heavens. Long streams of light,
which in power and brilliancy excelled even the great electric suns
with which the city was lighted, shot down out of the skies, flashing
hither and thither, and sweeping the earth below it in vast curves of
radiance.

Now they streamed out in a huge fan of endless horizontal rays which
seemed to reach to the horizon, and now they crossed each other in
a network of beams, changing their positions with a rapidity which
dazzled and bewildered the beholders. Then they were projected
vertically to the zenith as though challenging the stars, and then they
blazed straight down upon the earth, bringing into strong relief of
light and shadow everything they fell upon.

Instantly the spacious streets were crowded with excited throngs
of people, and millions of eyes were cast heavenwards watching the
approach of the Syren and her aerial squadron.

The twenty air-ships swept up out of the south at a speed of about
a hundred miles an hour in the form of a wide crescent, with the
_Revenge_ in the centre. They slowed down as they neared the city,
and the concentrated blaze of their lights soon fell upon the
Sultan’s palace, the magnificent proportions of which distinguished
it conspicuously even from the thousands of splendid edifices which
adorned the Moslem metropolis.

Then, still keeping their relative positions with perfect accuracy, the
winged vessels sank downwards and wheeled round until they faced the
eastern terrace on which stood the Sultan with his Grand Vizier and
the chief officers of his household, awaiting the coming of his aerial
visitors.

The flotilla stopped a hundred feet from the terrace. Its search-lights
were extinguished, but the strange and beautiful shapes of the cruisers
of the air stood out sharply defined against the bright background
formed by the myriad lights of the city.

The _Revenge_, flying the long vanished Imperial Standard of Russia,
with its crowned black eagle on a broad ground of gold, at the mizzen,
the white flag of peace at the main, and the Star and Crescent of the
Moslem Empire at the fore, floated slowly forward till her shining ram
projected over the parapet and her three keels rested lightly upon it.

Then one of the forward doors of the deck-chamber was drawn back by
some invisible agency, and the Sultan saw standing in the opening such
a vision of loveliness as he had never imagined even in his dreams of
the houris of Paradise. Clothed, according to her invariable custom,
in a plain clinging robe of royal purple, with no other ornament than
a coronet, consisting of a plain broad band of gold from which rose
above her temples two wings of silver filigree thickly encrusted with
diamonds, Olga Romanoff stood upon the deck of her flagship the perfect
incarnation of royal dignity and womanly beauty.

Khalid, who had advanced to the parapet as the squadron approached,
saw instantly that this could be none other than the woman whom Alan
Arnold had described as beautiful beyond description and evil beyond
comprehension. Few men had seen so many beautiful women as he had, and
there were scores of them waiting in his harem for the favouring glance
that none could win from him; but no sooner did his upward glance rest
upon the vision that was looking down upon him from the doorway of the
deck-chamber of the _Revenge_ than his eyes fell and his head bowed
in the involuntary homage that the supreme beauty of such a woman has
always claimed from such a man.

Evil she might be, but evil in such a shape might be something more
than good in the eyes of some men, and of these Khalid the Magnificent
was one. His hot Arab blood was aflame the instant that he looked upon
her intoxicating loveliness, and half her errand was accomplished
before a word had passed between them.

She returned his greeting with a gracious inclination of her
wing-crowned head, and as she did so he said--

“The Tsarina is welcome! My house and all that is in it is hers if she
will honour me by entering it, for she will make it more beautiful by
her presence.”

“Your Majesty’s welcome is sweet in my ears,” she answered, almost
insensibly adopting his Oriental style of speech, “for I come as a
friend and I hope to go as an ally.”

The gangway stairs dropped as she spoke, and as they did so the Sultan
made a sign and a pair of attendants brought forward some steps covered
with crimson velvet, which they placed so that she could descend from
the parapet, to which the Sultan himself ascended to meet her as she
came down. Taking her hand on the parapet, he led her down to the
terrace with the grace of a king and the deference of a courtier. Then
he bent low over her hand and kissed it, and as he did so the attendant
officers of his empire bowed in silent and respectful salutation.

Olga was at once conducted to one of the state apartments of the palace
in which the Sultan was wont to receive his most distinguished guests.
She was treated with even more respect than would have been accorded to
one of the crowned monarchs of the earth, for not only her wonderful
beauty and royal carriage, but the marvellous manner of her coming and
the tremendous power represented by the flotilla of air-ships inspired
both the Sultan and his subjects with a deference that amounted almost
to homage.

Then, too, the mystery and romance which invested her name and family
and fortune distinguished her as a woman apart from all other women
in the world. It might be, as Alan had told the Sultan, that she was
really the enemy of the human race, that her true object was to destroy
the peace of the world, and rekindle the fires of war on earth, but
still the present romance was stronger than the future, and possibly
problematical, reality, and so it would hardly be too much to say that
Olga had succeeded in removing the impression left by Alan on Khalid’s
mind before she had been an hour under his roof.

She naturally expected that one of the first to receive her would be
the ambassador who had preceded her, but, after looking anxiously for
him and not finding him either on the terrace or in the reception-room,
she turned to Khalid and said--

“I do not see my ambassador here, and yet he must have arrived, since
your Majesty tells me that you have been expecting me.”

The Sultan’s face darkened, and his brows slightly contracted, as he
replied--

“Tsarina, I have been waiting for an opportunity to tell you what
cannot but be unwelcome news. Your ambassador, Orloff Lossenski, is not
here”--

“What!” cried Olga, half rising from her seat, “not here! Surely he has
not presumed to leave before my arrival? I can hardly believe that of
him.”

“He has gone, nevertheless,” said the Sultan, “though not by his will
or mine, I can assure you. Scarcely had his vessel alighted on the
terrace yonder, and he had disembarked, when an Aerian cruiser dropped
down as silently as a shadow from the skies.

“Whence it came I know not, but it would seem that these Aerians see
everything, and that their hands reach everywhere. In a moment she had
dropped upon your ambassador’s vessel, splintering her masts, and yet
so softly did she alight that the glass dome was not broken. Then her
crew streamed out of the doors of the deck-chamber, and the next I knew
was that your ambassador and I were covered by half a score of pistols
and rifles and commanded to stand still on pain of death.

“Then Alan Arnold alighted, forced your envoy to surrender, struck
one of my guards dead by some mysterious lightning that flashed from
his sword, and, after carrying me away into the air over the sea and
blasting a rock out of the waters to prove to me the power of his guns,
brought me back honourably and in safety to await your coming. Truly
these Aerians are more as gods than men!”

Furious as the unexpected tidings made her, Olga yet managed to
restrain her anger sufficiently to reply with wonderful coolness--

“Your Majesty gives me sad and bitter news; but it is the fortune of
war, and I must not complain. The air-ship that is taken by surprise
is lost, and Orloff Lossenski fell a victim to his own carelessness.”

Then her mood changed swiftly, and a soft and musical laugh came from
her smiling lips as she went on--

“But it is a poor revenge, after all. That same Alan Arnold, the son of
the great President of Aeria, was my would-be lover and slave for over
five years. For my sake he turned traitor to his name and race, gave
up the _Revenge_ to me and told me all the jealously-guarded secrets
of aerial navigation. He killed my brother in a quarrel, but he was
useful, so I let him live--a prisoner of war, till I had done with him.
Then I set him free, when, perhaps, I ought to have kept him safe, to
go and tell his people what a fool I had made of him. I suppose he did
not tell your Majesty that?”

“No,” laughed Khalid in reply, wondering what magic she had used to
accomplish so marvellous a charm, “he did not. But such a miracle
proves that you have been truly named the Syren of the Skies, as he
said you are, for no other woman could have worked such a wonder and
disputed the empire of the air with the masters of the world.”

“That is true,” replied Olga, lowering her voice to a tone of intense
earnestness, “and the fact that I did it single-handed proves, I hope,
that with good friends and true allies I can do more than dispute that
empire with the Aerians, these despots of peace who have made the world
a paradise of the commonplace, and fettered all strongest and most
aspiring spirits so that they might be equal with the coward and the
fool.

“But those are matters which I would discuss with your Majesty in
private, and it is too late in the night to go into them now. You tell
me that Alan Arnold has shown you what his air-ships can do. If your
Majesty will honour the _Revenge_ by being my guest for to-morrow I
will show you that mine are in nowise inferior to them.

“Indeed, as I have told you, the _Revenge_ is an Aerian ship, built in
the enchanted land of Aeria, and if you will to-morrow she shall carry
you over the whole of your dominions, and after that over those other
dominions that shall be yours if you approve the plans that I will lay
before you.”

She paused and looked at Khalid with cheeks glowing and eyes shining
with enthusiasm and passion. He returned her glance with one no less
fiery and passionate as he replied--

“I will be your guest, as you say, but the honour and the favour will
be to me, your Majesty--for Majesty you are, crowned by the hand of
favouring Nature with that which makes all men your subjects. Your
air-ships shall rest in the garden of my palace to-night, and an hour
after sunrise you shall find me ready for another journey to the
skies, for my first experience has given me a taste for more. Till
then farewell. The memory of your eyes will make me dream of Paradise
to-night!”

There was that in his tone which told Olga that his words meant more
than a neatly turned Oriental compliment, and as he stooped and kissed
her hand in leave-taking she said half in jest and half in earnest--

“And I shall dream of the nearer glories of the world-empire which your
Majesty and I may in the not very distant future divide between us.”

“Or share together!” said Khalid in his soul, as he raised his head
again and their eyes met.

At the appointed time the next morning the squadron rose into the air
from the palace gardens. In order to produce as widespread an effect
as possible, Olga had extended her invitation to the Grand Vizier
and about a score of the Sultan’s highest officials, including the
commanders of his armies and fleets who happened to be in Alexandria
at the time. These were distributed among the twenty air-ships, but
Olga took care to arrange matters so that only the Grand Vizier should
accompany the Sultan on board the _Revenge_.

In order that the Vizier, who was a cool-headed, wary, far-seeing man
of nearly seventy, and therefore beyond the power of her own personal
spells, might not interfere with her designs upon his master, she lost
no time in placing him under the power of the drug which she had
already used with such disastrous results to the world.

Although he had said nothing about it, she felt certain that Khalid
must have been warned by Alan of the danger of taking anything to eat
or drink from her hands, and therefore she had decided to make no
attempt upon his liberty of will, unless it became absolutely necessary
to do so; but the Vizier was easily taken unawares, and she had little
difficulty in causing him to drink a cup of coffee while her chief
engineer was explaining the working of the machinery to the Sultan in
the engine-room.

The coffee, of course, contained a sufficient quantity of the drug to
deprive the Vizier of all power of opposing her will or resisting her
suggestions for many hours to come. So far as all independent advice
was concerned, he was safely disposed of.

The air-ships rose to an elevation of some two thousand feet, and at
a speed of two hundred miles an hour ran first along the valley of
the Nile to the southward. At Khartoum they swerved to the eastward,
crossed the mountains of the Red Sea littoral at a height of nine
thousand feet, then sank again and skirted the Arabian coast until
Mecca, the sacred city of Islam, came in sight.

The ancient temple of the Kaaba, containing the tomb of the Prophet,
still stood, almost unchanged by the hand of time, amid the splendid
buildings, verdant gardens, and long groves of palms with which the new
Mecca of the twenty-first century was adorned. Pointing down towards
it, Olga said to the Sultan, who was standing by her side on the deck,
dazzled by the splendours of the swiftly-changing prospects of the
scene below--

“There is the Holy City, which your Majesty may some day make the
religious capital of the world. That would be an achievement worthy of
the Commander of the Faithful and the descendant of the Prophet, would
it not?”

Khalid looked down at the city, over which they were now speeding in
the direction of Medinah, and was silent for a few moments; then he
raised his eyes to hers and said--

“Even so; but have you counted the cost of achieving it to me and my
people? Before the banner of the Crescent could float over a world-wide
empire of Islam we should have to triumph in a war which would involve
the whole human race, and this means that we should first have to
destroy those who have been lords of the earth and of the air for more
than a century.”

“The Aerians are but men,” said Olga, a trifle coldly. “Why should your
Majesty fear them if you are armed with the same weapons that they
wield? I suppose Alan Arnold has threatened you and your people with
nothing less than annihilation should you conclude this alliance with
me? But why should you fear? I have met the Aerians in battle, and you
see I am not annihilated.”

“I do not fear them as personal enemies,” replied Khalid proudly, “but
only as the possible destroyers of my people, who would be defenceless
against them. Think of the destruction you could rain upon the sacred
city down yonder, while it could strike no blow in return. That would
be the fate of Alexandria and all the capitals of my empire, and while
my armies were marching to the conquest of Christendom our homes would
be laid in ruins and our wives and children slain without mercy.

“Show me,” he continued, speaking more earnestly and rapidly, “how they
are to be protected against this, and our alliance may become possible.”

“It is purely a matter of relative strength,” replied Olga. “Do you
know why this squadron of mine is allowed to pursue its way unmolested,
although the Aerians know of its existence? It is because, although,
as Alan Arnold truly told you, by superior skill and experience in
handling their ships they have been able to destroy about half my
fleet, I am still stronger in the air than they are, and they know that
we have now gained the experience which we lacked.

“They have only three vessels, counting the one you saw captured, as
swift and powerful as this, while I have twenty-six. None of their
smaller vessels dare venture within reach of my guns, for to do so
would be to meet certain destruction. They are doubtless building
others as strong and swift as these in preparation for the struggle
which they know must come. But if we join hands against them we shall
be stronger than they will be when the year of your truce is ended.

“My engineers shall teach yours how to build air-ships in all respects
equal to these, and submarine cruisers, a dozen of which could destroy
your present navies in a day. With all the resources of your empire
at command, you could possess in a year from now an aerial navy of a
thousand ships and a sea fleet of equal strength.

“Then you would be strong enough to sweep the seas from pole to pole,
and to storm the mountain battlements of Aeria itself. You must not
forget that what the Aerians could do to your cities you could do to
Aeria and to all the capitals of Christendom. City for city, you could
take your revenge, until”--

“Until the whole earth was laid waste and the habitations of men were
desolate,” broke in Khalid, overwhelmed by the horror of the prospect.
“It is too great a price to pay, even for the empire of the world and
the supremacy of Islam, even if we survived the ruin that we should
have brought upon the world.”

“Too great if there were any need to pay it,” said Olga quickly, seeing
that her lust of conquest and revenge had carried her too far. “But
matters will never come to such a pass as that.

“Our battlefields will be the countries that we shall invade and
conquer, not our own, and enough air-ships can be devoted to the
defence of your cities to repel any attack the Aerians may make upon
them. Your Majesty must not forget, too, that they will not dare to
send any very large force away from Aeria, for they well know that the
final battle for the possession of the earth will have to be fought out
round the summits of its mountains.”

“You are right and I was wrong, Tsarina,” said the Sultan in an altered
tone, “and the Prophet has said of the infidel, ‘Such as are stubborn
and refuse the true faith ye shall slay without mercy. Kill them
wherever ye find them’--but alas”--

He stopped suddenly and looked at her, and she could see a smile
moving his lips under his black beard and moustache. She divined
instantly what was passing in his mind, and saw the opportunity for a
stroke of diplomacy which, base as it was, she made without a moment’s
hesitation. Before he could continue, she turned and faced him, looking
into his eyes with a glance that dazzled him, and said in a low, quick,
earnest tone--

“I know what you would say, Sultan Khalid. You would say that I and my
people are infidels in your eyes, and therefore worthy of destruction.
I have thought of that--but the deck is too public a place for the
discussion of such a matter. Call your Vizier and we will retire to my
own saloon and talk of it there.”

Khalid obeyed, wondering what was coming next from the lips of the
Syren whose fatal beauty of person and subtlety of mind were luring
him on to plunge into an ocean of blood of which no human eyes could
see the further shore--if it had one at all--and as soon as the three
were seated in the room, which had once been Alan’s, Olga, addressing
the Vizier first, rapidly but very clearly sketched out the project
that had been suggested to her by Lossenski, and then, turning to the
Sultan, she said--

“There seems now but one real bar to such an alliance, and that is the
difference in our faiths, or, I should rather say, in our creeds. I
have not ignored this; nay, I have pondered it deeply and earnestly.
Creeds change with times, and Russia, like the rest of Europe, has now
no real, living faith like yours. But you shall give it to them if
you wish, and the day that I am proclaimed Empress of the Russias the
Crescent shall shine on the towers of the Kremlin.”

“What do I hear?” cried Khalid, springing to his feet in amazement at
her astounding words; “you and your people will accept the Koran and
acknowledge the Prophet?”

“I will and they shall,” said Olga calmly and firmly, committing
herself to the huge apostasy without a tremor in her voice. “Remember,
too, that millions who should by right be my subjects in Asia are
already good Moslems. If the Russians refuse to obey me in this
they will be rebels, and you shall do with them as you will do with
the other peoples of Christendom if they remain stubborn. Let your
Majesty’s chief minister and favourite counsellor speak and say whether
or not I have spoken fairly.”

“Speak, Musa al Ghazi!” said the Sultan, in a voice that betrayed
intense emotion, “and weigh your words well, for many and great issues
may depend upon them.”

“Commander of the Faithful!” said the old man, speaking slowly and
with some hesitation, as though he were repeating a lesson hardly yet
learnt, “I can speak but the words that my soul echoes from without. A
strange power has seemed to take possession of me, and I speak as one
to whom another has taught what he should say.

“Yet the words seem wise to me, and I will speak them, lest, not doing
so, I should have to answer for my negligence. If it is written that
you shall be the one chosen of Heaven to plant the Crescent where
now falls the shadow of the Cross, and reign supreme, sole lord of a
Moslem world, then have the means been sent to you by the hand of her
who gives you the means of measuring strength with the masters of the
nations, by whose pleasure we possess that which we have, and without
whose countenance your Majesty would not much longer remain Commander
of the Faithful.

“I would not willingly speak words of offence, but it is necessary to
recognise that the Moslem practises his faith only by permission of
those who, if they hold any, hold another.”

“By the Beard of the Prophet, thou hast said it, Musa! I am a King
by permission, a High Priest of Islam by sufferance of the infidel!”
exclaimed Khalid, as the hot blood rushed to his swarthy cheeks and the
fire of fanaticism leapt into his eyes.

“But I will be so mean a thing no longer than the time of the truce to
which I have pledged my word. In the blood of the infidel I will wipe
out this shame on Islam, yea, though the whole earth shall be drenched
with the blood and tears that shall be licked up by the fires of war.
It is my destiny, and I will do it, or my name shall perish from the
earth for ever!

“Tsarina Olga, I have seen and heard enough. Let us return to my palace
and arrange the terms of our alliance; and when you have sworn upon
the Koran that you will take Allah for your God and Mohammed for your
Prophet, I will sign them, and together we will conquer the world for
Islam. It is kismet, and that which is written shall be done!”

Olga looked upon the splendid figure of the Sultan as he stood before
her, his athletic form dilated and his face glorified by the passion of
religious fervour that was burning within him, and as she did so a new
light dawned upon her. She saw that this strong, fiery soul might some
day conquer even hers, and fuse it into itself.

It would be an unholy union, a love bought with apostasy from her faith
and sealed with treachery to her people and the trust that she had
inherited from her forefathers; but what were apostasy and treachery to
her now that the love she had stained her soul with blood and untold
crime to win was lost to her for ever?

Earthly pomp and power, the pomp of imperial rule and the power
of life and death, of happiness and misery, over millions of her
fellow-creatures were well worth living for, and with them might come
love again, or if not love, then passion, fierce and all-consuming, for
this one king of earth who dared to be a king in fact as well as in
name, and then--Before she could make any reply to the Sultan’s words,
the slow, measured tones of the Vizier sounded again, saying--

“If I may speak again, Majesties”--

“Say on, good Musa!” said the Sultan, “for so far thou hast spoken the
words of wisdom.”

“I would say,” continued the old man, “that even as the winged steed
Alborak bore the Prophet from earth to the Seventh Heaven, so may it
be written that the winged ship of Tsarina Olga shall bear thee, my
Master, into that Paradise of love which so far thou hast sought and
not found.”

“What say you, well-named Syren of the Skies, to that?” said Khalid,
taking a step towards the couch on which Olga was sitting, and making a
half-appealing gesture with both his hands.

She rose to her feet and faced him. One look into his passion-lighted
eyes told her that the victory was already won, and that strength could
now give place to softness. She dropped her eyes before his burning
gaze, and, crossing her hands upon her bosom with a pretty semblance of
submission, said, in a low, sweet tone that he heard now for the first
time--

“All things are possible, and if this be possible, then more than
Cleopatra lost for Antony I will win for you, and you shall reign sole
Cæsar of a subject world. As for me, when that comes to pass, let it be
to me as it shall seem good in the eyes of my lord the King!”

And so saying she bowed slightly before him and turned and passed out
of the saloon, seeing the vision of him whom she had loved in vain
through the mist of tears which rose in that instant to her eyes.




CHAPTER XVIII. A MOMENTOUS COMMISSION.


TWELVE hours after they had left the Sultan on the terrace of his
palace, the _Ithuriel_ and the _Vindaya_ dropped through the clouds on
to the snow-covered surface of Kerguelen Island, and within an hour
the despatch-vessel _Vega_ was speeding away north-westward to Aeria
with a full account of the results achieved by the first cruise of the
_Ithuriel_.

The twenty-four hours which would have to elapse before the reply of
the Council could be received were employed in repairing the damage
done to the _Vindaya_, and in renewing the motive-power and ammunition
of both vessels. Sundry small but effective improvements in the
mechanism and appointments of the _Vindaya_ were also made, and last,
but by no means least important, the name of the prize was changed.

“You are henceforth her commander, old fellow,” said Alan to Alexis
when the question of the new name came up, “and therefore it is for you
to say what her name shall be.”

“I knew you would say that,” replied Alexis, his grave, thoughtful face
lighting up with a quick flush and an almost boyish smile, “and, of
course, I needn’t tell you what name I should like above all things to
give her, but, then, you see”--

“I see nothing but a quite unaccountable embarrassment written
largely upon those ingenuous features of yours, my blushing Achates,”
interrupted Alan, with a laugh that deepened the color on his friend’s
cheeks.

“Well, you see, I’m not quite sure whether she would like it under the
circumstances,” said Alexis hesitatingly.

“I didn’t know that air-ships had any choice in the question of their
names any more than children have,” said Alan, gravely stroking his
beard and looking at his friend with a laugh in his eyes.

“Don’t assume a density that the gods have not given you,” laughed
Alexis in return. “You know very well who the she is to whom I refer.
Now, suppose you were going to name and command the _Vindaya_, what
would you call her?”

“I would do as you want to do, my friend,” said Alan, laughing outright
now, “although, I fear, with more chance of getting snubbed for my
temerity, and trust to winning forgiveness from the lips of her
name-mother by good service and hard hitting.”

“Perfectly reasoned!” exclaimed Alexis, “and so henceforth, until I
have express orders to call her something else--the _Forlorn Hope_,
for instance--she shall be the _Isma_, and on her decks I will win the
right to ask--I mean to wear the golden wings again, or else she will
never cross the confines of Aeria.”

“You will win more than the golden wings, I hope and believe,” said
Alan, now very serious again, “for you evidently have a better chance
of forgiveness than I have, though I don’t despair, mind you, for I am
determined never to go back to Aeria unless I feel that I can fairly
ask Alma to forgive what is past. And if she refuses I will hunt Olga
Romanoff to the ends of the earth till I take her alive, and then I
will carry her to Aeria, and at Alma’s feet I will strike her dead with
my own hand so that she may know the truth!”

“Amen,” said Alexis, striding forward and taking his hand. “And if Alma
says ‘No’ to you I will never see Isma’s face again till I have helped
you to clip the Syren’s wings, and take her to meet her just reward. It
is a bargain! Between us we will bring these proud damozels to sweet
reasonableness. Now let us go and get a bottle of sparkling Aerian, and
rename the _Vindaya_ in proper form.”

Thus it came to pass that when the _Ithuriel_ next took the air her
consort bore the name that was dearest to her commander’s heart.

The anxiously-expected _Vega_ did not return till nearly thirty hours
after her departure. The delay proved that the Council had considered
the tidings that she had brought of great importance, and had therefore
taken some time to deliberate over them. This turned out to be the
case, and the decision arrived at by the rulers of Aeria showed that
they looked upon the crisis as grave in the last degree.

The return despatch stated that within twenty-four hours after the
arrival of the _Vega_ at Kerguelen a fleet of fifty air-ships would
be at the disposal of Alan and Alexis, who were ordered to place
themselves at the head of it and proceed with all speed to Alexandria,
taking Orloff Lossenski and the other Russian prisoners with them.

Alan was to be the bearer of an ultimatum to the Sultan confirming,
in the name of the President and Council of Aeria, the provisional
declaration of war which he had threatened as the result of an alliance
with Olga Romanoff, and stating that at sunrise on the 16th of May in
the following year, hostilities would be commenced against him, and
continued to the point of extermination so far as all men who bore arms
were concerned.

He was also called upon to order the Russian squadron to leave his
capital, should it still be there, within two hours. If he refused, or
if Olga declined to remove her ships, they were to be engaged there and
then, and, if possible, destroyed at all costs. This latter part of the
message was to be conveyed to Olga in a different form by the hands of
Lossenski, who was then to be set at liberty with his fellow-prisoners.

If Olga consented to go within the given time, it would be necessary
to allow her to depart unmolested, as the superior speed of her ships
would place the bulk of the Aerian fleet at a hopeless disadvantage in
a pursuit, and expose it to certain destruction. If she insisted on
fighting, then, of course, the hazard of battle must be taken, and the
Council relied upon the commanders of its fleet to do their duty as
their judgment should point it out to them. No specific terms were to
be made with Olga and her adherents, but hostilities were, if possible,
to be avoided until the Sultan’s year of truce had expired, and the new
Aerian fleet was ready to take the air.

If no fighting took place Alan was to proceed with his squadron to
London with a third despatch to the King of Britain, as head of the
Anglo-Saxon Federation, advising him, in the face of the threatening
danger, to call together the rulers of Anglo-Saxondom and take
immediate measures for mutual defence against the Moslems in case
they should invade Europe when the year of truce was up. For this
purpose arms in any quantities that might be needed would be sent out
from Aeria, and the Aerians would undertake the task of drilling the
newly-formed armies and instructing them in the use of the weapons.

In addition to this the necessary works and power-stations for building
and equipping at least a thousand of the largest air-ships were to
be established under Aerian control in England, and at the same time
dockyards were to be set up for the construction of an equal number of
submarine vessels of the _Narwhal_ type. It was, however, to be made an
absolute condition of this assistance and protection that the armies
and aerial and sea navies were to be entirely officered by Aerians, and
were to be under the unquestioned control of the President of Aeria.

This condition was, for obvious reasons, held by the Council to be
absolutely essential to success. Divided commands in the face of a foe
which would obey blindly the orders of a single chief who had already
shown that he could create armies and fleets of high efficiency, would
mean inevitable failure and disaster. Therefore the absolute control
of Anglo-Saxondom must once more be placed in the hands of the Supreme
Council until the danger was passed and peace was restored, or Aeria
would fight the battle alone and leave the nations of Anglo-Saxondom to
their fate.

The immediate effect of the orders brought by the _Vega_ was to throw
the station of Kerguelen into a state of the most intense activity.
Alan at once assumed command by common consent, and, assisted by
Alexis, Admiral Forrest, and Captain Ernstein, got everything in
readiness for the reception of the coming squadron from Aeria. All
the defences of the station were also thoroughly inspected, from the
air-ships floating above the clouds to the submarine mines which
guarded the entrances to the harbours, and a general plan of the now
inevitable campaign was sketched out at a council of war held on the
evening of the _Vega’s_ return.

It is scarcely necessary to say that the orders from headquarters
put both Alan and Alexis into the highest spirits. They had already
vindicated their claim to the confidence of the Council and their
fellow-countrymen, and the claim had been allowed without stint or
hesitation.

Though their year of probation had only just begun they found
themselves intrusted with a mission, dangerous it is true, but also of
the most supreme importance, and Alan in particular felt his pulses
thrill with justifiable pride when he found himself charged with
the glorious task of doing almost exactly what his great ancestor,
Alan Tremayne, had done a hundred and thirty years before, when
he marshalled the millions of Anglo-Saxondom against the leagued
despotisms of Europe and overthrew them in the mighty conflict which
had given peace on earth for nearly five generations.

Whether he would succeed as the Chief of the Terror had done depended
not upon himself so much as on Anglo-Saxondom itself. If the once
conquering race of earth had kept intact its old martial strength and
imperial spirit through the long years of peace and prosperity as its
kindred in Aeria had done, all would be well, and the disturbers of the
welfare of humanity would pay dearly and bitterly for their tremendous
crime.

But if, like the Romans of old, they had allowed the tropical
atmosphere of material luxury to relax the fibres of their once sturdy
nature and weaken the arms which had once enclosed the world in their
embrace, then his mission would fail, however eloquently he might urge
it. A desolation infinitely greater than that which overwhelmed Rome
or Byzantium would fall upon Anglo-Saxondom, and its name would be the
only monument of its vanished glory.

But the _Vega_ brought something more to Alan and Alexis than the
despatches and orders of the Council. This was a letter from Isma to
Alan, filled with the tenderest expressions of delight at the triumphs
which he and his “companion in arms” had already achieved, and of brave
and hopeful confidence in them, despite the terrible dangers that they
were going forth to confront.

The letter concluded with the significant sentence--“When you come back
in triumph, as I know you will, there will not be one heart in Aeria
that will not beat more gladly for your sakes, not one hand that will
not be stretched out to greet you either in friendship or in love.
Remember this against the day of battle, and in the day of peace you
shall see how true my words are.”

Although the letter made no mention of Alma, save as one of the
intimate friends who sent their “loving greetings” to the two men who
were going to lead the navy of Aeria to what might be the first battle
of a war that would be the most colossal and unsparing struggle ever
waged on earth, Alan was able to read enough between the lines to give
him hope.

He knew enough of Alma’s proud and sensitive nature to fully understand
why no word had come directly from her to him, and also to recognise
that the task of winning her back from her estrangement would be no
light one. Indeed, of the two tasks which lay before him, the conquest
of the world and the reconquest of Alma’s heart, he looked with less
misgiving upon the former than he did upon the latter. Still he by no
means despaired, and what he had said to Alexis was justified in his
mind by the belief that in Isma he had the most eloquent of advocates
always at Alma’s side, pleading his cause even better than he could do
it himself, at anyrate for the present.

As for Alexis, his lover’s eyes and more sanguine temperament found
in the letter ample justification for the re-naming of the _Vindaya_,
and if he forgot to return the precious sheet of paper to Alan after
he had read its contents, it was because he honestly felt that he had
the better right to it, and his companion in love and war apparently
recognised this, for he carefully refrained from asking him for it.
Thus well comforted with new-born hope, and impatiently longing
to begin the momentous work in hand, whether it was to be war or
diplomacy, they awaited the arrival of the promised fleet from Aeria,
which was expected to alight on the surface of Kerguelen about noon on
the day after the arrival of the _Vega_.

A few minutes before twelve o’clock on the 19th of May one of the
look-out vessels floating five thousand feet above the clouds which
overhung Desolation Land telephoned, “Fleet from Aeria in sight,”
and half an hour after the receipt of the anxiously-expected news at
headquarters the fifty air-ships were grouped round the power-station
at the head of Christmas Harbour, renewing the motive power which had
been expended on the voyage from Aeria.

When this operation was completed the fleet was equipped for a voyage
of thirty thousand miles if necessary. As every vessel was completely
furnished with all stores and munitions of war, no further preparations
had been made, and Alan was able to give the signal for the flotilla to
take the air in little more than an hour after its arrival at Kerguelen.

It was divided into two divisions of twenty-five ships each, one led
by the _Ithuriel_ and the other by the _Isma_, and these rose into
the air, formed in two straight lines each about a quarter of a mile
long. The two flagships flew one on either flank, and slightly ahead
and above the main body. This formation enabled any signals made from
either of them to be instantly seen by every ship in the fleet.

The distance to be traversed was five thousand eight hundred
geographical miles, and the voyage was performed at a speed of four
hundred miles an hour without incident.

At daybreak on the 20th, the two divisions were floating in a wide
circle six thousand feet above Alexandria at a sufficient distance
to be practically invisible from the city, which nevertheless lay
completely at the mercy of the four hundred guns which were trained
upon it, and which, if the terms of the Council’s ultimatum were not
accepted by the Sultan and Olga, would reduce it to a wilderness of
ruins within an hour from the signal to fire being given.

That the Russians were still the guests of the Sultan was made apparent
as soon as the light became strong enough for their squadron to be seen
resting on the earth in the gardens of the palace, with one look-out
ship stationed about fifteen hundred feet above the roof of the palace.
When all the ships were in their stations the _Ithuriel_ and the _Isma_
ran up close to each other, and Alexis boarded the flagship to receive
his final instructions from Alan, who had undertaken the perilous duty
of conveying the ultimatum to the Sultan and his possible ally.

Orloff Lossenski was on board the _Ithuriel_, and Alan requested him to
be present when Alexis received his orders. As he shook hands with the
Vice-Admiral, Alan said--

“I have asked Orloff Lossenski to hear our last arrangements made so
that he may recognise as well as we do that this is a matter of life
and death for all of us. For my own part, I am determined that the
wishes of the Council shall be obeyed, or the _Ithuriel_ and her crew
shall be buried with our enemies in the ruins of Alexandria.

“We have not been seen yet from the Russian look-out ship, but they
will of course see the _Ithuriel_ going down. I shall descend flying
a flag of truce, and I feel certain that the Sultan will recognise it
himself and compel his allies to do so. But if not, if a single shot is
fired, or if the Russian squadron attempts to rise in the air until my
return, you are to give the signal to open fire upon the city, and the
fleet is not to cease firing until it is destroyed.

“You are to forget that you are destroying friends as well as foes, for
I and all on board the _Ithuriel_ recognise that the honour of Aeria
and the safety of the world demand the sacrifice, and we are resolved
to make it.

“I not only order this as your superior in command, I ask it as a
friend and brother in arms. I know you would gladly die in the same
cause if necessary, and so you must not hesitate to kill me and destroy
the _Ithuriel_ if the fortune of war compels you to do so.”

Alan’s speech, spoken with the perfect steadiness of an unalterable
resolve, found a fitting response in the breast of his companion in
arms. Still holding his friend’s hand in what might be a farewell
clasp, Alexis simply replied--

“I see the necessity, and I will obey to the letter! God grant that you
may all return safe and sound; but if you don’t, you shall have such a
tomb as no man ever had before. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” said Alan in the same steady tone, and then their hands
parted, and Alexis returned to his ship.

“Now, Orloff Lossenski,” said Alan, turning to the Russian, “you have
heard my instructions, and you know that they will be obeyed. Neither
you nor your mistress have any right to expect mercy at my hands, and
you shall have none. Obey my orders to the letter, and see that your
mistress does the same, or Alexandria will be in ruins, before that sun
reaches the zenith.”

“I have heard and I will obey, for the fortune of war is with you and
I must,” replied Lossenski, completely overmastered by the heroic
devotion displayed by Alan in what bade fair to be a crisis in the fate
of the world.

A broad white flag of truce was now flown from the aftermast of the
_Ithuriel_. At the fore flew as a greeting to the Sultan the Star and
Crescent of Islam, while above both at the main floated the sky-blue
banner of Aeria, emblazoned with the golden wings united by a mailed
hand armed with a dagger. With every man at his station and every gun
ready for instant use, the flagship dropped swiftly down towards the
Russian vessel floating over the palace.

Within a mile of her the signal, “We bring despatches to the Sultan,”
flew from the signal staff at the stern. The captain of the Russian
scout-ship read the signal and at once telephoned to the palace, with
which his ship was connected by an electric thread, for instructions.

The _Ithuriel_ then flew a second signal, “If you rise we shall fire,”
and this he was forced to obey as the Aerian vessel was too far above
him for his guns to come into play. He therefore replied with the
signal, “I have asked for instructions. Wait for reply.” A few minutes
later Alan, keeping the Russian well under his guns, saw her drop
down to the earth and alight on the flat roof of the palace, on which
several figures could be seen moving about and scanning the skies with
glasses, which were speedily centred on the _Ithuriel_.

Then a white flag was run up to the top of a flagstaff on one of the
minarets of the palace, a similar one was hoisted by the Russian
air-ship, and she rose towards the _Ithuriel_. Alan, feeling now sure
that the flag of truce would be respected for the Sultan’s sake,
allowed the ship to come stern on to the _Ithuriel_ until the two were
within speaking distance.

As she approached, the Russian swung her stern guns out laterally,
and Alan did the same with his, so that for the time being neither
ship could injure the other. The stern doors were then opened, and the
Russian captain delivered a message to the effect that the Sultan had
just risen for morning prayers, and would receive the captain of the
_Ithuriel_ in half an hour. The Aerian vessel could therefore descend
without fear.

“There is no question of fear,” replied Alan shortly. “I have not come
alone. Use your glasses and you will see that the city is surrounded,
but we shall respect the truce if you do.”

The Russian stepped back with a hurried gesture and seized his glasses.
It was now quite light enough for him to see at that elevation a wide
circle of points of flashing blue light reflected from the hulls of the
Aerian fleet. He put down his glasses and replied--

“So I see! You would not have got here if patrols had been sent out as
I advised.”

“Or else your patrols would not have come back,” said Alan, turning on
his heel and walking forward.

Half an hour later the white flag on the minaret was dipped three times
as an invitation for the _Ithuriel_ to descend, and Alan, determined
to guard against any possible treachery on the part of the Russian
scout-ship, signalled to it to precede him, and so the two vessels sank
down and alighted almost together on the roof of the palace.

The Sultan surrounded by his ministers was awaiting them, and as
soon as salutes had been exchanged Alan handed him the ultimatum of
the Council. As Khalid read the brief but pregnant message his brows
contracted, and an angry flush showed through the bronze of his skin.

He read it twice over, stroking his beard slowly and deliberately as he
did so. Then he looked up and said to Alan in a tone from which he made
no effort to banish the accents of anger--

“Was not my word enough? Have I not promised that I would make no war
for a year? By what right do you order me to compel my friend and ally
to leave my city within two hours?”

At the word “ally” Alan’s face assumed an expression of wrathful
sternness, and he replied--

“By the right which has always governed the issues of war--the power to
compel obedience.”

“To compel!” cried the Sultan, in a still angrier tone. “What! with one
air-ship against twenty? Not even a Prince of the Air could do that.”

“No Prince of the Air would be mad enough to make the attempt,” replied
Alan coldly. “Ask the captain of your scout-ship, and he will tell
you that your city is surrounded; and I can tell you that four hundred
guns are trained upon it at this moment, and that the firing of a shot,
or the rising of any air-ship but my own from the ground, will be the
signal for them all to be discharged. I need not tell your Majesty what
the result of that would be.”

Khalid recoiled with a cry that was almost one of fear. He knew
instinctively that Alan was speaking the literal truth, without the
confirmation given by the captain of the scout-ship. He saw, too, that
Olga had deceived him, or at anyrate had been grievously mistaken,
when she had said that the Aerians would not send a fleet after her
squadron. They had done so, and so skilfully had its movements been
ordered, that the city had been taken by surprise, and lay at its mercy.

Brave as he was, the strange terrors of the situation sent a thrill
of fear through his soul. There he stood, the proudest king on earth,
on the roof of his palace, beneath the smiling sky of an Egyptian
summer morning; and yet that smiling sky was charged with death and
destruction a hundredfold greater than if the thunder-clouds were
lowering on it, ready to hurl their lightnings upon the earth.

He could see nothing but the blue heavens and the eastern sunlight
shining over the roofs of his capital; and yet he knew that the man
standing before him could, with a single signal, reduce the splendid
city to heaps of shattered, shapeless ruins, and bury its inhabitants
and its guests in one common tomb.

Then what seemed to be a saving thought flashed through his mind, and
he said, almost in a tone of banter--

“But in that case we should not die alone, unless you have taught those
unsparing guns of yours to distinguish between friend and foe--the
signal for our destruction would be the signal for yours as well.”

