Banko’s eyes widened as he looked at the Nyctalope. “You can see in the dark?” he stammered.
“Yes! Let’s make haste. Go!”
“But what shall I do after switching the lights off?”
“Wait exactly five minutes, then switch them on again and come to join me. I’ll be in Oxus’ room—and, I hope, master of the Master.”
“Will you kill him?”
“If he resists, yes. If he surrenders, no.”
“May your will be done! In five minutes, you’ll be the Master, or dead.”
“That’s my intention. Go, Banko!”
“Right! The doors of the lobby open outwards—press on a black square embedded in the middle of the top step. Don’t forget!”
Falling to a kneeling position, the slave embraced Saint-Clair’s legs excitedly, kissed his knees, got up and went out.
The Nyctalope slipped out of the dressing-gown he was wearing and stood naked, like an ancient athlete, in front of the door to the hallway. His left hand was poised, level with the electric button controlling its opening and closure.
Almost immediately, all the electric bulbs in the antechamber were abruptly extinguished. Saint-Clair pressed the button. The door opened. His eyes, piercing the darkness, saw the two colossal black men, the guardians of Oxus’ repose, in the distance. One of them was already making a movement towards his portable lamp—but the Nyctalope’s electro-mirror was pointed at him, taking aim.
A lightning-bolt zigzagged through the darkness. Blasted at almost the same instant, the two guards collapsed. The bodies tumbled down to the bottom step with a dull sound, but the electro-mirrors, leaping from their hands, clattered on the mosaic tiles. Saint-Clair had hurled himself forwards. He bounded as far as the top of the steps. He saw the black square, and pressed both heels upon it. The two doors at either end of the lobby swung outwards, one after the other. The Nyctalope went through.
In the darkness of a vast room, he saw an old man lying on a bed, dressed entirely in white, save for his green boots. The old man had just woken up; his wide eyes stared into the darkness, and he raised his arm in an instinctive gesture, evidently reaching for a light-switch.
The Nyctalope threw away his electro-mirror, ran to the old man, seized his arm and immobilized him. “Oxus!” he said. “I am the Nyctalope! You’re in my power. Surrender!”
Invisible, Saint-Clair saw Oxus frown. “Surrender!” the victor repeated. “I have all the vigor of youth; I can kill you. I would be eternally remorseful, but it’s necessary, for more than 3000 human lives—including that of the woman I love—depend on your submission or death. Surrender, Oxus!”
“If I surrender,” said the old man, calmly, “what will you do with the Fifteen and my work?”
“Exactly what if shall do if you oblige me to kill you; they shall live, and they shall be the instruments—unconscious at first, then conscious and docile—of my continuation of your work.”
“How will you do that?”
“If you want to know and to witness my conquest of the Fifteen, surrender!”
“It will be a prodigious spectacle,” said Oxus. “I surrender!”
Saint-Clair shivered with joy. “Give me your word to do nothing without my order,” he said.
“You have it.”
The Nyctalope release Oxus’ arm. The latter at up straight, murmuring: “You would not have won if you had had eyes like those of other men. Nature has made darkness your accomplice against the Fifteen.”
“Nature has done well,” replied Saint-Clair, with a formidable expression of power and joy, “since it has also given me a heart more generous than the hearts of the Fifteen.”
“And so,” said Oxus, with a dignity that was majestic and sad, “I, an old man and Master of the Fifteen, vanquished, bow down before you, Nyctalope!”
Leaping out of bed, the august leader lowered his head before the man he could not see, but whose ardent breath he could hear. Then suddenly, the electricity was switched on again—and in the light that came from the hallway, Oxus saw that he had bowed down before a naked man with empty hands, with no weapon: a man as nature had made him. That was a symbol; he understood it. “A great lesson!” he murmured. “All the defenses and weapons that science gave me have been defeated by the eye of a night-bird. You are the Master, Nyctalope! Give your orders! I am ready to obey.”
