by Anthology
"Now," he said to the crews as soon as the guns were in position. "Your range is three miles. Time your shells for that, and blaze away. Ah, they've opened fire too! Well, they won't do much harm at this speed, I think."
His last exclamation was called forth by the bursting of a couple of shells about a mile on either side of the War-Hawk, and some three hundred feet below her. What Mr. Austen had said was borne out to the letter. The four vessels were now moving at a speed of a hundred and twenty miles an hour through the air, and therefore the wind was rushing past them with a force half as great again as that of a hurricane. Consequently, as the anarchist gunners very soon found, it was impossible to take any effective aim with guns into the muzzles of which the air was being forced at this enormous pressure.
But with the War-Hawk's artillery the conditions were reversed. Her guns being trained aft at a very acute angle, the wind swept harmlessly past their muzzles, and her projectiles, hurled forward with an initial velocity of three thousand feet a second, sped undisturbed on their way. Her gunners now settled down steadily to their work, and every shell burst nearer than the one before it to one or other of the anarchist vessels. At length one from the starboard forward gun burst fairly under the air-planes of the nearest of them.
"Bravo! " cried Sir Harry, who had watched the explosion through his glasses. "That's crippled him at last."
And so it had done; for, like a bird with a broken wing, the stricken ship stopped, turned over, and vanished in the distance as the others sped onwards. By this time they were travelling over the Cheviot Hills in a south-westerly direction. Those on board the War-Hawk, looking back into the gloom behind and beneath them, saw a brilliant spout of flame burst up out of the midst of the dark heather-clad hills far away in the distance astern.
"What was that, Sir Harry?" asked Dora, with a tremor of awe in her voice. She had come from Violet's cabin with a message, and was standing by his side watching the effects of the shot through the open slide through which the barrel of the gun projected.
"That was an anarchist air-ship loaded with explosives falling on to the earth from a height of about three thousand feet," replied Sir Harry gravely. "That is what it means to be crippled in an aerial engagement. Horrible, isn't it?"
"Horrible! " cried Dora, with a shudder. "There is no word that would describe it. It seems too awful even to think about. Is that what would happen to us if they hit us?"
"Most probably," he said, still more gravely. "And that is why we are keeping them behind us. Ha! there goes another. Well aimed, Martin. That appears to have shaken him considerably. It burst right under his stern, didn't it?"
"Yes, and crippled his propellers, I think," said the captain of the starboard after gun, flushing with pleasure at the result of his shot. "She is dropping out of sight fast, and there's the other one turning round to go and help her, I suppose."
"So she is," cried Sir Harry. "Now, Miss Dora, you go back to Violet and tell her we have had it all our own way so far. Don't I only wish old Wyndham was here. I think this sort of fighting would open his eyes considerably."
"You are not the only one on board who wishes that; Sir Harry," said Dora, with a laugh, as she walked towards the companion-way that led up from the gun-room - which was placed in the lowest part of the hull so that the guns could be fired clear of the air-planes and the propellers.
As the third of the anarchist air-ships had gone back to her crippled consort, who was now beyond range, Sir Harry also left the gun-room, and went to discuss the situation with Mr. Austen in the conning-tower.
"We've done very well," said the engineer; "very well indeed, considering this is the first bit of gunnery practice our gunners have had. I hope that one we sent down didn't fall on a town or a village. We can't be very far from some of the towns on the North Tyne. Good heavens! Why, an explosion like that would be enough to lay a whole town in ruins. I'm afraid this aerial warfare is going to be something much more horrible than the old-fashioned sort, and goodness knows that's bad enough."
"I'm afraid so," replied Sir Harry; "but I don't think that fellow fell anywhere but on the moors, and he wouldn't do much harm there except to himself. I'd give something to know that that blackguard Renault had been on board of her. But what do you think we had better do now? Shall we go back and see what those fellows are up to? There is a good moon getting up now, and we shall have plenty of light to see what they are doing."
"Yes," replied Mr. Austen, "I think we may as well. I'll tell Markham to go up another thousand feet, and then we'll try if we can get over them. Just see that there are no lights showing anywhere about the ship when you go back to the gun-room, will you? We mustn't let them see us coming if we can help it. Tell me when you want to use the guns again. We'll go back at sixty miles, and then you'll be able to pick them up easily."
As Sir Harry left the conning-tower, the blades of the lifting fans sprang out from the masts and began to revolve faster and faster as the speed of the air-ship decreased. At the same time, Mr. Austen inclined the planes, and the War-Hawk, swinging round, mounted on an upward curve in an easterly direction.
As she did so, a scene of strange and almost indescribable beauty opened out under the wondering eyes of Dora and Violet, as they sat at the window of their cabin, quite oblivious for the time being of any danger, and wholly absorbed in amazed admiration of the marvels of their first aerial voyage. They were far above the clouds now, and the great bank of cumulus to the westward, which had looked so dark from the earth, was now a fairyland of snow and opal, stretching away into the infinite distance in endless ranges of hills of the most fantastic outline, bathed in the mingled silver of the moonlight and the crimson afterglow of the sun that had set behind them.