“Even so!” replied Alan gravely. “That is a contingency which I have
foreseen. Orloff Lossenski, tell his Majesty what my last orders to the
fleet were.”

The Russian stepped forward, and after saluting the Sultan said--

“I heard the orders given, Majesty, and they were to that effect.
Friends and foes are to be destroyed alike, and nothing is to be left
of Alexandria but its ruins.

“I am also charged with a message to my mistress, the Tsarina, which
tells her that if she does not leave within two hours her ships will
be attacked in the city, and that, too, would be disaster; and if my
words have still any weight with her I shall advise compliance with the
order of the Council. Will your Majesty permit me to be conducted to my
mistress in order that I may deliver my message in due form?”

The Sultan did not seem to hear the request at all. The idea that
Alan and his crew should thus deliberately devote themselves and
their beautiful vessel to annihilation in the event of their orders
being disobeyed appalled and unnerved him. He knew nothing, save by
tradition, of the heights of heroism to which men can rise under
the stimulus of war, and he looked upon the man who had so calmly
pronounced the provisional death sentence of himself and his companions
as something more than human, as beings of a higher order, to fight
against whom would be impious rashness rather than courage.

It was a situation that would have shaken the nerves of the sternest
and most experienced soldier of the nineteenth century, and so it was
no wonder that his spirit, unbraced by the discipline of war, shrank
from facing its terrors. He saw, too, that there was literally no
choice save between submission and destruction. To save, not only the
lives of himself and his people, but also those of his guests and
allies, he and they must submit and obey this imperious mandate.

“It is the will of God!” he said, bowing his head slightly towards
Alan as he spoke. “They who cannot fight must yield. Hereafter we may
meet upon more equal terms, and then to-day’s humiliation shall not be
forgotten.”

Alan inclined his head in reply, and said--

“So be it! As your Majesty has seemingly decided to involve the world
in the horrors of war, it is not for me to say any more. When the day
of battle comes, let the fortune of war decide between us. Meanwhile,
Orloff Lossenski, it is time that you took the Council’s message to
your mistress.”

“Give it to me,” said the Sultan, stepping forward with outstretched
hands, “and I will take it to her, if she has risen yet.”

“There is no need for that,” said a voice a few yards beyond Alan. “I
am here, and I will take it.”

As the sweet, low, even tones, now so hatefully familiar, reached
Alan’s ears he turned sharply round, with a blaze of ungovernable anger
in his eyes, and saw Olga, calm and self-possessed in all the pride of
her imperial beauty, walking towards the group from an arched doorway
that led up from the interior of the palace.




CHAPTER XIX. FACE TO FACE AGAIN.


SMILING and self-possessed as Olga appeared when she gained the roof of
the palace, she had passed through a perfect purgatory of conflicting
and agonising emotions since the news of the arrival of the _Ithuriel_
had reached her in her room. Her tremendous and, but for the fact of
her strange, hopeless love, incomprehensible blunder in setting Alan
and Alexis free, instead of either killing them or keeping them in
life-long captivity, had already borne terrible fruit; but this visit,
made at the very moment when her plans were apparently crowned with
success, seemed to threaten nothing less than the complete ruin of all
her schemes.

She knew instinctively that the city must be surrounded by an
overwhelming force of Aerian ships, for a single one to venture
thus into the midst of her own squadron, and, judging by her own
tactics, she expected nothing less than immediate annihilation as
the alternative to surrender. But even more bitter than this was the
thought of meeting, not only as a freeman, but as the commander of
the Aerian navy, the man who but a few days ago had been her docile,
unresisting slave, robbed of the highest attribute of his manhood by
the Circe-spell that she had cast over him, and which she now knew was
broken for ever.

And, more than this, she must now meet as an implacable enemy the man
whom, in spite of herself, she still loved with all the passion of
her fiery nature, and who, now that he was free again, could but look
upon her not only with hatred, but with disgust. This, so far as her
own feelings were concerned, was the miserable end of her scheming, but
there was no help for it. She had deliberately sown the wind, and now
the time was approaching for her to reap the whirlwind.

She thought of her dream in St. Petersburg, and a new and awful meaning
was made apparent to her in those few minutes of mental torture before
she went to meet her well-beloved enemy face to face. She saw herself
mistress of a conquered world, seated on a lonely throne, wailing over
her own broken heart in the midst of a desolation that she had brought
upon the earth--for nothing.

This, it seemed, was to be the penalty of the unspeakable crime she
had committed to gain possession of the air-ship, a hopeless love that
should turn all the fruits of conquest, if she ever won them, into
the bitter ashes of the Dead Sea apples in her mouth, a love not only
unrequited, but repaid with righteous horror and almost divine disgust.

And yet, despite all this, her marvellous fortitude and royal pride
came to her aid to help her to bear herself bravely before her enemies,
and so, with a smile on her lips and a hell of raging passions in
her bosom, she ascended to take her part in the debate, big with the
destiny of a world, that was being held on the palace roof.

As Alan turned and confronted her in all the strength and splendour
of the manhood that not even her almost superhuman arts had been able
to tarnish or weaken, and looked at her with the stern, steady gaze
without one sign of recognition in the eyes that shone blue-black
beneath his straight-drawn brows, her heart stood still and seemed
turned to ice in her breast, and for one brief moment her foot faltered
and the light died out of her eyes and the colour from her cheeks.

Then she caught the Sultan’s gaze turned inquiringly upon her; her
indomitable spirit rose to the emergency, and her self-possession
returned. Passing Alan by with a slight inclination of her head which
did not conceal the mocking smile which curled her dainty lips, she
went to Khalid and, holding out her hand, said in steady, musical tones
which, do what he would to resist it, sent a thrill to Alan’s heart--

“Where is the message that my faithless servant brings from the tyrants
of the world?”

The Sultan gave it to her, and as she read it Lossenski stood silent
like the rest, but with head bowed down in shame and sorrow. When she
reached the last word of the despatch the crimson deepened on her
cheeks and her hands closed convulsively on the paper. Then with a
quick movement she tore it in twain, flung the two fragments to the
ground, and then, looking up with eyes blazing with passion, she cried--

“I should be a slave to obey! Lossenski, signal to the squadron to
rise. Boris, train a gun on that ship and blow her to pieces if a man
moves on board of her. Out of the way there, Alan Arnold. If you lift a
hand I will shoot you like a dog!”

As she spoke she snatched a pistol out of her belt and had almost
levelled it at Alan’s heart, when, like a flash of lightning, his
rapier leapt from its sheath, and as the pistol came up it was dashed
from her hand.

“I could have killed you with less trouble,” he said, in quick stern
accents, raising the glittering blue blade to a level with her eyes,
and keeping it outstretched towards her. “Have you forgotten what I
told you, or that I am no longer under your vile spell? If those orders
are obeyed I will kill you now, though you do wear a woman’s shape. The
city is surrounded, and if one vessel rises from the earth, Alexandria
will be in ruins in an hour. Now, give the signal for its destruction
if you dare, and let the earth be rid of you!”

“And of you, my gallant Knight of the Air, who draws his sword upon a
woman!” she almost hissed at him in her fury. “Yes, I dare and I will.
Lossenski”--

In another moment the fate of the world would have been changed; but,
before the order could be repeated, the Sultan strode forward and
placed himself between Alan and Olga with outstretched arms--

“No, Tsarina! that order shall not be given on my palace or in my
hearing. You have forgotten our agreement and my oath. I have sworn
on the Koran that there shall be no war between Islam and Aeria for a
year, and by the glory of Allah there shall be none!

“What have I and my people done that you should bring this destruction
upon them? Your servant shall be shot if he opens his lips, and if
you must fight, go into the desert and do it; but that will end our
alliance, for you will have broken the peace to which I have sworn, and
made me a liar. It is enough! Let us talk like reasonable beings, and
not quarrel like children.”

Olga was conquered for the time being, and she saw it. Few as had been
the moments of the Sultan’s speech, they were enough to allow her agile
intellect to get the better of her anger, and to convince her that it
would have led her to suicide in another minute.

Her manner changed with a swiftness that was almost miraculous. Her
long, thick lashes fell, hiding the still burning fires of her eyes.
Her attitude changed from one of defiance to one of deference, and as
she stepped back a pace or two, she said in a totally altered voice--

“Your Majesty has justly rebuked me. My anger overcame my reason for
the moment. My hatred of these tyrants of the air is not a thing of
to-day or of yesterday, as you know, but the legacy of generations of
wrong and robbery, and the arrogance of this man, who but a few days
ago was my slave, and now ventures to dictate terms of war or peace
to me, was more than my patience or my temper could bear. I have done
wrong, and in atonement I will promise, on the honour of a Romanoff, to
be bound absolutely by such engagement as your Majesty may make until
the period of your truce is expired.”

So saying, she retired to a distant part of the terrace, beckoning
Lossenski to follow her. Throwing herself on a seat in full view but
out of earshot of the group she had left, she bade him tell her the
story of the loss of the _Vindaya_, and how he came to be the bearer of
the message of the Council of Aeria to her.

Lossenski told the story simply and truthfully, and as he finished, the
Grand Vizier approached, and after an obeisance, made with Oriental
reverence, said--

“Tsarina, my master commands me to inform you that he has settled all
matters with the Prince of the Air save one, and to settle that he
craves your assistance. Will it please you to come and speak with him?”

“I will come,” said Olga, rising and following him with the words of
Lossenski fresh in her ears.

“Tsarina Olga,” said the Sultan, coming to meet her as she approached
the group amidst which Alan was still standing, “I have come to an
agreement with Alan Arnold upon all points but one, and that one only
you can decide.

“He asserts that six years ago he took you and your brother as guests
on board the air-ship, which you now call the _Revenge_, that you
drugged the wine drunk by him and his comrades, and, sparing only him
and his friend Alexis Masarov, you poisoned the rest of the crew, and
threw them out on to the snows of Norway, after which you kept him and
Alexis under your influence by means of a drug, which deprived them of
their will-power and forced them to reveal the secrets of the air-ship
to you and assist you in building your fleet.”

“And has your Majesty given credence to such a monstrous story, or do
you only wish to hear me give it the contradiction which its absurdity
and falsity deserve? If the former, the sooner I and my ships leave
your city, never to return save as enemies, the better. If the latter,
you shall soon be satisfied.”

Olga spoke with an air of angered innocence which completely deceived
the Sultan, anxious as he was to find the extraordinary story false,
and he hastily replied--

“It is the latter that I desire, of course. I was obliged to say that
if you were unable to deny the accusation it would be impossible for me
to continue an alliance with one who had been guilty of a crime which
my faith and the customs of my race denounce as vile beyond all human
measure. But I refused to believe it against you until your own lips
had confessed it, or undeniable evidence had proved it, and therefore I
have asked you to come and let us know the truth.”

“I thank you, Sultan Khalid, for your confidence and your chivalry,”
she said, looking up into his eyes with a glance that rendered all
denial from her once and for ever unnecessary. “You shall hear me deny
the foul falsehood to my traducer’s face.”

Stung to fresh fury by the knowledge that Alan had sought to expose
her in her true nature to the man whom she sought to make her slave
in his place, she strode forward to within three paces of where he
was standing, and, drawing herself up to the full height of her
royal stature, she faced him with pale cheeks and blazing eyes, her
beauty so transfigured by anger that the Moslems standing about her
instinctively shrank back, awe-stricken by such an incarnation of wrath
and loveliness as no man of them had ever dreamed of before. Even Alan
himself forgot his hate and disgust for the moment in the contemplation
of her almost miraculous beauty and the indescribable dignity with
which her anger invested her, and waited in silence that was almost
respectful for the tempest of wrath and reproach which he saw was about
to be let loose on him.

Her lips trembled mutely for a moment or two before any sound came from
them, but when she spoke her tone was low and clear, though almost
hoarse with passion, and shaken by the manifest effort she made to keep
it under control.

“So this is the return that your chivalry makes for my generosity in
giving you life and liberty when you were lost to the world; when I
might have killed you, as I see now that I should have done, without a
single soul among your people knowing anything of your fate!

“I expected that you would take up arms against me, for your people and
mine are enemies to the death; and I knew, too, that the love which
I had spurned would not be long in turning to active hate. But you
excelled my expectations--you, one of the Princes of the Air, the scion
of a race that holds itself above all the other races of the earth, the
son of a man who but a few years ago was lord and master of the world!
You come in the guise of open and honourable warfare to smirch with
your foul lies the fame of a woman for whose sake you made yourself a
traitor to your people and a murderer of your own comrades. A pretty
story, forsooth, to tell in the ears of my friends and allies. Do you
take them for children or fools that you expect them to believe it?

“Imagine such a miracle, your Majesty,” she continued, turning, with
the clear ring of a mocking laugh in her voice, to the Sultan, “imagine
this Alan Arnold, son of the President of Aeria, with his friend and
lieutenant, Alexis Masarov, and a crew of eight Aerians on board their
flagship, armed with the most tremendous means of destruction ever
invented by human genius, and each man of them, moreover, possessing in
his own person the power of life and death, as he himself has proved
before your own eyes.

“These kings among men invite two casual acquaintances for a trip to
the clouds, and these two guests, a youth of twenty and a girl not
seventeen, unarmed and without assistance, seize their ship, kill
eight of their invincibly armed comrades, and lead the captain and his
lieutenant away captive. And how? By means of some mysterious drugs,
subtle and irresistible poisons, of which such a boy and girl could not
possibly have known either the composition or the use, and which they
would have been afraid to employ if they had done.

“But let me come to the facts as they are,” she went on, turning again
to Alan, who stood literally dumfounded before her, amazed beyond
power of thought or speech by the audacity of her words. “It is you
who are the liar, the traitor, and the murderer. It is you who killed
my brother before my eyes because he sought to protect me from your
violence; and it is you and your friend Alexis who, of your own free
will, struck your comrades dead, threw them out of the air-ship upon
the Norwegian snows, and then, in the hope of gaining my favour, took
the _Ithuriel_ to Vorobièvo, near Moscow, and delivered her into the
hands of my friends.

“I have fifty men within call at this moment who will swear that this
is true. Orloff Lossenski, you are one of them. Were you not at the
villa at Vorobièvo when these two came with me in the _Ithuriel_ and
delivered her into your hands; and did you not find the corpse of my
brother Serge in one of the state rooms with his neck bruised and
blackened by the grip of his murderer?”

“Yes, Majesty,” replied Lossenski, stepping forward as he was
addressed. “That is true, though they told us at the time that your
brother had been killed in a struggle with their comrades.”

“And is it true,” continued Olga, “that they accompanied me into your
villa and had supper with us as friends, and did not I forgive the
death of my brother for the sake of the advantages which the possession
of the air-ship, which they consented to surrender to us, would be to
the cause of the revolution in Russia to which we were pledged?”

“That is also true, Majesty; and there are several here now with the
squadron who can also testify to the fact.”

“And also,” interrupted Olga, “to the fact that these two traitors
worked willingly to help us to secrete the air-ship, and finally to
take her to Mount Terror, and there explained the working of her
machinery to us and helped us to build other air-ships and submarine
vessels, and commanded these in their attacks upon the commerce of our
enemies. Is that true, also?”

“It is, Majesty,” again replied Lossenski. “Shall I summon the crews of
our ships that they also may testify to it lest my word should not be
enough?”

“Is it your Majesty’s wish that they shall be called?” asked Olga,
again turning to the Sultan, who all this time had been standing
shifting his gaze from her face to Alan’s, and from Alan’s back again
to hers, horrified by the fearful accusations with which she had
replied to the story, of the falsity of which he was already thoroughly
convinced.

“They can be called if Alan Arnold desires it,” he said, in grave,
deliberate tones. “But would it not be better that he should speak
first? At present we have two words against one. Has he any proof that
what you say is false?” he continued, looking inquiringly towards Alan.

“I have none but my own word and that of Alexis, up yonder in the
skies, and him I cannot--and if I could, under the circumstances,
I would not--call,” said Alan, who by this time had recovered his
self-possession. “If your Majesty proposes to judge between us
according to spoken testimony, I say at once that I will accept no such
tests, for I well know that this woman could produce a hundred of her
accomplices who would swear anything she bade them swear.

“She has given me the lie with equal skill and audacity. I can only
give her the lie in return, if not as skilfully, at least as boldly,
and with a knowledge that I am telling the truth. Your Majesty can
believe her story or mine, as you choose. If you believe hers, I am
willing to do you the justice of confessing that you will be judging
according to the weight of testimony, such as it is, for that is
certainly against me.”

“And so I must judge,” replied the Sultan coldly. “I cannot believe
your story, for it seems to be impossible, while the Tsarina’s has
every appearance of truth. Into your motives I have neither the right
nor the wish to inquire, and all that is left for me to say is that
what I have heard has finally decided me to espouse the cause of the
Tsarina and her friends against those who have wronged and slandered
her, be the cost to me and my people what it may.

“We shall keep the truce if you do, and in the day of strife let the
God of Battles decide between us. My answer to your Council’s message
shall be ready for you in half an hour. Farewell!”

So saying, Khalid the Magnificent turned his back upon Alan, and
walked, followed by his Vizier and his ministers, to the doorway
leading to the interior of the palace. Olga, pausing for a moment to
cast one glance of triumphant hatred at her discredited foe, beckoned
to Lossenski, and followed the Sultan without a word.

Alan, amazed and enraged beyond measure by the unexpected turn that
affairs had taken, and yet confident in his own knowledge of the truth,
turned on his heel, and went back on board the _Ithuriel_, where he
went into his own cabin and sat down to write his directions for
enforcing the order of the Council with regard to the evacuation of the
city by the Russian squadron.

He bitterly regretted that the orders of the Council did not permit him
to destroy the Russian air-ships there and then while they lay at his
mercy. But the orders were explicit, and forbade him even to pursue
them after they had left Alexandria, unless they committed an act of
hostility against him.

If he could have done so, he would have fought them at all hazards,
and then, if he had conquered, he would have been able to enforce the
general prohibition of the Council against building air-ships upon the
Sultan; but as disobedience was not to be thought of, he could only
carry out his orders, and hope that the judgment of the Council might
prove in the end superior to his own.

At the end of the half-hour he was summoned to meet the Grand Vizier,
who brought the reply of his master. This ran as follows:--

  In the Name of the Most Merciful God!

  Khalid, Commander of the Faithful, to Alan Arnold, President of Aeria.

  I have received your message from the hands of your son. I shall
  faithfully observe the terms of the truce I promised to him, and of
  which he has told you.

  As my city lies for the time being at the mercy of your fleet, I can
  only save my people and my guests from destruction by agreeing to
  your demands. The Russian air-ships shall leave Alexandria within an
  hour of the delivery of this to your son. But this is to tell you
  that I have made alliance with Olga Romanoff, rightful Tsarina of
  the Russias, and that when the year of truce has expired, I will no
  longer be a king merely in name and hold my power and dignity at your
  pleasure.

  At the end of the year of truce there shall be war between you and
  me and your people and mine unless before then you shall recognise
  my independence in due form and my right to create such armaments
  as I think fit for the protection of my dominions against yourself
  or any other Power, and unless you consent to restore Olga Romanoff
  to the throne and dignity which is hers by right, and of which your
  ancestors robbed her in the days of the Terror.

  If you do this there shall be peace between us, but if not, there
  shall be war, and we will fight until the God of Battles has decided
  between us, and given to you or to me the dominion of the world.

Alan’s brows contracted slightly as he read this defiant missive, but
there was a half-pitying smile on his lips when he said to the Vizier
as he handed him the instructions he had just written--

“I am deeply sorry--sorry for him and his people, and, indeed, for the
whole human race--that he has been misled into writing words which in
a year’s time will set the world in a blaze. Our reply to this will be
written in blood and fire, and the smoking ruins of cities throughout
the length and breadth of his dominions. But he has chosen, and he and
you must abide by his choice. I cannot believe that he knows what he is
doing, and if you are a faithful friend and servant you will counsel
peace and moderation.”

“My master,” said the Vizier haughtily, “does not seek advice from his
enemies; more than ever would it be impossible for him to do so when
their lips are fresh-stained with lies.”

Alan’s hand instinctively sprang to the hilt of his rapier, and in
another moment the Vizier’s life would have paid for the insult, but
when the blade was half out of its sheath his self-control returned,
and he thrust it back again, saying--

“You are an old man and an ambassador, so you are safe. You shall live
so that you may some day find out for yourself where the truth in this
matter lies. Who knows but that the Syren may before long put you or
your master under her spell. If she does you will drink something from
her hand, and when you have drunk it you will have no will but hers;
you will obey her blindly, and the thoughts that you speak shall be
only those she suggests to you.”

Later on that day, when the excitement of the hour had passed, Musa
al Ghazi remembered these words, and the strange acquiescence which he
had given to Olga’s plans in the saloon of the _Revenge_. If he had
remembered it while Alan was speaking, millions of innocent lives might
possibly have been saved, and the curse of war averted from the world
for many more generations, perhaps for ever. But he did not, and so
events took their logical course. As it was, he made no direct reply to
Alan’s words, but handed him another paper, saying--

“I have been commissioned also to give you this. The instructions
agreed upon shall be obeyed, and now I have only to remind you that you
are no longer my master’s guest.”

With that he saluted with frigid dignity and turned away towards the
palace door.

Alan looked after him for a moment with a smile half of contempt and
half of pity, then he opened the paper in his hand. As he expected, it
was from Olga, and, beginning without any form of address, it ran thus--

  I shall obey your orders and leave the city, not because I will,
  but because I must, in order to save the Sultan and his people from
  destruction. I will also undertake to refrain from hostilities until
  the Sultan’s truce expires, provided you do not molest me. If you do,
  or if the Sultan is subjected to any unreasonable commands or acts
  of oppression, I will consider the truce at an end, and I will not
  only recommence my submarine attacks upon the world’s commerce, but I
  will send out my air-ships and scatter death and destruction far and
  wide over the earth, without mercy and without discrimination between
  enemies or neutrals; it is therefore for you to choose whether the
  issue between us shall be fought out when the time comes, and in
  fair and honourable warfare, or whether the dogs of war shall be let
  loose at once. I have still thirty air-ships, and as many submarine
  cruisers, and I can do what I say.

  OLGA ROMANOFF.

“No doubt,” said Alan to himself. “I’m afraid we shall have to accept
your terms. I didn’t think that even you would be capable of such a
colossal crime as that; but now I know something like the full capacity
of your wickedness, and if you threaten it you will do it.

“With those thirty ships, if you have as many as that, and I suppose
you must have twenty-four or twenty-five at least, you could wreck half
the great cities of the world in six months, and we could do little or
nothing to stop you. We have only eleven ships equal in speed to yours,
and most of those must be kept in call of Aeria.

“I would give my life and my ship willingly for permission to fight it
out here and now, and yet, after all, that would be frightful cruelty
and injustice to the unoffending thousands who would lose their lives
by the destruction of the city, so I suppose it must be peace for a
year, and then--ah, what then?”

His soliloquy began on the terrace and ended on the deck of the
_Ithuriel_. He gave the order to rise into the air, and the aerial
cruiser soared slowly upwards, still flying the flag of truce as
a signal to her consorts that the mission had been successfully
accomplished. As he felt certain that the Sultan would carry out the
directions agreed upon to the letter, he left the city without any
misgivings, and in a few minutes the _Ithuriel_ was floating alongside
her consort the _Isma_, and Alan and Alexis had clasped hands once
more.




CHAPTER XX. THE CALL TO ARMS.


WITHIN an hour the wondering inhabitants of Alexandria saw the Russian
fleet rise a thousand feet into the air and form in two columns of
line ahead. Then the Aerian fleet ranged itself in two long lines five
hundred feet outside them and a thousand feet above them. A time-shell
from the _Ithuriel_ gave the signal to start, and the two fleets leapt
forward to the south-east at a speed of a hundred miles an hour, and
in a few minutes had vanished over the desert. The speed was quickly
increased to two hundred miles, and so they sped on all day and through
the next night--the Russian ships being forced to show their lights
while the Aerians remained in darkness--until, when morning dawned and
Olga and her captains looked for Alan’s fleet they found that it had
vanished, and that they were floating alone over the solitudes of the
Southern Ocean.

They had been escorted like offending school children out of harm’s
way, and then left to their own devices. It was a bitterly humiliating
ending to an expedition which had really produced such important
results, but there was no possibility of present revenge, and so Olga
gave the order to proceed straight to Mount Terror, intending to begin
there and then the working out of her part of the compact that she had
made with the Sultan.

This arrangement was briefly to the following effect:--Olga placed at
Khalid’s disposal all the necessary plans for the construction of both
air-ships and submarine vessels, and also supplied members of her own
immediate retinue, well skilled in the work, to supervise the building,
which was, of course, to be carried out with the utmost secrecy and
speed, so as to guard, as far as practicable, against the possible
destruction of the factories and dockyards by the Aerians.

The Sultan had engaged to find money and material for building a
thousand air-ships, and the same number of submarine cruisers,
within the year, and these were to be supplied with motive power at
conversion-stations established at the dockyards under the exclusive
control of certain of Olga’s lieutenants.

The secret of this motive power, which was identical save for slight
differences in the process of conversion with that possessed by the
Aerians--that is to say, electrical energy derived directly from
atomised carbon and vaporised petroleum--was retained in her own
keeping by Olga, who had simply promised that an unlimited supply of it
should be forthcoming as it was wanted.

She had insisted on a strict engagement that no one not authorised by
her should even approach the conversion-stations, and she had given the
Sultan and his ministers distinctly to understand that any attempt to
discover the secret of the process would terminate the alliance, and
expose the cities of the Moslem empire to destruction.

At the expiration of the year of truce, the Sultan’s army and navy,
supported by the immense aerial fleet that would then be in existence,
was to be in complete readiness for any emergencies. Olga was to be
proclaimed Tsarina in Moscow, and the House of Romanoff formally
restored in her person. If any portions of Russia refused to receive
her, they were to be terrorised into submission by the air-ships.

The tribesmen of Western and Central Asia were to be armed as rapidly
as possible, so as to be ready to form a reserve force for compelling
the submission of the Russians if they resisted the new order of
things, and to participate in the invasion of Europe, which was to
take place at several points as soon as the Holy War of Islam was
proclaimed, and Cross and Crescent once more confronted each other on
the battlefield.

Meanwhile, too, the resources of the dockyard at Mount Terror were
to be strained to the utmost, and the conspiracy in Russia for the
restoration of Olga to the throne of the Romanoffs was to be developed
by every means that money could purchase or skill devise.

The scheme of defence arranged by the Council of Aeria had already been
completed, and it was to execute this that the Aerian fleet had left
the Russian squadron during the night. Indeed, the Russians had been
travelling southward alone for more than eight hours before they had
discovered the fact. As soon as it became impossible for them to see
the Aerian vessels these had stopped, in accordance with a prearranged
plan, and had wheeled round and steered for London across the African
continent at a height of about ten thousand feet.

Flying at the full speed of the smaller vessels, a twenty-hour flight
carried the fleet over the eight thousand miles which separated its
starting-point from the capital of the world, and about six o’clock
in the evening of the 21st of May the fifty-two vessels, flying the
Aerian and British flags, appeared in the air over the open space
which is now called Hyde Park, and, to the amazement of the astonished
citizens, dropped quietly to the earth and lay open to the unrestricted
inspection of the thousands who speedily gathered in the park to avail
themselves of the unwonted spectacle, and to learn, if possible, the
reason of the unexpected visit.

No attempt was made by the crews of the ships to prevent the sightseers
from seeing all they could of the exteriors of the vessels, which
were arranged on the sward in two long lines, so that they could walk
down between them and admire their beautiful shape and wonderful
construction at their leisure. A sentry was stationed by each vessel
to warn the sightseers not to approach too close to the wings and
propellers, and that was the only precaution taken.

Alan learnt soon after landing that King Albert the Second, the fourth
in descent from Edward VII., who was King during the War of the
Terror, was at Windsor, and that the House of Commons and the Senate,
which for over a hundred years had filled the place of the old House of
Lords, had dissolved for the spring recess, and would not meet again
until after the General Election, which was held every 1st of June.

He therefore caused a message to be sent to His Majesty at Windsor,
requesting him to name a time for an interview on the following day,
and then, sufficient watches having been set on all the vessels, he and
Alexis, with the majority of the crews, took a few hours’ leave, not
a little glad of the opportunity of stretching their legs on _terra
firma_, after their three days’ confinement to the air-ships.

The reply which he received from the King fixed eleven o’clock in
the morning of the 22nd as the time of the interview for which he
had asked, and, just as the castle clock was beginning to sound the
strokes of the hour, the _Ithuriel_ swept up out of the distance
towards Windsor Castle, and, after hovering for a moment in mid-air,
sank quietly down until she rested on that portion of the terrace which
overlooks the Home Park. Her arrival had been announced to the King as
soon as she hove in sight, and he was on the terrace ready to receive
his visitors when she alighted.

Albert II., King of England, Emperor of Britain, and President of
the Anglo-Saxon Federation, was a monarch only in name. Nothing but
the trappings of sovereignty remained to himself or his station, and
he would not even have retained these had it not been for the fact
that, during its hundred years of actual rule, the Supreme Council had
insisted upon the maintenance of the monarchical principle in those
countries where it had obtained at the end of the nineteenth century.

The first formal greetings over, the King caused Alan to be escorted to
his private apartments in the castle, and as soon as they were alone
together in the room which he reserved for his own special use, he
motioned Alan to a seat and, throwing himself back upon a lounge with
an air of weariness which accorded but ill with the hour of the day, he
said in a somewhat querulous tone--

“We are quite alone now and you can speak with perfect freedom. I am
sure it must be important business that has brought you here with a
whole fleet of your air-ships, and I shall be glad if you will tell me
at once what it is. I hope nothing has occurred to imperil our peace
and safety?”

“On the contrary, your Majesty,” replied Alan. “I regret to say that my
errand is to tell you that, not only is that the case, but that it is a
practical certainty that within twelve months from now the whole world
will be plunged into war.”

“What! what!” exclaimed the King, jerking himself up to a sitting
posture. “Surely you don’t mean that? I thought that no war would be
possible without the permission of your Council. Surely you would not
allow the nations of the world to go to war with each other again, and
repeat all the horrors that happened a hundred and thirty years ago?”

“Your Majesty forgets that when we renounced the control of the world
six years ago we gave back to the nations the right of making war upon
each other, although we hardly believed that they would be foolish
enough and wicked enough to exercise it. That, however, is beside
the question, because war is now inevitable, and, what is even more
important, the Council of Aeria is unhappily powerless to prevent it.”

“Eh! what is that?” exclaimed the King, this time rising to his feet
and facing Alan with an air of petulant reproach. “Powerless to prevent
it? You, with all your fleets of air-ships and submarine vessels?
You, who have called yourselves the masters of the world for nearly a
century and a half--you cannot stop war?”

“We cannot do so, your Majesty,” said Alan, also rising to his
feet, “simply because I regret to say that we no longer possess the
undisputed empire of the air, and therefore, in a measure at least, we
have lost the command of the world.

“As for the responsibility which your words impute to us, I must tell
you at once that it does not exist. The rulers of the world, and
yourself among them, voluntarily and with full knowledge accepted
perfect freedom, and therefore the individual responsibility that is
inseparable from it. You knew that from the time we resigned the
world-throne you were free to make war upon each other, on land and by
sea.

“It is your fault and not ours that you are now so defenceless that you
have cause to fear the war against which you ask us to protect you.
You have known for nearly four years that the Sultan of Islam has been
creating armies and fleets, and diligently training millions of his
subjects in that art of war which we hoped was to be forgotten for ever
among men.

“Did you suppose, you Kings and Princes of the Anglo-Saxon Federation,
that Khalid the Magnificent, a man of boundless ambition, was creating
these armies and fleets simply to play with them? Could you not see
that nothing but some dream of world-wide conquest could be inspiring
him to do this, and do you need to be told that the realms of
Christendom offered him the only possible area of conquest in the world?

“What have you done to defend yourselves, or to prepare against
a possible day of battle? You have done nothing. Saving your
international police, now little more than an ornamental body of
officials, the Federation does not possess a single soldier. You have
seen the Sultan building battleships and arming them with the deadliest
weapons that skill and science could devise, and you, with all your
wealth, and skill, and knowledge, have not built a single vessel that
would be of use in time of war.

“I understand that the Council has warned you again and again that
the Sultan’s designs could not have been peaceable, and yet your
Parliaments have not voted a single pound for the defence of your homes
and your riches.”

“Ah, yes!” broke in the King, now in an apologetic tone, for he was
completely cowed by the direct, earnest force of Alan’s reproving
words. “That is it! You must not blame myself or my fellow-monarchs,
you must blame the Parliaments. We can do nothing without them; they
have usurped all the power that formerly belonged to Kings. It is this
democracy that has weakened us and left us defenceless. Every man
thinks himself a ruler, and so there are no rulers, except in name.
Every man has a vote, therefore every man must be consulted about
everything, and so nothing can be done but what the multitude wishes.
They want only riches, splendid buildings and cities, light work, and
comfortable lives. That is all they have cared about, and so that is
all they have got. If we, their Kings and duly appointed rulers, could
have done as we wished to do affairs would have been very different;
but it is impossible to rule where every man fancies himself a king!”

“That is but a poor excuse, King Albert,” replied Alan sternly and yet
somewhat sadly. “It is the old story of Greece and Rome and Byzantium
over again. The weakness of the rulers has been the strength of the
demagogues, and that has always spelt national decay from the days of
Cleon until now.

“I might ask you how it comes that Sultan Khalid has been able to keep
his millions of subjects in hand and to be to-day the sole actual ruler
of the greatest empire the world has ever seen; but neither you nor
I have any more time to waste, either in reproaching each other or
regretting what cannot now be helped.”

“No, no!” said the King, almost appealingly. “That is quite
right--quite right. Tell me, if you please, what has really happened to
bring about this terrible danger which threatens us, and let us see if
we cannot yet protect ourselves.”

“You can yet make such preparations as will at least enable you to
meet your enemies on equal terms,” replied Alan, following the King’s
example, and seating himself again, “and it is to put before you a
necessary scheme of defence that I have come here, and when I have
described it you will see that we Aerians have not forgotten that our
ancestors once led Anglo-Saxondom to the conquest of the world.”

“Pray proceed,” said the King, sitting up on his lounge again. “I can
assure you that I am all attention.”

Alan then began, and told in detail all that was necessary for the King
to know of what had happened during the last six years, concluding
with a graphic narrative of startling vividness of the marvellous
and momentous events that had been crowded so thickly into the last
twenty-one days.

It would not be saying too much to state that the close of the recital,
which he had listened to with the most anxious attention, left King
Albert in a state of nervous excitement that bordered closely upon
absolute panic. He had heard enough to show him that the splendid
fabric of Anglo-Saxon civilisation would, if left in its present
defenceless state, totter and fall like a house of cards at the first
onslaught of its powerful and disciplined enemies.

He saw that its wealth and splendour, like those of the effete empires
of old, were a source of weakness and not of strength, a temptation to
its foes and an encumbrance to itself.

Then, as Alan went on to describe the scheme of defence proposed by
the Council of Aeria, he seemed to find support and consolation in the
quiet, masterful tones of the man who, without a tremor in his voice,
could calmly discuss the prospect of a war which would involve the
whole of humanity in one colossal struggle, which could have no other
result than an indescribably appalling loss of human life and the
complete subjection, if not destruction, of those who were vanquished
in it.

Yet when he had finished King Albert shook his head sadly and
doubtfully, and said--

“Yes, yes, it is a splendid scheme, a scheme worthy of you and your
wonderful race, but it can only be accomplished if our Parliaments
agree together to sanction it and support it. I hope with all my heart
that they will do so, but I sadly fear that not even your influence,
and the fearful danger which threatens them, will make them agree one
with another.

“Of late years, since the power of the democracy has increased so
enormously, they wrangle for weeks over the smallest matters of
municipal government. As for national policy, they seem to have
forgotten what it means. I may be wrong, and with all my soul I hope I
am, but I sadly fear they will never consent to what they will call a
military despotism, even to save themselves. The elections take place
during the last four days of this month, and by that time the news that
you have brought me shall be published everywhere, so that the people
may know what is before them, but everything will depend upon the men
and women whom they return to Parliament.”

“Ah,” interrupted Alan, stroking his beard to conceal a smile, “I had
forgotten for the moment. You have lady legislators now as well as
male ones. We were ungallant enough to refuse them admittance to the
Parliament during our period of control.”

“Yes,” said the King, with a smile that had but little mirth in it.
“But we have progressed fast since then. In our Parliament men and
women were almost equally balanced in both Chambers, and scarcely any
business was done during the year.”

“Which proves,” said Alan, “that what was called our discourtesy and
unfairness was not so very unwise after all.”

The interview ended shortly after this remark, for the time for action
had already arrived. Alan had learnt enough from the King’s own lips
to see that he was merely a crowned puppet in the hands of the rival
parties, which contended in both Chambers for the favour of the
democracy and the continuance of office. He therefore saw further that,
if anything was to be done in working out the scheme of international
defence, he would have to take the initiative.

As full discretion had been given to him in his commission from the
Council of Aeria, he did not scruple to half-persuade and half-frighten
the King into investing him with such authority as he could give,
and, armed with this, he went to work that very day with a vigour and
promptness which amazed the feeble monarch, and raised a storm of
indignation among the members of the two Chambers who were seeking
re-election.

A very short experience of these people proved to him that nothing must
be hoped from them. Day after day he met committees and deputations of
them, who argued with him and wrangled among themselves until he was
utterly disgusted and out of patience with them.

At last, on the evening of the 27th, after he had spent the whole
day in striving to convince a joint-committee, consisting of twenty
members of each Chamber, of the tremendous danger which threatened the
Federation, and the immediate and urgent necessity of united action in
preparing to meet it, he lost the last remnants of his temper, and,
springing to his feet, he faced them with anger in his eyes and scorn
on his lips, and said--

“We have talked enough, ladies and gentlemen! I came here expecting to
find the old spirit of Anglo-Saxondom still alive, and so far as you
are concerned I find it dead. You are not patriots or competent rulers.
You are simply members of a noisy and verbose debating society! When
absolute destruction at the hands of a well-armed and implacable foe
is threatening your country and your allies, you talk of averting the
calamity by discussion and arbitration, instead of armed resistance.
By all means discuss and arbitrate, if you can, but also prepare
for battle in case it proves, as I am certain it will prove, to be
inevitable. Do you suppose that the lamb can argue with the wolf, or
that the rich and defenceless man can save his wealth from the armed
plunderer by mere force of argument or an appeal to his moral sense? If
you do, you are something worse than simple, you are guilty of a folly
which is a crime against those who have committed their affairs to your
keeping.

“But I, like most of my people, have Anglo-Saxon blood in my veins, and
I will not leave my kindred defenceless. I bear an English name, and
that name and my descent shall be my title to do what I now tell you
I am going to do. In my own person, and with the full authority and
sanction of the Council of Aeria and your own lawful monarch, I here
and now reassert the supremacy over the realms of Anglo-Saxondom which
my father resigned in St. Paul’s Cathedral six years and a half ago!
Hold your elections if you choose, and conduct your noisy pretence at
government according to your own tastes, but do not expect me to be
guided or bound by any enactments that you may choose to make. You may
call this a revolution if you will. So it is, but remember that your
foolishness has made it necessary! I can make Anglo-Saxondom ready to
meet its enemies on equal terms when the day of battle comes, as come
it surely will in less than twelve months from now, and, God helping
me, I will do it! You either cannot or will not do this, but I will
take good care that you do not prevent it being done.

“I believe that the old spirit which won the Armageddon of 1904 still
survives in Anglo-Saxon breasts, and I believe that it will respond to
the call to arms which shall be heard throughout the length and breadth
of the Federation before another sun has set. To-morrow I shall take
possession of the means of intercommunication, and I warn you that you
will oppose me at your peril.

“You know that I have a force at command before which you are as
helpless as the worms that crawl in the earth, and as there is a heaven
above me I will use it without ruth or scruple if I see that the
interests of Anglo-Saxondom require me to do so. You have your choice,
to act with me or to remain neutral. Oppose me, and I will destroy you
as traitors and enemies to your country and your race!”