“You will not have to obey,” Saint-Clair replied, with gentle respect. Taking the chastened Master’s right hand, he went on: “You shall remain here, in this bedroom, perhaps for a month. I shall come to see you three times a day. Your food will be brought to you regularly from my table—which will be yours, in everyone’s eyes—by Xavière, my fiancée. I shall make a report of my actions to you every night. I shall often ask your advice—and in a month’s time, perhaps sooner, I shall say to you: ‘Come! Take back the government of the Fifteen; the Nyctalope will be your lieutenant.’ ” And Saint-Clair, bending his knee, added: “Forgive me for having vanquished you, Master. It’s the fault of the Fifteen, who didn’t understand me, not mine…”
“Brave and noble heart!” Oxus exclaimed—and, lifting the young man up, he embraced him as a father embraces a son.
IV. The Nyctalope, Master of the XV
The Nyctalope waited for Banko on the steps outside the lobby, whose doors were closed. He was dressed In Oxus’ red cloak, which the Master himself had thrown over his shoulders.
When the guard reappeared, he shivered on seeing the venerated mantle. “The Master…?” he stammered.
“I am the Master now!” said Saint-Clair.
“Is he dead?”
“He’s alive—but he has transferred his power to me. Do you know how to be silent, Banko, when it’s necessary to say nothing?”
The guard slowly mounted the flight of steps, embraced the Nyctalope’s knees as he had done before, and said, in a grave voice: “Banko will be mute, if you order it, until the headsman’s axe falls.”
“That’s good! Do you know where Oxus’ study is?”
“Yes, Master.”
“Take me there.”
Ten minutes later, Saint-Clair went into the vast room with the two globes. He took his place in the armchair in which Oxus had sat so many times. “Listen!” he said to Banko. “First of all, go to Koynos’ house. Select some clothing and footwear, and bring it to me immediately.”
“Yes, Master.”
“Then get rid of the bodies of the two guards I blasted. Do you know a quick way to do that?”
“Yes, Master—I have only to throw them into a well that communicates with the sewers of Cosmopolis. They’ll be carried out to sea, where the innumerable crabs will devour them.”
“Good! Afterwards, go tell Xavière what you’ve seen and tell her to stay where she is, in the cell, until I can get her out myself.”
“Yes, Master.”
“Finally, wake up a number of your black comrades and say to them: ‘The prison guards have fallen asleep. The Master made a tour of inspection. He found only me awake. He ordered me to put the guilty men in prison for two days and replace them.’ Will they obey you?”
“Without hesitation—for anyone who said what you have told me to say, without having the right, would be condemning himself to the most rapid of deaths.”
“That’s good! You’ll take command of the new guard, with the instruction that no one other than you should look into Saint-Clair’s cell—and you’ll watch over Xavière. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Master.”
“Go!”
Banko went out, happy and proud of the various confidential missions with which the prodigious Nyctalope had charged him. A little while later, he came back with white flannel clothing, a red belt and boots of green leather, which he deposited on a chair, and then went out again.
Saint-Clair got dressed rapidly. Koynos’ underwear and clothes were too big for him, but their design permitted an improvised arrangement and the Nyctalope found them comfortable.
A chronometer suspended from a small frame above Oxus’ desk marked 13 hours, which was 1 a.m. It had, therefore, taken him only 60 minutes to accomplish the unimaginable substitution that had made him the new Master of the XV!
The 13th hour, the Nyctalope said to himself. The wake-up call will be sounded at the 18th, which is 6 a.m. I have time enough!
And he set to work.
“I didn’t want to ask anything of Oxus,” he murmured. “I have to learn everything myself, in order to play my role well. This study is an exact replica of the one in which I worked at the radiomotive station in the Congo—I see the same apparatus, the same disposition of tables, switches, signals, telephonographs… Let’s examine everything.”
He examined everything minutely. On the bookshelves, he saw a book whose title caused him to pause: The Constitution of the XV. He read it in two hours. A file on the desk solicited his attention then. On its cover, it bore the words: Military operations against the Martians. He assimilated its contents in two further hours. Written by various hands, it consisted of studies and reports in three languages: English, German and Italian. Saint-Clair knew them all. The annotations, presumably in Oxus’ own handwriting, were in French.
French, the Nyctalope said to himself, is the official language of the XV; it was used in the tribunal that passed judgment on Koynos. I’ll give my orders in French.
