The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 05

by Anthology

  "On land, however, things seem to be going rather the other way. Germany is hemmed in between France and Russia, and is getting decidedly the worst of it. Italy has no money, and Austria seems afraid to begin; while, with the exception of the ten thousand men that England threw into Antwerp before the declaration of war,- thanks also to the Nautilus,- she is not able to do very much to help Germany. There is a scheme on foot, however, for her to finance Italy, which I believe is nearly completed, and if she does that, the war will probably become general- that is to say, of course, if we allowed it, which, I suppose," he added, with a smile, "you gentlemen of Utopia would not think of for a moment."

  "Certainly not," said both Adams and Mr. Austen in a breath.

  "I thought so," continued Mr. Maxim. "Well, we shall be in a position to send in the ultimatum the moment you come back from your expedition to Mount Prieta. You know, of course, that the Russians have a fleet of navigable aerostats similar to those which Renault destroyed over the Baltic, but I don't think they'll give you any trouble, for they are huge clumsy things, and no use at all for aerial fighting.

  "Now, I think that's everything, except the terms of the ultimatum. I have got a draft of it here which I'll read to you, and then we can make any alterations that are necessary."

  As he spoke, the chairman took a sheet of foolscap from his pocket, opened it, and read as follows:-

  Offices of the Aerial Navigation Syndicate,

  Victoria Street,

  Westminster S.W.

  (Date )

  To His Imperial Majesty,

  ÊÊÊÊThe Emperor of the Russias.

  ÊÊSIRE,-I have been instructed by the directors of the Syndicate to respectfully inform your Majesty that unless all hostilities on sea and land on the part of Russia and France cease within forty-eight hours of the receipt of this ultimatum, and unless within a further period of forty-eight hours satisfactory undertakings are entered into on the part of the said two nations to pay into the Bank of England to the account of this Syndicate the sum of five hundred millions (English pounds sterling) as war indemnity, the capitals and principal cities of the two countries will be bombarded and destroyed, and all troops remaining in the field will be dispersed by the aerial fleets of the Syndicate without further notice. A note identical with this has been sent to the President of the French Republic, and both have been despatched with the knowledge and consent of Her Britannic Majesty's Government, with which the forces at the disposal of the Syndicate will henceforth co-operate. In the hope that your Majesty will appreciate the necessity of replying with as little delay as possible,

  I have the honour to subscribe myself,ÊÊ

  Your Majesty's obedient servant,

  HIRAM S. MAXIM

  (Chairman of the Aerial Navigation Syndicate).

  "How do you think that meets the case?" he continued, laying the paper down on the blotting-pad in front of him.

  "Excellently, I should think," said Sir Harry. "Though I can imagine it won't be very pleasant reading for His Majesty and M. le President. Still, I don't think it contains anything unreasonable or over-stated. The indemnity from the two countries is only half what Germany exacted from France in '71; and even if we have to proceed to extremities, there will still be an enormous saving of human life. Of course, they won't be able to hold out against it for a week, especially if we work with the Germans and bring the Italian troops into the field as well. I don't see that it wants any alteration as it stands; do you?" he said, looking round at the others.

  Everyone agreed with him, and the proceedings were terminated by a knock at the door and the entrance of Violet, walking slowly, but steadily, with her right arm through Lieutenant Wyndham's and her left through Dora's.

  "Good evening, gentlemen!" she said, with a low laugh, as they all sprang to their feet in sheer amazement. "We have come to tell you that supper is ready."

  CHAPTER XLII.

  WOLVES AT BAY.

  THREE days after the meeting of the directors of the Syndicate at Sir Harry's house in Grosvenor Place, soon after eight o'clock on a lovely summer morning, the news ran like wildfire through London that a large fleet of air-ships flying the Union Jack and another flag, on which were emblazoned in gold and white background two winged hands grasping each other, had dropped to the ground in the middle of Hyde Park.

  Almost immediately ever-growing streams of people began to move towards the Park. Omnibuses full of men going to the City converged instead towards the Marble Arch and Hyde Park Corner, and there were promptly emptied by common consent. Business for the present was left to take care of itself, for rapidly succeeding rumours filled the air, and it soon became known that the much-abused and misunderstood Aerial Navigation Syndicate had been quietly and skilfully working for the best all the time, and had at last emerged from its secrecy and retirement with a fleet of air-ships powerful enough to meet the still dreaded anarchists in their own element, and hunt them from the skies in which they had too long reigned supreme.

  What the immediate destination of the fleet was no one knew, and no one seemed to care much to know. Everyone was satisfied for the time being to see the aerial cruisers there, resting quietly on British soil and flying the British flag. The chairman and directors of the Syndicate made, perforce, a triumphal progress through the cheering throngs that lined the way from Grosvenor Place to where the airships were lying, guarded by a strong body of police and lancers, and when at last, at the firing of a gun, the whole fleet of twenty-eight vessels rose at the same instant from the ground and soared away up into the blue, cloudless sky, it was followed by such a roaring cheer of delighted enthusiasm as London had never heard before.

