by Unknown
"That is so, sir, and then we shall have the advantage ofinvisibility, and the enemy ships will be in fluorescence."
"Damned impracticable!" muttered Stopford.
"You seriously propose to darken the greater part of eastern NorthAmerica?" asked the Secretary for War.
"The gas can be produced in large quantities from coal tar besidesexisting in crystalline deposits," replied Luke Evans. "It is sovolatile that I estimate that a single ton will darken all easternNorth America for five days. Whereas the concentration would be madeonly in specific areas liable to attack. The gas is distilled withgreat facility from one of the tri-phenyl-carbinol coal-tarderivatives."
Vice-president Tomlinson was a pompous, irascible old man, but it washe who hit the nail on the head.
"That's all very well as an emergency measure, but we've got to findthe haunt of that gang and smash it!"
An orderly brought in a telegraphic dispatch and handed it to him. TheVice-president opened it, glanced through it, and tried to hand it tothe Secretary of State. Instead, it fluttered from his nervelessfingers, and he sank back with a groan. The Secretary picked it up andglanced at it.
"Gentlemen," he said, trying to control his voice, "New York wasbombed out of the blue at sunrise this morning, and the whole lowerpart of the city is a heap of ruins."
* * * * *
In the days that followed it became clear that all the resources ofAmerica would be needed to cope with the Invisible Empire. Not a daypassed without some blow being struck. Boston, Charleston, Baltimore,Pittsburg in turn were devastated. Three cruisers and a score of minorcraft were sunk in the harbor of Newport News, where they wereconcentrating, and thenceforward the fleet became a fugitive force,seeking concealment rather than an offensive. Trans-Atlanticsea-traffic ceased.
Meanwhile the black gas was being hurriedly manufactured. Fromcylinders placed in central positions in a score of cities it wasdischarged continuously, covering these centers with an impenetrablepall of night that no light would penetrate. Only by the glow ofradium paint, which commanded fabulous prices, could official businessbe transacted, and that only to a very small degree.
Courts were closed, business suspended, prisoners released, perforce,from jails. Famine ruled. The remedy was proving worse than thedisease. Within a week the use of the dark gas had had to bediscontinued. And a temporary suspension of the raids served only toaccentuate the general terror.
There were food riots everywhere, demands that the Government come toterms, and counter-demands that the war be fought out to the bitterend.
Fought out, when everything was disorganized? Stocks of food congestedall the terminals, mobs rioted and battled and plundered all throughthe east.
"It means surrender," was voiced at the Council meeting by one of themembers. And nobody answered him.
Three days of respite, then, instead of bombs, proclamationsfluttering down from a cloudless sky. Unless the white flag ofsurrender was hoisted from the summit of the battered Capitol, theInvisible Emperor would strike such a blow as should bring America toher knees!
* * * * *
It was a twelve-hour ultimatum, and before three hours had passedthousands of citizens had taken possession of the Capitol and filledall the approaches. Over their heads floated banners--the Stars andStripes, and, blazoned across them the words, "No Surrender."
It was a spontaneous uprising of the people of Washington. Hungry,homeless in the sharpening autumn weather, and nearly all bereft ofmembers of their families, too often of the breadwinner, now lyingdeep beneath the rubble that littered the streets, they had gatheredin their thousands to protest against any attempt to yield.
Dick, flying overhead at the apex of his squadron, felt his heartswell with elation as he watched the orderly crowds. This was at threein the afternoon: at six the ultimatum ended, the new frightfulnesswas to begin.
At five, Vice-president Tomlinson was to address the crowds. The oldman had risen to the occasion. He had cast off his pompousness andvanity, and was known to favor war to the bitter end. Dick and hissquadron circled above the broken dome as the car that carried theVice-president and the secretaries of State and for War approachedalong the Avenue.
Rat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat!
Out of the blue sky streams of lead were poured into the assembledmultitudes. Instantly they had become converted into a panic-strickenmob, turning this way and that.
Rat-a-tat-tat. Swaths of dead and dying men rolled in the dust, and,as wheat falls under the reaper's blade, the mob melted away in linesand by battalions. Within thirty seconds the whole terrain was piledwith dead and dying.