He got up and paced back and forth across the study, with his head lowered. It was three minutes to the 18th hour.
“Let’s go!” said Saint-Clair, aloud. “Let’s get started!”
He was pale, his face contracted in a determined expression. He sat down in Oxus’ armchair and waited for the automatic wake-up call to sound. Dead on the 18th hour, the bell rang in the study, as it rang in all the rooms in the houses, workshops and barracks of Cosmopolis.
Saint-Clair waited another five minutes, and then pressed the third ivory button in a row of 15 on the right-hand edge of the desk. A mechanism clicked within an apparatus suspended from the wall; a flap opened, uncovering the trumpet of a phonograph, from which emerged the following words: “Hail to the Master! Kipper awaits your orders.”
Saint-Clair did not hesitate in the slightest. He unhooked the telephonic transmitter that was on the desk within arm’s reach and spoke into the microphone. He knew that his voice, transformed by the phonographic apparatus, would take on metallic quality, without any distinctive accent, as it resounded in Kipper’s bedroom.
“Hail to the Commander-in-Chief of the Fifteen!” he said “Gather the Brothers and assume command of them. Let each one assemble his companions. You will take all the troops, armed with electro-mirrors and electric isolators, and reformulate the expeditionary army that was dissolved during the adventure of the young women. Then you will re-activate the plan that Koynos and Alkeus made for the methodical and progressive conquest of Mars.”
Saint-Clair stopped speaking. Almost immediately, the telephonograph replied: “The Master will be obeyed. Who will be my lieutenant?”
“Appoint him yourself!” ordered the Nyctalope. “Miniok will command the fleet of submarines and hydroplanes. Ekaton will direct the airfleet. As for provisions, I shall organize the supply chain from here, by means of aircraft.”
“When do we leave?” asked Kipper.
“In two hours!” Saint-Clair replied, dryly.
There was a silence; then, as everything seemed to be concluded, the phonograph repeated an unexpected question from Kipper: “What if we encounter the men from Earth who accompanied the Nyctalope?”
Smiling, the Nyctalope replied: “Annihilate them!”
“And Alpha?”
“Execute the judgment of the Tribunal.”
“Honored be the Master!”
“For the glory of the Fifteen!”
And the Nyctalope replaced the telephonic transmitter.
Two hours later, alone in the observation-turret at the top of Oxus’ palace, invisible behind the glass that reflected the Sun’s rays, Saint-Clair watched the departure of the XV and their army.
Gathered outside the ramparts, the Brothers, companions and slaves embarked, some in submarines, others in hydroplanes arranged along a pier, and others in airplanes hovering around an elevated platform. There were scarcely 2000 men, but they were so formidably armed with marvelous machines, and so effectively defended against the science of the Martians, that they were worth a million terrestrial soldiers.
As the 22nd hour sounded in the houses of Cosmopolis, a long whistle rent the pure air of a day that promised to be calm and mild; the aircraft took off, the submarines glided into open water and the hydroplanes were launched.
Ten minutes later, all those black moving objects had disappeared beyond the north-eastern horizon of the Erythrean Sea.
According to the plan made by Koynos and Alkeus, which Kipper had taken up, the expeditionary army would proceed to the conquest of the large Hellas Island, which was at the same latitude as Argyre to the east. After having crossed the Erythrean Sea and passed through the Strait of Pandora, which separated the desolate region of Deucalion from the desert of Nonchis, the terrestrial conquerors would enter the Hadrianic Sea and invade Hellas via the canal Alpheus, which the Martians had constructed to link Lake Zea, in the center of Hellas, to the Hadrianic Sea. In this regard, let us say right away that the famous canals of Mars, whether single or double, do not exist, at least as terrestrial astronomers generally imagine them. The Martians have undoubtedly dug numerous canals in the inhabited regions of their planet, but these canals are invisible from Earth, for their rather modest breadth cannot modify the physical appearance of Mars at all at such a distance.