  At a height of a thousand feet the fleet separated into two squadrons, led by the War-Hawk and the Volante, and then, with a parting salvo of aerial artillery, they sped away to the southward, and in a few minutes were lost to the admiring gaze of the almost frantically delighted populace.

  A flight of five hours brought them in sight of the Central Cantabrian chain, crowned by the rocky summit of Mount Prieta. Signals were now flown from the two flagships, and the two squadrons separated, the one flying to the westward and the other to the eastward, and rising in long upward curves until a height of ten thousand feet had been reached. Then they converged again, with the mountain between them.

  A few minutes later, those on watch in their conning-towers could distinctly make out with their glasses the dark oval of the gorge to the north of the peak, in which Berthauld had told the leaders of the expedition they would find the camp of the Outlaws of the Air. That his information had been accurate and faithfully given very soon became manifest, for at the moment of their arrival over the gorge, five airships rose out of it and attempted to scatter and escape underneath them, but before they had flown a thousand yards, a converging hail of shells and Maxim bullets was rained down upon them from every ship in the two squadrons.

  Three blew up and vanished in a brilliant outburst of flame, and with a shock that shook the atmosphere, and the other two, riddled and crippled, dropped to the earth like birds stricken on the wing, and were dashed to fragments on the rocks beneath. Then the squadrons halted, poised over the gorge, at the bottom of which about a score more airships could be seen resting. They waited for a good ten minutes, but not one of these made an attempt to rise.

  "Those fellows are helpless," said Mr. Maxim, who was standing in the conning-tower of the Volante with Adams. "They've got no fuel, and they can't rise. You may depend upon it that all the fuel they had left they put into those five ships we've sent to glory. That was their forlorn hope, and they've been fools enough to let us catch them like rats in a trap."

  "Yes," said Adams, "I suppose that's it. They had no idea that anyone knew anything about this place, and really, if it hadn't been for Berthauld, we might have hunted the world over for years before we'd found it. Well, we must clear them out of there now we have got them, but we mustn't destroy those ships, they are too useful f
or that, and they are worth a fight to get hold of."

  More signals were then exchanged between the flag-ships and the squadrons, and presently the War-Hawk and the Volante, each accompanied by three ships, sank slowly down towards the gorge, while the remainder kept guard in two great semicircles above. When they were on a level with the encircling rocks, the six ships ranged themselves three on either side, commanding the whole of the valley with their shell guns and Maxims, while the War-Hawk and the Volante sank down in the centre, and stopped a hundred feet from the ground, just clear of their consorts' line of fire.

  On one bank of the stream that ran down through the gorse stood an irregular group of between forty and fifty half-starved and woebegone - looking wretches, the last remnant of the lately terrible Outlaws of the Air. Mr. Maxim had been correct in his opinion. The five air-ships that had been destroyed had contained all that was left of the motor-fuel in the camp. All the men that they would carry had crowded into them, ruthlessly shooting down those who had disputed the last chance of escape with them, and whose corpses now lay scattered about the space they had risen from.

  But the fate of the five ships had apparently utterly demoralised those who were left in the gorge, for when Sir Harry hailed them in French, and asked them whether they preferred surrender or shooting down where they stood, they threw up their unarmed hands, and one of them shouted back-

  "Yes, we surrender, if you will give us our lives."

  "I can't promise that," he replied. "All I can promise is a fair trial and English justice."

  "Will you promise to take us to England?"

  "Yes, if you will surrender quietly, and if there is no treachery. If there is any, not one of you shall escape alive. If a shot is fired, either from those huts or the ships, you shall be shot down where you stand, every man of you. Now, put your hands above your heads, and keep them there."

  Every band went up as he spoke, and the two air-ships dropped to the ground, one on either side of the group, so keeping the anarchists between the cross-fire of six Maxims. Three men from each vessel landed, and, taking the anarchists one by one, bound their arms behind them, the others being compelled to keep their hands up until their turn came.

  None of them made the slightest resistance, for they had chosen cunningly and well. Resistance meant nothing but certain death; but English justice was an unknown quantity, and might offer more than one loophole of escape to them, as it had done to many others of their evil kind. As a matter of fact, it may as well be said at once that a very clever Old Bailey barrister who was retained for their defence, and actually paid with stolen money, made out the impossibility of identification of the prisoners with those who had committed depredations within the limits of English jurisdiction, so that everyone in court, from the judge to the warders, felt certain that a verdict of "Guilty" was almost impossible.