"My God, it's massacre! It's murder!" shouted Dick.
* * * * *
They had not even waited for the twelve hours to expire. To and frothe invisible airplanes shot through the blue evening sky, till thelast fugitives were streaming away in all directions like hunted deer,and the dead lay piled in ghastly heaps everywhere.
Out of these heaps wounded and dying men would stagger to their feetto shake their fists impotently at their murderers.
In vain Dick and his squadron strove to dash themselves into theinvisible airships. The pilots eluded them with ease, sometimessending a contemptuous round of machine-gun bullets in theirdirection, but not troubling to shoot them down.
Two small boys, carrying a huge banner with "No Surrender" across it,were walking off the ghastly field. Twelve or fourteen years old atmost, they disdained to run. They were singing, singing the NationalAnthem, though their voices were inaudible through the turmoil.
Rat-tat! Rat-tat-a-tat! The fiends above loosed a storm of lead uponthem. Both fell. One rose, still clutching the banner in his hand andwaved it aloft. In a sudden silence his childish treble could beheard:
My country, 'tis of thee Sweet land of lib-er-ty--
The guns rattled again. Clutching the blood-stained banner, he droppedacross the body of his companion.
Suddenly a broad band of black soared upward from the earth. Those incharge of the cylinders placed about the Capitol had released the gas.
A band of darkness, rising into the blue, cutting off the earth,making the summit of the ruined Capitol a floating dome. But, fast asit rose, the invisible airships rose faster above it.
A last vicious volley! Two of Dick's flight crashing down upon thepiles of dead men underneath! And nothing was visible, though thedarkness rose till it obliterated the blue above.
* * * * *
At dawn the Council sat, after an all-night meeting. Vice-presidentTomlinson, one arm shattered by a machine-gun bullet, still occupiedthe chair at the head of the table.
Outside, immediately about the White House, there was not a sound.Washington might have been a city of the dead. The railroad terminals,however, were occupied by a mob of people, busily looting. There wasgreat disorder. Organized government had simply disappeared.
Each man was occupied only with obtaining as much food as he couldcarry, and taking his family into rural districts where the Terrorwould not be likely to pursue. All the roads leading out ofWashington--into Virginia, into Maryland, were congested with columnsof fugitives that stretched for miles.
Some, who were fortunate enough to possess automobiles, and--what wasrarer--a few gallons of gas, were trying to force their way throughthe masses ahead of them; here and there a family trudged beside apack-horse, or a big dog drew an improvised sled on wheels, loadedwith flour, bacon, blankets, pillows. Old men and young childrentrudged on uncomplaining.
The telegraph wires were still, for the most part, working. All theworld knew what was happening. From all the big cities of the East asimilar exodus was proceeding. There was little bitterness and littledisorder.
It was not the airship raids from which these crowds were fleeing.Something grimmer was happening. The murderous attack upon thepopulace about the Capitol had been merely an incident. This laterdevelopment was the fulfilment of the Invisible Emperor's ultimatum.
Death was afield, death, invi
sible, instantaneous, and inevitable.Death blown on the winds, in the form of the deadliest of unknowngases.
* * * * *
In the Blue Room of the White House a score of experts had gathered.Dick, too, with the chiefs of his staff, Stopford, and the army andnaval heads. Among them was the chief of the Meteorological Bureau,and it was to him primarily that Tomlinson was reading a telegraphicdispatch from Wilmington, South Carolina:
"The Invisible Death has reached this point and is working havocthroughout the city, spreading from street to street. Men are droppingdead everywhere. A few have fled, but--"
The sudden ending of the dispatch was significant enough. Tomlinsonpicked up another dispatch from Columbia, in the same State:
"Invisible Death now circling city," he read. "Business sectionalready invaded. All other telegraphists have left posts. Can't sayhow long--"
And this, too, ended in the same way. There were piles of suchcommunications, and they had been coming in for eighteen hours. Atthat moment an orderly brought in a dozen more.
Tomlinson showed the head of the Meteorological Bureau the chart uponthe table. "We've plotted out a map as the wires came in, Mr. Graves,"he said. "The Invisible Death struck the southeast shore of the UnitedStates yesterday afternoon near Charleston. It has spreadapproximately at a steady rate. The wind velocity--?"