So saying, Alan turned his back upon the committees, and strode out of
the room in which he had met them, leaving them speechless with anger
and dismay.




CHAPTER XXI. THE HOME-COMING.


THE eastern mountains were still casting their long shadows over the
lawns and fields, the vineyards and the gardens of Aeria on the morning
of the eleventh of May in the year 2037 of the Christian Era and the
hundred and thirty-third year of the Peace, but the whole population
of the lovely valley were already afoot and abroad, for this was the
most momentous day that had been in the history of the colony since
Richard Arnold had first crossed the Northern Ridge with Natasha beside
him in the conning-tower of the little _Ariel_, in those days the only
air-ship that existed in the world, to lay the foundations of that
throne from which their descendants had ruled the nations of the earth
for a century and a quarter.

To-day the year of probation imposed by the Council upon Alan Arnoldson
and his companion in misfortune, in exile, and in victory, was to
expire, and the long-lost wanderers were to return to their home and
kindred.

Very soon after it became light hundreds of aerial boats and yachts
of every variety of design and ornamentation that the taste and skill
of the most highly-cultivated race of people the world had ever seen
could devise, came floating in towards the vast city of Aeria from the
marble palaces and villas which were scattered throughout the length
and breadth of the central African Paradise.

Along the broad, smooth white roads, too, which led from the southern
portions of the valley, round the lake to the northern shore on which
the city stood, groups of people, with here and there husbands and
wives and pairs of yet unwedded lovers, were gliding in long, swift,
easy curves on noiseless wheel-skates over the polished marble of the
pavements.

Bright with the gayest and yet most perfectly-harmonised colours,
blazing with jewels and precious metals, from their gold or
crystal-winged coronets to the burnished silver framework of their
skates, splendid in stature, and glowing with perfect health--if some
man of the present day could have beheld these dwellers in Aeria on
their way to hold high festival in their capital, he would have thought
that he had strayed into some other and higher sphere, inhabited by
some glorified race of beings who had left the toils and cares and
pollutions of earth far behind them on some lower plane of existence.

Doubtless, indeed, from some such sphere the reincarnated spirits of
those who, a hundred and thirty-three years before, had passed through
the tremendous ordeal of the Terror, and in their hour of well-won
triumph had made such a splendid future possible for their descendants,
looked down with approving eyes, not undarkened by a shade of sorrow
for woes to come, upon this glorious scene of the fruition of the
harvest that they had sown, this realisation of the long-sought ideal
of human brotherhood, where there was no evil because men had learnt at
last that good was better than evil.

Vast as was the stately city, which was at once the capital and the
only town of Aeria, it was soon comfortably filled by the brilliant
throngs of visitors that came pouring into it by road and through
the air. The broad white streets, lined with their double groves of
palms and tree-ferns, soon blazed with colour, and became vocal with
greetings and laughter, and all the houses which lined them were thrown
open to all visitors who chose to come and claim hospitality for the
day of rejoicing.

On the terrace in front of her father’s villa, on the slopes that rose
to the west of the city, Alma stood with Isma watching the brilliant
scene below and around them, and speculating on the coming events
of the day which for them had a supreme interest, such as no other
inhabitant of the valley could feel.

“It will be a right royal home-coming for our two heroes, won’t it,
Alma?” said Isma, slipping her little hand through her friend’s arm;
“almost worthy of the great deeds that they have done to regain what
will be given back to them to-day--and yet, alas! there is to be a spot
on the sun of happiness for all that. Alma, are you still quite sure
that poor Alan will have to come back and not find that which above all
other things he comes to seek?”

A faint flush rose to Alma’s cheeks as she replied, in a low, steady
tone--

“Yes, Isma, alas! as you say, I am still sure of that, supposing always
that he really does come to seek what you mean. I know that no man ever
lived more worthy the love of woman than he is. Yet, God help me, I
cannot give mine.

“I know, too, that he will come back to-day crowned with more honour
than any Aerian, save Alexis, ever won before him since the days of our
ancestors--and yet whenever I permit myself even to dream of him as a
lover, a dark, beautiful, cruel face looks with black, burning eyes
into mine, and two sweet, scornfully-smiling lips say in a whisper that
sounds almost like a serpent’s hiss--‘You may take him now, for I have
done with him. Take him and ask him to tell you how well he and I loved
when my spell was strong upon him and he forgot both you and all his
kindred for sake of me.’

“It is horrible, horrible beyond all thought or speech, but it is so,
Isma, and I, of all the thousands of Aeria who will make merry to-day,
shall be sad at heart and praying for the night to come.”

“I don’t believe it, Alma, however sincerely you may do so--as, of
course, you do,” replied Isma impatiently. “It is not your true and
loving self that is speaking. It is the woman who has been brooding
over a shattered idol that never really was a man of flesh and blood.

“I tell you again--and before that sun has set you will confess in
your own heart that I am right--that you have never known the Alan who
is coming home to-day any more than I have known the Alexis who is
coming home with him. Neither you nor I have ever seen two such men as
they will be--men who have passed through such experiences as no other
Aerians ever had, who have suffered and conquered, dared and done, like
them.

“You must put away those morbid fancies of yours, dearest; they are not
worthy of you any more than Olga Romanoff is worthy to cause you an
hour’s unhappiness. Never mind thinking about Alan as a lover now. I
tell you you have never seen him, therefore it will be time enough for
you to begin to do that when you do see him.

“For my own part, I don’t mind telling you--of course, strictly between
ourselves--that though I can hardly say that I love Alexis as he is
now, since I do not know what he is like, I am quite prepared to fall
in love with him all over again on the slightest provocation. And now,
after that confession, I think we had better close the discussion and
get ready to go over to the city.”

This frank avowal, uttered as it was with a delightful candour quite
irresistible in its charm, brought a smile to Alma’s lips in spite of
her own sombre thoughts. She slipped her arm round Isma’s waist, and
led her towards one of the long windows which opened out on to the
terrace under the pillared portico which ran the whole length of the
front of the villa.

“I quite agree with you,” she said. “If that tell-tale face of yours
is no better masked than it is now, when you meet your Alexis I don’t
think you will have long to wait for the provocation. Ah, well, I
suppose--in fact, I am sure--that you take by far the wiser view, and I
would give anything to be able to look upon Alan as you are ready to do
on Alexis.

“But no, it’s no use; do what I will I cannot think of him apart from
that Syren who has held him in the bondage of her spells all these
years. I know it is unreasonable, and yet he seems, even now that he
has regained his freedom, to belong to her more than he ever did to me.”

“That, my dear Alma,” replied Isma, half seriously and half in jest,
“is as nearly absurd as anything that such a serious and cultivated
person as yourself could say. If I could give you a share of my
more trivial temperament you would just say that you are still so
desperately jealous of Olga Romanoff that you cannot bring yourself to
think of Alan as a possible lover until you feel quite sure that he
hates her as intensely as you do. That may not be a very heroic way of
putting it, but I think we shall find it pretty near the truth before
you have known the new Alan very long.”

Alma laughed more musically than mirthfully at this sally, but made
no reply to it in words. There was, perhaps, more truth in the
half-bantering, half-reproachful words than she would have cared to
admit, even to her best-beloved and most confidential friend, and so
she took a wise refuge in silence, from which Isma, in the gladness of
her own heart, drew her own conclusions.

It might have been that there were depths in Alma’s nature which not
even their life-long friendship and their common sorrow had enabled her
to fathom, but for the present she was quite satisfied that jealousy of
Olga and anger at the advantage which Alma believed her to have taken
of her power were the sole reasons that prevented her from regarding
Alan as she had confessed herself ready and willing to regard Alexis.

When they left the terrace the two girls had breakfast together in
Alma’s own room in a privacy which the other members of the family
tacitly respected, knowing as they did that the events of the day would
bear a totally different significance for them to that which they would
have for all the other inhabitants of the valley.

By the time the sun began to show his disc above the ridges of the
eastern mountains they were on their way to the city with Alma’s mother
and father in one of the aerial boats that were used for transit about
the interior of the valley.

They alighted on the flat roof of the President’s official residence,
a splendid palace of the purest white marble, which stood on the
northern side of the great square, from the centre of which rose the
golden-domed building which served the Aerians as a meeting-place on
all public occasions. It was here that the decrees of the Council were
promulgated, and here, too, on every seventh day were held the simply
impressive religious services prescribed by the Aerian form of worship.

Soon after they had arrived at the President’s house a great
mellow-toned bell sounded the hour of six from the cupola above the
dome, and, as the last stroke died away, a chorus of silvery chimes
rose up from a hundred towers in different parts of the city, and went
floating across the lake and down the valley to the southward, caught
up and echoed as it went by peals from the thousand palaces and villas
scattered about the lower slopes of the mountains.

This was the signal for the commencement of the first ceremony of the
day, and the gaily-dressed, smiling throngs of visitors to the city
began to file in orderly, leisurely fashion into the eight wide-open
doors which led to the interior of the vast temple in the middle of the
central square.

In the midst of the immense open area under the dome was a space about
twenty feet square, enclosed by low railings of massive gold, and in
this stood three tall pillars of marble without a single flaw or vein
to mar their perfect whiteness from base to capital. On each of them
stood an urn of exquisite shape, each carved out of a solid block of
crystal, and each containing a small quantity of ashes.

Each pillar bore an inscription in letters of gold let into the
marble. The centre one was slightly higher than the other two, and its
inscription consisted of the single word

  “NATAS.”

The urns on the other two pillars contained a larger quantity of ashes.
On the pillar to the right hand, facing the main entrance to the
temple, were the words--

  RICHARD ARNOLD,
  First Conqueror of the Air.

  NATASHA,
  The Angel of the Revolution.

And on that to the left--

  ALAN TREMAYNE,
  First President of the Anglo-Saxon Federation.

  MURIEL TREMAYNE,
  His Wife.

The square in which these pillars stood was the most sacred spot on all
the earth in the eyes of the Aerians, sanctified as it was by the ashes
of those who had made possible the Great Deliverance, and brought peace
on earth after countless ages of strife. Every tongue was silent, and
every head was bowed in reverence as those who entered the temple first
caught sight of the pillars and their priceless burdens.

Then the vast and ever-swelling congregation ranged itself in orderly
files, all fronting towards an elevated rostrum which stood at one of
the angles of the great square under the dome, formed by the junction
of the four naves, with their long pillared aisles which ran towards
the four points of the compass.

Suddenly all the carillons that were still ringing out over the city
ceased, and in the midst of the perfect silence the President ascended
the rostrum to address the expectant assembly. Although he spoke but
a little above his ordinary tone, every word could be heard with
perfect distinctness throughout the immense interior of the building,
for a system of electric transmitters, a development of the modern
telephone, carried his voice simultaneously to a hundred parts of the
walls, so that those who were standing farthest from him heard quite as
distinctly as those who were close to the rostrum.

He began by a brief narration of all that had happened to Aeria and the
world since the fatal day on which Olga Romanoff had set foot on the
deck of the _Ithuriel_ to the present moment, and made no attempt to
conceal or to minimise the tremendous and disastrous consequences that
had flowed from that fatal and yet innocent mistake on the part of his
son.

He confessed that the empire of the air, that priceless legacy which
they had received from its first conqueror, had been lost, and that,
not only the outside nations of the earth, but even Aeria itself stood
upon the eve of a conflict in comparison with which even the War of the
Terror itself would prove almost insignificant. All that had been won
then had now to be fought for over again, and fought for with weapons
the destructiveness of which made impossible any estimate of the
carnage and desolation that were about to burst upon the world.

Then he described how Alan and Alexis, acting under the orders of the
Council, had, after vainly trying to arouse the rulers and senates
of Anglo-Saxondom to a sense of their danger and responsibility,
proclaimed martial law throughout the whole area of the Federation,
reasserted the supremacy which the Council had resigned nearly seven
years before, and taken the direct conduct of affairs into their own
hands.

He told how the manhood of Europe, America, Southern Africa, and
Australia had, under the influence of their appeals, roused itself from
the sloth of prosperity and the vain dreams of democracy, and under
their leadership had mustered millions upon millions strong to oppose
those who determined to rivet the chains of despotism once more upon
the limbs of free men.

The energy and devotion of the two men whose exile was to end that
day had accomplished this miracle in less than a twelvemonth. All the
mechanical resources of the Federation had been simultaneously devoted
to the building of an aerial navy, which already numbered nearly a
thousand vessels, and more than a hundred dockyards had achieved
the construction of a navy of over a thousand submarine warships,
while millions of small-arms had been sent out from Aeria, or
manufactured in the arsenals of the Federation for the equipment of the
newly-created armies.

What the issue would be of the mighty struggle which would begin in
six days, no man could tell, but all that could be done to give the
victory to Aeria and the Federation had been done, and the rest lay
in the hands of the God of Battles, who had given their ancestors the
victory in the days of the Terror. The President concluded his address
by saying--

“Those through whom, if not by whom, this calamity has undoubtedly
fallen upon the world, have been recalled to Aeria by the Council,
after nearly seven years of exile, to receive reinstatement in
their long-forfeited rights of citizenship, but even now they will
not reassume those rights unless their welcome home is unanimous.
Therefore, while their ships are still outside our mountains, if any
citizen of Aeria has, even at this eleventh hour, any reason to give
why they should not be permitted to recross the barriers which separate
us from the rest of the world, let him or her come forward now and
state it.”

He ceased, and for a few moments there was perfect silence throughout
the vast congregation. Not a man or woman moved or spoke, and all
eyes were turned on the President, waiting for him to speak again. In
a voice whose now unrestrained emotion contrasted strongly with the
former impassiveness of his tones he said--

“Then their welcome shall be unmarred by any voice of dissent! As the
father of one of the exiles I thank you for endorsing the sanction
which, as President of the Council, I have believed it my duty to give
to the return of my son Alan and his friend and companion, Alexis
Masarov, who fell with him and with him has risen again.”

Hardly had the last word left his lips when salvo after salvo of aerial
artillery roared out from mid-air all round the mountains, and came
echoing down the upper gorges and ravines to tell the people of Aeria
that the fleet which had been sent out to escort the returning exiles
was already in sight.

So spacious were the approaches to the vast building that in less than
ten minutes from the time the President had left the rostrum on hearing
the salutes from the sky not a soul remained within its precincts.

Outside the Council Hall the scene was such as to baffle all attempts
at adequate description. Hundreds of aerial craft, fashioned in every
conceivable variety of design that the educated fancy of their owners
could suggest, soared up from various parts of the city and its
environs, and made towards the Ridge to the north of the valley.

The summit was about four thousand feet above the slope on which the
city stood, and it was quite within the capacity of the pleasure-craft
to scale this height. So their glittering wings beat the cool, fresh
air of the morning with rapid strokes, and the whole flotilla of them
soared upwards until their occupants were able to see over the mighty
rock-wall, and the illimitable landscape beyond opened out before their
expectant gaze.

The President, the Vice-President, and the twelve members of the
Council with their families had embarked on one of the new aerial
battleships, two hundred and fifty of which had been constructed
during the past year. The _Avenger_, as she had been named, in view of
the fact that she was henceforth to be placed under Alan’s immediate
command as flagship of the combined Aerian and Federation fleets, was
the largest aerial cruiser then in existence, and embodied the highest
structural skill to which the engineers of Aeria had attained.

From the stern to the point of her ram she was two hundred and
seventy-five feet in length, with a midships beam of thirty feet. She
was sustained in the air on two pairs of wings, one working under the
other. Of these, the lower and larger pair measured two hundred feet
from point to point and fifty feet in their greatest breadth, while
the upper pair, working nearly flush with the deck, were two-thirds of
their size.

She carried ten guns on each broadside, and two bow and two stern
chasers of a range limited only by the possibility of taking aim at the
object to be destroyed, and her propellers were capable of driving her
through the air at the hitherto unheard-of speed of six hundred miles
an hour.[4]

The _Avenger_, attended by an escort of fifty cruisers of somewhat
smaller dimensions than her own, rapidly out-distanced the flotilla of
pleasure-craft, and passing over the Ridge at a speed of sixty miles an
hour, stopped at an elevation of a thousand feet above it.

From here those on her deck could see the vast oval of the valley
encircled by the sentinel ships which now constantly patrolled the
mountain bulwarks of Aeria, and which were launching hundreds of
time-shells up into the air from their outer broadsides and producing
a continuous roar of explosions which formed such a greeting salute as
had never been heard on earth or in the air before.

Presently an answering roll of thunder was heard far away to the north,
growing every moment louder and louder.

“There they come at last!” cried Isma, who was standing with Alma in
the bow of the _Avenger_, eagerly scanning the northern heavens through
a pair of field-glasses. “I can see the flashes of the shells quite
distinctly.”

As she spoke she handed the glasses to Alma, and noticed, not without a
little smile of satisfaction, that her hands trembled slightly as she
raised them to her eyes.

“Yes, they are coming,” said Alma, in a tone that might have been a
good deal steadier than it was. “I can see the sun shining upon the
hulls of the ships. They are coming up very fast, evidently.”

“Of course they are!” laughed Isma. “After the poor fellows have been
shut out all this time from the delights of Aeria, it is only natural
that they should hasten their home-coming. Look, look! you can see them
without the glasses now. What a swarm of them there seems to be!”

As she spoke an immense fleet, numbering nearly five hundred vessels
spread out in the form of a vast crescent, the arc of which was turned
towards Aeria, swept up out of the blue distance, their polished
hulls glittering in the bright sunlight. In the centre of the arc and
slightly elevated above the rest, shone the blue hull and the white
glistening wings of the _Ithuriel_, and close in her wake followed the
_Isma_.

When the advancing fleet was within five miles of the mountains it
slowed down from four hundred to about fifty miles an hour. At the same
instant the other fleet ran up the Aerian and Federation flags and the
simply eloquent signal, “Welcome Home!” flew from the lofty foremast
of the _Avenger_. It was instantly acknowledged by the _Ithuriel_, and
then on all the five hundred vessels the Aerian and Federation flags
were run to the mastheads and dipped three times in greeting.

Then the two points of the vast crescent that they formed swung slowly
and regularly forward until the arc was inverted and the _Ithuriel_ and
the _Isma_ came along side by side midway between the two horns.

When the two fleets were within half a mile of each other the
_Avenger_, with twenty-five of her consorts on each side, swung round
into line with their prows pointing towards the mountains, and in this
order, at fifty miles an hour and an elevation of a thousand feet above
the Ridge, the combined squadrons swept across the mountain barrier,
and Alan and Alexis, each steering his own vessel in the conning-tower,
saw for the first time, after nearly seven years of exile, the
incomparable beauties of the Aerian landscape opening out before their
eyes.

[Illustration: THE COMBINED SQUADRONS SWEPT ACROSS THE MOUNTAIN
BARRIER. _Page 237._]

Following the movements of the leading squadron, they dipped as soon
as they had passed over the Ridge, and were met on their downward
flight by the hundreds of pleasure-craft which were waiting for them in
mid-air.

Thousands of gaily-coloured handkerchiefs were waved in welcome to
them, and many a greeting in the sign-language passed from the crews
of the warships to the occupants of the pleasure-craft and back again,
for some of the former had been on foreign service for nearly a year,
and there were many pleasant relationships to be renewed which had been
interrupted by the calls of duty.

Far below the home-comers could see the spacious streets of the great
city, brilliant with the gaily attired throngs who had come to welcome
them, and heard the greeting chorus of thousands of bells chiming in
gladsome peals from hundreds of towers and minarets scattered over the
city and its environs.

Signals were now flown from the _Avenger_ directing the whole of
Alan’s fleet, excepting the _Ithuriel_ and the _Isma_, to alight on a
great sloping plain to the northward of the city, where their crews
were to disembark and then proceed to the central hall of the Temple.
Acting on previous orders, the consorts of the _Avenger_ did the same.
The pleasure-craft fluttered downwards on to the housetops, and so
the three battleships were left alone in the air, the _Ithuriel_ now
floating on the right of the _Avenger_ and the _Isma_ on the left.

Amid the welcoming cheers of the throngs which now filled the great
square they sank slowly down, and at length alighted on the roof of the
President’s palace. Then the doors of the deck-chambers opened and a
last and loudest cheer of all rose up as, in full view of the assembled
thousands in the square, the President and Maurice Masarov once more
clasped hands with their long-exiled sons.

Then they descended into the interior of the palace, followed by the
Council and the other guests on board the _Avenger_.

In the President’s room, the same in which he had received Olga
Romanoff’s challenge from the skies, Alan and Alexis were welcomed
home again by those who were nearest and dearest to them. Only their
immediate kindred were present, for, in the nature of the case, the
occasion could have been nothing but a private one. Nor could mere
words of description do justice to the tender pathos of the scene that
was enacted in that inner chamber, for but few words were spoken even
by the actors in it. The emotions of such a moment were too intense and
overpowering for speech, and so heart spoke to heart almost in silence.

Alma, who had, of course, remained outside in the reception-room of the
palace with the Council and her parents, felt even more keenly than she
had expected the truth of the prophecy that she had uttered to Isma an
hour or so before. Amidst all the thousands of Aeria she was the only
one whose heart was heavy on that day of universal rejoicing.

Once, and once only, her eyes had met Alan’s, but the single swift
glance had been more than enough to tell her how far they now stood
apart. She had seen the light of pleasure and triumph suddenly die out
of his eyes and the bright flush on his cheek pale as he looked at her.

There had not even been a greeting smile on his lips as he bowed his
cold, grave salutation to her and then turned away to look down upon
the city and the splendid prospect of the valley that was opening
before him. This had happened up in mid-air, just as the ships had
crossed the Ridge in close order, and she had not been able to trust
herself to look at him again even when they had disembarked on the roof
of the palace.

The swift telegraphy of that one glance had been enough to tell her
that it was not the fond, light-hearted lover of her girlhood that had
come back, but a strong, stern, and prematurely grave man, who knew all
and more than she knew of the new relation between them, and who knew
also that they could not meet as they had parted, and so accepted the
changed conditions with a proud reserve that drew a sharp dividing line
between them which, for all she knew, might never be crossed.

Though outwardly she was calm and perfectly self-possessed, she waited
in a suspense that almost amounted to mental agony for the moment when
the greetings in the President’s room would be over and Alan and Alexis
would be brought out to be formally presented to the Council. Then
their hands would have to meet and words would have to pass between
them.

Meet as strangers they could not, for everyone knew--even he knew--why
she had refused all these years to wed with any other man, nor yet
could they meet as lovers, as Isma and Alexis had perhaps done by this
time, for between them the shadow had fallen, and even if there was
love in their hearts there could be none upon their lips.

If Olga Romanoff could have looked into Alma’s soul at that moment, she
would have seen something very like a fulfilment of a prophecy she had
made on board the old _Ithuriel_ six years and a half before to Alan,
when she first heard of her rival--“By your hand I will wring her heart
dry, and cast it aside to wither like an apple shaken from the tree!”
In those moments of suspense it seemed to Alma that even now her heart
was withering under the blight of this great sorrow that had fallen
upon her life after all her years of loving and patient waiting.

At last she heard footsteps and voices in the corridor that led from
the private apartments of the palace. They were coming, and almost
mechanically she turned her eyes towards the curtains which screened
the doorway through which they would enter. They parted, and Alan came
in walking by his father’s side and with Isma hanging laughing on his
arm.

She shrank back a little as she saw Isma look at her for a moment and
then say something to Alan. But he appeared to take no notice, and
walked forward with his father to where the members of the Council were
waiting to receive him. She heard the President say the formal words of
presentation, and saw the rulers of Aeria one after another grasp his
hands, and then those of Alexis, greeting them heartily as they did so.

Then the little group opened, and she saw, as in a waking dream, Alan’s
tall form striding towards her with both hands outstretched, and heard
a voice that was his, and yet not his, so deep a ring of unwonted
gravity was there in it, say--

“Are you going to be the only one who has no greeting for the prodigal,
Alma? Have you forgotten that we were sweethearts once, and therefore
surely may be friends now?”

There was an emphasis on the word “friends” that was perhaps
imperceptible to all ears but hers, but she caught it, and took her cue
from it instantly. With admirable tact he had, in that one word, shown
her the only basis on which it would be possible for them to take part
together in the society of the valley.

As man and woman they must be to one another as friends whose
friendship was sweetened by the recollection that long ago, as boy and
girl, they had been lovers. She accepted the situation with a sense of
thankfulness and infinite relief, and, frankly placing her hands in his
and summoning all her self-command to her aid, she looked steadily up
into his bronzed, bearded face, and said gravely and sweetly--

“You know that that is not so, Alan, and if my welcome is a little
tardy it is none the less sincere for that reason. There were others
who had a prior claim, and so I waited, for it is only right that
friends should come after kindred. Welcome home! I suppose we are going
to the Council Hall now, to see what we are all longing so much to
see--the Golden Wings once more upon your brows.”

“Yes,” replied Alan colouring slightly, as he noticed her upward glance
at his sable head-gear, “we are going there immediately, I believe,
but,” he continued in a lower tone and still holding her hand in his,
“long and anxiously as I have looked forward to to-day and its promise,
half of that promise will be betrayed unless you tell me first that you
believe I have fairly won the right to wear the Golden Wings again.
Tell me, now, do you in your heart think so?”

“If you have not done so,” she replied, only keeping her voice steady
by a supreme effort, “then it would be hopeless for any man to look for
forgiveness on earth. You have fallen and you have risen again, and
to-day there are no two men in Aeria more worthy of honour than you and
Alexis are.”

He looked down into the clear depths of her soft grey eyes as she
spoke, and in another instant he might have forgotten that which sealed
his lips to all words of love, and all the reserve to which he had been
schooling himself for so long, but at that moment Alma’s mother came
towards them saying that the President was ready to take Alan to the
Council Hall, and--this with a smile--that thousands should not be kept
waiting for the sake of one. Her words recalled him to himself, and,
with an inclination of his black-plumed head, he said--

“That is enough, for now I know that I have heard the truth from the
lips of my severest judge, and I am well content with it. I have not
lost everything if you believe that I have regained my honour.”

“We all believe that, Alan,” said Alma’s mother before her daughter
could reply; “and, more than that, I know of no one in Aeria who thinks
that you ever really lost it. Now go to your father. He is thinking of
the thousands who are waiting anxiously for you in the Council Hall.
You can finish this conversation later on.”

He accepted the dismissal with a smile, and as he went back he saw Isma
slip away from Alexis’ side with a tell-tale blush on her lovely face,
and, giving him a saucy, laughing glance as she passed him, run lightly
across the room to Alma’s side.

“Well,” she said, reading too swiftly and not very correctly the
altered expression of her friend’s face, “have you made friends, then,
after all? I thought you would, and--oh, Alma, I _am_ so happy!”

“Yes,” replied Alma gravely, though she could not repress a smile at
the radiant face that looked up at hers, “we have made friends. But you
seem to have done something more than that. Your explanations”--

“There were no explanations at all,” interrupted Isma, rosy red from
neck to brow. “When we met in the room he picked me up in his arms
before everybody and kissed me--and after that of course there was
nothing to be said.”

FOOTNOTE:

[4] Those readers who may be inclined to think this speed extravagant
or impossible are requested to remember that the most recent
experiments in aerodynamics have proved that the higher the speed of
an aerial machine the less is the power required to support and propel
it, or, to quote the words of Professor Langley, of the Smithsonian
Institute, “One horse-power will transport a larger weight at twenty
miles an hour than at ten, a still larger at forty miles an hour than
at twenty, and so on with increasing economy of power with each higher
speed up to some remote limit not yet attained in experiment.” Granted
therefore the practically illimitable energy of the motive power
supposed to be at the command of the Aerians, there is no reason why a
ship of the dimensions of the _Avenger_ should not be propelled at the
enormous speed mentioned in the text.




CHAPTER XXII. THE EVE OF BATTLE.


AN irregular procession was now formed, at the head of which walked the
two returned exiles, each with his father by his side, and followed by
the rest of the company. They passed out of the reception-room, down
the wide entrance-hall, and out of the great arched portal which opened
on to the square.

As they appeared at the top of the spacious flight of marble steps
which led from it down to the pavement, a mighty cheer of welcome went
up from a hundred thousand throats, the peals of bells in the four
towers which rose from the angles of the Council Hall sent forth the
signal to all the other belfries of the city, and, amidst the jubilant
chorus that instantly burst forth, the scene of the reinvestiture
was reached. Then the great bell in the dome tolled out one sonorous
warning note, and instantly there was silence on the earth and in the
air.

This was at the moment that the procession, after passing half round
the square along the broad path left for it by the cheering throng,
halted in front of the main entrance to the Temple of Aeria, which
faced towards the south, in the middle of the magnificent façade
fronting a marble-paved avenue of double rows of palms and tree-ferns
which ran in a straight line for three miles down to the shores of the
lake.

The Aerians had progressed far beyond the stage of semi-barbaric pomp
and display, and so the ceremony of restoring to Alan and Alexis the
rights of citizenship, of which the Golden Wings were the symbol,
solemn as it was, was also simple in the extreme.

As the vast curtains which hung over the main doors of the Temple swung
aside to admit them, they fell out of the procession and doffed their
sable head-gear. The President and his fellow Councillors went on and
took up their position in front of the three pillars under the centre
of the dome.

Then a guard of honour, composed of a hundred of their shipmates and
companions-in-arms from Kerguelen, marched up to the door and formed
into two files, between which Alan and Alexis walked down the aisle
through the space left by the orderly throng that filled the vast
building from the floor to the topmost tier of the rows of seats which
rose half-way up the lofty walls, and so came in front of the President
and the Council.

Here their guard halted and formed a semicircle, leaving them in the
open space within it. A breathless silence fell upon the assembled
thousands as they dropped on one knee before the President. Then, in a
voice whose every accent rang distinctly to the farthest corners of the
huge building, he said--

“Alan Arnold and Alexis Masarov, the year of your probation ended with
the rising of this morning’s sun. You have been tried and you have not
been found wanting, and that of which the arch-enemy of our race robbed
you for a time you have regained by manly valour and patient devotion.

“Therefore, by command of the Supreme Council, and with the consent of
all the citizens of Aeria, I restore to you the symbols of those rights
which you lost and have regained.

“In the presence of God and this assembly, and on the holy ground
that is sanctified by the ashes of those mighty ancestors of ours who
bequeathed to us the empire of the world, I replace the Golden Wings
upon your brows, in the full belief that from the higher and happier
sphere they now inhabit they are looking down with approval upon the
act.

“Rise now, recrowned Princes of the Air, and in the near approaching
day of battle go forth with fearless hearts and stainless honour to do
that which the voice of duty and the needs of humanity shall bid you
do!”

As he ceased speaking he held out a hand to each of them, and so they
rose to their feet again, once more wearing the Golden Wings, once more
free and equal amidst their peers of the Royal race of Aeria. As they
did so a burst of jubilant melody rolled out, apparently from all parts
of the Temple at once.

It was the opening chorus of a triumphal march which the greatest
living musician of Aeria, and therefore of the world, had composed in
honour of the day and the event, and as its splendid harmonies rolled
out from the hidden organ through the vast interior, and through the
open portals into the square beyond, the great assembly filed out in
four streams from the Temple, and all Aeria made ready to give itself
up to feasting and merry-making for the rest of the day.

For three days Aeria kept high festival in honour of the home-coming
of the son of the President and his companion in exile, but for all
that there was sterner business in hand than merry-making for those
in authority. Save in the almost impossible event of overtures of
peace being received from the Sultan, war which, in the nature of the
circumstances, could hardly fail to be universal, would actually begin
at daybreak on the 16th of May, that is to say in five days after the
return of Alan and Alexis.

The greater part, therefore, even of the days of rejoicing was really
spent in hard work by those upon whom had devolved the tremendous
responsibility of counteracting as far as was possible the designs of
conquest and oppression to which Olga Romanoff, by means of her fatal
beauty and subtle diplomacy, had succeeded in irrevocably committing
Khalid the Magnificent.

Early on the morning of the day following the reinvestiture of Alan
and Alexis with the symbols of Aerian citizenship a council of war was
held in the President’s palace, which was attended by all the members
of the ruling Council, the chief engineers of the settlement, and the
admirals in command of the aerial and sea navies and the squadrons
posted at the various stations throughout the world.

Before this assembly Alan, who had already entered upon the active
discharge of his duties as Commander-in-Chief of all the forces of
Aeria and the Federation, laid the details of his plans of attack and
defence, and invited criticism upon them.

The same day Alan transferred his flag and his crew from the _Ithuriel_
to the _Avenger_, while Alexis took possession of a splendid vessel of
the same type, to which the name _Orion_ had been given, after that of
the air-ship commanded by Alan Tremayne in the battle of Armageddon.
Alexis, however, had very little difficulty in obtaining the consent
of the Council to his substituting another name for this, with the
consequence that the prize taken from the enemy resumed her Russian
name, and remained in Aeria as a trophy of the skill of her captors.

Perhaps in his heart Alan would have dearly liked to have made a
similar change in the name of the _Avenger_, but it was impossible for
him to propose it, situated as he was with regard to Alma.

Alexis and Isma had taken the shortest, and therefore the wisest,
course out of the terribly delicate and embarrassing position which
had been created by the unholy passions and ruthless treachery of Olga
Romanoff. They had tacitly agreed to ignore it _in toto_, and to begin
again where they had left off nearly seven years before, and thus it
came to pass that Isma’s own pretty hands spilled the christening wine
over the shapely bows of her formidable namesake.

The first use that Alan made of his new ship was to test her immense
capabilities to the utmost, so that he might know what demands he might
safely make upon her in possible emergencies. He rushed her at full
speed round the mountain bulwarks of Aeria, a distance of two hundred
and fifty miles, and found that she completed the circuit in just
twenty-five minutes, which gave a speed of six hundred miles an hour.
Alexis followed, and covered the same distance in twenty-seven minutes
and a half in the _Isma_.

These trials proved that the new Aerian vessels were from fifty to
seventy-five miles an hour faster than the models on which their
enemies had been building their new fleets--a fact which, unless Olga
and her ally had made a corresponding improvement in their battleships,
might be expected to have a considerable effect on the issue of the
coming war.

After the speed-trials the soaring powers of the two vessels were
tried, and it was demonstrated that their machinery was sufficiently
powerful to carry them to altitudes beyond which it was not possible
for human beings to breathe. After this all the defences of Aeria were
visited and examined in detail, and then on the second day after their
arrival in the valley Alan and Alexis divided all the air-ships at
their disposal into two squadrons, each numbering nearly four hundred
vessels, one of which, commanded by Alan, guarded the valley, while
the other, under Alexis, constituted an attacking force, the duty of
which was to find out, if possible, any weak point in the defensive
organisation.

From noon to midnight the mimic battle went on in strict accordance
with the accepted rules of aerial warfare, but though Alexis and the
captains of his fleet tried everything that skill or daring could
suggest, the defence proved too strong for them, and during the whole
twelve hours they were unable to bring a single vessel into such a
position that she could send a shell into Aeria without previously
exposing herself to a fire that must have annihilated her in an instant.

This aerial review was the concluding spectacle of the festivities, and
it was watched by the occupants of thousands of pleasure-craft, whose
interest in it was sharpened by the knowledge that before many days a
conflict such as it portrayed might be raging in deadly earnest round
the mountain bulwarks of their hitherto inviolate domain.

So consummate was the skill displayed by Alan in this defence that
as soon as the _Avenger_ touched ground after the review was over
he was summoned to the Council Chamber in the President’s palace to
receive the thanks of the Senate and cordial expression of the perfect
confidence that the people of Aeria would feel, whatever the magnitude
of the war might prove to be, while the conduct of the campaign was in
his hands and those of Alexis, whose tactics had also been so perfect
that, without once putting a single ship in danger, he had made it
impossible for Alan to do anything more than remain strictly on the
defensive.

On the following day, the 14th, the motive power of all the vessels
was renewed, ammunition laid in, and all the guns and engines minutely
inspected, so that there might be no chance of failure when the moment
of trial came. Then the final arrangements for the defence of Aeria
itself were perfected, and when that was done, the Vale of Paradise, as
its inhabitants fondly called their lovely land, was a vast fortress
compared with which the strongholds of the present day would be as
harmless and defenceless as molehills.

Four hundred aerial battleships of what were now called the first and
second classes, ranging in speed from four to five hundred and fifty
miles an hour and mounting from ten to twenty guns each, were to patrol
the outer walls of the mountains, at distances of five and ten miles
from them and at elevations varying from two to ten thousand feet.
These were divided into two fleets of two hundred each which relieved
each other every six hours, so that their supply of motive power might
be constantly renewed.

In addition to these, two squadrons of twenty-five of the most powerful
warships of the newest type alternately kept watch and ward against
surprise in the upper regions of the air from fifteen to twenty
thousand feet above the valley, while all round the great circuit of
the mountains were planted in the most favourable positions nearly a
thousand land batteries mounting three, five, and ten guns each, which,
if necessary, would be able to surround Aeria with a zone of storm and
flame which nothing living could pass and still live.

[Illustration: BATTERIES WHICH WOULD BE ABLE TO SURROUND AERIA WITH A
ZONE OF STORM AND FLAME. _Page 248._]

By day the range of vision from the decks of the sentinel ships would
make surprise impossible, and at night the great electric suns on the
summits of the mountains, aided by hundreds of search-lights flashing
through the darkness in every direction, made an attack under cover
of the darkness almost equally hopeless.

The news of the alliance between Olga and the Sultan had acted like a
trumpet-call to battle on the proud and martial spirit of the Aerians.
Generation after generation their young men had been trained in the
arts of war as well as in those of peace, for the wisdom of their
ancestors had foreseen that, in the ordinary progress of science, it
was impossible for many generations to pass without some independent
solution of the problem of aerial navigation, which must, sooner or
later, result in a challenge of their supremacy.

Consequently, all through the years of profound peace which the outside
world had enjoyed under their rule, their vigilance had never slept for
a moment, and their men and ships and materials of war were kept in the
highest possible state of efficiency. Thus, though the Aerian nation
numbered little more than a million souls, inhabiting a territory
of some two hundred and fifty square miles, the amount of effective
strength that it was able to put forth on an emergency was totally
disproportionate to its size.

Living in a region of inexhaustible fertility and boundless mineral
wealth, with no idle or mere consuming classes, no politics, and
no laws that a child of ten could not understand, they led simple,
natural, and busy lives, accumulating immense public and private
riches, which were as constantly expended in increasing the splendour
and power of the State, which, as a whole, was the expression of the
wealth and patriotism of its citizens.

No sooner had the alliance of their enemies become an accomplished
fact than they devoted the whole of their vast resources to increasing
their offensive and defensive armaments to the utmost of their power.
Reserves of material that had been stored up year after year had been
drawn upon, the mighty natural forces that they had brought into
subjection laboured night and day for them, and ships and machinery
and guns came into existence as though at the bidding of some race of
magicians.

Magazines were filled with immense stores of ammunition, potential
death and destruction such as had never been wielded by human hands
before--and commanders and officers for all the battleships of the
Federation had been sent out as each squadron of vessels was completed.

In a word, Aeria had donned her panoply of war, and stood armed at
all points, ready to fight the world if necessary in defence of the
priceless heritage which its citizens had received from their fathers,
the giants who in the days of the Terror had taken despotism and
oppression by the throat and flung them headlong out of the world.

The defences of Aeria were to be under the immediate command of the
President. All the oceanic stations, save Kerguelen, Teneriffe,
Bermuda, and Hawaii, had been abandoned so as to permit of greater
concentration of forces, while fifty new ones had been established in
different parts of Europe and the British Islands, for here the brunt
of the attack was to be expected, and here the enemy must be met and
crushed if Anglo-Saxon civilisation was to be saved from a new era of
militarism and personal oppression.

Alan and Alexis were to take command of the Western and Eastern fleets
into which the aerial forces were to be divided, Alan in the West
with Britain as his chief base of operation, and Alexis in the East
with the Balkan Peninsula as his base between the Russian and Moslem
headquarters.

The naval fleets, in three divisions, the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and
Pacific squadrons, had already received their general instructions,
and were waiting at their various rendezvous for the outbreak of
hostilities. The Atlantic squadron blocked the Straits of Gibraltar,
the Narrow Seas of Britain, and the approaches to the Baltic, the
Mediterranean division patrolled the Inland Sea from Gibraltar to
Cyprus, and the Pacific fleet were blockading the southern approach to
the Red Sea, ready to operate against any junction of the Indian and
African sea forces of the Sultan.