When the Fifteen and their army had vanished over the horizon, Saint-Clair left his observatory and went back down to Oxus’ study. There was no one left in Cosmopolis or Argyre now except for Oxus’ personal guard, composed of 100 élite black men; the prison guard and the guards in the storehouses, each likewise comprising 100 Africans; the technicians and mechanics responsible for maintaining and operating all the city’s prodigious machines, who numbered 60 Europeans assisted by a 120 Chinese and Japanese slaves; and the senior kitchen staff and domestic supervisors, 20 in all, who had about 300 women under their command. Along with Saint-Clair, Oxus and the 15 young women, these made up the total number of the inhabitants of Cosmopolis once the XV’s army had departed—although, to be absolutely exact, it is necessary to subtract the two guards that the Nyctalope had killed in order to get to Oxus’ bedroom.
As soon as he was back in Oxus’ study, Saint-Clair put himself in telephonic communication with the prison guard-room.
“Banko, at the Master’s orders,” was the response.
“I want to see you, now!” he said.
A few moments later, the black man came in. His broad face expressed a sort of quasi-religious respect. He bowed profoundly on the threshold, saying: “Master!”
“Raise your head, Banko, and look at me. You know what’s happened. The Fifteen and the army are on expedition. They won’t return until after the conquest of the land of Hellas, and only when it pleases me. I’m the master of Cosmopolis. When the Fifteen return, Cosmopolis will be full of my men, and the Fifteen will submit to my authority, as even Oxus will desire—or they will be annihilated!”
The Nyctalope had spoken with a condescending generosity, but with an indescribable forcefulness. Confronted with this new force, greater than the one he had revered for so many years, Banko remained tremulous, his eyes imploring, as if he dreaded that the force might choke and pulverize him.
“Stand up straight, Banko, and look me in the face!” Saint-Clair repeated.
The guard contrived to obey, while the Nyctalope went on: “Is Sylla the man who commands Oxus’ personal guard?”
“Yes, Master.”
“You will replace him.”
“Me!” said Banko, dumbfounded.
“Yes, you. You will be the Commander of my guard. According to the Fifteen’s Cons
titution, in their absence, every man remaining in Cosmopolis must obey the Commander of the Master’s guard, on pain of death. You will thus be my right arm, until my comrades arrive. That’s decided.”
“Than you, Master!”
“How is Xavière?”
The entirety of the black man’s athletic body shuddered. He responded, in a trembling voice: “She’s lying still, with her back to the door. She seems to be asleep.”
“Go set her free, and bring her here. Order the guards in the prison corridor to go up to the guard-room, so that they won’t see the future Queen of Cosmopolis coming out of a cell. Go and hurry! I’m waiting!”
The guard took a step back, reaching the door, but Saint-Clair brought him to a standstill with a gesture and said: “And don’t forget that you’ll be a Commander in a quarter of an hour. Think, speak and act like a Commander!”
“Master, I shall command all the better for being obedient to you!”
And Banko went out, while Saint-Clair smiled and murmured: “I’d say that chap had a brain, if I didn’t have proof that what he has above all else is a heart!”
Five minutes later, having come into the study alone, Xavière threw herself into the Nyctalope’s arms. After enduring so many terrible changes of fortune, the Earthly lovers found themselves, mentally at least, lovers on Mars—victorious lovers, thanks to the power that their love had given them. It was thanks to their ardent, ingenious, brave, patient and cunning love that they had been able to overcome the most fantastic obstacles, triumph over the most extraordinary difficulties, and finally succeed where thousands upon thousands of men acting in combination would have failed miserably.
Xavière and Leo were surrendering themselves to all the sweetness and tenderness that their love had so long held in reserve when the ringing of a telephone recalled them abruptly to present reality. The mechanical voice pronounced: “The Master is served!”
“Damn!” exclaimed Saint-Clair. “I didn’t think of that. The most trivial causes often have grave consequences. I need another quarter of an hour of action before we can dine tranquilly. It’s necessary to replace Sylla with Blanko, or we might be blasted by the electro-mirrors of my own guards. Hang on!” And, under the attentive gaze of Xavière, the Nyctalope put himself in communication with the guard-room where Sylla, ought to be. “Sylla, hear the Master’s orders!”
The Nyctalope on Mars 2: The Triumph of Love Page 11