The World Masters

by George Chetwynd Griffith

  CHAPTER XXIX

  A dead silence of some moments' duration--during which hosts andguests looked at each other as men might before the outburst of astorm--then Victor Fargeau, after an exchange of glances with theFrench admiral, said, in a voice which trembled with angry emotion:

  "Milords, I think I am speaking for my comrades as well as myself if Isay that we have come too far to be frightened from the accomplishmentof our purpose. For my own part, I may say that nothing, not even thefear of that annihilation which the viscount has just threatened,would turn me from my purpose, because I have come to take back thatwhich is mine and France's. These works may be your property,gentlemen, because you have built them with your money and yourlabour, but the soul which animates them, which makes them a livingorganism instead of a lifeless mass of brick and stone, the powerwhich you say has enabled you to paralyse the fleets and armies ofEurope, that is mine: for I am the son of the man who created it. Heleft it to me as his last legacy. I have returned to my allegiance toFrance after doing her what service I could elsewhere. Though Franceat first rejected the fruit of my father's genius she has now acceptedit, and in our persons she and her ally are here to demand restitutionof that which has been stolen from her."

  "I think you can hardly say stolen, Monsieur Fargeau," said Hardress,without rising. "The French Ministry of War very foolishly refused tohave anything to do with your father's invention, and he may havegiven you one set of specifications, but he also threw himself intothe sea with the other, and we picked him up. You can call it chanceor fate or anything you please, but it certainly wasn't theft. Yousee, we got this land and built these works while the FrenchGovernment was thinking about it; and I must also remind you that theyare built on British soil, and held under lease from a BritishColonial Government.

  "Russia, France, and Great Britain are at peace. The war in Europe isover, and therefore you will excuse me if I remind you and yourcolleagues that any attempt to attain your end by force would put yououtside the pale of civilisation. In other words despite your uniformsand your commissions, you would simply be common pirates, with noclaim to any of the rights of regular belligerents."

  "But," said Victor Fargeau, speaking with a distinct snarl in hisvoice, "you forget, Monsieur le Vicomte, that we are in a position tocompel surrender, and that, once masters of the works, we shall be, asyou are, above the law. Granted all you say, it comes to this: Nothingcan justify our mission but success, and we shall succeed."

  "In that case," said the president, in his somewhat halting French,"it doesn't seem worth while to discuss the matter any further. Wewon't surrender the works, and the last man left alive in them wouldfire the mines and die in their ruins. These gentlemen think they cantake them. We think they can't. It's no use talking about aproposition like that. It's got to be argued with guns and otherthings. It seems to me that the only question we've got to ask is,whether all these gentlemen are unanimous in their determination totake the works by force, if they can?"

  Admiral Dumont exchanged a whispered word with his Russian colleague,and then he rose and said:

  "Milords, I regret to say our orders leave us no other alternative,and our duty to our countries will compel us to take that action, mostreluctantly as we shall do so. As Monsieur Fargeau has said, webelieve that the vital principle of this system belongs to him and toFrance. We have been sent here to regain what was lost to us throughan unfortunate mistake, and we must do so. Yet we do not wish to beprecipitate. We will ask you to take until six o'clock to-morrowmorning, that is to say, eight hours from now, to reconsider yourdecision as to surrender. And there is just one more point.

  "You have certain guests, not entirely voluntary ones, in the works.If it should, unhappily, come to a struggle between us, it would, ofcourse, be impossible for such chivalrous gentlemen to retain twoladies and a Russian nobleman and ex-Minister. We request that, in theunfortunate case of hostilities becoming inevitable, they shall bepermitted to come on board one of our ships."

  As the French admiral sat down, Lord Orrel got up and said:

  "Gentlemen, I am exceedingly sorry that matters have come to such apass as this. There can be no question of surrender, but our guestswill be free to join your squadrons when they please. Therefore, fortheir convenience, and in order not to bring our little dinner to tooabrupt a close, we will accept the truce till six o'clock. Perhaps bythat time other and, I think, better counsels may have prevailed withyou.

  "I sincerely hope that they will; for I can assure you that my son wasnot speaking idly when he said that you would not only be destroyed,but annihilated. We have here means of destruction which have neveryet been used in war. For your sakes, and for those of the brave menunder your command, I trust that they never will be. And now, asfurther discussion would seem to be unprofitable, suppose we join theladies. We may be friends, at anyrate, till six o'clock."

  In the reception-room the mystified guests of the Trust found coffeeand liqueurs, music and song and pleasant conversation, which touchedon every possible subject, save battle, murder, and sudden death. Thencame a stroll on the walls by the light of a brilliant _Aurora_, whichmade the sun, which was just touching the southern horizon, look likea pallid and exaggerated moon, and during this stroll Victor Fargeaumanaged to pass a small Lebel revolver and some cartridges to Sophieand the count in case of accidents. They had decided to go on boardthe _Ivan the Terrible_ when the guests left the works, and Ma'm'selleFelice and the count's servant were already putting their baggagetogether. The train was to wait for them at midnight.

  Meanwhile, Doctor Lamson, who had left the party immediately afterdinner, had been getting the defences of the works in order. The hugeengines, disconnected now from the absorbers and storage batteries,from which the captured world-soul was now being released back intothe earth, were still purring softly, and working as mightily as ever,but now their force was being used to a different end.