"Remains constant. Seventy miles an hour. Dying down a little,"answered Graves.
"The death line now runs from Wilmington, South Carolina, straight toAugusta, Georgia," the Vice-president pursued. "Every living thingthat this gas has encountered has been instantly destroyed. Men,cattle, birds, vermin, wild beasts. The gas is invisible andinodorous. These gentlemen believe it may be a form of hydrocyanicacid, but of a concentration beyond anything known to chemistry, sodeadly that a billionth part of it to one of air must be fatal,otherwise it could not have traveled as it has done. Warnings havebeen broadcasted, but there are no stocks of chemicals that mightcounteract it. Flight is the only hope--flight at seventy miles anhour!"
* * * * *
His voice shook. "This gas has been loosed, as you told us, upon thewings of the hurricane that came through the Florida Strait. What arethe chances of its reaching Washington?"
"Mr. Vice-president, if the wind continues, and this gas hassufficient concentration, it should be in Washington within the nexteight hours." Graves replied. "If the wind changes direction,however, this gas will probably be blown out to sea, or into theAlleghanies, where it will probably be dissipated among the hills, orby the foliage on the mountains. I'm not a chemist--"
"No, sir, and I am not consulting you as one," answered old Tomlinson."A death belt several hundred miles in length and three or fourhundred deep has already been cut across this continent. We are facedwith wholesale, unmitigated murder, on such a scale as was never knownbefore. But we are an integral part of America, and Washington has nomore right to expect immunity than our devastated Southern States. Thequestion we wish to put to you is, can you trace the exact coursetaken by the hurricane?"
"I can, Mr. Vice-president," answered Graves. "It originated somewherein the West Indian seas, like all these storms. We've been getting ourreports almost as usual. Our first one came from Nassau, which wasbadly damaged. The storm missed the Florida coast, as many of them do,and struck the coast of South Carolina--in fact, we received a reportfrom Charleston, which must have almost coincided with your firstreport of the gas."
"If the storm missed the Florida coast, it follows that the gas wasnot discharged from any point on the American continent," saidTomlinson. "From some point off Florida--from some island, or from aplane or from a ship at sea."
"Not from a ship at sea, Mr. Vice-president," interposed the head ofthe Chemical Bureau. "To discharge gas on such an extensive scalewould require more space than could be furnished by the largestvessel, in my opinion."
"In all probability the gas was 'loaded,' so to say, onto the galesomewhere in the Bahamas," said Graves. "That seems to me the mostlikely explanation."
* * * * *
Vice-president Tomlinson nodded, and picked up one of the latesttelegraphic dispatches, as if absently.
"Gentlemen," he said, "the Invisible Death has already reachedCharlotte."
He picked up another. "Reported Abaco Island, Bahamas, totally wreckedby storm. All communication has ceased," he read. He turned to Dickand spoke as if inspired. "Captain Rennell, there is yourdestination," he thundered. "They've betrayed themselves. We've gotthem now. You understand?"
"By God, sir! It's from Abaco Island, then, that those devils havebeen carrying on their game of wholesale murder!"
Suddenly a contagion of enthusiasm seemed to sweep the wholeassemblage. Every man was upon his feet in an instant, white,quivering, lips opened for speech that trembled there and did notcome.
It was Secretary Norris spoke. "The Vice-president has hit the mark,"he said, with a dramatic gesture of his arm. "Yes, they've betrayedthemselves. Their headquarters are on Abaco Island. It's one of thelargest in the Bahamas." He turned to the Secretary for the Navy. "Youcan rush the fleet there, sir?" he asked.
"Within forty-eight hours I'll have every vessel that can float offAbaco Island."
"I'll concentrate all airplanes. Take your flight, Captain Rennell.We'll stamp out that nest of murderers if we blow Abaco Island to thebottom of the sea. It can be done!"
"It can be done, sir--with Luke Evans and his invention," answeredDick.
CHAPTER VII - On the Trail
Three hours later, about the time when the war council rose aftercompleting its plans, a sudden shift of the wind blew the poison gasout to sea, just when it appeared certain that it would reach thecapital of the nation.