At midnight, on the 14th, Alan and Alexis were to set out for their
respective fields of operation, and that evening there was a farewell
banquet given by the Council in the President’s palace in honour of
them and the commanders of their ships. Many a hearty toast was given
and drunk in the sparkling golden wine of Aeria, and many a hearty
God-speed and loving farewell passed between those who remained at home
and those who were going forth to do battle for them and for the peace
of the world in distant skies, and to pass through the fiery storm of
such warfare as had never been waged in the world before.

Just before twelve, when the fleets were ready to take the air, and
the last farewells were being said, the _Avenger_ and the _Isma_ were
lying on the roof of the President’s palace, and their commanders were
standing by the gangway steps which hung down from the deck-chambers,
the centres of two little groups of grave, silent men and sorrowing
women, their nearest and dearest in a land where all were friends.

The last blessings of fathers and mothers had been given and taken,
and then came the hardest farewells of all. Isma and Alexis parted as
declared lovers will part as long as the Fates are cruel, but when
Alan took Alma’s hands in his for the last time, and looked down upon
the pale loveliness of her perfect face and into the clear calm depths
of her eyes, the word that he had been longing to say ever since his
return died upon his lips.

The contrast between her stainless purity and the darkness of the blot
that Olga’s unholy passion had placed upon his life rose up in all its
horror for the hundredth time before him, and once more the impassable
gulf opened between them. All that he could say was--

“Good-bye, Alma! You, too, will wish me God-speed, won’t you?”

“With all my heart, yes, Alan,” she replied in low, sweet, steady
tones. “God guard you in your good work and send you back in safety to
us. You will come back rich in honours and followed by the blessings of
the world you are going to rescue from the oppressors”--

“Or I shall never come! Good-bye, Alma, good-bye, all!” he said,
breaking upon her speech, for he could bear to hear no more, and as he
spoke he stooped and kissed her forehead as he had kissed Isma’s a few
moments before. Then he turned and ran up the steps just as Alexis took
his last kiss and did the same.

As they gained the decks of their ships the great bell in the dome
of the Temple boomed out the first stroke of twelve. At the sixth
stroke the electric suns on the summits of the mountains blazed out
simultaneously at a hundred points, a long, deep roar of thunder rolled
round the bulwarks of Aeria, and with search-lights flashing out ahead
and astern, the four hundred battleships of the two squadrons rose into
the air and swept up towards the Ridge.

[Illustration: THE FOUR HUNDRED BATTLESHIPS OF THE TWO SQUADRONS ROSE
INTO THE AIR. _Page 252._]

A thousand feet above it they stopped and hung for a moment motionless
in mid-air. Then the roar of a thousand shells exploding far up
in the quaking sky answered the salutes from the sentinel ships,
and then, still signalling farewells with their search-lights, the
squadrons swept out into the ocean of darkness that loomed round the
light-girdled realm of Aeria.




CHAPTER XXIII. THE FIRST BLOW.


THE night of the 15th of May 2037 was passed in an agony of
apprehension by nearly the whole of civilised humanity. The long
threatened and universally feared thunder-cloud of war had at last
loomed up over the serene horizon of peace in full view of the whole
world.

Although the events of the last six years had to some extent prepared
the minds of men for the impending disaster, now that the last hour of
the long peace was really about to strike there were very, very few
among the millions of non-combatants who were able to rise superior to
the universal panic.

The ocean terrorism which had paralysed the commerce of the world five
years and a half before, fearful as it had been, was, so far as the
bulk of humanity was concerned, a terror of the unseen. Ships had gone
out to sea and had vanished into the depths, leaving no trace behind
them, but the hand that struck the blow had remained invisible.

Now, however, this same terror, magnified a thousandfold, was to come
close up to the shores of lands whose inhabitants had never known what
it was for man to raise his hand against his brother. To-morrow the sun
would rise as usual, the earth would smile, the sea would dance, and
the air grow bright and warm under his beams, yet air and earth and sea
would be wholly strange to the eyes of men, for they would be invested
with terrors hitherto only pictured by the fears of panic.

The air would be charged with death. Beneath the laughing waves great
battleships would be speeding swiftly, silently, and invisibly on their
errands of destruction, and the fair face of earth would be scarred by
the harrow of battle, and seared with the fires of murderous passion.

The ocean traffic of the world had been almost wholly at a standstill
for nearly a month. Transports which could complete their voyages
before the end of the truce had done so; but since the 1st of May only
short voyages had been attempted, for it was known that escape from the
attack of a submarine battleship would be absolutely impossible for any
vessels that floated on the surface of the water.

The immediate results of this had of course been the dislocation of
trade and commerce and ever-increasing scarcity of food in the great
centres of population. Impossible, absurd even, as it still seemed to
those who had not thoroughly recognised the tremendous gravity of the
situation, the inhabitants of the magnificent cities of the old and new
worlds were actually within measurable distance, even before a blow had
been struck, of seeing the spectre of Famine cross the threshold of
their palaces.

In a few days communications by land would be as difficult and as
dangerous as those by sea, for, swift as the trains were, their speed
was far excelled by that of the slowest air-ship, which could wreck
them with a single shot. Bridges would be destroyed, stations blown
up, and lines cut in a hundred places at once, till railway travelling
would have to cease all over the world.

Thus the most splendid civilisation of all the ages stood trembling
on the verge of destruction at the moment when the sleepless eyes
of the inhabitants of Alexandria saw the first faint glow of the
dawn brightening the eastern sky. No one knew where or how the first
blow would be struck in the strange and terrible warfare for the
commencement of which the rising of that morning’s sun gave the signal.

There were scarcely any elements in common with the war of the
nineteenth century save the slaughter and destruction that it would
entail. There could be no marshalling of fleets or warships on the
sea, for to be detected by an enemy would be coming very near to being
destroyed. Every blow would have to be struck swiftly, silently, and
without warning, for only one could be struck, and to fail would be to
be lost.

So, too, in the air, as had been proved at Kerguelen and Mount Terror.
Everything would depend upon the supreme strategy which enabled the
first fatal shot to be sent home that would decide battle after battle
without hope for the vanquished to recover from their defeat.

But after all it would be on land that the terrors of the new warfare
would be most fearfully manifested. It needed but little effort of
the highly-strung imaginations of those who were waiting for the
world-tragedy to begin to picture vast armies, magnificent in their
strength and splendid in their equipments, marching to grapple with
each other on some field of Titanic strife. Suddenly and without
warning they would be smitten by an invisible foe floating far above
the clouds, or perhaps visible only as a tiny speck of light high in
the central blue.

Their battalions would be torn to pieces, their regiments decimated
and thrown into confusion, their commanders--the brains of the huge
organisms--would have no such protection as they had in the wars of
former times, for the aerial artillery would reach everywhere, and the
Commander-in-Chief in his headquarters would be as much exposed as the
private in his bivouac.

Thus the brain would be destroyed and the body reduced to impotence;
disciplined armies would become lawless and unregulated hordes in a few
days or weeks, and the organised slaughter of the battlefield would be
exchanged for the butchery and plunder of the city carried by assault.

It was little wonder, then, that the world watched the ending of its
last night of peace and the dawning of its first day of battle with
feelings such as men had not felt for five generations, if, indeed,
ever before in the history of man.

It was not a mere war of nations with which men were confronted. The
evil genius of a single woman had achieved the unheard-of feat of
dividing the human race into two hostile forces so nearly balanced
in strength that mutual destruction seemed a not improbable issue of
what might after all prove to be the death-struggle of humanity, the
collapse of civilisation and the sinking of a remnant of mankind back
to the level of barbarians whose children would wander amidst the ruins
of their forefathers’ habitations, and wonder what race of demigods had
created the wondrous fabrics whose very fragments were splendid.

As the dawn flew round the world on that momentous morning every
eye was turned towards the heavens, on every lip there was but one
question: Where will the first blow be struck? and in every heart there
was but one thought: Will it reach me or my dear ones?

The focus of all human interest was for a moment Alexandria, for it
was known that from there the main expeditionary force was to be sent
out to, if possible, effect a landing on the shores of Italy, while
other expeditions were to start from Tripoli, Tunis, and Oran to
effect landings in France and Spain. The bridge across the Straits
of Gibraltar from Point Cires to Gualdamesi was to all intents and
purposes neutral, since it would have been madness to send trains
conveying troops across it when a single shot from the British battery
at Gibraltar would have shattered the bridge to fragments.

The forces destined by the Sultan for the invasion of Europe would,
therefore, either have to be conveyed in swift transports by sea,
protected by squadrons of air-ships and flotillas of submarine
battleships, or else they would have to go by land round the Levant by
Syria, and so through Asia Minor to the shores of the Dardanelles and
the Bosphorus.

As the European shores of these two straits were known to be defended
by concealed batteries mounting guns a single shot from which would
blow the biggest transport afloat out of the water, the Sultan had
decided to make the attempt to invade Italy, France, and Spain by sea,
while the Russian forces, with their Asiatic allies, were to attack the
central nations from the east.

So far, therefore, as could be foreseen, the Mediterranean would
once more be the arena of strife, and on some part of its shores or
its waters the first blow of the war would be struck. Every possible
preparation for the attack upon Europe had been finally completed
immediately after the return of Khalid from the coronation of Olga
on the 11th, but beyond the fact that the coasts of Europe, from the
Straits of Dover to the Golden Horn, were patrolled by Federation
battleships, nothing was known of the dispositions which had been made
for the defence of Europe.

Gibraltar, Minorca, Cape Spartivento, Mount Ida in Candia and Olympus
in Cyprus formed a chain of Federation posts which, while they had been
made impregnable to all attack save long-sustained bombardment from
the air, rendered any attempt on the part of large fleets to cross the
Mediterranean an extremely hazardous venture.

These stations were connected from Gibraltar to Cyprus by telephonic
cables, buried beneath the floor of the sea to hide them from the
enemy’s cruisers, and also by patrols of battleships constantly moving
to and fro in touch with each other along the whole line, and this was
the first barrier through which the Moslem Sultan had to force his way
before he could land his armies upon the shores of Southern Europe.

This, too, formed what may be termed the first line of defence of the
Federation and of Christendom, and although neither the Sultan nor
the Tsarina was wholly aware of the fact, it had been strengthened to
such a degree that it was expected to prove unbreakable even under the
impact of the immense forces that would be brought to bear upon it.

When the sun at last rose over the hills of Syria and Sinai, and the
watchers in the streets and on the housetops of Alexandria heard the
voice of the Muezzin calling the first hour of prayer and the last
hour of the world’s peace, the bright blue waves of the Inland Sea lay
smiling and sparkling in its earliest beams, betraying not a trace
of the hidden forces which waited but for the signal that might come
either from land or sea or sky to begin the work of desolation.

The harbours of the city were thronged with shipping, great transports
lined the miles of quays whose network fronted the seaward verge of
the Moslem capital. Some of the basins swarmed with the half-submerged
hulls of scores of battleships waiting to take up their position as
convoys to the flotilla which, if the Sultan’s plans succeeded, would,
within the next twelve hours, land nearly four million troops on
European soil.

In the air, at elevations varying from five hundred to ten thousand
feet, a squadron of two hundred aerial cruisers kept watch and ward
against a surprise from the upper regions of the air. By the time the
day had fully dawned, land and sea and sky had been scanned in vain for
a sign of an enemy’s presence.

The sailing of the flotilla of transports had been fixed for six
o’clock by Alexandrian time, and already the battleships were moving
out into the open to take up their places in advance of the fleet of
transports. Fifty air-ships had ranged themselves in a long line to
seaward at an elevation of two thousand feet to protect the transports
from an aerial assault, and the transports themselves were moving
out to form in the basin behind the breakwater, whence they were to
commence their voyage.

Sultan Khalid, on board his aerial flagship _Al Borak_--named after the
winged steed which, according to the old legend, had borne the Prophet
from earth to the threshold of the Seventh Heaven--superintended in
person the last preparations for the departure of his great armament.
Flying hither and thither, now soaring and now sinking, he inspected
first the cruisers of the air and then the flotillas of the seas, and
at last, when all was ready, he took his place by one of the bow guns
of the _Al Borak_ to fire the shot that was to be the signal for the
expedition to start.

But a higher intelligence and a greater tactical ability than his had
already determined that the signal should be given in very different
fashion. Fifty miles to the south towards the Lybian desert, high in
air, fifteen thousand feet above the earth, a solitary air-ship hung
suspended in the central blue.

As the sun rose she had moved slowly forward towards the city. As she
came within sight of it, Alan Arnold standing in her conning-tower
saw through a telescope that commanded a range of a hundred miles the
disposition of the aerial fleet above Alexandria. He marked down a
group of five air-ships floating some five thousand feet above the
centre of the city, and singled them out as the first victims of the
war.

He was, of course, far out of range of gun-fire, and to have gone
within range and fired on them would have been to expose his single
ship to a concentrated hail of projectiles which would have scattered
her in dust through the sky. So he determined to open the game of death
and destruction by a stroke as dramatic as it was terrible.

He remembered how his ancestor, Richard Arnold, in the first
_Ithuriel_, had rammed the Russian war-balloons to the north of Muswell
Hill, and resolved to eclipse even that marvellous stroke of tactics.
Obeying his will like a living creature, the mighty fabric under his
control sank five thousand feet and then began to gather way on a
slanting course towards the Moslem air-ships.

The propellers whirled faster and faster, and the quadruple wings
undulated with ever-increasing velocity until the crowds in the streets
of Alexandria saw something like a swift flash of blue light stream
downward from the southern sky, and heard a long screaming roar as
though the firmament was being rent in twain above them.

Then three of the air-ships floating in line above their heads seemed
to break up and roll over. The crowds held their breath and pointed
upwards with one accord in sudden horror, as the crippled air-ships
dropped like stones towards the earth. In another moment they struck
it, and then, as though the central fires of the earth had burst
through in the heart of the great city, there came a crash and a shock
that shook the ground like an earthquake spasm.

[Illustration: THREE OF THE AIR-SHIPS SEEMED TO BREAK UP AND ROLL OVER.
_Page 259._]

A vast dazzling volume of flame shot up from amidst a wide circle of
blackened ruin, towers fell and roofs collapsed all round the focus of
the explosion, the whole atmosphere above the city was convulsed, and
the very sea itself seemed to writhe under the stress of the mighty
shock, and so, leaving death and ruin and consternation behind her,
the _Avenger_ swept out over the Mediterranean at a speed that the eye
could scarcely follow, after striking the first blow in the world-war
of the twenty-first century.

To say that this sudden and unexpected catastrophe spread panic through
the Moslem capital would be but a very inadequate description of the
_Avenger’s_ first blow in the world-war. Consternation, wild and
unbounded, blanched every cheek, and made every heart stand still as
the mighty roar of the explosion burst upon the deafened ears of the
inhabitants and then instantly died into silence, broken only by the
crash of falling ruins and the screams and groans of the wounded and
dying.

The red spectre of war in its most frightful form had suddenly appeared
to the terrified and horror-stricken vision of millions of men and
women, scarce one of whom had ever seen a deed of violence done.

Khalid, like a wise leader, did all he could to prevent the panic
spreading to the troops on board the transports by issuing peremptory
orders for the expedition to start at once. At the same time he
signalled for half a dozen air-ships to ascend as far as possible and
attempt to discover the source from which the inexplicable attack had
come, an errand destined to be entirely fruitless.

In orderly succession the hundred huge transports, each carrying from
eight to ten thousand men, left the outer basin in two long lines in
the rear of the fifty air-ships already in position.

A hundred submarine battleships took up their stations five hundred
yards in advance of the first line of transports. Fifty of these sank
to a depth of thirty feet, and shot two thousand yards ahead as soon as
the whole flotilla was in motion, while the other fifty ran along the
surface of the water with their conning-towers just showing above the
waves, ready to sink in obedience to any signal that their commanders
might receive from the air-ships, which commanded an immense range of
vision over the waters.

To all appearance the enemy was content with the one terrible blow
that had already been struck. The smooth, sunlit sea betrayed no trace
of a hostile vessel, and as far as the glasses of those on board the
air-ships could sweep the sky nothing but the blue atmosphere, flecked
here and there with white, fleecy clouds, could be seen.

But the Moslem commanders were far from being deceived by these
peaceful appearances. From Sultan Khalid, who was commanding the
expedition in person, to the engineers who worked the transports, all
knew that the invisible line of the Federation patrols had to be passed
somewhere in the depths of the sea before the shores of Italy could be
reached.

The speed of the three flotillas was limited to twenty-five miles an
hour, in order that there might be no headlong running into danger,
and the commander of each of the submerged battleships had orders to
rise to the surface the instant that his tell-tale needle denoted the
presence of an enemy, and signal the fact to the rest of the squadron.
The transports were then to stop, and were not to resume their passage
until the battleships had cleared the way for them. The first division
was to engage the enemy, while the second was to remain on the surface
ready to defend the transports in case of need.

For six hours the expedition proceeded on its way north-west by west
from Alexandria without interruption. The intention was to pass about
a hundred miles to the south of the Federation post at Candia, between
which island and the Cape Spartivento the ocean patrol would most
likely be met with.

Soon after twelve those on board the Sultan’s flagship detected
half a dozen little points of light shining amidst the waves to the
north-westward. They could be nothing else but the scout-ships of the
patrol; and although they were nearly ten miles away, a couple of
shells were discharged at them from the _Al Borak’s_ bow gun, more as a
warning to the Moslem flotilla than in the hope of doing any damage.
Whether they did or not was never known, for before the explosion of
the shells was seen in the water the points of light had vanished.

Signals were at once made from the flagship ordering the transports to
stop, and the second division of battleships to stand by to protect
them. A dozen remained on the surface of the water, running round and
round the now stationary troopships in concentric circles. The others
sank to varying depths, and scattered until the vague fluctuations of
their needles showed that they were more than a thousand yards from
each other and the transports.

As the first division had orders to keep more than two miles in advance
as soon as an enemy was discovered, there would be no danger of ramming
friend instead of foe. It ran on for seven miles after the main body
stopped. It was moving in a single line, the vessels being at an equal
distance apart, so that, with the exception of the two ships at the
extremities of the line, the attraction of the steel hulls on the
needles should be neutralised, and therefore only give indications of
vessels ahead.

At the end of the seventh mile the tell-tales ceased their wavering
motions and began to point steadily, in slightly varying directions,
ahead. The moment they did so the engines were stopped and the flotilla
rose to the surface of the water. Their commanders found themselves
out of sight of the transports, but the _Al Borak_, attended by ten
other air-ships, was floating about a thousand feet above them. From
the flagship’s mainmast-head flew the signal--“Fleet eight miles to the
rear. Enemy ahead. Sink and ram.”

The order was instantly obeyed by the whole division, and the fifty
battleships simultaneously sank out of sight to engage the invisible
enemy, while the Sultan and his companions on board the air-ships
waited in intense anxiety to see what the next few fateful minutes
would bring forth.

No human eye could see what work of death might be going on down in the
depths of the sea. Even those who took part in it would know it only by
its results, and of these only the victors would know anything. They
would reappear on the surface of the waves, but the vanquished would
never rise again.

Minute after minute passed and still the anxious watchers on the
air-ships saw nothing. The bright, sunlit waves rippled on over the
abyss in which the conflict must by this time be almost over. Five,
ten, fifteen minutes passed, and still no sign. Had Khalid been a mile
or two farther on and closer down to the surface of the sea, he would
have seen streams of air-bubbles rising swiftly here and there and
instantly breaking. But from where he was he could see nothing.

Five more minutes went by and suspense gave place to apprehension. Had
the whole of the first division simply sunk to its destruction into
some invisible trap that had been laid for it deep down in the watery
abyss? If not, how came it that not even one of the battleships had
risen to the surface to tell the tale of victory or defeat?

Khalid knew that the squadron would obey orders and hurl itself at full
speed, that is to say, at some hundred and fifty miles an hour, upon
the enemy the moment the tell-tales found their mark. In two or three
minutes--five at the outside--their rams must either have done their
work or failed to do it. If they had done it they would have risen to
the surface; if they had failed and themselves escaped destruction they
would still have risen.

Now twenty minutes had passed and not one of the fifty battleships had
reappeared. What could this mean but disaster?

And disaster it did mean, but great as it was it was as nothing
compared with the frightful catastrophe which followed close upon
it. All eyes on board the air-ships were so intently fixed upon that
portion of the sea where the squadron was expected to rise again that
no one thought for the moment of looking back towards the transports
until the dull rumbling roar of a series of explosions came rolling up
out of the distance.

Instantly every glass was turned in the direction whence the sound
came, and Khalid saw his great fleet of troopships tossing about in
the midst of a wild commotion of the waves, out of which vast masses of
white water spouted as if from the depths of the sea, and amidst these
ship after ship heeled over and sank into the white seething waters.

Uttering a cry of rage and despair, he headed the _Al Borak_ at full
speed towards the scene of the disaster. In three minutes he was
floating over it, helpless to do anything to avert or even delay the
swift destruction that was overwhelming the splendid fleet. Distracted
by impotent rage and passionate sorrow for the fate of his soldiers and
sailors, who were being slain hopelessly and by wholesale beneath his
eyes, he watched the awful submarine storm rage on, wrecking ship after
ship, and swallowing them up with all the thousands on board in the
boiling gulfs which opened ever and anon amidst the waves.

When the first panic passed, the transports which were still uninjured
scattered and headed away as fast as their engines would drive them to
the southward, where the only chance of safety seemed to lie. But there
was no escape for them from their invisible and merciless enemies.

The fate of one magnificent transport, the flagship of the fleet,
may be described as an illustration of the general disaster. She
was a vessel of fifty thousand tons measurement, and her crew and
complement of troops numbered together nearly twenty-five thousand.
She escaped the first discharge from the submarine torpedoes unharmed,
and heading southward with her triple propellers revolving at their
utmost velocity, rushed through the water at a speed of more than forty
nautical miles an hour.

She had scarcely gained a mile on her course when the glass-domed
conning-tower of a battleship appeared for an instant above the waves.
Before Khalid, not knowing whether it was friend or foe, could make up
his mind to fire on it, it disappeared again.

A few seconds later the great ship stopped and shuddered with some
mighty shock, as though she had run head-on to a sunken reef, and
heeled over to one side. Then came a dull roar, a huge column of white
foaming water rose up under her side amidships, and she broke in two
and vanished in the midst of a white space of swirling eddies.

Such scenes as this were occurring simultaneously in twenty different
parts of the naval battlefield. The foe never showed himself save for
an instant. Then came the blow that meant destruction, and the victim
vanished. There was none of the pomp and pageantry of modern naval
warfare; no splendid armaments of mighty ironclads and stately cruisers
vomiting thunder and flame and storms of shot and shell at each other,
nor were there any rolling masses of battle smoke to darken the
brightness of the sky.

The occupants of an open boat five miles away would not have known that
the most deadly sea-fight ever waged since men had first gone down to
the sea in ships was being fought out under that smiling May-day sky.

One after another the flying transports were overtaken, rammed, or
blown up and sunk by the pitiless monsters which unceasingly darted
hither and thither a few feet below the surface of the water, and in
less than two hours after the first alarm had been given the last of
the hundred transports which had sailed that morning from Alexandria
had gone down a shattered wreck into the abysses of the Inland Sea.

There was no chance of saving the drowning wretches who managed to
escape from the eddies of the sinking ships, as there would have
been in a naval battle of to-day. The air-ships could not do so
without sinking to the waves, and so making themselves marks for the
irresistible rams and torpedoes of their enemies, who themselves could
not be merciful, even if they would, shut up as they were in the steel
leviathans whose only use was destruction.

Khalid the Magnificent, with a heart well-nigh breaking with rage and
shame and sorrow, watched in passionate helplessness the destruction
of his splendid fleet and the drowning, like rats in a pond, of the
soldiers who were to have borne the banner of the Crescent over the
conquered fields of Christendom.

More than a million men had perished beneath his eyes, and he had not
been able to fire a shot to help them, although he was in command of
an aerial fleet which could have dispersed an army or wrecked a city
between sunrise and noon.

But the strangest part of the strange battle was yet to come. After
the last of the transports had disappeared, the attack ceased and the
assailants vanished. In a few minutes the sea was as calm and bright as
ever, and only a few bits of broken wooden wreckage floating here and
there betrayed the fact that anything out of the common had happened.

The remnant of the Moslem squadron rose to the surface and signalled
for instructions. Only twenty of them remained uninjured out of
the hundred that had gone into the fight. Before the signals could
be returned there was a loud hiss and a swirling noise as of some
huge body rushing at a furious speed through the water, and a great
battleship leapt up out of the nether waters, and hurled herself at
a speed of nearly two hundred miles an hour into the midst of the
floating squadron.

[Illustration: A GREAT BATTLESHIP LEAPT UP OUT OF THE NETHER WATERS.
_Page 266._]

Her gleaming ram of azurine tore its way through the sides of three
vessels in such swift succession that, almost before their fragments
had time to sink, her huge bulk vanished under the waves again. But
hardly was her work done than a second battleship charged into the
paralysed squadron, sending two of its members to the bottom and
crippling three more before she, too, vanished into the safe obscurity
of the depths.

A third was met by a storm of shells from the air-ships, which burst
round her and under her just as she came to the surface, and blew her
out of the water in fragments. Heedless of this, a fourth plunged
fiercely through the foaming area of the explosion, and had wrecked
two more Moslem vessels before a shell smashed her propeller and laid
her helpless on the water. Two of the Moslems instantly backed out and
rushed at her, tearing two great ragged holes in her side and sinking
her instantly, only to be sunk themselves in turn by a fifth charge
from below.

Scarcely had this last foe disappeared in safety than a swarm of
torpedoes, converging from all sides, encircled the remaining Moslem
battleships. Some plunged beneath the waves to escape them, but
these never reappeared. The remainder, torn and twisted and shattered
by a series of explosions that flung the water mountains high all round
them, sank like stones, and when the sea once more settled down, the
grim work of death had been completed.

The fate which had so swiftly overwhelmed the expedition that had
set out from Alexandria had almost simultaneously befallen four
other expeditions which had started at the same hour from Tripoli,
Tunis, Algiers, and Oran. The one disaster had been an almost exact
reproduction of the others.

The same order, formation, and tactics had been observed in each of the
five cases, and each of the five squadrons of transports and fleets of
submarine battleships had been overwhelmed and completely destroyed
by the same mysterious fate. Of five hundred transports and the same
number of battleships which Sultan Khalid had possessed at sunrise on
that fatal 16th of May not a single one remained by sundown, and of the
more than three million souls who had manned the five fleets not one
man survived.

Of the strength or the losses of the enemy that had wrought this
appalling and unheard-of destruction within such a brief space of time
nothing could, in the nature of the case, be known by those who had
seen only some of its effects from the decks of the air-ships which
floated almost helplessly over the waves which were engulfing their
naval consorts. The work of annihilation had for the most part been
done in the dim and silent depths of the sea, and all that they knew
was the number of those of their own comrades who had gone to battle
and never returned.

And yet to all practical intents and purposes these five stupendous
blows which had simultaneously crushed the Moslem sea-power and half
crippled the military strength of the Sultan had been struck by one
hand. In other words, the victory of the Mediterranean was due to two
inventions which had been made and perfected by Max Ernstein, who had
been transferred from Kerguelen and appointed Admiral in Command of the
whole Mediterranean forces of the Federation.

One of these was a highly improved form of an apparatus which had
just come into use on board battleships and cruisers when the War of
the Terror broke out. This was an electrical contrivance which gave
warning, more or less reliable, of the approach of torpedoes, by
translating the aqueous vibrations set up by them into sound-waves,
which increased in intensity as the hidden destroyer came nearer.

This invention had been lost sight of when all the warships of the
world were sunk in the South Atlantic after the proclamation of
the Universal Peace. Ernstein’s was therefore a new discovery, or
rediscovery, but the advantages of his position, far ahead of the
scientific skill of the nineteenth century, had enabled him to produce
a much more perfect instrument, and his apparatus, which was attached
to all the battleships of the Federation, not only gave warning of
the approach of an enemy, but indicated his direction, the number of
revolutions at which his propellers were working, and his distance at
any given moment.

This not only enabled the commander of a Federation battleship to
detect the presence of an enemy, but it enabled him to distinguish
between friend and foe. As soon as the phonetic indicator showed that
another ship was approaching he stopped his own propellers, started
them, and stopped them again.

The vibrations thus set up and interrupted would be conveyed to the
indicator of the approaching ship, if she had one, and she would at
once return the signal. If the signal was not returned it was safe
to conclude that the coming vessel was an enemy and could be rammed
accordingly.

When this invention replaced the tell-tale needle that had been in
use a year before, an alteration in tactics became necessary, and the
fighting order became more extended. A mile instead of a thousand yards
was now the limit within which the Federation battleships were not
permitted to approach each other, save under special circumstances.
Every vessel acted as an independent unit, subject only to the general
instructions.

Ernstein’s second invention was of a simpler but none the less
effective character. Knowing that the Moslem and Russian squadrons
would be forced to trust entirely to their tell-tale magnetised
needles, he had devised a plan for making these worse than useless. As
soon as the phonetic indicator told him that an enemy was coming, the
commander of each of his battleships dropped a thin rope of insulated
wire down thirty or forty feet into the water below him.

The lower end of this cable was a powerful electro-magnet, through
which a current of electricity was kept passing along the wires. The
attraction of this magnet was far stronger than that of the hull of
the vessel, and consequently the needles of the enemy were deflected
downwards, and gave a totally erroneous idea as to the depth at which
the Federation ship was floating.

Thus when the first division of the Moslem submarine squadron charged
at what its commanders thought were the hulls of their enemies, their
rams passed harmlessly underneath them, merely striking the magnet
and knocking it aside. The moment they had passed the magnet, its
attraction swung their needles back, and showed that some mysterious
mistake had been committed, but before they had time to turn and seek
the mark afresh the Federation ships were upon them, and their rams had
rent their way into their sides.

In this manner every ship of the first division had been destroyed
within three minutes after it had made its first and last charge.
Then the Federationists had risen to the surface for an instant
to reconnoitre by means of the arrangement of mirrors previously
described, and sinking again had worked their way back towards the
transports, formed in a huge circle round them, and had sent torpedo
after torpedo into their midst.

As soon as the flotilla had been thrown into confusion they had
converged until they could communicate with each other by means of
their submarine signals, and after that they had attacked the enemy
singly. Ship after ship charged into the _mêlée_, did her work, and
retired, if she escaped destruction, to give place to another.

Only twenty Federation ships had been engaged in each of the five
battles, and of these forty in all had been destroyed, a loss utterly
disproportionate to the gigantic damage that had been done to the enemy.

Khalid the Magnificent divined intuitively that the disaster
which had overwhelmed the expedition which he had commanded in
person was only a portion of a result achieved by some elaborate
and consummately-conceived scheme of defence which must have been
simultaneously put into operation against his other expeditions. What
had succeeded against his own might well have been expected to have
succeeded against them.

He at once despatched four squadrons of ten air-ships each to Tripoli
and Tunis, Algiers and Oran, with orders to collect all attainable
information, and to return to Alexandria as soon after sunset as
possible. Then he turned the prows of the remainder of his fleet
towards his capital, and gave the signal for full speed ahead.




CHAPTER XXIV. WAR AT ITS WORST.


WITHOUT even pausing to see the effects of his charge upon the
three air-ships above Alexandria, Alan kept the _Avenger_ going at
full speed, soaring up into the higher regions of the atmosphere
with her prow pointed to the north-east. About three hours later
she was floating at an elevation of nearly five miles above Moscow,
not stationary, but sweeping round and round in vast circles on her
quadruple wings after the manner of the condors of the Andes, which
thus sustain themselves on almost motionless wings at vast elevations
and very small expenditure of force.

Below an immense expanse of country lay in unclouded clearness under
the glasses of the captain of the ship and George Cosmo, late engineer
of the _Narwhal_, who was now chief engineer of the Aerian flagship.

Not only Moscow, but a dozen other towns lay at the mercy of the
_Avenger’s_ twenty-four guns, and yet no shot was fired, for Alan,
despite the tremendous debt of vengeance that he owed to her who now,
at last in very fact crowned Tsarina of the Russias, held her court
at Moscow, was yet extremely loth to involve non-combatants in the
destruction which he knew must follow the discharge of his guns.

Added to this, his present designs were rather to reconnoitre than to
destroy. He was in command of the fastest and most powerful air-ship in
the world, and the task that he had set himself was to supervise the
whole of the complicated arrangements that had been made for repelling
the coming attack upon the Federation by the Moslems and Russians.

Thus he had started soon after midnight from Gibraltar, one of the
chief power-stations and depôts in Europe. Thence he had run along
the African coast over Oran, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, noting the
sleepless activity of the brilliantly-lighted towns, the swarming
transports and battleships in their harbours, and the crowds of anxious
watchers in their streets. Then he had got round to the south of
Alexandria, as has been seen, and there struck the first blow in the
war.

Now, his object was to discover what disposition of troops were being
made for the invasion of Austria and Germany. Another scout-ship would
be by this time floating over St. Petersburg, and another over Odessa,
and these were to report to him at noon.

He had kept the _Avenger_ moving with sufficient rapidity to make it
extremely difficult for her to be seen from the earth, as he wanted to
see without being seen, and he remained undiscovered until nearly noon.
All this time trains had been seen running in swift succession into
Moscow from the east and out to the west, evidently conveying troops to
the frontier.

A large fleet of air-ships, numbering apparently between two and three
hundred vessels, were seen lying in four squadrons on the open space
about the Kremlin, and others were constantly flying into and out of
the city in all directions.

A few minutes after half-past eleven, Cosmo, after a long look through
his glasses, called to Alan, who was looking out from the other side of
the deck--

“I fancy they must have seen us at last. Three ships are coming up on
this side as if they wanted to investigate.”

Alan crossed over and soon picked out the Russian vessels rising in
long spiral sweeps from the earth about three miles to the northward
and coming up very fast.

“They seem to have learned something in tactics during the year,” he
said. “They evidently know better than to rise perpendicularly while
they suspect we are up here. They think they’ll be much more difficult
to hit coming up like that.”

“Yes,” said Cosmo. “But we can soon show them the mistake in that idea.
What are you going to do with them?”

“Destroy them, of course,” replied Alan. “It doesn’t matter about
giving the alarm now. I think it’s pretty certain that the Russians are
going to concentrate at Kieff, Vitebsk, Dünaburg, and Vilna, and those
four squadrons down there are intended to cover them. We’d better let
them concentrate, and make the fighting as short and sharp as possible.
It would be a waste of time to destroy them here in detail, and the
moral effect wouldn’t be anything like as good. What do you think?”

“I don’t think there’ll be any fighting,” replied Cosmo, “unless
between the air-ships. The most hardened troops of the nineteenth
century would have broken and run like a lot of sheep under our shells,
and these poor fellows, who have never seen a battle in their lives,
will do the same.

“I don’t believe we shall have any land fighting at all to speak of
during the whole war. There will be nothing but massacres from the air
on both sides. Still, I think you’re both wise and merciful in waiting
until you can hit hard, though perhaps from the strictly military point
of view we ought to have Moscow in ruins by sundown.”

“I won’t do that,” said Alan, shaking his head decisively. “There are
three or four millions of women and children in it who have done no
harm, and I’ll shed no more blood than I’m obliged to. We had better
destroy those fellows, however, before they get too close. You know
what to do.”

“Very well,” said Cosmo. “You’ll take the deck, I suppose?”

Alan nodded, and Cosmo saluted and went into the conning-tower. The
_Avenger_ now altered her course, so that her circling flight took her
to the northward, above the three Russian air-ships that were sweeping
round and round so fast that it would have been impossible to train a
gun upon them.

As soon as she got over them the _Avenger_ quickened her course until
she was flying round in the same circles and at the same speed as the
Russians. This, of course, made her relatively stationary with regard
to them, and it was now possible to take aim. Two of the broadside
guns, one on each side, were much shorter than the others, and had been
specially constructed for firing almost vertically downwards.

Alan stood by one of these and trained it on the first of the Russian
vessels, which were coming up in a spiral line. At the right moment
he pressed the button in the breech and released the projectile. The
shot struck the Russian amidships. They saw the glass deck of the roof
splinter, then the blaze of the explosion flashed out, the air quaked,
and the next moment the fragments of the Russian warship were falling
back upon the earth.

A second and a third shot followed as the other two came into position,
and when Alan looked down towards the city again he saw that the four
squadrons had taken the alarm, and were rising from the earth and
scattering in all directions. This was just what he wanted, for it
relieved him of the scruples which had prevented him from firing on
them while they lay within the precincts of the city.

In an instant the crew of the _Avenger_ were at their guns, and shell
after shell sped on its downward way after the flying ships. Although,
under the circumstances, the aim was necessarily hurried, for the
captains of the Russian vessels, seeing the terrible disadvantage at
which they were placed, had put on their utmost speed, the guns of the
_Avenger_ were so smartly handled that nearly a score of the Russians
were either blown to fragments or crippled before the squadron escaped
out of range.

“Well done!” said Alan. “That will teach them to keep a little smarter
look-out next time.” And then he went on to himself--“I wonder whether
_she_ was on board one of those that are lying in little pieces down
there? I suppose that would be too good luck to hope for, and yet I
don’t know, I think her end ought to be something different to that. I
wonder what it really will be?”

He ordered his men to cease firing now, and placed the _Avenger_ once
more in her old position over Moscow, keeping her at a great elevation
to guard against surprise from the squadron he had scattered. A few
minutes later two air-ships were reported coming from the south and
north. The flash of the sun on their blue hulls proclaimed them friends.

They were the vessels bringing the reports from St. Petersburg and
Odessa, and these reports were to the effect that during the whole
of the morning trains had been pouring through from the eastward and
all the surrounding country towards the Austro-German frontier. Other
reports from the westward had been received by the commanders of these
two vessels to the effect that the Russian troops were massing along
the frontier and seemingly preparing to invade the Federation area from
the four points already selected by Alan.

He at once despatched orders by these two courier-vessels to the
depôts at Königsberg, Thorn, Breslau, and Budapesth to assemble four
squadrons of fifty vessels each, which were to be over the points of
concentration at daybreak on the following morning.

These ships were to maintain their greatest possible elevation--that
is to say, about three miles and a half--until the sun rose, then if
the sky were clear they were to bombard the towns at once from that
height; if not they were to use all precautions against surprise in
passing through the clouds, and then the commanders were to use their
own discretion as to the plan of operation, but Odessa, Kieff, Vitebsk,
and Dünaburg were to be destroyed at all hazards as soon as it was
certain that the invading forces were concentrated there, and preparing
to march eastward.

As soon as these orders had been despatched the _Avenger_ left Moscow,
and started at full speed for Gibraltar, where she arrived about four
o’clock in the afternoon.

Here Alan, after once more inspecting the land batteries and the
aerial defences of this important outpost of the Federation, received
news of the annihilation of the four Moslem expeditions, and heartily
congratulated Admiral Ernstein on the complete success of his
operations.

It was at once apparent that the Sultan would not risk a second loss so
enormous as this even if he had sufficient transports left and could
persuade any more of his people to brave the terrors of such another
sea-fight. This being so, only two alternatives would be open to him,
either he must give up all idea of invading Europe by land or sea, or
else he must attempt to force the bridges across the Dardanelles and
the Straits of Gibraltar, and cross into Europe _viâ_ Turkey and Spain.

Both these bridges, the main highways between Europe, Africa, and Asia
Minor, were guarded on the European side by batteries of enormous
strength, similar to those which guarded the Federation posts in the
Mediterranean. They were magnificent structures, each four hundred feet
broad, carrying twelve lines of railway as well as carriage drives and
promenades, and, once in the hands of the enemy, troops could be poured
across them in tens of thousands every hour.

Alan, after a brief conference with Ernstein, decided to pursue the
same tactics here as he was going to make use of on the Russian
frontier. The bridges were to be left completely open, but their
supporting pillars were to be mined with torpedoes, connected by
electric wires with the batteries.