To the eastward there were only a few isolated masses of cloud floating like islands of snow in the ocean of air, and below these, thousands of feet beneath them, lay the dark outline of the land and the shimmer of the moonlight on the water beyond it. As the War-Hawk swept round, two little grey patches close together appeared far below and in front of them. One was the crippled air-ship and the other her consort, lying about fifty yards away from her.
CHAPTER XXVII.
AN ESCAPE AND A CAPTURE.
WHAT are we to do with those fellows?" said Sir Harry to Mr. Austen, as the War-Hawk slowed up and hung suspended in the air some fifteen hundred feet above the two Anarchist air-ships. "It doesn't seem quite the thing to blow them to pieces in cold blood, and yet-"
"My dear sir," replied Mr. Austen almost sharply, "please remember whom we're fighting. These people are not honourable adversaries; they are only vermin, and as vermin we must destroy them. There, look at that! do yon think any human being with a soul to call his own would do a thing like that- leave his consort helpless under his enemies' guns! Wilson, Vincent, get your guns to bear on that scoundrel and see if you can't wing him before he gets out of range."
The latter part of Mr. Austen's speech went down the speaking-tube communicating with the forward part of the gun-room, and almost instantly the bang of the two mingled reports sounded through the ship, and the two shells went screaming after the uninjured air-ship, which had literally sprung away from the side of her helpless consort the instant that the War-Hawk had been discovered hovering over them.
Unfortunately, the order had been given a moment too late, and the shells passed astern of the rapidly moving vessel and struck the earth far below, expending their energy harmlessly on the heather. Before the guns could be recharged, the anarchist craft, with her planes inclined downwards, had passed like a flash underneath a light bank of clouds and vanished.
"That's my fault," said Sir Harry bluntly. "I don't think I understand this kind of warfare yet. Kill or be killed seem the only alternatives. That fellow may do untold mischief before we can catch him again."
"Exactly," said Mr. Austen drily. "But it was my mistake as well as yours. We ought to have fired on them both the moment we came to rest. However, we won
't let that one escape."
"Not if I can help it," added Sir Harry. "I'd like to take the beggar prisoner and hang the crew in due form; but while we were doing that, I suppose that other fellow would come back and blow us to pieces."
"Stop a minute- I don't see why we shouldn't if we only take proper precautions," interrupted Mr. Austen. "I think that other fellow has had quite enough of fighting for the present, and this one is absolutely helpless; if he hadn't been, he'd have followed the other. As far as I can see, he's only able to use his lifting fans to stop himself falling on to the earth. We'll leave him there, and see what has become of the other. Full speed ahead, please, Markham. Now," he continued, as he put the speaking-tube back on its hook, "we'll try what the War-Hawk can do in the way of speed."
As he spoke, the blades of the lifting fans fell down beside the masts and were caught in the clips which held them in position. The wind began to whistle, and then to sing, and then to scream past the masts and stays as the air-ship gathered way, and, with the whole nine thousand horse-power of her engines concentrated on the propellers, went rushing through the cloven atmosphere at a speed of three miles a minute, or a hundred and eighty miles an hour. Keeping her air-planes slightly inclined, Mr. Austere sent her on an upward path to the eastward, the direction which the anarchist craft had taken.
"We won't give him any chance to get above us," he said to Sir Harry; "and if we can get over him and in front of him, we may get a chance of another shot at him. Yes, there he is. Look! You can just see his outline in the moonlight against the background of that moor down yonder."
Sir Harry looked downwards, and saw what looked like a grey shadow in the bright moonlight hanging between them and the land. He brought his glasses up to his eyes for a moment, and then said-
"Yes; and what's more, we have the heels of him. We are overhauling him hand over fist."
"So we are," said Mr. Austen, "thanks to the lavishness of your expenditure on the War-Hawk, I think I can congratulate you on having the fastest air-ship afloat, and of course that means the most formidable one. I should say he was making about thirty miles an hour less than we are, and of course, if he means to run for it, he is doing his best."
"Well," laughed Sir Harry," I'm thankful my money has been of some good at any rate, for I am exasperatingly conscious of the fact that I haven't distinguished myself very much since we got afloat."
"All in good time, my dear sir," said Mr. Austen good-humouredly. "Remember this is your first aerial voyage, to say nothing of your first battle in the air, and, added to that, you must remember that I've studied aerial navigation and tactics in theory for more years than you have thought about them for months. I don't suppose it will be very long before you'll be able to take the War-Hawk into action without my assistance, and make her the terror to her enemies that she ought to be."
"Well, however that may be, I am lucky in having some one who can teach me," laughed Sir Harry in reply. "And I've certainly learned the most valuable lesson of all to-night, for I know now that I know nothing at all about it. So, for the present at least, you will please consider yourself in supreme command. You take entire charge of the ship, and tell me what to do, and I'll do it."
"Very well; that's practical, to say the very least of it," said Mr. Austen, looking at him approvingly out of his keen grey eyes. "And now, if you'll just take a look round and see that the guns are all ready and the men in their places, and then come back here, I'll give you your first lesson in aerial navigation. Meanwhile, we shall have overtaken that fellow, I think, and then perhaps we shall see some fun."