The southern half of Virginia had been swept over. Operators,telegraph and telephone, staying at their posts had sent in constantmessages that had terminated with an abruptness which told of thetragic sequel. Yet, at that distance from its source, the intensity ofthe gas had been to some extent dissipated.
Poisonous beyond any gas known, so deadly as to make hydrocyanic gasinnocuous in comparison, still as it was swept northward on the wingsof the wind, there had been an increasing number of non-fatalcasualties. The most northernly point reached by the gas was Richmond,and here some fifty per cent of those stricken had suffered paralysisinstead of death.
But a new element had been injected into the situation. Even theheroic courage shown by the populace in the beginning had had itslimits. The morning after the news of the Invisible Death's advent wasmade public mobs had gathered in all the large cities of the East,demanding surrender.
The submerged elements of crime and disorder had come to the surfaceat last. Committees were formed, with the avowed object of yielding tothe Invisible Emperor, and averting further disaster. In Washington, acity of the dead, half the members of Congress and the Senators hadgathered in the ruined Capitol, to debate the situation.
There were rumors of an impending march on the White House, of a coupd'ètat.
* * * * *
The action of the Government was prompt. Five hundred loyalists wereenrolled, armed, and posted round the White House: every avenue ofapproach was commanded by machine-guns. Meanwhile the news was spreadby radio that the headquarters of the Invisible Emperor had beenlocated, and that a strong bombing squadron was being dispatched todestroy it.
The entire fleet was to follow, and it was confidently anticipatedthat within a little while the Terror would be at an end.
Those at the white House were less sanguine. There was none butrealized the diabolical strength of their antagonists.
"Everything depends upon the outcome of the next forty-eight hours,and everything depends on you, Rennell," said Secretary Norris toDick, as he stood beside his plane. Behind him his flight of a dozenairships was drawn up.
"Find them," added the Secretary; "cover Abaco Island with the blackgas, and the navy and the marines will wipe up the mess that you leavebehind you. God help you--and all of us, Re
nnell!"
He gripped Dick's hand and turned away. Dick was very sober-minded ashe climbed into his cockpit. He knew to the full how much dependedupon himself and Luke Evans. Already the shouts of the insurgents wereto be heard at the ends of the barriers, commanded by themachine-guns, and patrolled by the enlisted volunteers.
Negro mobs were building counter-barricades of their own with rubblefrom the fallen edifices. Civil war might be postponed foreight-and-forty hours, but after that unless there was news ofvictory, the whole structure of civilization would be smashedirreparably.
It was up to Dick and Luke Evans, and they had assumed such aresponsibility as rarely falls to the lot of man in war.
* * * * *
Dick was to lead the flight in a two-seater Barwell plane. This wasone of the latest types, and had been hurriedly adapted to the purposefor which it was to be used. Dick himself occupied the rear seat, withits dual controls, and the gun in its armored casing. In front sat oldLuke Evans, in charge of the black gas projector.
His famous camera box, containing a minute quantity of gas in slowcombustion, and projecting the black searchlight, had been built intothe plane. In the rack beside him were a number of the black gasbombs, each of which, dropped to earth, would release enough gas tocover a considerable area with darkness. Both Luke and Dick worerespirators filled with charcoal and sodium thio-sulphate, and besideDick a cage containing three guinea-pigs rested.
These little rodents were so sensitive to atmospheric changes that aquantity of hydrocyanic acid too minute to affect a man would produceinstantaneous death on them.
From its hiding-place off the Virginia coast the American fleet wassteaming hotly southward toward Abaco Island, cruisers, destroyers,submarines. That Abaco was British territory had simply not beenconsidered in this crisis of history.
The twelve airships that followed Dick's contained enough bombs to putthe headquarters of the Invisible Empire out of business for good. Thenaval guns would complete the same business.
All day Dick and Luke Evans flew southwestward. At first glance,everything appeared normal. The catastrophe that had fallen upon theland was visible only in the shape of the lines of tiny figures,extending for miles, that choked all the roads radiating out of theprincipal cities. It was only when they were over the southern portionof Virginia that the ravages of deadly gas became apparent.