If the Sultan attempted to force them, his men were to be allowed
to concentrate on the African and Asiatic shores and to occupy the
bridges, then the bridges were to be blown up and the forces on the
opposite side to be dispersed by the batteries and the air-ships.

The message to the Dardanelles bridge was despatched by telephone over
the cables connecting Gibraltar with Candia and Gallipoli, and similar
instructions were sent on from Gallipoli to Constantinople, in case any
attempt should be made to force the bridge which spanned the Bosphorus.

The Mediterranean patrol was to be maintained as before, and three
air-ships were sent out to reconnoitre the African coast from Ceuta to
Port Said during the night, and learn what they could of the Sultan’s
intentions.

The rest of the evening and the greater part of the night were spent
by Alan receiving and answering reports from the northern coast of
the Mediterranean, the Russian frontier, and the principal cities of
Europe, and in assuring himself that everything was ready, so far as
was possible, to meet the storm that must infallibly burst over the
Continent within the next few days.

What would have been in the nineteenth century a matter of weeks was
now only one of days and hours. The enormously-developed system of
intercommunication made transit, even for very large numbers of men
and between very distant points, rapid to a degree undreamt of in the
present century.

Trains could travel at two hundred miles an hour along the hundreds
of quadruple lines which covered the Continent with their gigantic
network, aerial cruisers could fly at more than twice this speed,
and squadrons of submarine battleships could cleave their silent and
invisible way through the ocean depths at a hundred and fifty miles an
hour.

It was, therefore, almost impossible to tell without certain
information where and how the blows of the enemy would be struck,
or from how many points the European area of the Federation might
be assailed at once, and vast indeed were the responsibilities and
anxieties which weighed upon the man whose single brain was the centre
of this vast and complicated system of defence, and on whose decisions
would depend the safety or the destruction of millions of human beings.

Alan had managed to get four hours’ sleep in the afternoon between
Moscow and Gibraltar, and he snatched two hours more before midnight.
Then he was called, and the _Avenger_ was just about to take the air
to return to the Russian frontier, so that he might supervise the
operations there, when the look-out on the summit of the Rock of
Gibraltar saw and answered the Aerian private signal from the sky, and
a few minutes later a fleet of more than a hundred air-ships dropped
down out of the darkness and hovered over what is now called the
neutral ground between the Rock and Spain.

One of these alighted at the signal station itself. It was the _Isma_,
and within three minutes after she had touched the ground Alan was
shaking hands with Alexis and asking him what brought him back so soon
from the East.

“I have come back because there is nothing much more to do there,” said
Alexis. “Have you had any fighting here?”

“Yes,” said Alan; “or, at anyrate, a big massacre.”

And then he described what had befallen the Sultan’s expeditions.

“Horrible but necessary, I suppose!” replied Alexis, not without a
shudder at the news. “I have been doing my damage on land. I didn’t
wait for the enemy to begin hostilities, so as soon as day broke we got
to work. We have wrecked Ekaterinburg, Slatonsk, Orenburg, and Uralsk,
and blocked the four roads into Russia from Asia.

“The Tsarina’s Asiatic forces had concentrated there in large numbers
ready to come into Europe. We found some air-ships intended to cover
them, but we had the best of the elevation, and smashed them up. The
slaughter has been something perfectly frightful. I had a hundred and
fifty ships in action, and there isn’t a man left of the Asiatic troops
that is not getting back to where he came from as fast as he can go.

“The towns are mere heaps of ruins and the railways utterly useless. I
left twenty ships to patrol the frontier and stop any further movements
into Russia, and twenty more are strung out in a line from the Caspian
to the head of the Red Sea to cut communications between Asia and
Africa.

“We came westward over Odessa this afternoon, and had a skirmish,
in which, I am sorry to say, I lost five ships, but we destroyed
twenty Russians, blew up the dockyard, and shelled the city by way of
punishment. And now I’ve got myself and a hundred and thirty ships to
place at your disposal for the present. There is nothing more to be
feared from the East, for by to-morrow night, I think, the Asiatics
will be thoroughly terrorised.”

“You have done more than I have in the way of slaughter and
destruction,” said Alan. “But there will be some fearful work along the
Russian frontier to-morrow morning. The Tsarina, as you call her, is
concentrating her forces at Kieff, Vitebsk, Dünaburg, and Vilna for a
descent upon Germany. I have ordered those four places to be destroyed
as soon as possible after sunrise, and I am just starting now, so you
had better come with me and order your ships to follow us.”

Both the commanders felt, as their combined squadrons were winging
their way towards the Russian frontier, that the events of the next
twenty-four hours or so would go far towards deciding the issues of the
war, and therefore the fate of the world.

Alexis had given up the command of the _Isma_ for the night to his
first lieutenant, and was travelling on board the _Avenger_, in order
that he and Alan might finally arrange their plans for the terrible
deeds that were to be done on the following day. Both of them were
serious almost to depression, for it must be remembered that neither
possessed that love of fighting and slaughter which distinguishes the
professional soldier of the nineteenth century.

Armed with the most awful weapons ever wielded by human hands, they
had already, within the space of a few hours, hurled millions of their
fellow-creatures into eternity and made thousands of homes desolate
which a couple of days ago were happy. Now they were going to repeat
the tragedy, on how vast a scale neither of them knew. Before the next
sunset a red line of blood and flame would mark the frontier between
Russia and Germany.

All the horrors of months of the older warfare would be concentrated
into those few fatal hours. Those who were to do battle in the air
would hurl their irresistible lightnings at each other more as gods
than as men, while on earth the unresisting swarms could only stand in
helpless agony of suspense waiting for the death from which there was
no possibility of flying.

Within a hundred miles of the frontier the two fleets stopped, and
Alexis went on board his own vessel. It was then a few minutes after
three in the morning, that is to say, about an hour before sunrise, and
the warships were floating in a serene and cloudless atmosphere at an
elevation of nearly four miles, or about twenty thousand feet. It was
already quite light enough at that elevation for signals to be plainly
seen, and a rapid interchange of these took place, communicating the
final instructions from the flagships to the commanders of the smaller
squadrons into which the fleets were to be divided.

Just as the last signal had been answered, and the vessels were about
to separate, a tiny speck of light was seen far away to the westward. A
hundred powerful field-glasses were instantly turned upon it, and soon
showed it to be a hostile air-ship coming up very fast at an elevation
of about three miles. The silvery sheen of her hull instantly betrayed
the fact that she was neither an Aerian nor a Federation vessel, for
the former were blue and the latter painted dull grey. A moment’s
reflection showed that she must have sighted the Aerian fleet, and if
she got past would take tidings of its presence to the frontier and
destroy all hope of a surprise.

Within twenty seconds of her true nature being made out a signal was
flying from the mizzenmast of the _Isma_, which read, “Shall I stop
her?” “Yes. Cripple her if you can. Don’t fire unless necessary,” came
the reply from the _Avenger_, and the _Isma_ at once darted away on her
errand.

Alexis, of course, understood that if he struck the enemy with a shell
her fragments would fall to the earth, and might probably give the
impression that a battle was being fought in the air, and, as they
were now so near to the Russian frontier, this was to be avoided if
possible. He therefore determined to cripple her without destroying
her, and, if he could manage it, to capture her in mid-air, a feat that
had never been performed before under similar conditions.

He descended until the _Isma_ was only floating about a thousand feet
higher than the enemy, and then began to fly round and round in a wide
circle, at a speed which made it practically impossible for her to
be hit with a shell, save by the merest chance. The stranger, on
sighting the fleet, slowed down and swung round to the northward, so as
to have the advantage of being able to present her stern chasers to the
enemy.

This gave Alexis the opportunity he wanted. The instant that her stern
was visible, the _Isma_ swooped down, and rushed at her at such a speed
that she looked more like a stream of blue light flashing through the
sky than a solid material body. Those on board her saw this flash dart
past their stern. Their ship shivered from stem to stern with some
shock that came so swiftly that not until the _Isma_ was almost out of
sight did they realise the damage that had been done.

[Illustration: THE “ISMA” SWOOPED DOWN. _Page 281._]

The ram of the Aerian had cut through the barrels of the two stern guns
and the shafts of the three propellers as cleanly as a razor would have
divided so many straws. Sustained and propelled only by her wings, she
dropped from two hundred miles an hour to about twenty-five, and then
the _Isma_ reappeared in the sky above her, flying the signal, “Will
you surrender?”

Her commander saw that the brilliant and almost miraculous manœuvre of
the _Isma_ had placed him utterly at her mercy. If he refused, a single
shell would send him and his ship and crew in fragments to the earth,
while none of his guns could touch the Aerian, floating as she did a
thousand feet above him, so he bowed to necessity and sent the white
flag to his masthead. Alexis then signalled again, ordering him to
unload all his guns and leave the breeches open, and when he had seen
this done he sank down to a level with her, passed a steel-wire rope on
board her, and towed her away in triumph to the fleet.

The brilliant achievement delighted the Aerians as much as it
confounded the crew of the captured vessel, especially when it was
discovered that she was the _Haroun_, a Moslem warship taking a message
from the Sultan to the Tsarina at Moscow.

Khalid’s letter, which had been despatched the night before from
Algiers, informed Olga of the disaster that had overtaken the Crescent
in the Mediterranean, and of his determination to avenge it by
storming the bridges of Gibraltar, the Dardanelles, and the Bosphorus,
and pouring his remaining troops over them into Europe as soon as he
could concentrate them.

Far more important than this, however, was a notification of his
intention to at once lead a fleet of two hundred and fifty air-ships to
the west of Europe, and there destroy city after city on his eastward
course until they joined forces and proceeded, if necessary, to
devastate the rest of the Continent.

The Moslem’s guns were now rendered useless, and she was left to her
own devices to fall an easy prey to the first enemy that might attack
her. The Aerian fleet then divided into fifty squadrons of five vessels
each, and these winged their way towards the Russian frontier, ever
soaring higher and higher, until their wings were beating the rarefied
air at an altitude of over three miles.

Odessa, Kieff, Gomel, Vitebsk, Dünaburg, and Riga were all covered by
the time the sun rose. Scores of Russian air-ships were seen by the
various squadrons darting about hither and thither along the frontier
at varying elevations, evidently on the look-out for an enemy.

It was not many minutes before the Aerian squadrons were discovered
by these, and they instantly got away out of range, and then swerving
round sought to rise to a similar altitude so as to place themselves on
equal terms with the Aerians.

But long before this attempt could be made the work of death had begun,
and two thousand guns were raining their projectiles, charged with
inevitable destruction, upon the devoted cities. They were swarming
with men who had come through the interior of Russia during the night
for the invasion of Europe, but there were no troops on land to oppose
them, for Alan had seen that there would be no need for these.

Within an hour the six cities were so many vast shambles, and still
the relentless rain of death kept falling from the skies. Houses and
public buildings crumbled into dust under the terrific impact of the
explosions.

The streets were torn up as if by earthquakes, the railways running in
and out were utterly wrecked, and the victims of the pitiless attack,
panic-stricken and mad with fear and agony, rushed aimlessly hither
and thither through the bloody, fire-scorched streets and amidst the
falling ruins until inevitable death overtook them and ended their
tortures of mind and body.

There was no escape even as there was no mercy. Thousands fled out
into the country only to find the same rain of death falling upon the
villages. It seemed as though the unclouded heavens of that May morning
were raining fire and death from every point upon the devoted earth,
and yet no source of destruction was to be seen.

But ere long new horrors were added to the desolation which had already
befallen the cities. Terrific explosions burst out high up in the air,
vast dazzling masses of flame blazed out, mocking the sunlight with
their brightness, and then vanishing in an instant, and after them came
showers of bits of metal and ragged fragments of human bodies, all that
remained of some great cruiser of the air and her crew.

The Russian squadrons, numbering in all about three hundred warships,
by flying several miles to the eastward and then doubling on a
constantly ascending course had by this time gained a sufficient
elevation to train their guns upon the Aerians, and as soon as they had
done this the aerial battle became general along a curved line more
than a thousand miles in length, extending from Odessa to Riga.

George Cosmo had been right when he said that there would be little or
no land fighting, for along that line, from the Baltic to the Black
Sea, there was scarcely a man left alive by midday who was not mad with
fear and horror at the frightful effects of the aerial assault.

On land as well as on sea fighting was impossible. Armies and fleet
could exist only in the absence of the air-ships, and they were
everywhere. Cities lay utterly at their mercy, and nothing shaped by
the hand of man could withstand the impact of their projectiles.

But all day long the fight went on in the skies above the Russian
frontier, yet not at all after the fashion imagined by the poet of the
nineteenth century, who wrote, as he thought prophetically, of

  Airy navies grappling in the central blue.

The first and chief endeavour of the captain of every vessel was to
avoid the shots of his opponents and to get his own home. It was brains
and machinery pitted against brains and machinery, and grappling was
never thought of.

The air-ship which could gain and maintain a greater elevation than her
opponent infallibly destroyed her, and so, too, did the one that could
fly unhurt at full speed along the line of battle and use her stern
guns upon those which became relatively stationary enough for her to
take aim at them.

It would have been a magnificent spectacle for an observer who could
have followed the contending squadrons in their swift and complicated
evolutions. He would have seen the blue and the silver hulls flashing
to and fro as though apparently engaged in some harmless trial of
speed, then, without the slightest warning, without a puff of smoke or
the faintest sound of a report, the long, deadly guns would do their
work.

The moment of vantage would come, and the silent and invisible
messengers of annihilation would be sped upon their way; then, with a
roar and a shock that convulsed the firmament, a mist of flame would
envelop the ship that had been struck, and when it vanished she would
have vanished too, falling in a rain of fragments towards the earth
nearly twenty thousand feet below.

It was a battle not so much for victory as for destruction. There could
be no victory save to those who survived after having annihilated their
enemies, and this was the sole object of the struggle. High in air
above the contending squadrons, the _Avenger_ and the _Isma_ swept to
and fro along the line, raised by their superior soaring powers beyond
the zone of battle, and from their decks the two admirals commanded
the fight, and, like very Joves above the tempest, hurled their
destroying bolts from their terrible guns far and wide over the scene
of strife.

From morning to night both Alan and Alexis sought in vain for the blue
hull of the _Revenge_ among the Russian squadron. Unless Olga was on
board one of the other ships she was either engaged in some work of
destruction elsewhere or was directing the operations of her forces and
learning the disasters that had overtaken them in her palace in Moscow
or St. Petersburg.

It had been previously ordered that, as soon as it became too dark to
take accurate aim with the guns, those vessels of the Aerian fleet
which had survived the battle were to fly westward and rendezvous at
midnight on the summit of the Schneekoppe, one of the peaks of the
Giant Mountains to the north-east of Bohemia, whence, as soon as the
amount of damage had been ascertained, the remainder of it, if strong
enough, was to set out and if possible intercept the Moslem fleet
before it could form a junction with the Russians.

When the last vessel had alighted on the summit of the mountain
it was found that out of a fleet numbering two hundred and fifty
warships only a hundred and eighty remained--the rest were scattered
in undistinguishable fragments along the Russian frontier. As for
the amount of damage that had been done to the enemy as a set-off to
this heavy loss, the Aerian commanders could form no even approximate
estimate of it.

All they knew was that the six frontier cities, and a score or so
of smaller towns and villages, were now mere heaps of ruins, vast
charnel-houses choked with unnumbered corpses. The Russian army of
invasion must have been practically annihilated, and certainly its
remnants would be too hopelessly demoralised by the unspeakable horrors
it had survived to be of the slightest use for further fighting.

As soon as the roll had been called, the fleet, in two squadrons of
ninety vessels each, took the air and crossed the mountains to Gorlitz,
which had been selected a year before as a convenient spot for the
establishment of an arsenal and power-station, standing as it does at
the angle of intersection of two great mountains which form the natural
bulwarks of Bohemia.

Here the stock of motive-power and the ammunition of all the vessels
were renewed, and at daybreak the squadrons were just about to take
the air when a telephonic message was received from Paris that a
large fleet of air-ships had appeared above the city and had begun to
bombard it. This message had been sent in compliance with a system of
intercommunication which Alan had instituted between all the great
cities of Europe, and all the power-stations and rendezvous throughout
the Continent.

The moment an enemy appeared over any town messages were to be sent to
all the stations simultaneously, and detachments of warships were to be
despatched to the threatened point as soon as the warning was received.

It will be seen that this system would enable a very large force to
be concentrated upon any threatened point, and, in fact, before the
sun was two degrees above the horizon of Paris, eight squadrons of
Federation warships, including the two under the command of Alan
and Alexis, were flying at full speed from all four points of the
compass towards the city which for over half a century had been the
acknowledged capital of the Continent.

Little more than an hour sufficed for the _Avenger_ and the _Isma_ to
pass over the six hundred miles which separated Gorlitz from Paris.
Flying at their utmost speed they left their squadrons to follow the
two admirals, knowing that every captain could be implicitly trusted to
do the work allotted to his ship without further orders.

The object of Alan and Alexis was to get first to the scene of action,
and to avail themselves of the superior soaring powers of their two
vessels to deliver an assault upon the Moslems which they could not
reply to.

A fearful scene unfolded itself before them as they swept up out of the
eastward over Paris. The vast and splendid city was surrounded by a
huge circle formed of at least two hundred Moslem warships floating at
an elevation of some three miles, and pouring a tempest of projectiles
from hundreds of guns indiscriminately into the area crowded with
stately buildings and nearly ten millions of inhabitants.

[Illustration: A FEARFUL SCENE UNFOLDED ITSELF AS THEY SWEPT UP OVER
PARIS. _Page 286._]

Nearly three miles above the centre of the city floated a solitary
scout-ship ready to signal warning of the approach of an enemy. Fires
were already raging in hundreds of places all over the city. The
streets were swarming with terrified throngs of citizens who had rushed
out to escape the flames and the falling buildings, only to meet the
hundreds of shells that were constantly bursting among them, rending
their bodies to fragments by scores at a time.

Such was the beginning of Khalid the Magnificent’s revenge for the
disaster of the Mediterranean--a vengeance which proved that, in his
breast at least, the savage spirit of the ancient warfare was still
untamed.

The _Avenger_ and the _Isma_ gained an altitude of four miles above the
doomed city, half a dozen shells from their guns struck the scout-ship
and reduced her to dust before she had time to make a signal in
warning, and then the forty-four guns began to send a radiating hail of
projectiles upon the Moslem fleet. Shell after shell found its mark in
spite of the vast range, and ship after ship collapsed and dropped in
fragments or blew up like a huge shell.

But before the fifth round had been fired a strange thing happened. A
single Aerian warship rushed up at full speed out of the south, and as
soon as she sighted the _Avenger_ signalled, “Orders from the Council.
Come alongside.” The new-comer soared upwards as they sank to meet her,
and the three ships met and stopped some three miles and a half above
the earth. The stern of the _Azrael_, as the messenger-ship was named,
was brought close up to that of the _Avenger_, the deck doors were
opened, a gangway thrown across, and the captain boarded the flagship
and placed a sealed despatch in Alan’s hand.

He opened it, and to his unspeakable astonishment read--

  AERIA, May 16th, 6 P.M.

  All Aerians are to return at once with their ships to Aeria, and take
  no further part in the fighting. The Federation fleets may be left in
  the hands of foreign crews and commanders, to whom the power-stations
  and batteries are to be given up. This order is to be obeyed with the
  least possible delay.

  ALAN ARNOLD, President.

  To the Admirals in command of the Federation Fleets.




CHAPTER XXV. A MESSAGE FROM MARS.


IN order to adequately explain the origin of the peremptory recall
which, although of course he obeyed it without question, seemed so
incomprehensible to Alan, it will be necessary to go back to the night
of the 12th of May.

While all Aeria was rejoicing over the return of the exiles and
their restoration to the rights of citizenship, there was one of
the inhabitants of the Valley who took little or no part in the
festivities. This was Vassilis Cosmo, a man of between forty-six and
forty-seven, and elder brother of the George Cosmo who had been chief
engineer of the _Narwhal_, and was now first officer of the _Avenger_.

A striking distinction of personality and temperament had, ever since
he had reached a thinking age, marked him as one apart from the rest of
his fellow-countrymen.

He had little or none of the gaiety of disposition and social
cordiality that were the salient characteristics of the Aerians as a
people. He was serious almost to taciturnity, solitary and studious,
and wholly engrossed in a single pursuit--the study of astronomy in its
bearing on the great problem of interplanetary communication.

After twenty years of constant labour, assisted by all the knowledge
and inventive progress which had placed the Aerians so far ahead of the
rest of the world, he had at length solved this problem and realised
the dream of ages six years before Olga Romanoff had dropped her
defiance from the skies.

As yet, however, his success had been confined to one planet, and this,
as will have been learnt from the conversation between Alma and Isma on
that memorable night on which Alan’s letter had been received from the
island, was the planet Mars.

After infinite toil and innumerable failures, he had at length
succeeded in establishing an intelligible system of what may here be
described as photo-telegraphy, in which the rays of light passing
between the earth and Mars were made to perform the functions of the
electric wires in modern telegraphy.

His alphabet, so to speak, consisted of a hundred great electric suns
disposed at equal intervals on the mountain peaks round the great oval
of the Valley. These were in direct communication with the observatory
of Aeria, which was situated at a height of sixteen thousand feet on
Mount Austral, the highest of the two snow-capped peaks which stood at
the southern end of the Valley.

A single switch key enabled him, when sitting by the huge telescope
which embodied all the highest optical science of Aeria, to light
and extinguish these brilliant globes as he chose, and it was by
lighting and extinguishing them at certain intervals that he was able
to transmit his signals to the Martian astronomer, who was waiting to
receive them, and to reply to them by similar means across the gulf
of thirty-four million miles which separates the two planets at their
nearest approach to each other.

Momentous as were the events of the last few days, they were dwarfed
to utter insignificance by the irregular and apparently meaningless
recurrences of a tiny point of light in the centre of a great concave
mirror situated at the base of the huge barrel of the telescope,
through the side aperture of which Vassilis Cosmo was looking a few
minutes before midnight on that memorable 12th of May.

The point of light appeared and vanished, and reappeared again at
irregular intervals, which the astronomer noted on an automatic
registering instrument beside him. The moment the flash appeared
he pressed a button, which he held down till it disappeared, then
he released it, waited till the flash reappeared, and repeated the
operation so long as the signals came.

For nearly five hours he received and registered the signals recorded
by his reflector in silence, broken only by the monotonous ticking
of the clockwork which, working synchronously with the movements of
the two orbs, kept the image of Mars exactly in the centre of the
object-glass, and by the soft whirring of the registering instrument.

Never before had human eyes read such a message as he read, sitting
that night in silence and solitude in his observatory amid the snows,
far above the lovely valley in which his countrymen were still holding
high revel.

Well might his hands tremble and his eyes grow dim with something more
than long watching when he reversed the mechanism of the register and a
narrow slip of paper, divided by cross-lines into equal spaces a tenth
of an inch long, issued from a slit in one end, and began to run slowly
over a revolving drum.

On the tape was a series of straight black lines running longitudinally
along it. They were of unequal length, and divided from each other
by unequal spaces. Before the exact import of the message could be
gained the length of each of these lines, and that of the space
which separated it from the next, had to be accurately measured, but
Vassilis knew his own code so perfectly that he had been able to read
the general drift of the communication that had been sent along the
light-rays from the sister world by approximately guessing the duration
of the flashes and the intervals between them.

Day was beginning to dawn by the time the long tape had been unrolled
and pinned down in equal lengths on a board for measuring. For more
than five hours he had not uttered a syllable or even an exclamation,
although he had received from another world what appeared to be
tantamount, not only to his own death-sentence, but to that of the
whole human race.

But when the slips were at length pinned out and he had run his
practised eye deliberately over the fatal marks, his white lips parted
and a deep groan broke from his chest. He was alone in the observatory,
or perhaps not even this sign of emotion would have escaped him.

With his hands pressed to his temples as though his brain were reeling
under the frightful intelligence that had just been conveyed to it, he
stood in front of the board and gasped in short, broken sentences--

“God of mercy, can that be really true! Has the world only four months
more to live? Surely I have made some mistake--and yet everything
has worked as usual. There has been no hitch. It has been a splendid
night for transmission and they--no, they had not made a mistake for
a thousand years, they are past it. It must--but no, I can do nothing
more this morning. I should go mad if I did. I must think of it quietly
and sleep a little if I can, and then I will transcribe it.”

He left the telescope tower and went out on to a little platform at the
rear of the observatory which commanded a view of the whole Valley. He
looked out over the lovely landscape lying calm and silent beneath the
paling stars, and involuntarily exclaimed aloud--

“Is it for this that we have conquered the earth and bridged the
abysses of space--for this that we have made ourselves as gods among
men and throned ourselves here in this lovely land, lords of the world
and masters of the nations?

“How shall I tell them down yonder? And yet, has not the Master told
them already: ‘His shape shall be that of a flaming fire.’ ‘Your
children of the fifth generation shall behold his approach’? Yes, the
two exiles we welcomed back last night are the fifth generation from
the Angel, and _that_ will truly be a flaming fire, and truly it will
go hard with this world and the men of it in the hour of its passing,
as the Master has said.”

After a vain attempt to seek refuge from his thoughts in sleep he
boarded his aerial yacht and went to the city to mingle with the
merry-makers, more for appearance’ sake than from inclination, but he
kept his own counsel strictly, for more reasons than one. The next
night, as soon as Mars was high enough in the heavens, about half-past
ten, the dwellers in the Valley saw the great lights on the mountain
tops flash out and darken at irregular intervals time after time and
hour after hour, until all but those in the sentinel ships went to
rest, saying--

“Vassilis is talking to our neighbours in Mars. He will have something
to tell us to-morrow.”

But when the next day came he had nothing to tell. He had spent the
night repeating the message, sign for sign and word for word, and
asking for confirmation lest he should have made any mistake in
receiving it. Then in agonised anxiety he had waited for the reply on
which he now felt the fate of mankind depended. It came with a terrible
clearness and brevity, which left no room for doubt--

“Message read correctly. There is no error in our calculations.
Terrestrial humanity is doomed, and must prepare to meet its fate.”

So far as he was concerned he was satisfied. He knew that a mistake was
impossible to the finished science of the Martian astronomers, compared
with whom he was but as a little child in knowledge. But still he kept
his own counsel, for there was no need for him to cast the sudden
shadow of death over the rejoicings of his countrymen.

At length the fleets departed, and Aeria, armed at all points, was
awaiting the possible onslaught of her foes. These she would doubtless
hurl back in triumphant disdain from her bulwarks, but far, far away in
the depths of space, beyond even the range of the great equatorial on
Mount Austral, there was approaching an enemy whose assault men could
only meet with resignation or despair, as the case might be. Resistance
was as much out of the question as escape.

Early on the morning of the 16th, soon after the _Avenger_ had struck
the first blow in the world-war, Vassilis presented himself at the
President’s palace and asked for an interview with him.

The President received him a few minutes later in his private room. It
was the first time in his life that the silent, reserved astronomer had
ever asked for an official interview, and as the President entered the
room he held out his hand, saying--

“Good morning, Vassilis. We have seen very little of you lately, even
less than usual. Have you come to see me about the work which has kept
you from joining in the general rejoicings? I’m sure it must have been
very important.”

“Yes, President, it was--the most important that a terrestrial student
of astronomy could be engaged upon,” replied Vassilis, speaking slowly
and very gravely.

The President looked curiously for a moment into his clear, thoughtful
eyes, and noticed the lines of care on his pale, worn features, so
different to those of the rest of his countrymen. Then he said, with an
anxious ring in his voice--

“What is the matter, Vassilis? You look worn and ill, as though you had
just passed through some great sorrow. Have you been keeping too long
vigils with the stars? Tell me, what is it?”

Vassilis was silent for a moment as though he might have been wondering
whether the President, strong as he was, would have strength to bear
the blow that he must strike in his next sentence. The awful news had
come to him slowly, sign by sign and word by word, and so he had been
in a measure prepared for it when its full meaning became clear. But
upon Alan Arnold it must fall at a single stroke. Still the words had
to be spoken, and after a good minute’s pause he said--

“President, I bring you the most terrible news that one man can bring
to another. The Master’s prophecy is about to be fulfilled. Three
nights ago I received through the photo-telegraph what I believe to be
the death-sentence of humanity upon earth. Here is the transcript of
the message.”

Save for a sudden pallor and a quick uplifting of the eyelids, Alan
Arnold betrayed no more emotion as he took the roll of paper which
Vassilis handed to him, than he had done when he received his son’s
letter from the island.

“It does not come to me unexpected,” he said in his firm quiet tones.
“Your children and mine, Vassilis, are of the fifth generation, and
it was foretold that they should see the sign in the sky. And so the
threatened doom is not to pass us by?”

“No,” replied Vassilis. “Not unless some miracle happens, and there are
no miracles in the astronomy or the mathematics of Mars. The Martians
are long past the age of miracles or mistakes. These are the data and
the calculations upon which the conclusion is based. I have repeated
them back to Mars and received confirmation of them.

“I have also verified the times and distances and velocities myself,
and have been unable to find the slightest error. As far as I can see,
there is not the remotest chance of escape. The human race has only
four months, five days, and twenty-three hours to live from midnight
to-night.”

“It is the will of God!” said the President solemnly, slightly bending
his head as he spoke. “It is not for us to question the designs of
Eternal Wisdom, save in so far as we may strive to understand them.
Death has always been inevitable to all of us, and this will only be
dying together instead of alone. Do you wish anything done with these
calculations?”

“Yes,” said Vassilis. “I would suggest that you appoint a committee of
our best mathematicians and astronomers to examine and verify them once
more, detail by detail, so that assurance may, if possible, be made
surer. I shall receive another message from Mars to-night, and it will
be well for the committee to be with me in the observatory. With the
public aspect of the question I have, of course, nothing to do, that
lies in the hands of yourself and the Council.”

“Very well,” said the President, “what you wish shall be done at once,
and the Council will meet this morning to consider what public steps
are to be taken.”

Within half an hour after the conclusion of the momentous interview the
Council had met, and the most immediate result of its deliberations
on the tremendous tidings that had come from the sister world was the
issue of the order for the instant return of all Aerians who were
abroad which had been delivered to Alan on the deck of the _Avenger_ on
the morning of the 18th.

Immediately on receiving his father’s letter, Alan signalled, “Cease
firing and follow,” to the _Isma_, and the three Aerian vessels started
southward towards Gibraltar, leaving Paris to its fate. At Gibraltar,
which was reached in two hours and a half, he found that, in accordance
with the orders of the Council, messages had already been sent out to
all the stations within the European area of the Federation for all
Aerians to rendezvous at the Rock as soon as possible.

The same orders had been transmitted along the telephonic cables
which connected the marine stations of the Mediterranean for all the
battleships on service to go into their respective harbours, so that
their crews might land and be picked up by air-ships which had already
been despatched for them.

Before the evening Aerian vessels had begun to come in from all parts
of Europe, where they had been stationed, and their crews brought
terrible descriptions of the scenes of carnage and destruction they had
left to obey the summons. The Federation leaders were in despair at
their apparent desertion by their potent allies, while their enemies
were already rejoicing at the disappearance of the Aerian warships from
all points of the scene of war.

By midnight the last Aerian vessel had come in, and, after the command
of the Rock, the last station of which the Aerians retained command,
had been handed over to the British forces, the flotilla, numbering
nearly four hundred warships, rose into the air just as two large
Moslem squadrons, one fresh from the destruction of Paris, and the
other from Alexandria and the east of Europe, converged upon the
Rock, and, without warning, opened a furious fire of shells upon it.
The great guns from the batteries replied, and the fleets, under the
command of Alan and Alexis, after sending a rapid hail of shells among
the Moslem vessels as a parting salute, soared into the upper regions
of the air and headed southward for home, leaving a fiery chaos of
death and destruction behind them.

Two hours after daybreak on the 19th the fleet crossed the Northern
Ridge, and sank to earth on the sloping plateau behind the city. Alan
at once disembarked, and went to his father’s palace to report himself.

The sudden and unexpected return of the fleet, which had left to do
battle for the empire of the world but three days and a half before,
filled all the inhabitants of the Valley with amazement, for no one
outside the Council and the committee appointed to verify the message
received from Mars yet knew of the doom that was menacing the world.

Alan was received at the door of his palace by his father, who, after
their greetings had been exchanged, took him at once to the room in
which the Council were already assembled, and there in the presence of
his colleagues made him acquainted with the reason for his recall.

Inured as he was to the unsparing warfare in which human life had to be
counted as almost a negligible quantity, a warfare in which there was
no middle course between life and death, Alan, after the first shock
of surprise and horror had passed, faced the tremendous crisis with a
calmness and resignation worthy of the traditions of his family and his
race.

For years he had carried his life in his hands, and now that the end of
all things seemed near he was prepared to look inevitable death calmly
in the face. He heard the reading of the message in silence, and then,
when he saw that they were waiting for him to speak, he said quietly--

“What is to be must be! We cannot argue with the workings of the
universe.” Then he paused for a moment, and went on--“I have come back
with my comrades in obedience to orders. May I now ask why, if death is
coming to the whole human race, we were not permitted to die in battle
for the right against the wrong rather than to wait here in inaction
and suspense until we are burnt to death on the funeral pyre of the
world?”

He spoke the last words almost hotly, for the first thought that had
risen in his mind after hearing the doom that was about to overtake
humanity was that the debt he owed to Olga Romanoff must now for ever
remain unpaid at his hands. This thought was so unbearable to him that
before any reply could be made to his question he broke out again, this
time speaking rapidly and almost angrily--

“If, as you tell me, the world has only a few weeks to live, why should
I wait here for death when I have work to do elsewhere? What does it
matter whether I die scorched to a cinder in the fire-mist or am blown
to pieces by a Russian shell? I have a debt to pay, a stain upon my
honour and my manhood to wipe out before I die.

“And so, too, has Alexis. Will you not give us an air-ship and let us
find a crew of volunteers that we may go back to the war and hunt our
enemy, and the enemy of humanity, down, and either destroy her or find
an honourable death in the attempt to do so?”

As he ended his impassioned appeal his father rose from his seat, and
laid his hand upon his shoulder and said gravely, and yet not without a
note of admiration in his voice--

“My son, those are brave and honourable words, and they prove that you
are no unworthy son of the race you belong to. But they are still the
words of passion rather than reason. Remember that in the presence
of the universal doom that now overhangs the human race not only
private vengeance but even the strife of nations sinks into utter
insignificance. A heavier hand than yours will punish the sin for which
she who has wronged you will soon have to answer at the bar of Eternal
Justice. Remember how it was said of old, ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the
Lord. I will repay.’”

“That is true, father,” replied Alan, now speaking in his habitual tone
of respect. “But why should not the instrument of that vengeance be the
hand of him whom she has so bitterly wronged? You know what I mean, and
so do all in this room.

“Has she not so polluted my manhood and stained my honour that I must
meet, apart from Alma, the fate that I could have shared with her with
no more regret than that we had to die instead of live together? Is
it not better that she should know I died in the attempt to wipe that
stain away than see me waiting for death with it still upon me?”

“That is for Alma as well as for you to decide,” said Francis Tremayne,
rising from his seat as he spoke. “How do you know that she is
unwilling to meet her end hand-in-hand with you?”

“I have looked into her eyes and seen no love in them,” replied Alan,
flushing to his temples with shame and anger. “Her old love for me is
dead, as it may well be. How could I expect her purity to mate with
my”--

“Stop, Alan!” exclaimed his father before he had time to utter the
shameful word that was on his lips. “Those are no words for you to
speak or for me to hear, especially at such a time as this. If any
stain ever rested upon you you have more than purged it already. The
man who is found worthy the confidence of the rulers of Aeria is worthy
the respect, if not the love, of any woman in the State. Whether Alma
loves you still or not is a question for her own heart to answer, but
you must not call yourself unworthy in my hearing.”

“Nor yet in mine,” said Alma’s father warmly. “If the shadow of death
had not fallen across all our life-ways as it has done, there is no
man who wears the Golden Wings that I would so willingly see Alma join
hands with as yourself. If I, her father, hold you worthy to live with
her, surely you cannot hold yourself unworthy to die with her.”

As he spoke he held out his hand to Alan, and he, unable to find words
to answer him, grasped it in silence, broken only by a murmur of
approval from the assembled members of the Council.

“Thank you, my friend, for saying that!” said the President to
Tremayne. “Alan can ask no better assurance unless he has it from
Alma’s own lips. But now I have something more to say, something
that will give the true reason for my recall of all the Aerians who
were beyond our borders. Let the words you are now going to hear be
heard with all respect, for they are not mine but those of the Master
himself.”

Amidst an expectant silence he now resumed his place at the head of the
Council table, and bidding Alan and the Vice-President to be seated,
took a long parchment envelope brown with age from the breast of his
tunic and said--

“This contains the last words of him who prophesied the doom with
which humanity now stands confronted, and who thus speaks to us from
the past, and gives us good counsel and comfort in the hour of our
perplexity and sorrow. It has been handed down with its seal unbroken
from father to son for four generations, and now it has fallen to me to
break the seal and read what no eyes but those of Natas and my own have
ever seen. This is the endorsement upon the cover--

  ‘_To the son or daughter of my line who shall be the head of the
  House of Arnold in the fifth generation from me:--When the world is
  threatened with the final ruin that I have foreshadowed, open this
  and read my words to all who are then dwelling in Aeria._

  NATAS.’”

The President paused, and everyone waited with most anxious expectation
as he opened the envelope and took from it four square sheets of
parchment. He unfolded them and went on--

“When Vassilis Cosmo brought me the transcription of the message from
Mars I saw that the time had come to obey the injunction endorsed on
this envelope. I opened it, and this is what I read:--

  ‘The interpretation of the prophecy concerning the possible
  destruction of the world in the fifth generation from now, written by
  me in the twenty-fifth year of the Peace, and commanded to be read
  every fifth year in the ears of the descendants of those now dwelling
  in Aeria.

  ‘When the War of the Terror was over, and there was peace on earth,
  I devoted the declining years of my life to the study of that
  noblest of all sciences which teaches the lore of the stars and the
  constitution of the universe. In the fifteenth year of the Peace,
  that is to say, in the year of the Christian Era 1920, a new star
  appeared towards the constellation of Andromeda, which shone with
  great brilliancy for thirty-five nights, and then faded gradually
  away into the abysses of space.

  ‘Seeking into the causes of this phenomenon, I found that it was due
  to the collision of two opaque bodies beyond the bounds of the solar
  system, which doubtless had been travelling towards each other for
  centuries through space. So enormous was the heat evolved by the
  conversion of the motion of the two bodies, that their materials
  were resolved into their component elements, and what had been two
  bodies as solid as the earth, though immensely larger, now became an
  enormous fire-mist, a chaos of blazing storms and burning billows of
  incandescent matter.

  ‘I observed it closely from the time of its first appearance until
  the most powerful telescope at my command could no longer detect it.
  I found that, vastly remote as it was, the course which it pursued
  until it was lost to view proved that it was still within the sphere
  of the sun’s attraction, and that therefore a time must come when it
  would reach its point of greatest distance, and return.

  ‘Such calculations as I was able to make during the brief period
  of my observation, showed that it would re-enter the confines of
  the solar system in one hundred and twelve years from then, and,
  travelling with constantly accelerated motion would become visible to
  the inhabitants of the earth five years later. I learnt, too, that
  unless it should be deflected from its path by the attraction of
  bodies unknown to terrestrial astronomers it would cross the orbit of
  the earth in the month of September in the year 2037, that is to say,
  in the fifth generation of men from my own day.

  ‘If my calculations are correct, the earth will during that month
  pass through an ocean of fire that will destroy all living things
  upon its surface, both plants and animals.

  ‘For the space of ten hours, or, it may well be, more, while the
  planet is passing through the fire-mist, there will be no water upon
  the face of the earth, but the whole globe will be surrounded with a
  vast nebulous mantle of steam. At the end of this time it will emerge
  from the fiery sea, the steam-cloud will be recondensed and fall in
  a deluge upon the land, and the world, with a changed face, with new
  oceans and new continents, will pursue her impassive way, lifeless,
  through space.