  Of course, it was a moral certainty that they had manned the fleet which half destroyed Newcastle, just as it was that they had committed the outrages that had terrorised Europe; but moral certainty is one thing and legal certainty another, and all that the judge in his summing-up could do was to dwell upon the fact that they had been caught in the anarchist camp in possession of the air-ships. Berthauld, unhappily, had been employed chiefly on the transport Voyageur, and had not been present at the Newcastle tragedy, so that he was unable to swear positively that the prisoners were there.

  The case for the prosecution looked very weak when the judge had finished his admirably impartial summing-up; but for once, at least, twelve jurymen declined to be fooled by legal technicalities and forensic trickery. They did not even leave the box; they consulted for two or three minutes, and then the foreman stood up, and, in answer to the charge of the clerk as to whether they found all or any of the prisoners guilty of murder and arson on the high seas or within the limits of the British jurisdiction, he replied, to the relief and delight of every one but the prisoners-

  "We find them all guilty."

  And so in due course Justice was done in spite of Law.

  While the anarchists were being secured, two other ships landed in the gorge, and a complete search was made of all the huts and air-ships for men or explosives that might have been concealed with a view to treachery. Nothing, however, was found except in the regular magazines of the air-ships, which were nearly full. Hardly any food or drink was found in the camp - a fact which proved that the outlaws had been reduced by the desertion of the Revanche almost to extremity.

  The captives were distributed amongst their own ships and those of the Syndicate's squadron, and six hours after the first and only attack had been made, the united fleets, now numbering forty-eight vessels, mounted into the air in two divisions, and within six hours more the remnant of the Outlaws of the Air had been safely lodged in Pentonville prison, under lock and key and a special guard of military and police.

  CHAPTER XLIII.

  THE ULTIMATUM.

  FOR a fortnight the directors and officers of the Syndicate were busily engaged in refitting the captured vessels with new guns and stores, and getting their new crews accustomed to them and their machinery, which was slightly different to that which propelled their own ships.

  This period was signalised by at least two important events. The first was the unexpected appearance at dawn one morning, in Southampton Water, of the Nautilus, which had sailed under sealed orders the day after the success of Dr. Roberts' experiment. Behind her floated, peaceful and harmless at last, the long-dreaded Destroyer, once the terror of the Atlantic, and now the latest addition to the British Navy.

  She had been sighted by a North German Lloyd boat chasing a French mail-ship bound for Buenos Ayres, and reported. Lieutenant Wyndham found that his sealed orders were to run her down and sink or capture her, whatever time it took to do so. By a stroke of great good luck, he ran across her in three days, a little south of the transatlantic track. The Destroyer at once gave chase, and the Nautilus went about and ran for it, always keeping just five miles ahead, until at last it dawned upon the pirates that the Destroyer had at last met a vessel faster than herself.

  This they knew could be nothing but the terrible Nautilus; and so, after keeping the chase up all day, they doubled at nightfall and ran in the opposite direction. But this was exactly what Wyndham had expected; and the Nautilus, instead of being five miles away, as the pirates thought, was only three-quarters of a mile, so that the moment she turned she was seen in the clear summer night.

  Then the searchlight of the Nautilus flashed out, and, after having wasted nearly half of their rapidly diminishing stock of fuel, as Wyndham had intended they should do, the pursuers became the pursued. Day dawned, and found the remorseless Nautilus still travelling at exactly the same speed as her prey, and exactly four miles astern of her.

  All day the chase continued, the two vessels flying through the water at nearly forty knots an hour; but towards evening the speed of the Destroyer began to slacken. The Nautilus slowed down too, always keeping her four-mile distance, until at length the last pound of fuel had been burned on board the Destroyer, and she came to a dead stop.

  This happened within about eighty miles of the steamship track between New York and the Channel, and here Wyndham knew he would be certain to pick up a British steamer on patrol duty, so, leaving the helpless Destroyer where she lay, he ran north at full speed, flashing the private signal all the way, until it was answered from a British war-ship, which he found to be the Ariadne, a twenty-two knot cruiser on the Atlantic station.

  He reported what he had done, gave exact directions as to the position of the Destroyer, and then sped away to mount guard over her until the cruiser arrived. When she at length did so, the pirates were given their choice between being blown out of the water or surrender. They replied with a shot from their forty-pounder, which drilled a clean hole through the cruiser's unarmoured bows. Then Wyndham, training one of his guns, dropped a five-hundred-pound dynamite cartridge, with a time-fuse attached, into the
water about twenty yards from the Destroyer.

  It burst well under the surface, hurling up a gigantic mass of foaming water high into the air, and this, falling back with frightful force, deluged the pirate craft with tons of water, and left her helpless and half sinking, with every man on board her either drowned or maimed. The hint proved quite sufficient. The red flag came slowly down at last and a white one took its place. Then the Ariadne lowered her pinnace, and the terror of the Atlantic was ignominiously taken possession of without a struggle, to be towed back to England in triumph by her captor.