Sir Harry, feeling a little out of sorts with himself, but still satisfied that he had taken the most sensible course in reducing himself for the time being to the condition of a pupil, made his round of inspection, and by the time he got back to the conning-tower, he found, as Mr. Austen had said, that they had already overtaken the fugitive, which was now floating, a grey speck, nearly two thousand feet below them.
"We'll get a little farther ahead," said Mr. Austen, "and then we can open fire on him with the stern guns. But I don't want to do that yet, because we must be passing over the borders of Northumberland and Durham now, and that's crowded with towns, so if we did happen to send him to the earth, we might kill hundreds of people below in doing it. We'll wait till we get out to sea, and then it won't matter.
"Eh? What? Hang the fellow! he knows his business a great deal better than those others did. Do you see that crowd of lights down there? Well, that's Newcastle and Gateshead, and those yonder to the eastward are the towns along the Tyne to South Shields and Tynemouth. There he goes- he's dropping down towards them. He knows we daren't fire at him, because, if we miss him, our shells will strike in the town, and if we hit him, he'll just drop like a huge bomb-shell into Newcastle and lay half the town in ruins. Confound him! what are we to do?"
"And look!" almost shouted Sir Harry, grasping him by the arm and pointing downwards to where myriads of lights indicated the position of Newcastle and Gateshead. "He's bombarding the towns himself out of pure spite and revenge for our having destroyed his two consorts!"
It was only too true. Although the anarchist air-ship apparently lay at the mercy of the War-Hawk, in reality she commanded the situation. True, she offered a comparatively easy mark to her guns, but then, if a shell struck her anywhere but in the magazine, she would be crippled, and drop like a stone, with all her cargo of explosives, upon the town; while every shot that missed her - and in the deceptive half-light of the moon the aim was anything but a certain one - would strike some part of the town below, and do just as much damage as her own shells.
"What the deuce are we to do?" exclaimed Mr. Austen angrily, as he saw the anarchist's shells bursting, apparently in half a dozen parts of the town at once. "Who on earth would have thought of the brute trying a move like that? There, see, he is dropping fire-shells now into the shipping. Great heavens! look how it's blazing! That must be awful stuff those shells are loaded with. Oh, this won't do at all! There is only one thing to be done. We must go down and get about a couple of miles away from him, and then fire horizontally at him over the town."
"And expose ourselves to his shells while we are doing it," interjected Sir Harry. "I'm afraid that would hardly be prudent, would it?"
"No, no; you're right--that won't do," said Mr. Austen. "If we lose our elevation, we give away our advantage, and we can't get him within range of our guns without bringing ourselves within range of his, and the worst of it is that the first shell that hits settles the matter. Confound the clouds! Look at them coming up there from the sea, and a sea-mist, too, by all that's unfortunate! Was there ever such a miserable climate as this? Ah, there he goes!- I thought so. That's what the blackguard's been waiting for. We've lost him!"
Before the last word had left his lips, the anarchist airship had executed a daring but perfectly successful manoeuvre.
A dense bank of cloud had drifted rapidly in from the sea, followed by the rolling masses of a veritable sea-mist, which swept up like a vast cloud of white smoke, mingling with the darker smoke of the fires and the explosions and the thousands of chimneys of the two towns.
Through this he dropped suddenly like a stone towards the earth, and, once enveloped in it, he set his propellers to work at their utmost speed, and went skimming away out to sea at fully a hundred and fifty miles an hour, only a few hundred feet above the housetops, leaving a dozen fires blazing furiously behind him in the town and on the river.
"Outwitted after all! And just as we had him at our mercy, if it hadn't been for the town!" exclaimed Mr. Austen. "And yet, what could we have done?"
"Nothing," said Sir Harry. "There was no help for it. We couldn't have fired on him while he was between us and all those thousands of helpless people down yonder. I suppose it's no use chasing him any farther?"
"Oh no, not the slightest," said Mr. Austen angrily. "He's given us the slip completely this time. A needle in a haystack is nothing
to an air-ship flying a hundred and fifty miles through a fog. Confound the weather!- and he was no fool either who was in command of that ship."
"Suppose it was Renault himself," said Sir Harry. "By heavens! if I thought that, I'd have blown her up if it had wrecked half Newcastle! Why the deuce didn't that strike me before?"
"Well, we can't do anything now," said Mr. Austen. "Whether it was Renault or not, he has outwitted us this time, and there is an end of it. Still, the War-Hawk hasn't done very badly for her first two or three hours in the air. We've destroyed one of the enemy and crippled another - And that reminds me, we may as well go back and see what has happened to that other one."
"And if we can only collar the crew, we may find out whether Renault was in command of the expedition," said Sir Harry. "I shall never forgive myself if I hear that he was on board that brute that escaped."
Mr. Austen had carefully noted the course steered by compass in pursuit of the third air-ship, as well as the time occupied, consequently he was able to run the War-Hawk back from Newcastle almost to the very spot where the disabled anarchist had been left. Then, from a height of four thousand feet, her two searchlights were brought into play ahead and astern, and before long one of them fell on the object of their search, still hanging almost motionless in mid-air, supported by her rapidly revolving fans.