  ‘But even in the face of so tremendous a cataclysm as this, it is
  not for human genius to despair or human faith to be confounded. The
  new earth may be repeopled, and you may be the parents of the new
  humanity. Though innumerable millions shall die, yet the chosen few
  will be saved, if the Master of Destiny shall permit, and from among
  you the chosen few shall come.

  ‘The caverns of Mount Austral are deep and cool, and enclosed by
  walls of living rock, deep rooted in the foundations of the world. In
  those days, if you shall have made good use of the heritage we leave
  you, you shall be almost as gods in skill and knowledge, and you
  shall find a means to make this a fortress whose strength shall defy
  the convulsions of the elements and preserve a remnant of human life
  upon the earth.

  ‘When you have done this, you that remain shall prepare to meet
  the inevitable end, for only a few among your many thousands can
  be saved. Yet, if you have grown in wisdom and faith as well as in
  knowledge and skill, you shall not disquiet yourselves about this,
  for sooner or later death is certain to all, and you will but pass
  together through the shadows instead of singly.

  ‘When the final hour comes, and the breath of the blazing firmament
  is hot upon your brows, may He in whose Hand the fate of worlds and
  races lies, give you strength and wisdom to compose yourselves for
  death as men who know that it is but the dreamless sleep that parts
  to-morrow from to-day.’

“Those are the words of the Master,” said the President, reverently
laying down the parchment sheets on the table before him. “And it is
for us to hear and obey. You will now see why it was necessary for all
our sons that had gone forth to battle to be recalled, for among them
there are many who can justly lay claim to be of the flower of Aerian
manhood.

“To-morrow I will read the message from Mars and the commands of the
Master, in the temple, to a congregation of all the fathers and mothers
in Aeria, and then it shall be their task to prepare their children for
the doom which awaits them in common with the rest of humanity. The
remainder of to-day we will devote to the task of considering how the
commands of the Master may be best obeyed.”




CHAPTER XXVI. SENTENCE OF DEATH.


AT ten o’clock on the following morning the great temple of Aeria was
filled by a congregation of men and matrons who had been summoned
together to hear what may, without exaggeration, be described as the
death-sentence of the world and the funeral oration of the human race.

As had been previously decided by the President and Council, only the
heads of families were present. Of these, some had but just welcomed
their first-born into the world, while others, standing almost on the
brink of the grave, could see their children of the fourth generation
growing up from infancy to youth.

When the President commenced his address by reading in solemnly
impressive tones the prophecy of Natas, those present knew
instinctively what they had been called together to hear. The
possibility of the world being overwhelmed by some tremendous
catastrophe in the fifth generation from the year of the Peace was no
new or unawaited prospect to the Aerians.

Therefore there was no panic, no sudden outburst of sorrow or dismay,
among the grave, earnest congregation assembled in the temple when the
President, having read the prophecy, went on to say--

“It is now my solemn duty as Chief Magistrate of Aeria to tell you, the
heads of the families of our race, that, in the mysterious workings
of destiny, which we can only accept with reverence and resignation,
the time has come for us to prepare to meet, with the fortitude worthy
of our position among the races of mankind, the doom which is as
inevitable as it is universal. The confirmation of the prophecy of
Natas has come to us across the abysses of space from one of those
sister worlds which, as the Master said, should see with fear and
trembling the passing of the messenger of Fate.

“On the night of Tuesday last, Vassilis Cosmo received from the planet
Mars a photogrammic message, the transcription of which into our
language reads thus--

  ‘A cometary body, primarily formed by the meeting of two extinguished
  astral spheres at 10 hrs. 38 min. 42 sec. on the night of the 13th
  of October, in the year 1920, terrestrial reckoning, will cross the
  orbit of the earth at 11 hrs. 55 min. 22 sec. on the night of the
  23rd of September next, time corrected to the meridian of Aeria.

  ‘At this hour the earth will arrive at the point of intersection,
  and will pass obliquely through the central portion or nucleus of
  the body. This portion is composed of incandescent metallic gases
  interspersed with semi-fluid masses, which on contact with the
  earth’s atmosphere will probably be vaporised.

  ‘The constituents of the incandescent nucleus are iron, gold,
  tellurium, chromium, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon, with smaller
  quantities of many other substances which spectrum analysis will
  disclose to you on the appearance of the comet which will become
  visible from Aeria at 8 hrs. 13 min. P.M. on the 15th of July,
  when its right ascension will be 15 hrs. 24 min. 17 sec, and its
  declination north 10 deg. 42 min. 17 sec. Here follow the detailed
  calculations upon which the foregoing conclusions are based.’

“With these calculations,” continued the President, “this is neither
the time nor the place to deal, for I know that all here will be
satisfied when I say that for the last three days they have been
submitted to the critical examination of our best astronomers and
mathematicians, and that not the slightest flaw has been found in them.

“This being so, the only course left open to us as reasonable beings is
to prepare to look the inevitable in the face, and to play our part in
the closing scene of the life-drama of humanity as men and women who
believe that the life we are living here is but a stage on our journey
through infinity, and that the fiery sign which will soon appear in the
heavens will be to us but a beacon light on the ultimate shore of Time
casting a guiding ray over the ocean of Eternity.”

He paused for a moment and looked down upon the hushed throng at his
feet. The instantaneous silence was broken by a long, low, inarticulate
murmur. Thousands of pale faces were upturned towards him, from
thousands of eyes there came one appealing upward glance, and then
every head in the great assembly was bowed in silence and resignation.

The death-sentence had been passed. There was no appeal from it, and
there was no rebellion against it. The voice of Fate had spoken, and it
was not for such men as the Aerians to sacrifice their reason or their
dignity by cavilling at it.

The President bent his head with the rest, and for several moments
there was silence throughout the vast area of the temple. Then he took
up from the desk in front of the rostrum the four sheets of parchment
which contained the last message and commands of Natas, and read them
out to the assembly.

The perusal was listened to in breathless silence. It was like his
voice speaking across the generations from the urn containing his ashes
and standing there in their midst. When the President had finished, he
laid the sheets down again and said--

“Thus the eye of the Master, looking across the years which separated
his day from ours, has seen one gleam of light, one ray of hope
piercing the black pall of desolation which is about to fall upon the
world, and it is for us to follow where he has pointed the way.

“I have now discharged the first part of the solemn and terrible duty
which has devolved upon me. It is now for you to communicate the
tidings you have heard to your families, a task which, however awful
it may be for loving parents to be charged with, you will yet find
strength to perform, even as your children shall find strength to hear
their inevitable doom from those lips which will best know how to
soften the tidings of death to them.

“When you have done this we will set about making the choice of those
who, if it shall please the Master of Destiny, shall be the Children
of Deliverance and the parents of the new race that shall repeople the
earth when cosmos once more succeeds to chaos.

“If that shall be permitted, then we, who shall never see the new
world, may yet go down to the grave knowing that we shall live again
in our children, for these will be the children, not only of a few
families among us, but sons and daughters of Aeria, the most perfect
flower of our race, and in them, if we choose them wisely, the world,
purged by fire of the dross of human wickedness, will find a new
destiny, and the Golden Age shall return to earth once more.”

As the President finished speaking, he held up his hands as though in
blessing, and once more every head was bent. Then the great doors of
the temple swung open, the assembly divided into four streams, and
passed silently as a congregation of shadows out of the building.

That night the story of the world’s approaching doom was told in every
home in Aeria. Children on the threshold of youth learnt that for them
youth would never come; youths and maidens on the verge of manhood
and womanhood learnt that the bright promise of their lives could now
never be fulfilled; and lovers just about to join hands for life saw
the grave opening at their feet, and parting them in their earthly
personalities for ever. That they would meet again upon a higher plane
of existence was the first and most firmly held article of their faith,
but so far as the affairs of this world were concerned the end was in
sight.

In a less highly developed, a less perfectly organised, state of
society, the almost immediate result would have been the end of all
control, and the dissolution of all but the most elementary bonds of
interest or affection that exist between men and men.

But in Aeria this was not possible. The firm belief, ingrained into
the very being of all who had reached the age of thought, that where
men left off here, whether in good or evil, they would begin their
lives again hereafter, precluded even the thought of such a lapse into
social anarchy and individual sin.

For, happily for them, the union of true religion with true philosophy
had now been accomplished in a national faith, and the result was that
even the terrors of the universal end which was so near failed to shake
the fortitude that was founded on a basis firmer than that of the world
itself.

Though every home in the valley had its tragedy that night, a tragedy
too sacred in its unspeakable solemnity for any mere words to describe
it, when the next morning came the first bitterness of death had
already passed.

Saving only the little children, who, too young to understand, laughed
and played and sang in the sunlight as usual, in happy unconsciousness
of their coming fate, the dwellers in Aeria rose with the next sunrise
from their sleepless couches and went about their daily associations
much as they had done the day before.

They did so rather as a matter of routine and discipline than of
necessity, for now nothing more was necessary on earth. They had ample
supplies of food to last them beyond the time when they would have no
more need of it. It was of no use to dress the gardens and vineyards,
or to till the fields that would be blasted into wildernesses before
the harvest could be reaped.

There was no need to pursue further the triumphs of creative art and
science which had transfigured Aeria into a paradise and a fairyland,
for in a few weeks all these would be crumbled to dust with their own
sepulchres--and yet they took up the work that lay nearest to their
hands and went on with it as though they believed that there were still
ages of life before humanity, and that the empire of Aeria was to
endure for ever.

They knew that in work only lay the refuge from the torment of
apprehension which might in the end drive even their highly disciplined
minds into the delirium of despair and transform their orderly paradise
into a pandemonium of anarchy and terror.

As soon as the first shock of inevitable horror had passed, as it did
during that first terrible night when the death-sentence went from lip
to lip throughout the land, their proud spirits rose superior to their
physical fears and conquered them, and they resolved that, until the
fatal hour came, nothing short of the dissolution of the world should
put an end to social order in Aeria.

They were the royal race of earth, and when death came they would meet
it crowned and sceptred in the gates of their palaces, and die as men
who had solved the secret of life and death and so had no fear.

With the war that was raging beyond their borders they had now
no personal concern. The quarrels of men and nations were as the
bickerings of children in the presence of the fate that would so soon
involve the world in ruin. And yet the rulers of Aeria were not willing
that this fate should overtake their fellow-men in the delirium of
blood-drunkenness.

They recognised that their duty to the nations bade them send the
warning of the world’s approaching fate far and wide through the earth
and call for the cessation of strife, so that humanity might set its
house in order and prepare to meet its end.

Whether the warning would be received or not was another matter. It was
possible that both the Tsarina and the Sultan would laugh it to scorn,
and pursue their path of now certain conquest through carnage and
devastation to the end. That, however, was their concern.

As soon as the Council decided to despatch an envoy to summon the
warring nations to cease their strife for the now more than ever
worthless prizes of earthly empire, and to prepare for the cataclysm
which would so soon dissolve all empires and kingdoms to nothing in the
fiery crucible of the coming chaos, Alan at once renewed his petition
and asked to be allowed to man the _Avenger_ with a crew of volunteers
and convey the warning to the Sultan and the Tsarina.

Since his second return to Aeria no word of love had passed between
him and Alma. He was still too proud to become a suitor even to her,
knowing as he did that she had looked upon him as polluted by his
involuntary relations with Olga. As before, they had met as friends
whose friendship was warmed by the memory of an early but bygone love.

They had talked calmly and dispassionately of the coming end of earthly
things, but neither of them had let fall any hint of a desire to meet
it hand and hand with the other. His lips were sealed by the pride and
anger of humiliation and hers by a spiritual exaltation which in the
presence of approaching death raised her above the consideration of
earthly love to the contemplation of even more solemn and holier things.

Then there happened an entirely unexpected event, which completely
changed their relationship in an instant. On the third day after the
delivery of the message in the temple a company composed of twenty
old men, the heads of the noblest families in Aeria, presented to the
President in Council, a petition, signed by every father and mother
in the nation, praying that all in whose veins flowed the blood of
Natas, Richard Arnold, and Alan Tremayne should, irrespective of all
other considerations, be included among those who were destined to
seek in the caverns of Mount Austral the one chance of escape from the
universal doom.

So obvious and so weighty were the reasons advanced in support of the
petition that when, like all other matters of State, it was put to the
vote of the Council, the only dissentient voices were those of the
President and the Vice-President.

The immediate effect of this decision--from which, by the laws of
Aeria, there was no appeal--was that Alma, Isma, and Alan were exempted
from the ordeal of selection and numbered beforehand among the Children
of Deliverance.

The President took upon himself the duty of communicating this decision
to those whom it so deeply concerned. He told Alan first, and this was
the half-expected reply that he received--

“No, father, I have never disobeyed you or the Council, as you know,
but I tell you now frankly that I will not take advantage of what is
after all only the accident of birth to save my life in such a crisis
as this.

“Not only are there thousands of others in Aeria as good as I am, but
I have already told you that, save under one condition, which you know
as well as I do can never be realised, I have not the slightest desire
to survive the ruin of the world. You may call this disobedience,
rebellion, if you will, but it is my last resolve, and in such a time
as this one does not make resolves lightly.”

Alan said this standing facing his father in his private study. The
President looked at him for a moment or two with eyes which, though
grave, were neither reproving nor reproachful. Then he said with the
shadow of a smile upon his lips--

“It is both disobedience and rebellion, my son, but though the Chief
Magistrate must condemn it, your father cannot. I know, too, that not
even the Council of Aeria can now enforce its commands. After all, the
last penalty is but death, and that is a mockery now.

“I fully understand, too, the spirit in which you refuse the reprieve
from the general doom, and prefer instead a mission which can scarcely
end save in honourable death. It is the most noble one that you can
choose, and you of all other men are the man to perform it.

“You have shown our enemies that you can strike hard in battle, so if
they believe anyone they will believe you when you go to them with a
message of peace enforced by such a solemn warning as you will take.”

“Thank you, father,” replied Alan simply, “not for what you say of me,
but for the consent that your words imply. But what about the air-ship
and her crew? I can do nothing without them, yet I cannot have them
without the consent of the Council. Can you get that for me?”

“I believe so,” said the President. “And if I can I will, since you are
resolved to go, and since the honour of our name compels me to consent.
But I must tell you that I feel sure that it will only be given
conditionally.”

“And what will the condition be?”

“That if you survive your mission you will return to Aeria before the
end comes. They will have a right to demand that, for it is no part of
your duty to deprive your companions of the chance of life, slender
though it may be, that will remain for those who may be among the
chosen.”

“That is true,” replied Alan, bending his head in acquiescence. “If we
escape with our lives they shall return, though I shall not”--

“You will not return, Alan? Why, where are you going? Surely you are
not going to leave Aeria again, and at such a time as this; you, who
are already one of the chosen, a first-born son of the Master’s line!”

It was Alan’s mother who spoke. She had entered the room just as he
had uttered the last sentence, and the ominous words struck a sudden
chill to her heart. She came towards him with her eyes full of tears of
apprehension and her hands stretched out pleadingly towards him.

Now that the first terror of the crisis was past, and there was
one definite, however slender, hope of safety, she clung to it
passionately for Alan’s sake with a faith that made light of all the
fearful difficulties which lay in the way of its realisation. In the
sublime egotism of her mother-love the fate of a world shrank into
insignificance in comparison with the one chance of safety for her only
son.

“Yes, mother,” replied Alan, taking her hands in his and bending down
until his lips touched her upturned brow. “I am going to leave Aeria
again to proclaim the Truce of God against the hour of His judgment,
and I have just told my father that I shall not return”--

“No, no, my boy, you must not say that. You must not rob us of the one
ray of light in this awful darkness that is falling upon us--of our
one hope in all the world’s despair!” cried his mother, letting go his
hands and laying her own upon his shoulders as she looked up into his
face with eyes that were now overflowing with tears.

“You will not leave us now, surely, for if we lost you we could not
even take the chance of life ourselves, for it would not be worth
having.”

“Nor would it be worth having, my mother, either to you or to me,” he
replied, gently laying his hand on hers, “if I lived and left untried
the attempt that it is my plain duty to make. You would see me a lonely
and unmated man among the parents of the new race, a man with a shadow
upon his name, and the memory of an unfulfilled duty behind him.

“Remember that it is I who have brought the guilt of blood back
again upon earth. Would you have me outlive all the millions of my
fellow-creatures with the knowledge that I had not made one effort to
bring back that peace on earth which was lost through me before the
last summons comes to all humanity?”

“Alan is right, wife,” interrupted the President, before she could make
any reply to her son’s appeal. “It is his duty to save, if he can, his
fellow-creatures from being overwhelmed in the midst of their madness
and their sin. Remember that, according to our faith, as all these
millions, who are now drunk with battle and slaughter, and mad with the
rage of conquest and revenge, end this life, so they must begin the
next.

“There is time for him to speak and for them to hear, but whether they
hear him or not, if he has spoken he has done his duty. Is it not
better that if needs be he should die doing it than live and leave it
undone?”

The weighty words, spoken as they were in a tone of blended affection
and authority, found a fitting echo in his wife’s breast. She stood
for a moment between her husband and her son, looking from the one to
the other. Then she dried her tears, and replied in a tone of gentle
dignity and resignation--

“Yes, I see. You are right and I was wrong. It is his duty to go, and
he must go. But,” she continued, turning to Alan with the sudden light
of a new hope in her eyes, “if I bid you ‘God-speed,’ my son, you will
promise one thing, won’t you?”

“Yes, mother, I will--whatever it is.”

“Then promise me that if it shall be proved possible for you to live in
happiness as well as in honour, you will come back.”

“Yes,” he replied, smiling gravely as he once more took her
outstretched hands. “I will promise that as gladly as I would promise
to enter Heaven if I saw the gates open before me.”

“Then you shall go, and God go with you and bring you back in safety
to us!” she said. Then, turning abruptly, she went out of the room,
leaving them both wondering at her words.

This took place early on the morning of the 21st of May. An hour later
the President had applied in Alan’s name for the permission of the
Council for him to select a crew of twenty volunteers and to take
the _Avenger_ to Europe on his mission to the warring peoples and to
proclaim peace on earth and breathing space for humanity to prepare for
its end. But then a new difficulty presented itself. Alexis, in spite
of all Alan’s remonstrances to the contrary, declared that he should
never leave Aeria without him.

“I have shared in your exile and your return,” he said, in answer to
all arguments, “and, by the honour of the Golden Wings, I swear that I
will either go with you now or you shall see me fall dead the moment
that you leave the earth!”

This was the only oath that ever was heard upon the lips of an Aerian,
and it was irrevocable, so, as there was no choice, Alan was forced to
consent, and Alexis made ready to bid a last farewell to Aeria and all
its dear associations.




CHAPTER XXVII. ALMA SPEAKS.


THAT night Alan, with his heart too full even for the society of his
own home, went out of the city a little before midnight and walked down
towards the western shore of the lake, where there still stood the same
grove of palms in which, more than a hundred and thirty years before,
Natasha and Richard Arnold had plighted their despairing troth and
under the shadow of what threatened to be an eternal separation spoken
the first words of love that had ever passed their lips.

It was not altogether accident that guided his steps in this direction,
for all day he had been reviewing the strange chain of events which
united the fate of his ancestors with his own, and it was natural that
the most romantic episode in their lives should inspire him with a
desire to see the scene of it once more.

So it came about that he stood, on what he believed to be his last
night in Aeria, beneath the self-same ancient palms which five
generations before had heard Natasha confess her love for the man who
had sworn to give her in exchange for it that empire of peace which he,
their descendant, had been the means of losing.

The story was, of course, familiar to him in its minutest details,
and as he stood there, his own heart heavy with a hopeless sorrow, he
pictured his great ancestor standing on the same spot, holding the
means of universal conquest in his hands, and yet accounting all things
as worthless because the empire within his grasp must lack the supreme
crown of a woman’s love.

Then, looking back through the mists of the years that had gone by
since then, he seemed to see the very shape of the Angel moving over
the soft green sward where now the broad marble-paved roadway gleamed
white beneath the trees, and to hear the musical murmur of her voice
even as Richard Arnold had heard it on that eventful night.

“Alan!”

Was he dreaming, or was it the voice of his ancestress speaking to his
soul in that hour of his lonely sorrow? A pale, shimmering, ghostly
shape flitted across the quivering plumes of the palm-trees, dropped
softly to the ground, and Alma stood before him in the well of her
aerial boat.

Before his amazement had permitted him to utter a word she had stepped
out and was coming towards him with outstretched hands, saying--

“They told me I should find you here. Alan, I have come to ask you to
forgive me if you--before you go upon this mission of yours, if go you
must.”

“To forgive you, Alma!” he exclaimed, recoiling a pace in sheer
astonishment at her presence and her words. “What can I have to forgive
_you_? Is it not rather”--

“No, Alan, it is not,” she said quickly, still holding out her hands to
him and looking up at him with faintly flushed cheeks and shining eyes.
“I see it all clearly now. Isma was right. It is I who have sinned
against you, and it is for me to ask forgiveness.”

“How can you ask that of me, Alma? How have you harmed me?” he asked,
still bewildered by her beauty and the enigmas that she spoke in, yet
taking her hands, and, as if by instinct, drawing her towards him.

“I will answer that afterwards,” she said quickly, as though inspired
by some sudden thought. “But tell me, first, are you quite resolved to
go upon this mission?”

“Yes,” he said with an almost imperceptible quiver in his voice. “Have
I not had a great, if not a guilty, share in bringing this curse upon
the world, and is it not fitting that I should give my last days to the
task, however hopeless, of bringing back peace on earth so that men may
die sane and not mad?”

“But, Alan, is that a higher duty than you owe to your family and your
people? You know that in you centre all their hopes for the future,
if there is to be one. With you would die the name of Arnold, and the
direct line of Natas and Natasha.”

“And with me they would die even if I went with the Children of
Deliverance into the caverns of Mount Austral and survived the ruin of
the world. How can you mock me like that, Alma? Have I not suffered
enough for my weakness and my folly that you would condemn me to wander
an exile in the wilderness that the world will be when it has passed
through its baptism of fire?

“What is the swift death of battle or the short agony of the
conflagration of the world compared with the long death-in-life that I
should drag out alone in the new world that may arise from the ruins of
this one?”

“And why alone, Alan?”

“Why alone? Can you ask me that, Alma? Surely you are mocking me now.
Can you ask why I should be alone if I survived with the remnant of our
people? Do you not even yet know why I choose the certainty of death
rather than the chance of life?”

“But, Alan, what if I were to tell you that you would not go alone to
the caverns, and that if the chosen few survive you will not wander
alone on the wilderness of the new world?”

“I should tell you, Alma, that you meant to sacrifice yourself to save
me, and that I would not accept the sacrifice even at your hands.”

“Sacrifice! No, Alan, I would not outlive the world, even with you,
on those terms. A woman of Aeria does not sell herself even for
sentiment. This is no time for secrets or false shame, and I tell you
frankly that if you had accepted the order of the Council, you should
have lived and I would have died.

“But your rebellion proved to me that Isma was right when she rebuked
my false pride by saying that the man who has fallen and risen again is
better and stronger than he who has never suffered”--

“But, Alma, remember”--

“No, you must not interrupt me now, or what ought to be said may never
be spoken. I know what you were going to say. You were going to tell me
to remember that Olga Romanoff is still alive. Let her live--and let
God judge her for her sins in the judgment that is so soon to come!
What have we to do with her?”

“Nothing, Alma, after you have said that, for it tells me that in
your eyes the stain is purged and the fault forgiven. I will take the
message to her as to the rest of the world. If she receives it in peace
then there shall be peace, and God shall judge between us”--

“And if not?”

“Then I will pit my single ship against hers and her fleet and only one
of us, if either, shall see the end.”

“And if that is you--what then?”

“Then it will be for you--under Heaven--to speak the words of life or
death, for only you can bid me live, Alma.”

[Illustration: “ONLY YOU CAN BID ME LIVE, ALMA.” _Page 317._]

As he spoke the great lights on the mountain tops suddenly blazed
out, shone for a few moments, and were extinguished again. It was the
answering signal to one from Mars; but it joined two souls as well as
two worlds, for by its light Alan saw on Alma’s face and in her eyes
the one reprieve from death that honour would permit him to accept.

Without waiting for the words that her now smiling lips were opening to
utter, he took her unresisting in his arms. Then her proudly carried,
wing-crowned head drooped at last in sweet submission, and rested on
his heart; and as he turned her face up to his to take his kiss of
re-betrothal, he said--

“That tells me that I may live. Now we are immortal, you and I, for
this kiss is our eternity!”

Then their lips met, and for the instant Time had no more beginning
or end. The impending ruin of the world was forgotten; for Love had
spoken, and the very voice of Doom itself was silent amidst the
happiness of their heedless souls.




CHAPTER XXVIII. THE SIGN IN THE SKY.


WHEN the news of what had happened at midnight in the palm grove was
published the next morning far and wide through the valley of Aeria it
would have been impossible to imagine that an irrevocable sentence of
death was overhanging the land and all its inhabitants, save those who
were to be selected to take the one chance that remained of surviving
the chaos that was to come.

There was no one in the valley to whom Alan’s story was not familiar in
all its details, there was not a single heart that had not in the midst
of its own happiness sympathised with him and Alma in their sorrow,
and so, when that sorrow was at last turned into joy, everyone forgot
for the moment the fate whose approach was so near and so certain, and
rejoiced with them in the happiness that was great enough to raise them
above the gloom that was already stealing over the world.

But in the midst of the general rejoicing came the decision of the
Council upon the request which Alan had submitted to his father, and
this, though he was forced to confess it wise and just, was by no means
what, in his enthusiasm, he could have wished. The rulers of Aeria
absolutely refused to permit any of the air-ships to leave the valley
for at least two months to come.

They recognised with perfect approval the nobility of the resolve which
Alan had taken to carry the message of the world’s approaching end to
those nations which he had been, partially at least, responsible for
plunging into the horrors of war, but they insisted that the concerns
of Aeria must, in their eyes, take precedence of those of the outside
world.

There was much to do, and the time for doing it was short. What was
perhaps the greatest engineering task in the history of the world had
to be conceived and completed within the next four months, and as Alan
and Alexis were admittedly the two most skilful practical engineers in
the State, the Council declined to allow them to run the almost certain
risk of death at the hands of their enemies when their knowledge and
skill ought to be devoted to the work of ensuring, as far as possible,
the preservation of that remnant of the human race who should be
destined to seek safety in the caverns of Mount Austral.

When the completion of that work was made certain, then permission
would be freely given to them and their companions to go forth and
proclaim their warning to the world, subject only to the condition that
they were to take every precaution consistent with the honour of their
race to return while there was yet time for them to take their places
among the Children of Deliverance should the selection fall upon them.

Meanwhile, telephonic messages were to be sent to all those portions
of the world with which Aeria was still in communication, conveying
the exact terms of the warning that had been received from Mars, and
calling upon the astronomers in all the observatories on the globe to
verify the calculations for themselves, and publish their conclusions
to their respective nations as quickly as possible.

With these terms Alan was of necessity obliged to be content. Indeed,
when he came to review them in sober thought, he saw that, while
nothing was to be lost, much was to be gained by submission to them.

Though he still refused, even in spite of the knowledge that he would
share with Alma the future if there was to be one, to obey the order of
the Council which exempted him from the ordeal of selection, he thought
and worked with just as much ardour as though the safety of the whole
of the dwellers in Aeria, as well as his own, hung upon his efforts.

The caverns of Mount Austral, like those of other limestone formations
in various parts of the world, had been formed in some remote
geological period by the solvent action of water charged with carbonic
gas upon the limestone rocks.

The entrance to them, discovered very soon after the valley had been
colonised by the Terrorists in the first decade of the twentieth
century, was situated on the inner slopes of the mountain about eight
hundred feet above the level of the lake, which occupied the central
portion of the valley.

This lake, although fed by hundreds of streams from the surrounding
mountains, always preserved the same level, in spite of the fact that
it had no visible outlet. Those who first explored the caverns found
the explanation of this phenomenon.

Below the floors of the vast chambers which penetrated the heart of the
mountain for a distance of nearly three miles there ran a deep chasm,
through which rushed in a black, swift, silent stream the surplus
waters of the lake. This stream was nearly a thousand feet below the
entrance to the caverns and half that distance below the floor of the
lowest chambers and galleries.

The scheme conceived by Alan and Alexis and their fellow-workers was
in fact nothing less than the damming of this subterranean stream by a
mighty sluice-gate composed of one huge sheet of metal which, running
down into grooves cut in the solid rock and metal-sheathed, should
completely close the inner mouth of the tunnel by which the waters
entered the caverns.

This, once successfully fixed in its place, would deprive the lake
of its only known outlet. The streams would go on flowing from the
mountains and the waters of the lake would rise. The upper entrance
would, when the fatal moment came, also be closed, not by one such
door, but by three that would slide down one behind the other in the
upper tunnel, which, with a diameter of about thirty feet and a height
of almost fifty, ran for nearly a quarter of a mile from the side of
the mountain to the first of the chambers.

The spaces between these doors would be filled with ice artificially
frozen, and shafts to allow for expansion should the ice melt and the
water boil would run from them vertically, piercing the mountain-side.
When the waters rose to the level of the entrance the doors would be
lowered and the space filled with water and frozen. Then the waters
would go on rising, the entrance would be submerged, and the defences
of the fortress in which the remnant of humanity was to make its last
stand for life would be complete.

But in addition to these outer defences there was an enormous amount of
work to be done in fitting the interior of the caverns to receive those
for whom they were to form an asylum.

They were already lighted by myriads of electric lamps, but the source
of light was outside, and this had to be replaced by power-stations
inside. Provision had to be made for keeping the air pure and vital,
for supplying food and drink for an almost indefinite time, and for
storing up a sufficiency of seeds and roots and treasures of art and
creative skill, so that the new world might be clothed again with
verdure and nothing essential of the splendid civilisation of Aeria be
lost.

Such, in the briefest outline, was the momentous task to which the
Aerians devoted all their splendid genius and unconquerable energies,
and day by day and week by week they toiled at it, while the fatal hour
which was to witness the last agony of man upon earth swiftly drew
nearer and nearer.

The messages to the outside world had been sent and replied to. Those
to the astronomers and to the governments of the Federation had been
acknowledged in formal terms, which thinly concealed the incredulity
with which they had been received.

Olga had treated the message with the silent disdain of a conquering
autocrat--such, as in sober truth, she now was. The Sultan had replied
to it in a despatch in which the dignity of a victorious despot and the
fatalism of the religious fanatic were characteristically blended.
Then one by one the telephonic communications with the various parts of
the world ceased; messages were sent out and repeated, but no answer
came back.

First Europe, then Britain, then South Africa, America, and Australia,
ceased to respond to the signals; and by the beginning of July Aeria
was completely isolated from the rest of the world--probably the only
stronghold that now remained unsubdued by the conquering fleets of the
Sultan and the Tsarina.

Still the sentinel ships, hanging high in air over the valley, and
constantly patrolling the outer slopes of the mountains, saw no sign
of hostile approach. The last messages that had been received from the
great cities of the Federation had told brief but fearful stories of
the desolation that was following in the path of Moslem and Russian
conquest.

The bridges of Gibraltar and the Bosphorus had been forced, and
thousands after thousands of Moslem troops had been poured into Europe.
Frenzied by fanaticism and the new-born lust of battle and conquest,
the hordes of Asiatic tribesmen who had escaped the one terrific
onslaught of the fleet under the command of Alexis had, now that the
guardian ships were withdrawn, been hurried through Russia, and hurled
upon the wealthy and almost defenceless cities of Western Europe.

The Federation was on the point of utter collapse, divided in its
counsels, confused in its plans of defence, its armies undisciplined,
and its fleets disorganised and daily diminishing in number and
effectiveness.

In America, Australia, and Southern Africa there was anarchy on earth
and terror in the air. Cities had been terrorised into capitulation
by aerial squadrons, and then looted and burnt, and their ruins given
up to be the miserable prey of the revolutionaries who now, as ever,
had taken advantage of the universal panic to revolt against all
government, and deny all rights but that which they claimed to prey
upon the helpless, all liberty that was not license, and all property
that was not plunder.

The last tidings of all that came from Europe were received from
Britain, and, after recounting the destruction of London and the
collapse of the Government, concluded with the news that Olga had
publicly embraced the faith of Islam, and, in conjunction with the
Sultan, whom she was to marry as soon as the conquest of Europe was
finally complete, was forcibly converting her Russian subjects to the
creed of the Koran.

So the affairs of the world stood when the sun went down on the 15th
of July. On the meridian of Aeria it set at nine minutes to eight; at
thirteen minutes past eight, according to the calculations made by the
Martian and verified by the Aerian astronomers, the herald of Fate
would approach within the range of terrestrial vision.

Before the brief period of tropical twilight had passed every telescope
in the valley was turned to that spot in the constellation of Andromeda
at which it was predicted to become visible. As the revolving earth
swept Aeria into the shadow of night every light was extinguished, for
it was known that the astronomers of Mars would be anxiously watching
for a signal that would announce the correctness or the error of their
calculations.

Vassilis Cosmo, seated at the eye-piece of the great equatorial
telescope on Mount Austral, with his hand on the switch which
controlled the electric currents that were waiting to do his bidding,
watched the fields of space darken, and the stars of Andromeda shine
out. Just a little below the line which joins the Square of Pegasus
with the constellation of Cassiopeia, he saw, as usual, the oval,
luminous cloud of the great nebula in Andromeda.

Four degrees towards the zenith, above the centre of the star-cloud,
a tiny fan-shaped spray, faint and pale as a dissolving puff of white
smoke, was floating in the black abyss of space. Precisely at the
thirteenth minute of the hour he turned the switch, and the great
suns on the mountain-tops blazed out and flashed the signal to the
sister-world to tell its inhabitants that their prediction had been
fulfilled to the second.




CHAPTER XXIX. THE TRUCE OF GOD.


BY the 30th of July the work in the caverns was so far advanced that
the Council was able to authorise the departure of Alan and his
companions for the outside world. The great vertical sluice-door, a
huge sheet of steel forty feet long, twenty wide, and eighteen inches
thick, and footed with a great indiarubber pad, was in its place,
suspended at the top of the steel-lined grooves, which had been sunk
three feet into each of the rock walls of the chasm into which the
water-tunnel from the lake opened.

On the morning of the 30th it was sent down into its final position.
The momentous experiment proved completely successful. The huge mass
of metal descended slowly over the mouth of the tunnel into the black,
swift stream at the bottom of the chasm. As its enormous weight crushed
the indiarubber pad down into all the inequalities of the floor the
outrush of the waters instantly stopped, and the channel ran dry save
for the fierce jets of water which spouted out over the top of the
plate.

The crevices through which these came were easily plugged, and when
this was done it was found that the waters of the lake were rising at
the rate of three feet an hour. This proved that, whether the lake had
another outlet or not, the damming of the subterranean channels would
be quite sufficient to flood the whole valley.

The gate was then raised again, and the waters permitted to flow as
before. The triple doors at the entrance to the cavern were already
in position when this was done, as the task of placing them had
necessarily been much easier than the construction of the water-gate.
Nothing but details now remained to be completed, and there was
therefore no reason for any further postponement of Alan’s mission.

Alexis had also succeeded in carrying his point, and getting permission
to accompany Alan in the _Isma_. He had had no difficulty in satisfying
the Council that the risk would be enormously diminished by sending
two air-ships instead of one, for while Alan descended to the earth to
convey his message to a hostile city, he would be able to remain in the
air, dominating it with his guns, and ready to lay it in ruins if the
flag of truce were not respected.

But the two friends had gained even more than this, for in answer to
their earnest pleadings, in which it may be suspected they were not
altogether unsupported by those as vitally concerned as themselves,
a joint family council had decided that, under the unparalleled
circumstances of the case, there was no valid reason for refusing
consent to their immediate union with the two faithful brides who had
waited so long and so patiently for their lords.

Therefore, on the morning of the 31st, it came to pass that they stood
upon the spot sanctified by the ashes of their great ancestors, and
took each other for man and wife, for life or death, as the hazard of
the world’s fate might decide, in the presence of a vast congregation
of those who stood with feet already touching the brink of the valley
of the shadow of death.

No bridal so strange or solemn had ever been celebrated in the world
before. It was human love and hope and genius, serene and confident
in the presence of the most awful catastrophe that had ever befallen
humanity, defying the fate that was about to overwhelm a world in
destruction.

That evening, as the sun was touching the tops of the western
mountains, the last preparations for the voyage were completed, the
last farewells exchanged, and the _Isma_ and the _Avenger_, now renamed
the _Alma_ by the hands of her name-mother, rose into the air amid
salvoes of aerial artillery, and winged their way northward over the
Ridge.

As they sped out over the plains of Northern Africa the sun sank,
and out of the north-western heavens shone the luminous haze of the
Fire-Cloud, which had now grown in visible magnitude until the two
fan-like wings which spread out from its central nucleus spanned an arc
of twenty degrees in the heavens.

As the two air-ships sped on their northward course towards Alexandria,
where Alan had decided to make his first attempt to stay the progress
of the world-war, the two pairs of new-wedded lovers watched with
anxious eyes from the decks of their flying craft the terrible portent
in the skies whose meaning they above all others on earth were so well
qualified to read.

There could be no doubt now, even apart from all the elaborate
calculations which had been made, that the prediction of the Martian
astronomers was far more likely to be fulfilled than contradicted by
the event.

Yet, so great was the happiness they found in this strange fulfilment
of the faint hopes of years of almost hopeless waiting that, even
as they journeyed on through the night with this threatening sign
of approaching ruin pouring its angry light out of the skies, their
talk was still rather of love and life and hope than of the death and
desolation which they knew to be overhanging their race with such
remorseless certainty.

They had lived and loved, and their love had found fruition. What
more could they have asked of Fate than this, even if they could have
prolonged their lives indefinitely by a mere effort of will? As Alan
had said to Alma at the moment of their re-betrothal in the palm-grove,
they were immortal now, and for them the death of a world was but an
accident on the onward progress of an evolution in which such souls as
theirs, veritable sparks of the divine fire itself, were the dominating
factors.

As the Fire-Cloud paled in the West, and the eastern heavens brightened
with the fore-glow of the coming dawn, the captains of the two vessels
were roused by the signals from the conning-towers which told them that
Alexandria was in sight.

As soon as he got on deck Alan signalled to the _Isma_ to come close
alongside. As she did so and the morning greetings were exchanged, Alma
appeared on deck, and suggested that Alexis and Isma should come and
have breakfast on board the flagship, so that the two captains could
discuss their final plans before descending to the city.

The invitation was of course accepted, and an hour later the _Alma_
commenced her descent towards the Sultan’s palace, above which, from a
lofty flagstaff, the banner of Islam was floating lazily in the early
morning breeze. She flew no other ensign save a broad white flag of
truce that streamed out from the signal-mast at her stern.

The whole city seemed asleep, secure in the conquests that had already
been won. A single air-ship floated two thousand feet above the palace,
and as he approached her Alan, keeping her well under his guns, flew
from his mainmast the signal--“We come in peace. Will you respect the
flag?”

The Moslem captain saw at a glance that a single shell would annihilate
his vessel, and that the _Alma_ was perfectly protected by her consort,
circling two thousand feet above him, so he signalled, “Yes, come
alongside.” The _Alma_ descended and swung round until she came on a
level with the Moslem vessel, then she ran alongside within speaking
distance, the doors of the deck-chambers were opened, and Alan, after
exchanging salutes, asked her captain whether the Sultan was in his
capital.

“Yes,” replied the Moslem. “He is down yonder in his palace awaiting
the coming of the Tsarina, for they are to join hands to-day and reign
lord and mistress of the world they have conquered.”

“Is the world, then, conquered?” asked Alan, with a smile on his lips
and a note of scornful pity in his voice.

“Yes,” said the Moslem. “East and west, north and south, the world is
ours, saving only your own little land, and for that, I suppose, you
have come to make terms of peace.”

“I have not come to make terms of peace for Aeria, but for the world,”
replied Alan gravely. “But of that I must speak with your master. When
will he be able to give me an audience?”

“That I cannot say,” was the reply, “or even that he will hear you
at all. But, pardon! I did not know that the angels of Paradise
accompanied the Aerians on their voyages. Descend in peace, my master
will receive you.”

As he was speaking Alma, crowned with her crystal wings, and radiant
with a beauty which, to the Moslem’s eyes, seemed something superhuman,
had come from the after part of the vessel to Alan’s side. It was the
first time that he had ever seen a woman of Aeria; and, with the innate
chivalry of his race, he paid his involuntary homage to her as he would
have done to an incarnation of one of the poetic dreams of his faith.

Then salutes were exchanged again between the two captains and the
_Alma_ sank swiftly downwards until she hovered twenty feet above the
terrace on which Alan had first spoken with the Sultan on the night
that he captured the _Vindaya_.

The approach of the Aerian warship had already summoned a party of
guards to the roof, and after a brief parley a message was carried to
the Sultan from Alan. A few minutes later Khalid stepped out of the
doorway leading from the interior of the palace, magnificently attired
as though for some great ceremonial.

He looked up and saw Alan standing with Alma by his side on the
after-deck of his ship. He saw, too, that the flag of truce was flying
from the stern and that the guns were laid alongside instead of being
pointed down upon the city. He raised his hand in salute and said--

“I see you come in the guise of peace. If that is so you are welcome.”

“It is peace if your Majesty will have it so,” replied Alan, returning
his salute, and at the same time making a sign for the _Alma_ to
descend to the roof of the palace. As her keels touched the floor of
the terrace, the steps fell from the after doorway, and he came down,
leaving Alma standing on deck by the open door.

“Will not your companion honour my palace by touching its roof with her
foot?” said Khalid, looking up at Alma as he exchanged greetings with
Alan.

“My companion, Sultan, is the wife of the man whom you turned your back
upon on this very spot as a liar, a traitor, and a murderer,” said
Alan, looking him straight in the eyes. “How, then, could she honour
your palace by setting foot on its roof?”

For a moment the Sultan was abashed into silence by the directness of
the rebuke, and then his Oriental subtlety and quickness of thought
came to his aid, and, bending his head with royal dignity, he said--

“The angels do not mate with such men as that. The Tsarina must have
been misled by appearances, perhaps, indeed, carried away by her
hereditary hatred of your people. It is impossible that any but a true
man could have won the love of such a woman. You tell me that you come
as friends and not as enemies, so, for the hour, let there be peace,
not war, between us. While you are my guests my city is yours, and
all that it contains. I pledge my honour for your safety, so let the
Daughter of the Air descend that I may hear from her lips the music of
her voice.”

Turning aside, half to hide a smile at the Oriental metaphor of the
Sultan’s speech, Alan went to the foot of the steps and held out his
hand to Alma. As she alighted on the terrace he led her towards him,
saying--

“This is my wife. Yesterday morning she was Alma Tremayne, a daughter
in the fifth generation of the first President of the Federation. Her
ancestor and yours made terms of peace after the War of the Terror. It
is, therefore, more fitting that you should hear from her lips than
from mine the message that we bring.”

“My ears are waiting,” said Khalid, bending low over the hand that Alma
held out to him as Alan spoke. “It would be a strange message that
would not be welcome from such lips.”

From one whom she could have looked upon as an equal such language
as this would have jarred sorely upon Alma, accustomed as she was to
the frank directness of her own people’s speech. But from Khalid she
tolerated it as she would have tolerated the extravagance of a child,
and as he raised his head again she looked at him with eyes that
dazzled him afresh, intoxicated as he already was with her, to him,
strange and almost unearthly beauty, and said in a voice such as he had
never heard before--

“Thank you, Sultan, for your welcome, but surely there is little need
for me to tell you what message we bring. Last night you saw it written
in letters of fire across the heavens. Has not the voice of God spoken
bidding you and your people to cease the cruel warfare that you are
waging upon the world and to prepare for the end of which that is a
sign?”

As she spoke she raised her hand and pointed to where the shape of the
Fire-Cloud now hung in the sky like a white mist paling before the
light of the rising sun.

“You rejected our first warning, as perhaps was natural, but now that
you have seen the confirmation of it shining among the stars, surely
you will no longer reject it.”

The last words were spoken in a gentle, pleading tone, which no man
could have heard without being moved by them.

“Daughter of the Air,” replied the Sultan, following her hand with his
eyes, “I have seen, and in a measure I believe, your message, though
my interpretation of it may be other than yours. If the end of the
world is at hand, the Commander of the Faithful will know how to meet
it as a true believer should. It is not impossible that there may be
peace between us yet in the last hours of earthly life, for I would not
willingly make war on a people that has daughters such as you.”

“Not for our sake, Sultan, but for the sake of all who have survived
this terrible warfare of yours we are come to plead with you for
peace,” said Alma. “This is no time for hate and strife and bloodshed.
There will be horrors enough upon earth before long without any made
by the fury of man. It is in your power to give peace to the world and
breathing space to meet its end. Why will you not give it?”

“You forget it is not I alone who can give peace,” replied Khalid. “If
that were so”--

Before he could speak another word a salvo of aerial artillery shook
the air above the city. All looked up towards the northern sky, whence
the sound proceeded, and saw a squadron of twenty silvery-hulled
air-ships flying the Moslem and Russian flags, and escorting in two
divisions a warship, from whose flagstaff flew the imperial standard
of Russia, and whose shining hull of azurine proclaimed her the lost
_Ithuriel_.

Alan grasped the perilous situation in an instant, and was just about
to tell Alma to go back on board their own ship when the Sultan,
divining his intention, took a step forward and said--

“Do you think that Khalid cannot protect his guests or that his ally
will not respect the hospitality of his house? You are safe. If a hair
of your head were harmed the Tsarina and I would be enemies and she
would come to her death instead of her bridal, for that is what brings
her here. There is truce between us for this day at least, and she
shall not break it.”

As he ceased speaking the twenty air-ships opened out into a long line
and remained suspended five hundred feet above the palace, while the
_Revenge_ continued her downward flight and alighted at the farther end
of the terrace from where they were standing.

The after door of the deck-chamber opened as she touched the marble
pavement, the steps dropped down, and Olga descended, attired as usual
in a plain robe of royal purple, over which hung a travelling mantle
of pearl-grey cloth as fine and soft as silk and lined with the then
almost priceless fur of the silver fox.

Her head was uncovered save for a plain golden fillet, from which rose
a pair of slender silver wings so thickly encrusted with diamonds
that they seemed entirely fashioned of the flashing gems. The golden
fillet shone out brightly yellow against the lustrous black of her
thickly-coiled hair, and the diamond wings blazed and scintillated in
the sunlight with every movement of her head.

As she descended the steps she was followed by Orloff Lossenski and
a guard of honour of twelve of her officers, splendidly dressed, and
armed to the teeth, who, as soon as they landed, drew their swords,
which were now only used as ornamental insignia of rank, and ranged
themselves in two lines, one on either side of her.

Before the _Revenge_ had alighted the Sultan had made a sign to one of
the sentries, who blew a long, clear blast on a silver bugle, which
was instantly answered by a hundred others from various parts of the
city. At the sound the Moslem metropolis seemed to wake from sleep into
universal activity.

Thousands of soldiers in brilliant uniforms poured into the empty
streets, the Moslem and Russian flags ran up to a thousand flagstaffs,
squadron after squadron of aerial cruisers soared up from the earth and
saluted with salvoes of artillery, which shook the very firmament and
brought Alexis down to within three thousand feet of the palace roof
in the belief that Alan and Alma had fallen victims to some treachery,
and that the time had come for him to avenge them by laying the city in
ruins, as he had promised to do in such an event.

A single glance through his field-glasses showed him the true state of
affairs, so he contented himself with keeping his crew at quarters with
every gun trained on a Russian or a Moslem air-ship and ready to spread
death and ruin far and wide should any harm happen to the _Alma_ or her
crew.

While this was taking place the Sultan’s bodyguard had filed out on to
the terrace resplendent with gorgeous uniforms and glittering weapons,
and between the two long lines that they formed Khalid advanced to
meet his bride, leaving Alan and Alma interested and not unanxious
spectators of the strange and unexpected scene.

They met half-way down the double line, and as Olga held out the hand
over which Khalid bowed low as he raised it to his lips, she said, with
a glance of undisguised hate towards Alan and Alma and a mocking smile
on her lips--

“Your Majesty’s generosity is unbounded! I see that you have invited
to our wedding-feast the only enemies with whom we have yet to measure
swords!”

“They have not come as enemies, Tsarina,” replied Khalid, as he raised
his head and looked with but half-restrained ardour on the beauty that
was so soon to be his. “Nor yet have they come at my invitation. Alan
Arnold and his wife”--

“His what!” interrupted Olga, her cheeks burning and her eyes flashing
with a sudden blaze of uncontrollable anger.

“His wife, Tsarina,” replied Khalid, somewhat coldly. “The son of
Natasha and Richard Arnold has mated with the daughter of Alan
Tremayne, and they have come in the fifth generation to warn you, the
daughter of the House of Romanoff, and me, the son of the line of
Mohammed Reshad, to cease our warfare upon the nations and prepare for
the universal end which, they tell us, is at hand.”

Khalid spoke, as Olga thought, half in jest and half in earnest, so she
continued in the same mocking tone in which she had first spoken--

“Then if that is so, if all human enmities are soon to be purged by the
all-destroying fires, we may as well meet in peace for the moment. Will
your Majesty honour me by presenting me to your uninvited guests?”

“Uninvited, but still my guests, Tsarina,” replied Khalid gravely, “and
therefore I need not ask you”--

“No, Sultan,” said Olga, interrupting him, “you need ask me nothing.
You need not fear that I shall not respect the hospitality of your
house, even when extended to them.”

As she spoke she gave him her hand again and he led her between the
silent, rigid ranks of his guards to where Alan and Alma were standing.

Since men and women had learned to love and hate there had been no
such strange meeting between two women as that which now took place
between Alma and Olga. It was the first time that Olga had ever seen a
woman of the race to which Alan belonged, and Alma, for the first time
confronted with a daughter of the “earth-folk,” saw in Olga Romanoff
at once the most beautiful woman outside the confines of Aeria and the
incarnation of everything that she had been trained to look upon as
evil.

While the Sultan was speaking the words of presentation their eyes met,
and Alma thought of that sentence in Alan’s letter to his father, “She
is as beautiful as an angel and as merciless as a fiend,” while Olga
looked back to the time when she first heard Alma’s name and hated
her for the sake of him who now stood beside her, her lover and her
husband--the man _she_ had held in bondage for years without winning
one voluntary caress from him.

Alma’s first emotion was one of wonder. Hitherto, she had seen nothing
beautiful that was not at the same time good, for in Aeria the
conceptions of beauty and goodness were inseparable. But here was a
woman of almost perfect physical loveliness, after her own type, who
was beyond all doubt guilty of the most colossal crime that a human
soul had conceived or a human hand had carried out since men first
learned to sin.

The world, which ten years before had been a paradise of peace,
prosperity, and enlightened progress, was now a wilderness of misery
and an inferno of strife, fast lapsing back into barbarism--and all
this was her doing.

As this thought came to Alma’s mind, standing out distinct among all
the others that were forcing themselves upon her, wonder gave place to
unspeakable horror, and as Olga approached, with the light of hate
still burning in her eyes and the same mocking smile upon her lips, she
instinctively shrank back as though to avoid contact with some unclean
thing. As she did so her hand slipped through Alan’s arm and a visible
shudder ran through her form.

Marvellous as Olga’s power of self-control and dissimulation was, she
failed entirely to restrain the passion which such a reception aroused
within her. It was the first time in her life that she had ever stood
in the presence of a woman untainted by a spot of sin or shame, and
this woman recoiled from her in visible loathing, beautiful and mighty
as she was, at the very zenith of her conquering career and on the
morning of her promised union with the man who, as she believed, would
before many days share the empire of the world with her.

Hardened as she was, the mute rebuke cut her to the quick. The flush
on her cheeks died out and left her so pale for the moment that her
face looked almost ghastly with its grey lips and black burning eyes.
This daughter of a higher race had at a single glance pierced the
splendid mask which covered the fearful deformity of her true nature.
She thought of the night long ago in the bedroom at St. Petersburg when
by the light of the unearthly flame hovering above her poison-still she
had seen her image in the mirror.

Then pride and anger came to her rescue. The blood returned to her
cheeks and lips, she drew herself up to the full height of her queenly
stature, and as the Sultan spoke the words of presentation she slightly
inclined her head, and then raising it again said, in low, even tones,
whose wonderful music sent a chill to Alma’s heart--

“This is a pleasant surprise, Alan Arnold. I little thought that after
our last parting we should meet again, save in battle, much less did I
think that you would honour my bridal by bringing your own bride to it.
Still, as the Sultan tells me, there is truce for to-day, and, so far
as to my enemy, you are welcome.”

“We have not come as guests to your bridal, Tsarina,” said Alan
coldly and gravely, “nor have we come to make truce as between mortal
enemies. The enmities of men and nations are but as child’s-play now.
We have come to proclaim the Truce of God against the hour of His final
judgment.”




CHAPTER XXX. THE SHADOW OF DEATH.


“AH, I see,” said Olga. “You have come to tell us this wonderful story
about the comet, and the message you say you have received from Mars,
over again. You are not the first who have prophesied the end of the
world by such means, nor will you be the last to be discredited by the
event.

“Once for all, then, let me save misunderstanding by telling you that I
don’t believe a word of it, and therefore nothing that you can say will
have any effect on the course of action that I have determined upon.
You are of course at liberty to preach your truce elsewhere and at your
own risk, though I fear it will be but the voice of one crying in the
wilderness.”

“Yes, truly in the wilderness,” said Alma before Alan could reply, “but
a wilderness that you have made with your own hand, Tsarina. You who
have been the evil genius of the world, have you not done harm enough,
now that the world has only a few more weeks to live?”

“According to the idle tale you bring us,” interrupted Olga, repressing
with a barely successful effort the anger aroused afresh within her by
the serene tone in which Alma spoke. It sounded rather like the voice
of an angel speaking to a mortal than of one woman addressing another,
and even to herself Olga was forced to admit that there could be no
question of equality between this daughter of the air and herself.

“It is no idle tale,” replied Alma, almost in the same tone which
she might have used in reproving a wayward child, “it is not even a
prophecy, it is a mathematical certainty, and if you understood you
would believe.”

“You are wasting time and your own breath,” said Olga scornfully. “You
are not my guests but the Sultan’s, yet he may allow me to say that we
have other demands upon our attention more important than listening to
such sentimentalism as this.”

Before Alma could answer, Alan turned to the Sultan as though not
deigning to reply to Olga’s insulting speech.

“Your Majesty, I see that this is no time to perform the mission upon
which I came. We did not expect the presence of the Tsarina here.
Had we done so we should not have come, for I know how vain it would
be to reason with her. I came prepared to satisfy the most skilful
astronomers in your kingdom that what I say is absolutely true, and I
ventured to hope that you, if satisfied by their assurances, would give
peace to the world for the remnant of its days.

“But even so it is not for us to interrupt or even to introduce an
unpleasant element into the doings of to-day, so, with your Majesty’s
permission, I will leave the calculations with your minister and
relieve you and the Tsarina of our unwelcome presence.”

All this time the Grand Vizier, Musa al Ghazi, had been standing a
little to the rear of the group stroking his beard nervously and
looking anxiously from one to the other. He seemed about to speak, when
Khalid said to Alan with a courtesy which contrasted strongly with
Olga’s contemptuous demeanour--

“I thank you, Prince of the Air. As matters stand I think that will be
the most reasonable as well as the most convenient course. Though I am
far from convinced that you are not mistaken, yet I can assure you that
the best skill in my domains shall examine what you leave us. Musa!”

The old man turned pale as his master pronounced his name, and stepped
forward with a visible agitation, which was by no means accounted for
by the circumstances of the strange situation. Instead of waiting for
Khalid’s commands he said as he made his obeisance before him--

“Commander of the Faithful, I am here; but before your Majesty bids me
take these papers from the hands of Alan Arnold I would ask permission
to say a word that must be said in private.”

“In private, Musa?” said Khalid, frowning slightly and passing his hand
down his beard. “This is hardly a time for State secrets.”

“It is but my duty to my master that bids me speak,” replied the old
man, again bending before him. “A moment will suffice for the speaking
of what I have to say.”

Musa’s tone was so earnest and his anxiety so palpable, that Khalid
without more ado made his excuses to the Tsarina and his unexpected
guests and stepped aside out of earshot with his Vizier.

“Well, Musa, what is it that is so pressing and yet so private?” he
asked, a trifle impatiently.

“My master,” replied the old minister, in a voice that now trembled
with emotion, “there is no need to examine the calculations from Aeria.
An hour before daybreak Hakem ben Amru, your chief astronomer at the
observatory of Memphis, came to me and told me that he had completed
his own calculations of the curve and period of the comet, and that,
allowing for difference in longitude between our meridian and that of
Aeria, the prediction from Mars will be fulfilled beyond all doubt at
midnight on the 23rd of September.”

This was testimony which it was impossible for Khalid to question.
Musa’s sincerity was beyond all question and Hakem ben Amru was the
most renowned astronomer in the world outside Aeria. Khalid recoiled
a pace as though he had been struck, and said in a voice hoarse with
sudden emotion--

“Why did you not tell me this before, Musa?”

“Because I would not mar my master’s happiness for this day at least,”
replied Musa. “If it be true that the end of earthly things is at hand
a day is of but small account. To tell you would neither hasten nor
delay the end. But Alan Arnold’s words forced me to speak, for I knew
that Hakem would speak if I did not.”

Khalid laid his hand upon the old man’s shoulder and said gravely but
kindly--

“It was well thought, Musa, and I thank you for your consideration,
evil as your news is. It is Kismet, and the will of Allah must be done!”

So saying he turned away and walked with slow steps and downcast eyes
to where Olga was standing talking to Orloff Lossenski with her back
turned in open contempt upon Alma and Alan. A single glance at his face
told her that Musa had had no pleasant tidings to impart.

“Your Majesty looks grave,” she said. “Has Musa given you news of some
disaster to our forces?”

“More than that, Tsarina,” replied Khalid. “He has brought me
confirmation that I cannot doubt of the truth of the message from
Aeria.”

“What!” exclaimed Olga in a quick passionate tone that all standing
near could hear. “The confirmation of that thrice-told tale with which
these people are trying to impose on our fears! Surely your Majesty is
jesting now?”

“No, Tsarina, it is no subject for jesting but only for earnest and
solemn thought,” answered Khalid seriously.

“I neither can nor _will_ believe it!” cried Olga passionately, her
long-restrained anger completely overcoming her prudence and her whole
soul rising in ungovernable revolt. “Believe or not as you will, I will
not. It cannot be possible; it is too monstrous for all credence!

“Why, one would think the very Fates themselves were fighting against
us if that were true, and were bringing the world to an end just as we
have conquered it for our own!

“As for these Aerians,” she continued, turning upon Alan and Alma and
taking a couple of steps towards them, “they have come here with this
wild story to cover an attempt to make terms with us before it is too
late. It is a trick to deceive you, but it shall not succeed in my
presence. Do you not remember how, upon this very spot little more than
a year ago, I showed you this same Alan Arnold, who now comes preaching
about his Truce of God, as the shameless liar and traitor that he is.”

She had thrown off all disguise and all restraint now. Hatred was
shining out of her eyes and open scorn was upon her lips. She waved her
hand with a contemptuous gesture towards them and went on--

“If you have come to ask for terms of peace, be honest and say so. You
need not fear to speak, for there may be conditions on which we will
let you live.”

Khalid was about to utter some reproof, and Alan’s hand had gone
instinctively to the hilt of his rapier, when Alma stepped forward and
faced Olga, her own eyes now burning dark with anger and her cheeks
flushed with the hot blood which Olga’s insult had called to them.

“Make terms with you!” she said, looking down upon her from the height
of her splendid stature. “With you, who have laid the earth waste and
made the habitations of men desolate--with you, whom I could strike
dead at my feet without staining my hand by laying it upon you! It is
for you to make terms, if you can, not with us but with the Heaven
whose justice you have outraged and whose patience you have scorned!

“Cease this idle talk of battle and conquest, this impious defiance of
the decrees of Fate! Can you make terms with God? If so, then when you
see His sign blazing in the heavens to-night cause it to change its
path and pass aside from the earth. If not kneel down and pray, not for
your life, for that would be useless, but for strength to meet your end
in the midst of the desolation that you have created!”

Olga heard her in silence to the end, her whole being shaken with the
tempest of passion that Alma’s words set raging in her breast. For
a moment she stood speechless, white to the lips, and trembling in
every limb from very rage. Then she suddenly stepped back a pace, and
cried in a voice more like the cry of a wild animal in pain than human
speech--

“Whether the world lives or not _you_ shall not, whatever comes!” and
as she spoke she snatched a pistol out of her girdle and levelled it at
Alma’s heart. Before she could spring the lock Alan had snatched Alma
up in his arms and Khalid, with a cry of horror and anger, had sprung
forward and grasped Olga’s wrist.

The bullet flew high, cutting one of the wings off Alan’s coronet in
its flight. Half a dozen strides took him alongside his ship, and in
another instant he was standing on her deck, his left arm round Alma’s
waist holding her behind him and his right hand grasping one of his
pistols.

He raised his arm and the pistol flashed. At the same moment he stamped
on the deck and the _Alma_ leapt a thousand feet obliquely into the
air. The second before the pistol flashed Olga turned her head as
though she were going to fire again, and the motion saved her life, for
Alan’s bullet, instead of piercing her brain, as it was meant to do,
cut a straight red gash across her forehead from temple to temple and
buried itself in the breast of Orloff Lossenski as he sprang forward to
snatch his mistress out of the line of fire.

He pitched forward and dropped, and Khalid, forgetting everything else
in the horror of the moment, caught Olga in his arms as a rain of blood
streamed down over her face and a shrill scream of pain and rage burst
from her lips.

Although there were nearly three hundred warships floating in the air
above Alexandria, and though the rapidly-enacted tragedy on the roof
of the palace could be distinctly seen from their decks, the _Alma_
escaped scathless, for the simple reason that, so terrible was the
energy developed by the projectiles in use, that had one struck her as
she left the terrace the palace itself would have been wrecked, and
every living being within a radius of two hundred yards from the focus
of the explosion would have been instantly killed.

Consequently, the captains of the Russian and Moslem ships had to look
on in angry impotence as she leapt out of range, joined her consort,
and with her soared away westward until a height of fifteen thousand
feet was reached, and so vanished from the sight of their discomfited
enemies.

From Alexandria they crossed the Mediterranean and Europe to Britain by
way of Italy, the Valley of the Rhone, and Paris, at a height of some
five thousand feet from the land. What they saw more than justified the
reports which had reached Aeria. The fairest countries of Europe were
now only blackened deserts and wasted wildernesses.

They flew all day over deserted fields and towns and cities that were
little better than heaps of blackened ruins, and when night fell and
the Fire-Cloud blazed out of the sky, its glare was answered by flames
rising from the earth, and huge patches of mingled smoke and flame
which marked the sites of other towns which were only now falling
victims to the destroyers.

Society had practically come to an end. People who a few weeks before
had been wealthy watched almost with apathy the plunder of their homes
and the burning of their palaces by the armed bands of robbers which
sprang up everywhere. There was no longer any protection for life and
property. If anarchists on the earth did not burn and slay and plunder,
their enemies in the air would, and even if they did not, what did
it matter if friends and foes, plunderers and plundered, were to be
consumed together in the fire that was about to fall from heaven?

Amidst the universal terror Alma, with her almost unearthly beauty,
the calm dignity of her bearing, and the sweetness and gentleness of
her loving counsels, passed through the devastated lands rather like
an angel of mercy than a woman of the same flesh and blood as the
distracted panic-stricken crowds through which she moved by Alan’s
side, speaking her message in a voice that seemed to be an echo from
some other world.

When the _Alma_ and the _Isma_ reached London ten days after leaving
Alexandria, they found the vast and once splendid metropolis of the
world a wide waste of broken, blackened, and in some places still
smoking ruins. Of its fifteen millions of inhabitants barely three
millions remained to people its fragments. All the rest had either fled
soon after the first assault, or had fallen in the pitiless carnage
that had been let loose upon them.

They remained three days amidst the ruins of London, listening to
the most heartrending tales of suffering and cruelty, and giving in
return such consolation as they could. Then they took the air again,
and journeyed on westward over the once fair and smiling English land
that was now a wilderness amidst which plague and famine, anarchy and
destruction, stalked triumphant, while the few who listened to their
message waited in despairing terror for the fate that could hardly be
worse than what they had passed through since the fatal 16th of May.

From England they crossed the Atlantic to America, and from America
they sped over the Pacific to Australia, finding everywhere the same
desolation upon the face of the earth, and the same terror and despair
in the minds of men. But for the awful reality before their eyes, it
would have been impossible for them to believe that the civilisation
which had seemed so strong and splendid four months before, could have
collapsed as it had done into such utter chaos.

In those four short months the whole tragedy of human life on earth
seemed to have been re-enacted. The frenzy and panic of war had
degenerated into a universal delirium. Men, women, and children had
gone mad by millions. Religious fanatics, impostors, and enthusiasts,
if possible more insane than their hearers, preached the wildest and
most blasphemous doctrines, and uttered the most hideous prophecies,
not only as to the approaching end of the world, but of the imaginary
eternal horrors that were to follow it.

The art and science and culture of five hundred years had been
forgotten in those few weeks of madness, and mankind had sunk back
wholesale into the grossest superstitions of the Dark Ages. Every
night, when the flaming shape of the Fire-Cloud blazed out among the
stars, millions fell down on their knees and greeted it with prayers
and invocations, as savages had once been wont to worship their
fetishes.

By the end of August, when the fiery arc overarched more than
two-thirds of the heavens and rivalled the sunlight itself in
brightness, the degeneration of humanity had advanced to such a fearful
stage of intellectual and moral depravity, that even human sacrifices
were offered to appease the wrath of the deity who was believed to have
taken the shape of the Fire-Cloud. Under the influence of delirium the
human mind had gone back through twenty-five centuries, and the worship
of Baal and Moloch had returned upon earth.

Only a small minority of men and women preserved their senses amidst
the universal madness. These greeted the Aerians as friends, and heard
their message, and promised to remain steadfast to the end, but as
day after day went by and the terror grew and the nations plunged
deeper and deeper into the saturnalia of frenzy and despair, the task
undertaken by Alan and Alma grew more and more hopeless, and when the
last day of August came, they at length confessed to themselves that it
was useless to pursue it any further.

This, too, was the day on which the term of absence granted by the
Council expired, and so at nightfall, after having carried their
message round the whole world and passed it, by the mouths of those
who were willing to listen, through many lands, they at length
reluctantly turned their prows homeward, and, with hearts sickened by
all the unspeakable horrors they had witnessed, soared upward into
the luridly-lighted heavens, leaving the world to the fate which
in twenty-three days more would overwhelm the conquerors and the
conquered, the few sane and the many mad, in universal and inevitable
destruction.

Alan timed his arrival so that the _Alma_ and her consort crossed the
Ridge a few minutes after sunrise on the 1st of September. As they
alighted in the central square of the city and disembarked to greet
the group of friends and kindred who were waiting to receive them, a
strange stillness struck their ears and sent a mysterious chill to
their hearts.

The splendid capital of Aeria seemed like a city of the dead. Its broad
white streets and squares were empty, there were no boats on the lake,
and no aerial yachts in the air as there were wont to be at sunrise.
The gardens were deserted and silent, even the songs of birds which had
welled up from them in a chorus of greeting to the coming sun were now
hushed, and the birds themselves were flying restlessly from branch
to branch, twittering and calling to each other, frightened sharers
in the universal fear. It was not long before Alan learnt from his
father the explanation of this strange and mournful change in the life
of the valley. A few days after their departure a mysterious epidemic
had appeared among the people of Aeria. First the old, then the
middle-aged, and then the young had been silently and swiftly stricken
down, first in hundreds and then in thousands.

There was no sign of physical disease, no apparent source of physical
infection, and none of the horrors which characterised the plagues that
were decimating the outside world. Those attacked by it went to bed
in apparently robust health, and in the morning they were found dead
with an expression of perfect peace upon their features and no marks of
disease upon their bodies.

That was all that was publicly known. There had been, and, as the
President told his son, there would be no inquiry into the cause or
origin of the epidemic. Whether those who died died voluntarily, or
whether the visitation was a merciful release from the torment and
terror of the general doom, it was not for those who survived to ask.

It was enough for them that the Shadow of Death had begun to steal
silently and swiftly over the land of the royal race who had raised the
dignity of humanity to a height untouched before in the story of man.
They were content to know that their friends and kindred were permitted
to die in painless peace rather than forced to writhe out their last
hours in torture amidst the conflagration of the world.

All day and all night for nearly a month the fires of a hundred
crematoria had burned, and day and night the funeral processions had
never ceased passing through their gates. The population of Aeria,
which had been over a million at the end of July, was now little more
than a hundred thousand, and these were hourly dwindling under the
mysterious epidemic.

Those who had returned in the _Alma_ and the _Isma_ accepted all
without question and applied themselves with all their energy to the
performance of the solemn duties that remained to them.

The work in the caverns of Mount Austral was now almost completed, and
the minute calculations which had been made had shown that it would be
possible for two hundred and fifty souls to find a refuge in them for
ten days if necessary.

Sufficient supplies of food had been already stored, the machinery for
lighting the caverns was complete, and solid oxygen had been enclosed
in steel reservoirs to supply what would be consumed by respiration,
while provision had also been made for continually abstracting the
carbonic acid and other injurious constituents from the respired air.

Everything that human genius and skill at their best could do to ensure
the preservation of this remnant of humanity, had been done, and by
the 15th of September the caverns were finally ready for occupation.
Only one more task now remained to be completed, and this was the
selection of those who were to survive, provided that the precautions
taken proved adequate. Unspeakably pathetic as this work of selection
was, it was performed with a calm and apparently passionless precision
worthy of the unparalleled solemnity of the occasion and the splendid
traditions of those who accomplished it.

The field of selection was first narrowed by confining it to those
who had been regularly betrothed when the first message was received
from Mars. From these first the physically perfect were chosen, then
the strongest and the fairest of these, and finally those who to
their physical perfections added the highest intellectual and moral
qualities.

The work was performed by the Ruling Council assisted by a council of
an equal number of matrons who had what had once been accounted the
misfortune to be childless. Neither joy nor sorrow was shown, at least
in public, either by those who were chosen or by those upon whom the
joint Council was forced to pronounce sentence of death by rejecting
them.

The natural joy of the chosen was lost in the universal sorrow of the
now inevitable parting, and those who were destined not to survive,
satisfied with the perfect justice with which the selection had been
made, consoled each other with the knowledge that they would die hand
in hand and be spared the sorrow of surviving all who were nearest and
dearest to them.

On the morning of the 18th, the temple of Aeria witnessed the last
ceremony that would ever take place within its walls. This was
the marriage of those who, unless their last refuge shared in the
destruction that was about to bring chaos upon earth, were to be the
parents of the new race that was to repeople the world.

The survivors of the whole nation now barely filled the vast interior
of the temple. The solemn words which bound youth and maid together as
man and wife to face side by side the last ordeal that humanity would
ever have to pass through were spoken in the midst of a silence which
reigned not only in the temple but now throughout the whole valley.

All the sentinel ships had now been withdrawn save one, which, from a
height of fifteen thousand feet, still kept watch and ward against the
coming of the foe that was even yet expected. But this was the only
sign of life within the confines of Aeria, and when the solemn ceremony
was ended and the assembly filed out of the doors, the members of it
betook themselves almost in silence to their homes, there to make their
final preparations for life or death as Destiny had selected them to
live or die.




CHAPTER XXXI. THE LAST BATTLE.


AT sunset on the 15th the sluice-door had been finally lowered into
its place and the pent-up waters of the lake of Aeria had risen nearly
forty feet by the next morning. Only the upper parts of the villas on
its banks were visible and its area was so enormously increased that
the whole appearance of the valley was altered.

Rising at first at the rate of three feet an hour, a rate which of
course decreased as the area became greater, the waters would reach the
entrance to the caverns soon after sunset on the evening of the fatal
23rd.

A little before midnight on the 21st the _Orion_, the sentinel ship
that was on guard at the time, sank swiftly down with the news that she
had made out by the light of the Fire-Cloud which, lurid and ghastly as
it was, was as brilliant and penetrating as that of the sun at noonday,
a large fleet of air-ships approaching from the northwards. The city
was by this time almost entirely submerged. Only a few minarets and
towers and the top of the great golden dome of the temple surmounted by
its crystal-winged figure, showed above the surface.

The remnant of the people of Aeria, now reduced to less than seven
thousand souls, including those chosen to take refuge in the caverns,
were occupying the villas on the slopes of Mount Austral about the
entrance to the caverns. Six thousand of them were men who had lived
solely in the hope of such an attack as was now about to be made and
which would enable them to die fighting the common enemy of mankind to
the last in defence of their beloved native land.

Not even now, when the hand of Destiny had set a definite limit to all
human hopes and fears, and when the remainder of their own lives could
be counted by hours, could this faithful remnant of the Aerians endure
the thought that what had been their paradise and their home should be
violated and polluted by the appearance of their foes.

Therefore they had lived for this last battle, and five hundred
air-ships were waiting to carry them into the air to engage in the
last fight that ever would be fought on earth. All their friends and
kindred, saving only the Children of Deliverance, as in fond fancy they
had called the little band of the chosen ones, were now dead, and the
few hours of life that were left to them had nothing more to give them.

So they received with a grim joy the summons to battle which had been
so long expected. Four thousand of them manned the air-ships, the rest
occupied the mountain batteries, and within a quarter of an hour of the
bringing of the news the war-ships had mounted into the air, and the
great guns of the batteries were ready to hurl their projectiles upon
the advancing foe.

It was a spectacle to make angels weep and devils laugh, this last
marshalling of the forces of human hate and hostility in the closing
hours of the life of humanity and on the threshold of eternity. It
seemed that the Tragedy of Man was to be played out to the bitter end,
and that human strife was only to cease on earth with the destruction
of the world. This, too, was the work of a single woman inspired by
quenchless hatred and insatiable ambition and a pride of spirit which,
in its haughty incredulity, still refused to believe that the end of
her conquering career had come.

Pitiless and without scruple to the end, Olga, while she was recovering
from her wound under the shelter of the Sultan’s roof, had managed,
with the aid of her waiting-woman Anna, not only to poison the Grand
Vizier Musa and Hakem the astronomer, but also to bring Khalid himself
into the same state of moral slavery in which she had so long held Alan
and Alexis.

It was she who had brought this fleet from Alexandria to Aeria. Once
under the fatal spell of her will-poison, she had commanded Khalid
to revoke the orders that he had given for peace, and he had obeyed.
A fleet of more than five hundred air-ships had been collected, and,
taking Khalid with her on board the _Revenge_, so that there should be
no chance of his recovering his volition, she had come to fulfil the
prophecy which Paul Romanoff uttered when in the last hour of his life
he had declared that one day the Eagle of Russia should fly over the
battlements of Aeria.

All the materials for constructing ten air-ships had been taken into
the caverns, so that in the event of the remnant surviving the empire
of the air should still be theirs, but the _Alma_ and the _Isma_ still
lay outside the entrance when the other ships had risen into the air.

At the supreme moment a controversy had arisen as to whether or not
Alan and Alexis--the latter of whom had been placed without question
among the chosen, not only because of his unequalled engineering skill,
but also because without him a daughter of the House of Arnold would
have died of her own will--should or should not take part with their
companions in the near approaching conflict.

This dispute was brought to a sudden close by Alan, who, with a sudden
inspiration, cut short all the loving entreaties that were being made
to him to take refuge in the caverns and avoid the chance which in
the heat of the conflict might destroy with him the male line of the
descendants of the first conqueror of the air.

“Do you not see,” he said, “that it is quite possible that their fleet
may be twice as strong as ours, and that in spite of all our gallant
forlorn hope can do they may cross the mountains and send their shells
into the valley?

“What if one of them exploded here and wrecked the outworks and the
entrance to the caverns? All hope, even for us, would then be lost,
the doors could not be lowered, and we should either have to let the
waters of the lake flow out or they would flow into the caverns by the
upper entrance and ruin all our labours.

“We have proved that the _Alma_ and the _Isma_ are the two best
air-ships in existence. They can soar higher and travel faster than
any others. Would it not be madness to deprive our defending force of
them, and would it not be cowardice in us not to do all we can to save
all that is left for us to hope for on earth? I for one shall go, and I
don’t believe that I shall go alone.”

“If the _Alma_ goes the _Isma_ goes too,” said Alexis. “Alan is right.
We should be cowards to turn our backs on the enemy at the last moment.”

“And if you go, we go,” said Alma and Isma in a breath. “If you live we
will live with you, but we will not live without you.”

There was no answer to such reasoning as this, nor was there any longer
any law on earth save that of individual will. The first motive power
that had swayed the world was the last that survived and would be the
last to die. Those of the old crews of the two air-ships who were found
among the chosen at once came forward to take their places, and with
them came too those who had elected to take the hazard of life or death
with them.

“There shall be no widows in the new world,” said they. And so every
man who rose into the air on board the two great warships carried with
him the woman without whom the one last chance of life would not have
been worth taking.

As they left the earth the remainder of the little company retired into
the caverns, leaving two sentinels posted at the outer door ready to
give the alarm in case it should be necessary to lower the doors. As
they did so a long, dull, distant roar came from the northward telling
that the last battle of man with man had begun.

In accordance with a plan hastily arranged before they rose, the _Alma_
was to guard the northern end of the valley, while the _Isma_ kept
watch over the southern. They soared up and up until the peaks of the
mountains were a good five thousand feet below them.

From this elevation those on board the _Alma_ could see the enemy’s
fleet stretching out in a huge crescent, made up of tiny points of
light which shone in the unnatural glare that illumined the earth and
sky, and ever and anon they saw enormous spheres of flame blaze out
along the line as the projectiles from the land batteries burst in
front of them. The gunners were only trying their range and the enemy
were still beyond it.

The explosion of the projectiles told the assailants that Aeria was
on the alert, still prepared for battle and still, for all they knew,
as impregnable as ever. Seeing this, they ceased their advance and a
battle of tactics preceded the pitiless struggle which only the victors
would survive.

Hour after hour the Moslem and Russian air-ships strove to out-soar the
Aerians, or to make a rush in twos and threes that would bring them
within range of the charmed circle of the mountains. But no sooner
did one of them sweep up at full speed out of the distance and slow
down sufficiently to train her guns than the atmosphere about her
was convulsed with a mighty shock and changed instantly into a mist
of fire, and when this vanished she had vanished too, shattered to
fragments which dropped in a rain of molten metal thousands of feet to
the earth below.

Morning came, the flaming arch of the Fire-Cloud sank lower and lower
in the heavens until it stretched a broad band of lurid light round
the western horizon, and an unclouded sun brought the last dawn but
one that the terror-maddened myriads of earth would ever see. Still
the fight went on at long ranges; still ship after ship of the hostile
fleet made its desperate effort to cross the invisible barrier which
was drawn all round Aeria by the range of its protecting guns, only
to be overturned and hurled to the earth by the shock of an exploding
projectile or to be fairly struck and dissolved to dust.

[Illustration: STILL THE FIGHT WENT ON AT LONG RANGES. _Page 354._]

No matter how high they attempted to soar, the _Alma_ and the _Isma_
were still above them, and if the shells from the land batteries failed
to do their work the guns of the air-ships did it for them and the
result was the same--annihilation.

The night of the 22nd was spent in incessant attack and defence. The
crews of the Aerian ships, grown desperate in their supreme despair,
now left the mountains and sallied forth into the open, engaging the
enemy ship for ship and gun for gun in a last determined effort to
destroy them, or be destroyed, and far out from the still untouched
battlements of Aeria the fight raged fast and furious.

There now was no thought of safety in the hearts of the Aerians. They
had come forth to kill and be killed. The rules of aerial tactics were
utterly neglected. They laid their guns alongside and, rushing through
the air at their utmost speed, they hurled themselves with the ram
upon every Moslem or Russian vessel that they could meet or overtake,
crashing into her with irresistible force and going with her into
annihilation as their two cargoes of shells exploded under the shock.

The last sun rose and saw the fight still going on. What had begun as
the greatest battle in the history of war had now dwindled down to a
series of single combats. At length the end came. It was a few minutes
after midday that the last blow in the battle was struck. Ten Russian
and Moslem air-ships, all that remained of the great fleet that Olga
had brought against Aeria, formed in line ten miles from the Ridge and
made a last attempt to break through the defences.

Flying through a storm of shells from the land batteries, seven of
them were torn to pieces and the other three, just as they reached the
Ridge, were met obliquely by the five remaining vessels of the Aerian
fleet. The same moment the _Alma’s_ broadside was discharged upon them,
friend and foe vanished together in a mist of flame--and so ended the
assault and defence of Aeria.

“We can go down now!” said Alan in a broken voice to Alma, who was
standing white and speechless with horror at his side in the bows of
the air-ship. “It is all over! God rest their gallant souls, for they
left the world like brave men and true Aerians!”

“Amen!” sighed Alma. Then, after a brief pause, she said--“I wonder
whether Olga Romanoff is alive or dead?”

The two air-ships now sank together and alighted close to the entrance
to the caverns.

There the splendid fabrics were reluctantly abandoned, their crews
disembarked, taking with them everything they wished to preserve, and
a minute inspection was made for the last time of the triple doors and
the machinery for lowering them and filling the spaces between them
with water to be frozen as soon as they were in their places.

This occupied the time until the evening, and then all went once more
into the open air to take what might be their last look at the sun. The
waters of the lake were now within a few feet of the entrance, creeping
more and more slowly upwards, and across the vast expanse of water,
lying unruffled by the lightest breeze, fell the mingled rays of the
sinking sun and the brightening Fire-Cloud.

There was not a cloud in the heavens and no breath of wind relieved
the almost suffocating heat of the inert and sultry air. It seemed as
though all terrestrial nature lay paralysed in a stupor of terror,
waiting for the fire-blast that would wither it into death and ruin.

As the sun sank down behind the veil of flame his disc loomed redly
and dully through it. Long streams of fire, blue and green and orange,
darted across the disc and leapt and played round its circumference
until it sank finally out of sight. The little group on the shore of
the lake gazed at each other in silence as it disappeared.

Their faces looked wan and ghastly in the awful light that now reigned
supreme in the heavens. Most of them turned away in grief and horror
too deep for words, and with one last look at earth and sky, crept into
the caverns, unable any longer to support the terror of the scene.

But a few remained, determined to see the fearful drama played out to
the end, if they could, and among these were Alan and Alexis, whose
duty kept them by the doors, the President and Francis Tremayne, and
Alma and Isma, whom nothing could persuade to leave their husbands’
sides.

No human eyes had ever beheld so magnificent or so awful a display of
celestial splendours as they beheld during the three hours that they
stood in the doorway after sunset. The Fire-Cloud now covered almost
the whole heavens, and its enormous nucleus blazed like a gigantic
sun down out of the zenith with a heat and radiance that were almost
insupportable.

Huge masses of flame leapt out continuously, as though hurled from its
fiery heart, and were projected far beyond its circumference, while
the incandescent cloud-mass which surrounded it was torn and convulsed
by internal commotions which spread out and out in enormous waves of
many-coloured fires until they disappeared below the horizon.

Still there was neither sound nor breath of wind upon earth, only the
awful stillness in which the world waited for the hour of its doom
to strike. At last, towards ten o’clock, the water began to lap the
threshold of the entrance, and Alan, pointing to it, said--

“Come, we must take our last look at the world! It is time to lower the
doors.”

The words were scarcely out of his mouth before a low dull booming
sound came echoing down the gorges of Mount Austral. They looked up
and saw huge masses of snow and ice loosened from its upper heights
gliding, at first slowly and then more and more swiftly, down towards
the valley beneath, a mighty avalanche which in a few minutes more
would carry irresistible ruin in its path.

“In with you all!” cried Alan. “Quick! That is the beginning of the
end; the snows are melting and the waters will be over us in another
hour.”

All but he and Alexis hurried in, and they, grasping the levers on
either side of the door, pulled them, and the enormous sheet of steel
descended quickly along its grooves and shut them in from the outer
world, upon which chaos was about to fall.




CHAPTER XXXII. THE SHE-WOLF TO HER LAIR.


IN the mysterious revolution of human things it came about that the
only spectator of the closing scene of the tragedy of humanity who
endured and survived its final terrors was the woman to whom it had
been due that the fire from heaven had fallen upon a world mad with the
frenzy and agony of war instead of sane and calm with the sanity and
calmness of peace and reason.

On the issue of the Battle of Aeria, Olga and, under her unnaturally
acquired influence, the Sultan, had staked the empire of the world
and lost it. Before the fight had been raging many hours even she was
forced to admit that Aeria was impregnable to any assault that she
could deliver. But when the Aerians began to practise the desperate
tactics of the second day it became manifest that nothing but
annihilation awaited the invading fleet, out-matched as it was in speed
and gun-power by the new Aerian warships and the land batteries.

With eyes burning with rage and envy she had watched through her
glasses the incomparable _Alma_ floating serenely at her unattainable
altitude far above the battle-storm, and she had pictured Alan, her
former slave, standing upon her deck perhaps--bitterest thought of
all--with his wedded love beside him, and like a very arbiter of war
hurling his destroying lightnings far and wide upon her ships until
the supreme moment came in which he would descend like a very god from
the upper air, and, hand in hand with Alma, strike the last terrible
blow which would end the last conflict of man with man and leave
neither friend nor foe alive to tell what the issue had been.

It would be a glorious end, worthy of him and the splendid traditions
of his race, and she loathed herself for the craven fear that had
seized upon her in the fateful hour of battle, and made her incapable
of challenging the same fate at his hands. Khalid himself would have
done so without hesitation, but she had robbed him of his manhood and
debased him, as she had debased every other human being that had fallen
under her influence.

She had spent nearly the whole of the night of the 22nd on deck,
and when the awful radiance of the Fire-Cloud was for the last time
succeeded by the light of day, even her haughty spirit had at last
bowed before the supernatural terrors that were multiplying about her.
For the first time since she had brought bloodshed back into the world
a thrill of panic shuddered through her soul, and, for the first time,
she learnt the meaning of fear.

Then, too, came a longing which for the time being overmastered
all other considerations. The elementary animal instinct of
self-preservation rose up within her with irresistible force and
conquered the hate and the ambition whose objects would have vanished
when another sun had risen.

Her thoughts went back to her old stronghold in the snowy solitudes
of Antarctica, to the deep dark caverns of Mount Terror. Surely those
mighty walls of living rock, shrouded in eternal ice and snow, would
give her an asylum in which she could defy the fate that was about to
overwhelm humanity--and what then? For a moment an awful vision of
the unspeakable loneliness of such a survival amidst the ruins of the
world struck such terror to her heart that she almost resolved to head
the _Revenge_ into the thick of the fight that was still raging round
Aeria, and die rather than face it. Then the vision passed, and the
terrors of the present blotted out the fear of the future.

The last sun that the human race would ever see was just rising when
she sent for Boris Lossenski, who was still commanding the _Revenge_
under her, and said abruptly, and without even consulting Khalid, who
was standing by her side--

“There is nothing but death to be found here. We will escape if we can.
Head the ship for Mount Terror and make her fly as she has never flown
before. Don’t spare either the engines or the power. We must be there
before nightfall if possible.”

Boris saluted and obeyed in silence, and Olga turned to Khalid and said
in a tone of weariness and almost of despair--

“It is no use fighting any longer. The Fates themselves are against
us, and I--yes, I have been frightened into belief at last. A shameful
confession is it not?”

“Not shameful but only reasonable,” he replied. “All I regret is that
you did not believe sooner, and save this last slaughter of these
gallant people.”

“What is done, is done!” she said with a half-regretful glance at the
mountains of Aeria, which were now rapidly fading away into the blue
distance; “it is only a question of sooner instead of later. Indeed, it
seems hardly worth while even for us to attempt to live when, even if
we survive, only the ruins of the world can be ours. And yet”--

“Yet sweeter would be life with you even in a wilderness of death than
destruction that might be eternal parting,” replied Khalid in low tones
that thrilled with passion. “Nay, what dearer destiny could man desire
than to be the Adam of a new world of which you were the Eve?”

The words of her husband--for Khalid was her husband now as well as her
slave--brought a sudden flush to Olga’s face, and this was succeeded by
an almost deathly pallor. She put up her hand to the broadened circlet
of gold which concealed the terrible scar of the wound made by Alan’s
bullet, and said almost in a whisper--

“You and I--yes, you and I may live. We _will_! But if we do we must
save ourselves alone.”

And with that she left him abruptly and went to her own room with the
plan of her last crime already shaped in her mind.

She was the only woman on board the _Revenge_. Her maid Anna had been
left behind at Alexandria, a maniac driven mad by the universal terror.
What of Boris and the twenty-five men who formed the air-ship’s crew?
If they were permitted to survive to the time when there would be no
law but might, she would be the one woman in the world--one woman,
beautiful and almost defenceless, among those who, though now her
servants, would then be ready to slay each other in the dispute as to
which of them should be her master.

Such a thought in such a mind as hers could have but one outcome. When
the hour for the midday meal arrived, she bade Boris invite the whole
crew into the main saloon, saying that, as this might be the last meal
that any of them would eat, they would take it together. Then, as
though moved by some sudden gracious fancy, she filled for every man
with her own hands a glass of the best and oldest wine that had been
reserved for her own use.

Khalid, rigid Moslem as he was, refused it, and she only touched it
with her lips, but the others drained their glasses and drank death at
her hands, even as the Aerians had drunk it in the same fashion and at
the same table seven years before.

But this time it was fated that her sin should find her out more
quickly. Later on in the afternoon Boris, to his amazement and alarm,
found every man of his crew succumbing to an irresistible drowsiness,
and soon this began to affect himself. A terrible thought at once
flashed into his ever-suspicious mind. Fighting against the stupor that
was stealing over his senses, he took a deep draught of strong spirit.

This conquered the poison for a time and cleared his intellect
sufficiently for him to see what his pitiless mistress had done, and
then there rose up in his mind a desperate longing for vengeance on
the murderess who had used him and his companions as long as they were
useful and then poisoned them like so many rats.

He took out his pistol and examined it to see if it was charged, and
then, with the poison and the spirit fighting in his brain for mastery,
he made his way from the engine-room to the quarter-deck, where Olga
and Khalid were standing, watching with strained, fascinated eyes and
faces that looked livid and corpse-like in the unnatural light of the
Fire-Cloud, the long tongues of many-coloured flame that were shooting
like so many gigantic serpents down from the zenith, as though they
would lick the life-blood out of the world that now lay panting for
breath and paralysed with fear beneath them.

Just as he reached the top of the companion-way a mist swam before
Boris’s eyes, his brain reeled, and he stumbled forward on to the deck,
discharging his pistol aimlessly as he did so. The bullet struck and
broke to fragments against the bulwarks. Khalid and Olga turned round
to see him lying on his side with savagely-gleaming eyes, livid face,
and foam-flecked lips, trying to raise himself on one hand and take aim
at them with the other.

As Khalid sprang forward Olga’s ever-ready pistol came out of her belt.
She cried to Khalid to get out of the line of fire, but just as she
spoke Boris made his last effort, and, taking what aim he could, pulled
the trigger. Khalid stopped short and clasped his hand to his right
side. Then Olga, with a low cry of fury breaking from her white lips
through her clenched teeth, sent a bullet through Boris’s brain just as
he was struggling to bring his pistol up again.

“Are you hurt, Khalid?” she asked with a deadly fear at her heart as
she crossed the deck to where he was standing with his hand still
pressed to his side.

“Yes,” he gasped. “He has shot me through the lung.”

Then he coughed, and Olga saw drops of blood on his black beard and
moustache. Without wasting any time in useless words she helped him
down into the saloon and set herself at once to examine and dress his
wound. The bullet had entered between the fourth and fifth ribs on the
right side, drilled a clean hole through the lower lobe of the right
lung, and passed out at the back without touching any bone.

With perfect rest and quiet there was nothing to prevent recovery from
such a wound, but Olga shuddered as she thought of its consequences in
their present situation. If Khalid succumbed, as he well might do under
the unknown terrors and dangers of the night that was now so near, she
would have to choose between killing herself beside him, or, if the
rock-chambers of Mount Terror proved a safe asylum, living mateless and
alone until she starved to death on the wilderness that the world would
be when it had passed through its baptism of fire.

She satisfied Khalid’s whispered request for an explanation of Boris’s
attempt on their lives by saying that he had probably made himself
drunk in an attempt to fortify himself against the terrors that were
multiplying around him. Then she went through the ship and in a few
minutes came back and said--

“I shall have to take the ship to Mount Terror myself. It was not only
Boris, for every man of the crew is dead drunk. Think of them making
such brutes of themselves at such a time!

“No,” she continued, putting her hand on his shoulder as she saw him
make an attempt to rise. “You must not move yet; you will want all your
strength when we get there, for you will have to regulate the engines
while I am in the conning-tower. As for these animals, we will leave
them to their fate.”

A couple of hours later she went on deck to see whether Mount Terror,
or at anyrate the smoke-crest of Mount Erebus, was in sight, for the
_Revenge_ had now been flying almost long enough to have reached the
confines of Antarctica. The speed was, however, so great that nothing
was distinctly visible. There was only the flaming heaven above and a
grey blur beneath, so she went to the engine-room and slowed down to a
hundred miles an hour.

Then she helped Khalid to the engineer’s seat in front of the
controlling levers and took her place in the conning-tower. She had
scarcely been at her post half an hour before she saw the huge white
cones of the twin mountains of Antarctica shining against the dull
grey sky beyond, one of them crowned as she had last seen it by a long
stream of smoke that rose almost vertically in the windless air.

She signalled to Khalid to reduce the speed, first to fifty and then
to thirty miles an hour, allowing the _Revenge_ at the same time to
sink gently down towards the ice-covered continent. She crossed the
well-remembered bay in which the _Narwhal_ had performed her terrible
exploit, swept over the ice-wall at an elevation of a hundred feet,
swung the ship round and stopped her in front of the great cleft in the
side of Mount Terror.

No human foot seemed to have trodden the Antarctic solitude from the
day she left it to crown herself Tsarina of the Russias to this one on
which she brought her flagship back with its crew of murdered men to
seek her last chance of life amidst the general doom which she could
now almost bring herself to believe she had directly brought upon the
world.

She ran the _Revenge_ slowly into the vast portal that yawned black
and deep before her between the snow slopes of the mountain, and then,
turning on the search-light, took her along the great gallery which
led to the shore of the subterranean lake, and there lowered her for
the last time to the earth. Then she and Khalid disembarked, he moving
slowly and painfully, and she supporting him as well as she was able,
and watching him with the intense anxiety of a supreme selfishness
which had now centred itself upon him as the one possibility of making
her life endurable.

Thus did Tsarina Olga and Khalid the Magnificent, conquerors of the
earth and sharers of the world-throne, come back, one wounded almost to
death, and the other half distraught with fear and perplexity, to take
refuge at the uttermost ends of the earth from the assault of the foe
that had confounded all their schemes of conquest.

Leaving the _Revenge_ in the great gallery, she led him to the council
chamber and laid him on the cushions of the luxurious divan on which
she had been wont to hold her audiences. There she examined and
redressed his wound, and then for the next three hours she busied
herself bringing supplies of food and drink from the ship and preparing
for the final siege which their last stronghold would so soon have to
endure.

Then the fancy took her to go once more into the air to take one more
look at the world and the splendours of the fate that was menacing
it. Nineteen hours had passed since she gave the order to head the
_Revenge_ for Mount Terror. Sixteen of these had been consumed in the
most rapid flight that the air-ship had ever accomplished. So fast had
the _Revenge_ flown westward and southward that the sun had almost
seemed to stand still waiting for her journey to be accomplished, but
still it had slowly sunk farther and farther down into the luminous
mist that now seemed to fill the whole sky.

The difference between the longitude of Aeria and Mount Terror had
lengthened the last fateful day by nearly five hours, but now the end
was very near at hand, and here even, on the very confines of the
world, life had little more than four hours to live. To the north the
whole sky was flaming out into indescribable splendours, and the long
fire-streams radiating from the nucleus now seemed to be literally
holding the planet in their clasp. Enormous meteors were bursting out
from the heart of the flaming cloud and exploding without a sound in
the ever-silent abysses of space.

She stood rooted to the spot by the weird and awful glories of the
spectacle, and for the time being seemed to forget even Khalid and the
indescribable dangers that were threatening them both. Instead of being
daunted, her spirit rose as though in response to the splendours before
her. She felt that she was standing upon Nature’s funeral pyre watching
the conflagration of the world she had ruined. Saving only Khalid there
was not another human being within thousands of miles of her, and in
her loneliness her soul seemed to expand and rise to a nobility that it
had never known before.

She saw the utter insignificance and contemptibility of the human
strife which had been superseded and silenced by this majestic assault
of the primal forces of Nature, and for the first time in her life she
thought of herself and her sins with a disgust and shame that humbled
her in her own eyes to the dust.

So she stood and watched, oblivious of everything but the celestial
glories above and around her, until a rapid series of frightful
explosions seemed to run roaring round the whole horizon. She looked
up with shaded eyes towards the zenith. The central mass had suddenly
become convulsed and expanded until it looked as though the whole sky
had been transformed into an ocean of fire torn by incessant storms.

Huge masses of many-coloured flame were falling from it in all
directions on the devoted earth, and as each of these entered the
atmosphere it burst into myriads of fragments which fell in swarms
until the blazing sky was literally raining fire over sea and land.

[Illustration: THE BLAZING SKY WAS LITERALLY RAINING FIRE OVER SEA AND
LAND. _Page 367._]

The Fire-Cloud had at last invaded the outer confines of the earth’s
atmosphere.

All this while there had been no change in the Antarctic cold of the
air, but soon after the first storm of explosions roared out Olga felt
a puff of warm tainted air blow across her face. Then came another and
another, and then she heard what had never been heard before on the
slopes of Mount Terror--the sound of running water. The snows were
melting, and soon there would come avalanche and deluge.

She hurried back into the council chamber, convinced that it was no
longer safe to remain in the open air. She made the great bronze doors
fast and covered them with layer after layer of thick heavy curtains.
Every other opening into the chamber she closed up as tightly as
possible. In the nature of the case they were compelled to trust to the
supply of air already in it to last them through the ordeal.

Then she went and sat down on the divan by Khalid’s side, and, taking
his hand in hers, bent over him and kissed him on the lips, saying--

“Now we must wait for life or death together!”

And so they waited--waited while the ages-old snow and ice melted from
the bare black rocks under the fierce breath of the fire-storm; while
the ocean of flame seethed and roared and eddied about them, licking up
the seas and melted snows and fighting with them as fire and water have
fought since the world began; while the foundations of the Southern
Pole quivered and rocked beneath their feet, and the walls of their
refuge quaked and cracked with the throes of the writhing earth, and
cosmos was dissolved into chaos once more.




EPILOGUE. “VENGEANCE IS MINE.”


“THE temperature has been normal now for three hours. Don’t you think
we may venture to raise the sluice-gate?”

“I see nothing against it. If the world is not habitable again now it
never will be. It is a good two days since the contact now, and if the
atmosphere had been burnt up or carried away by the attraction of the
comet it would either be much colder or much hotter than that.”

“Very well then, up it comes, and then we shall get our last question
answered.”

It was Alan who thus questioned and answered his father. All had gone
well with the refugees of Mount Austral and the remnant of the Aerian
race. Their science and their faith in themselves had been triumphantly
justified by the event and had carried them safely through the sternest
ordeal that man had ever been called upon to face.

And now there was only one more chance to be met, one more problem to
be solved. The temperature showed that the earth still possessed an
atmosphere, but was that atmosphere capable of supporting human life?
If yes, all would be well and they could go forth into the wasted world
and possess and replenish it. If no, then all their labour would have
been in vain and they might as well have died in battle or with those
friends and kin who had taken their silent and dignified farewell of
the world in the last days of the State of Aeria.

They had a calorimeter and a pressure-gauge communicating with the
outer world to tell the temperature and the height of the water in the
valley. The former, after rising for a few hours to over a thousand
degrees, had now sunk back to normal, while the latter stood at thirty
feet above the entrance doors to the cavern.

The machinery for raising the sluice-gate was put into motion and
they watched it with almost breathless anxiety lest the straining or
shifting of the rocks, which had been very perceptible during the
terrific convulsions which had apparently lasted for nearly ten hours,
should have so dislocated the grooves that the gate could not be raised.

There were a few preliminary creaks and groans, a hitch and an
increased strain on the lifting chains, and then the great sheet of
steel rose easily and smoothly to the top of the channel and the
pent-up waters rushed forth in a black boiling flood through the narrow
opening and roared away, foaming and tossing along the bottom of the
crevasse, once more on their way to their unknown destination.

Very soon after this it was discovered that the waters were subsiding
much more rapidly than could be accounted for by the volume that
escaped through the subterranean channel. It was therefore necessary
to conclude that there must have been some convulsion in another part
of the mountains which had opened a fresh channel from the lake to the
outer world.

The next step was to raise the two inner of the three doors which
guarded the entrance to the caverns. The raising of the first one
showed the ice still intact between it and the second, and this had to
be broken up and removed before the second could be reached. Then the
middle door was raised an inch or so and the water spurted out from
beneath it.

Was this the water of the melted ice or was it that which filled the
valley? Had their outer door stood firm or had it cracked or shrivelled
up under the heat of the furnace through which the earth had passed? It
flowed for ten minutes and then slackened and stopped. The outer door
had held fast. Then, in case of accidents, the middle one was lowered
again and they waited until the waters should have sufficiently
subsided to enable them to challenge the last hazard on which their
fate depended.

The sluice-gate had been raised at what would be four o’clock on the
morning of the 26th of September, if the cataclysm through which the
earth had passed had not so far affected the terrestrial economy
as to alter the relations of day and night. Twelve hours later the
pressure-gauge ceased to act, showing that the rapidly-sinking waters
of the lake had reached the threshold of the outer door. The time had
now come to ask the question on the answer to which the lives of the
remnant of humanity depended--was the atmosphere breathable or not?

That was the one question which occupied, to the momentary exclusion of
all others, the mind of every Aerian who was in the caverns. The middle
gate was lifted, and every heart stood still as Alan and Alexis strode
forward into the dark passage and grasped the levers which actuated the
lifting mechanism of the outer one.

They took one glance back at the anxious faces which showed so white in
the gleam of the electric lamps, and then they pulled. The machinery
creaked and groaned as the power was applied. Then came a rending sound
and a dull crash. The door lifted a little, quivered and dropped again,
and remained immovable.

“The machinery has broken down!” said Alan, going back into the
gallery. “There must have been a land-slip over the doorway.”

“What will you do then?” said Alma. “Surely we have not escaped the
conflagration of the world to be buried alive after all!”

“No,” he said, looking down at her with a reassuring smile. “It can
hardly be as bad as that. Unless a whole mountain has fallen in front
of the door, we shall soon find a way out.”

The first thing to be done was to get rid of the door, and this Alan
accomplished in summary fashion by undermining it with drills, and
then, after he had sent everyone into the inner recesses of the
caverns, tearing it to fragments with a small quantity of the explosive
used in the shells.

A mass of earth and stones came rolling into the gallery immediately
after the explosion, then an excavating machine was run up on
hastily-laid rails and was soon boring its way into the obstructing
mass. A distance of ten yards was tunnelled and then there was a rattle
and whir in front of the machine, which told that the work was done.
There was a cloud of dust from pulverised stones and earth and then
came a rush of fresh warm air and a gleam of sunlight through the
opening.

“Thank God the atmosphere is still there and the sun is still shining!”
cried Alan, as he drew the machine back and ran out into the open air.

He looked about him for a few moments and then turned and walked back
to his companions, who were already crowding towards the opening with
faces glad with new hope and drawing deep breaths of the life-giving
air, which the mysterious alchemy of Nature had restored unchanged to
the earth. He stopped them with a gesture and said--

“Don’t go out yet till we have made the tunnel safe. You will find an
awful change out yonder. Aeria is no longer a paradise. It is only a
swamp surrounded by naked rocks!”

And so they found it to be when they at length passed out through the
tunnel and stood upon the black oozy shores of the dreary lake which
still half filled what had once been the lovely land of Aeria.

The once verdure-clad mountains rose up bare and gaunt and blackened,
a vast circle of ragged rock, unrelieved by a blade of grass or a
single tree of all the myriads that had clothed their slopes three days
before. It seemed as though the clock of Time had been put back through
countless ages and the world was once more as it had been before the
first forms of life appeared upon it.

But still the air that fanned their cheeks was fresh and warm and
sweet, and the afternoon sun was shining across the western peaks out
of a cloudless sky of purest blue. The calm had come after the storm
and the world was waiting to begin its life anew. The _Alma_ and the
_Isma_ had utterly vanished, and were probably buried deep in the black
slimy mud. Of the city of Aeria not a vestige was visible.

The first thing that Alan did as soon as the last momentous question
had thus been asked and answered was to ask his father to order one of
the smaller air-ships, which had been stored in sections in the cavern,
to be put together and charged with motive-power as rapidly as possible.

“Certainly if you wish it,” he replied; “but what is your reason for
being in such a hurry to reassert your empire of the air?”

“I can tell you now,” said Alan in reply, “what there would have been
no need to tell you if, well, if we had not been able to leave the
caverns. Just after sunrise on the last day of the battle Bruno Vincent
brought the _Orion_ as near as he could to the _Alma_ and told me by
signal that he had seen the _Revenge_ leave the fight and head away at
full speed to the southward and westward. That means, I think, that
Olga’s courage failed her at the last and that she meant to try the
forlorn hope of saving herself in her old stronghold at Mount Terror. I
am going to see whether she is alive or dead.”

“And suppose by a miracle you should find her alive. What then?” said
Alma, who had overheard his request, coming up to him and looking up
into his face with melting eyes as she slipped her hand caressingly
through his arm.

“The world is beginning its life anew in us, dear,” he replied with
tenderness in his eyes but none in his voice, “and there shall be no
snake in our Eden if I”--

“If you have to be the Cain of the new world to prevent it!”
interrupted Alma, reading his dark meaning at a glance, and
interpreting it with a directness and force that startled him. “No,
Alan, that must not be! If she has escaped the vengeance of God you may
well forego yours. I can hardly think that she is still alive, but it
is right that we should go and see”--

“We!” echoed Alan before she could finish. “Do you mean that you will
come with me? No, Alma, you must not do that. Remember that if she has
by any chance escaped, the crew of the _Revenge_ may be alive too, and
then we may have to fight”--

“No, no, Alan, not that! not that!” she cried with a gesture of horror.
“The world has done with fighting, for there is nothing left to fight
about. We will go as friends with open hands to them, and the new life
of the world shall be begun with the forgiveness of our enemies. Who
are we that we should judge after the Voice of God has spoken?”

In the end she had her way, and so it came to pass that soon after
sunrise on the following day an air-ship, which a hundred skilled and
willing hands had toiled all night in fitting together and equipping
for her voyage, rose into the air above the ghastly wilderness that had
once been Aeria, and winged her way towards the southern pole.

Twenty hours later she sank down on to the ice that had already
re-covered the rocks in front of the fissure in the side of Mount
Terror, and as she did so a figure came forth out in the darkness into
the half light of the polar morning.

“Look! There she is!” said Alma in an awe-stricken whisper to Alan.
“Alone in this awful place! Come, let us go to her.”

As she spoke the gangway steps were lowered and she descended them
first, followed by Alan, his father, Alexis, and Isma. Some strange
influence held the others back as she advanced with outstretched hands
and words of kindly greeting on her lips towards the piteous wreck of
womanhood that slowly emerged from the gloom of the chasm.

Olga Romanoff had survived the doom of the world, but the hand of a
just vengeance had fallen heavily upon her. Her once splendid form was
shrunken as though three score years had passed over her in as many
hours. Her left side was half paralysed and her shaking limbs hung
loosely as she tottered along.

[Illustration: OLGA ROMANOFF HAD SURVIVED THE DOOM OF THE WORLD. _Page
374._]

Her golden fillet and jewelled wings had been cast away, leaving bare
the great livid scar that crossed her forehead; her white, drawn face
was seamed with deep lines marked by agony and terror, and the thick
masses of the once glorious hair that hung about her head and shoulders
were streaked with grey and clotted with blood.

The fire had died out of her eyes and the red from her shrivelled
lips, and the weak broken voice in which she answered Alma’s greeting
quavered like that of an old woman in her dotage.

“I have been expecting you,” she said as Alma took her trembling hands
in hers. “I thought you would come. You have come for Alan, haven’t
you? He is yonder, but he is dead. I kept him alive as long as I could
but he was wounded, and when the world was changed to hell for my sins
the fire choked him.

“I tried to die too, but it wouldn’t kill me. There was air enough for
me and I wanted to give it to him to breathe but he wouldn’t take it.
I suppose you have been dead and are an angel now like those others
behind you. Come, I will take you to him. It is dark but I know the
way.”

The moment she began to speak Alma saw the awful calamity that had
befallen her. The haughty daring spirit that had essayed and almost
achieved the conquest of the world was dissolved in the bitter waters
of the Marah of Madness. The soul that had quailed before no human fear
had collapsed into imbecility under the superhuman terrors which she
alone had witnessed and survived. Without a word she suffered her to
lead her into the gloom, beckoning to the others to follow. They turned
on the electric lamps they had brought with them and entered the chasm.

They reached the black ash-strewn floor of the gloomy subterranean
lake in the heart of the mountain, and Alan, pausing for a moment,
flashed the light of his lamp round the vast chamber that had once been
so terribly familiar to him. The walls were burnt and blackened, and
here and there masses of rock and boulders had been calcined to dust
as though the long pent-up lava that had once flowed in fiery torrents
over them had again been let loose.

Then the light fell upon something that was not rock and which gave
back a dull metallic sheen. He took a few strides towards it and soon
recognised it as all that was left of the once shapely and beautiful
_Ithuriel_, the old flagship of the Aerian fleet with which he had lost
the mastery of his own manhood and his people the empire of the air.

The crystal dome of the roof was gone and lay in patches of congealed
glass about the blackened and shrivelled-up deck. The wings were burnt
away and the transverse ribs of azurine stood out bare and twisted like
the bones of a skeleton, and in the fore part of the hull a great gap
showed where her magazine had taken fire and burnt with such terrific
heat that it had melted even the azurine plates of which she was built.

“The poor old _Ithuriel_ has flown her last flight!” he said to himself
with a sigh as he turned away and followed the others, thinking sadly
of all that had come to pass since he had last trodden her deck.

Olga, holding Alma by the hand, led the way from the lower gallery to
the council chamber. As she pulled the curtain aside from the doorway a
puff of foul air that seemed to bear a faint smell of blood was wafted
in their faces. Alan called Alma back, fearing that she would faint in
the sickening atmosphere, and at the sound of his voice Olga stopped
short and looked back with a reawakened gleam in her eyes.

“Who is that?” she cried, pressing her hand to her brow. “Why, it is
Alan! But no, Alan is here--here. He has been with me all the time
since Khalid shot him. My God, can he have come to life again?”

Her voice rose to a shrill wavering scream as she said this. She
dropped Alma’s hand and ran with faltering, stumbling steps towards a
divan on which lay the form of a man whose black beard and moustache
were thickly clotted with blood. She stopped and bent over it for a
moment, then she raised herself and faced them with her hands locked in
her hair and the light of frenzied insanity blazing in her eyes.

“No! No!” she cried in a voice, half a scream and half a wail, that
rang weirdly through the great chamber. “He is dead still and that is
only his ghost. Oh, Alan, my love, Alan! Why could I not die with you?
Curse the hand that wounded you. Curse”--

In the one syllable her voice died away from a scream to a whisper, and
at the same instant the paralysis, which had already smitten her once,
laid its swift icy hand on her heart and brain. She swayed to and fro
for a moment and then fell forward across the corpse of the man whose
love for her had plunged the world into madness on the eve of its doom.

“What an awful end!” gasped Alma, shuddering in the close embrace she
had sought in Alan’s arms. “And yet, Alan, she loved you to the end
through all. That love for you was the one true thing in her life, and
for its sake I will say God forgive her! Come, let us go!”

THE END.

MORRISON AND GIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.

       *       *       *       *       *

Now ready, Eighth Edition, price 6s. post free,

_With numerous Illustrations by Fred. T. Jane and Edwin S. Hope_,

THE ANGEL OF THE REVOLUTION.

A TALE OF THE COMING TERROR.

BY GEORGE GRIFFITH.

In this Romance of Love, War, and Revolution, the action takes place
ten years hence, and turns upon the solution of the problem of aerial
navigation, which enables a vast Secret Society to decide the issue of
the coming world-war, for which the great nations of the earth are now
preparing. Battles such as have hitherto only been vaguely dreamed of
are fought on land and sea and in the air. Aerial navies engage armies
and fleets and fortresses, and fight with each other in an unsparing
warfare, which has for its prize the empire of the world. Unlike
all other essays in prophetic fiction, it deals with the events of
to-morrow, and with characters familiar in the eyes of living men. It
marks an entirely new departure in fiction, and opens up possibilities
which may become stupendous and appalling realities before the present
generation of men has passed away.

_A FEW PRESS OPINIONS._

“Since the days of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, we know of
no writer who ‘takes the cake’ like Mr. George Griffith.”--_Daily
Chronicle._

“A really exciting and sensational romance.”--_Literary World._

“As a work of imagination it takes high rank.”--_Belfast News Letter._

“Full of absorbing interest.”--_Barrow Herald._

“This powerful story.”--_Liverpool Mercury._

“An entirely new departure in fiction.”--_Reynolds’ Newspaper._

“Of exceptional brilliancy and power.”--_Western Figaro._

“This remarkable story.”--_Weekly Times and Echo._

“There is a fascination about his book that few will be able to
resist.”--_Birmingham Gazette._

“This exciting romance.”--_Licensing World._

“A work of strong imaginative power.”--_Dundee Courier._

“We must congratulate the author upon the vividness and reality with
which he draws his unprecedented pictures.”--_Bristol Mercury._

“Is quite enthralling.”--_Glasgow Herald._

“A striking and fascinating novel.”--_Hampshire Telegraph._

       *       *       *       *       *

PRICE 1s. Post Free,

A HEROINE OF THE SLUMS, and other Tales of the Times.

BY GEORGE GRIFFITH, AUTHOR OF “THE ANGEL OF THE REVOLUTION.”

These Tales form a series of narratives in which are depicted some of
the most thrilling situations and startling incidents taken from real
everyday life that have ever appeared in print. They are written with
all the vividness of description and fascination of style which gained
for their Author so much renown in his highly-popular work, “The Angel
of the Revolution,” and should prove most attractive to all classes of
readers.

“A capital shilling collection of exciting and laughable
stories.”--_Weekly Times and Echo._

“A very entertaining shilling’s worth.”--_N. B. Daily Mail._

“A collection of cleverly written stories.”--_Bristol Mercury._

“A capital book for a holiday or a railway train.”--_Scotsman._

“An attractive mélange of fiction, and that of a kind extremely popular
in these days.”--_Dundee Advertiser._

       *       *       *       *       *

PRICE 6s. POST FREE,

_With numerous Illustrations by T. S. C. Crowther and Captain C. Field,
In addition to Nine Military Maps_,

THE GREAT WAR IN ENGLAND IN 1897.

BY WILLIAM LE QUEUX,

AUTHOR OF “GUILTY BONDS,” “STRANGE TALES OF A NIHILIST,” ETC.

There is a curious division of opinion upon the merits of Mr. WILLIAM
LE QUEUX’S remarkable book, “The Great War in England in 1897.” The
Author has performed a task never before attempted, namely, to forecast
an invasion of the whole of England and Scotland, and the reviewers
have taken him to task very freely. It has received the warmest
commendation from the Duke of Cambridge, the Duke of Connaught, Lord
Wolseley, Lord Roberts, and Lord George Hamilton; and the “Service”
papers, who should know something of our army and navy, unanimously
praise it. _The Admiralty and Horse Guards Gazette_ says:--“Mr. Le
Queux is a vivid writer, and his work gives evidence of care and
thoroughness. =The book is the best of its kind= we have come across.”
_The United Service Gazette_ says that the author has studied the
tactical and strategical problems thoroughly, and that “=the book
will do a national service=”; while _The Naval and Military Record_
and the _Army and Navy Gazette_ say that Mr. Le Queux has special
qualifications for the task he has carried out so successfully. Most of
the influential daily papers have also eulogised it strongly, amongst
them the _Times_, _Standard_, _World_, _Sketch_, _Nottingham Daily
Guardian_, _Scotsman_, _Glasgow Herald_, _Yorkshire Post_, _Aberdeen
Free Press_, _Bradford Argus_, _Manchester Courier_, _Western Morning
News_, _Bristol Mercury_, and the _Liverpool Courier_. _The Newcastle
Daily Chronicle_ devoted a column to a review of a most commendatory
character. _The Daily Graphic_ says it is “=the most comprehensive
and thrilling of anything yet attempted=.” Three of the most powerful
papers on the Continent, the Paris _Figaro_, the Milan _Secolo_, and
the Rome _Opinione_, have devoted leading articles to the problems put
forward by the Author, all three journals declaring that =the work
is unique=, while _The Sheffield Daily Telegraph_ says it is “=the
sensation= as well as =the success= of the book season.” That it is
phenomenally successful is proved by the fact that =Five Editions were
sold within four weeks=.

       *       *       *       *       *

Now ready, Fourth Edition, price 6s. post free,

_Demy 8vo, handsomely bound in cloth gilt_,

THE CAPTAIN OF THE MARY ROSE.

_A TALE OF TO-MORROW._

BY W. LAIRD CLOWES,

U.S. NAVAL INSTITUTE.

With 60 Illustrations by the Chevalier de Martino and Fred. T. Jane.

This work has been truly described by the public press as an intensely
realistic and stirring romance of the near future. It describes the
wonderful adventures of an armour-clad cruiser, built on the Tyne,
which takes part in a great Naval War that suddenly breaks out between
France and Great Britain. The dashing way in which the vessel is
handled, her narrow escapes, the boldness of her successful attacks
upon the enemy, and the heroic conduct of her commander and crew, form
altogether a narrative of most absorbing interest, and full of exciting
scenes and situations.

THE FOLLOWING ARE A FEW PRESS OPINIONS.

“Deserves something more than a mere passing notice.”--_The Times._

“Full of exciting situations.... Has manifold attractions for all sorts
of readers.”--_Army and Navy Gazette._

“The most notable book of the season.”--_The Standard._

“A clever book. Mr. Clowes is pre-eminent for literary touch and
practical knowledge of naval affairs.”--_Daily Chronicle._

“Mr. W. Laird Clowes’ exciting story.”--_Daily Telegraph._

“We read ‘The Captain of the Mary Rose’ at a sitting.”--_The Pall Mall
Gazette._

“Written with no little spirit and imagination.... A stirring romance
of the future.”--_Manchester Guardian._

“Is of a realistic and exciting character.... Designed to show what the
naval warfare of the future may be.”--_Glasgow Herald._

“One of the most interesting volumes of the year.”--_Liverpool Journal
of Commerce._

“It is well told and magnificently illustrated.”--_United Service
Magazine._

“Full of absorbing interest.”--_Engineers’ Gazette._

“Is intensely realistic, so much so that after commencing the story
every one will be anxious to read to the end.”--_Dundee Advertiser._

“The book is splendidly illustrated.”--_Northern Whig._

TOWER PUBLISHING COMPANY LIMITED,

95 MINORIES, LONDON, E.




       *       *       *       *       *




Transcriber’s note:

Footnotes have been moved to the end of each chapter and relabeled
consecutively through the document.

Illustrations have been moved to paragraph breaks near where they are
mentioned.

Punctuation has been made consistent.

Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in
the original publication, except that obvious typographical errors have
been corrected.

The following changes were made:

p. 40: himself changed to herself (correct herself, she)

p. 46: of changed to so (and so the)