  On each of the four towers at the corners of the quadrangle therehad been mounted an apparatus which looked something like a hugesearchlight, and underneath it were two real searchlights. On eightplatforms, one on each side of the towers, but hidden by a circularwall of twelve-inch hardened steel, were mounted, on disappearingcarriages, the president's big guns, enlarged copies of the one he hadused so effectually on board the _Nadine_. Each would throw a shellcontaining a hundred pounds of Vandelite to a distance of eight miles.The great engines worked continuously, storing up liquid air inchambers under the gun platforms, but they were also doing other and,for the present, much more deadly work. The huge copper tubes abovethe searchlights on the towers were turned above the harbour. Theymade neither light nor sound, but all the while they were accumulatingdestruction such as no mortal hand had yet dealt out to an enemy.

  The evening passed, apparently in the most friendly and peacefulfashion, and no one suddenly introduced into the reception-room wouldhave dreamt that the members of Lord Orrel's dinner-party were not onthe very best of terms with themselves and each other. Not evenAdelaide or Sophie, sitting there with their revolvers in the pocketsof their dinner dresses, and thoughts of murder in their souls, hadthe remotest idea of how terribly it was destined to end.

  Miss Chrysie had sung "The Old Folks at Home," and Adelaide one of theold chansons which had delighted the Grand Monarque in the Trianon.Then Sophie sat down at the piano, and the slow solemn strains of theRussian National Hymn wailed up in majestic chords from theinstrument. There was something of defiance both in her touch and inher voice, but international courtesies were respected, and everyonein the room stood up. For Sophie Valdemar it was her swan-song--sinceshe was never to sing another--and she sang it splendidly, with herwhole soul in it. As the last line, "Give to us peace in our time, OLord," left her lips, Lord Orrel went to her side, and said:

  "Thank you, countess. A splendid hymn splendidly sung!" And then heturned to the French and Russian admirals, and said: "Gentlemen, is itnot possible for you to answer, as you could answer, that prayer for
peace? I can assure you, on my word of honour as an English gentleman,that this building in which you are now is impregnable to all forms ofattack known to modern warfare. At a distance of five thousand mileswe have paralysed the fleets and armies of Europe. Your ships are lessthan five miles from our walls: you are not courting defeat, you arecourting annihilation. Can you not leave us in peace?"

  "I was under the impression, milord," said Admiral Nazanoff, "thatthat subject was closed for the present. We have yet to be convincedas to these terrible powers which you claim to possess: but our ordersare real, so too are our ships and guns; and since you have refusedthe terms we have offered we have no alternative but to put theseboasted powers of yours to the test of war. I regret it mostexceedingly, as I am sure my colleague, Admiral Dumont, does also, butthat must be our last word."

  The French admiral and Victor Fargeau both bowed assent as he spoke.And Lord Orrel answered:

  "Well, gentlemen, since you are resolved, so be it. We will notdiscuss the matter further."

  While he was speaking Lady Olive had gone to the piano, and, as heceased, the opening chords of "Auld Lang Syne," floated through theroom, and she began to sing the old Scotch song. The words had astrangely satirical meaning for Count Valdemar and his daughter andAdelaide, who had heard them several times at Orrel Court, and LadyOlive put such expression into them that both Sophie and Adelaide feltinclined to be a little ashamed of themselves. Then in the midst ofthe song the clock began to chime twelve, and Lady Olive, with a franklook of defiance in her eyes, switched off suddenly into "God Save theKing," and began to sing the opening lines. At the end of the firstverse she stopped and rose from the piano, and said to her father, whohad been looking a little uneasy, as though he thought it was hardlygood taste:

  "I am very sorry, papa, if I have offended, but really I could nothelp it; it seemed inevitable."

  "And why not?" said Adelaide. "Was not the same song sung in honour ofthe Grand Monarque by the ladies of Versailles? Well, now, Lady Olive,I suppose it is good-night and good-bye. A thousand thanks for allyour kindness and hospitality."

  "And a thousand thanks from me, too," said Sophie.

  They held out their hands, but Lady Olive put hers behind her, anddrew back.

  "Thank you," she said, frigidly. "You are quite welcome to anykindness that I have been able to show you; but, really, I must askyou to pardon me if I decline to shake hands with you after you havedefinitely joined the enemies of my family."

  "Perhaps you are right, Lady Olive," laughed Sophie. "Still, I hopethat, at no very distant time, we shall have an opportunity ofreturning some, at least, of your kindness."

  A few minutes later hosts and guests were standing outside the westerngate, beside which the electric engine and the saloon carriage werewaiting to take them to the harbour. The departing guests' luggage hadbeen put on a little truck at the back.

  "Ah, well, this is the end, I suppose," said Adelaide to Sophie asthey stood in the dim twilight of the Northern midnight, exchangingtheir last formal salutations. "To-night peace; to-morrow war."

  "But why not war now?" whispered Sophie. "Look! what a chance! Shallwe ever have another like it? A la guerre; comme a la guerre!"

  "Yes," whispered Adelaide in reply. "Ah, sacre! Look there!"

  As she spoke, Chrysie left Lady Olive's side, went to Hardress, andslipped her arm through his, and looked up at him with an expressionthat there was no mistaking.

  Then Adelaide de Conde's long pent-up passion broke loose, and the hotblood of hate began to sing in her head and burn in her eyes.Everything, so far, had failed. She had made herself a criminal, andhad been punished by a silent, but humiliating, pardon. She haddisgraced herself in the eyes of the man she would have sold her soulto get, and now--well, what did it matter? To-morrow--nay, within sixhours, it would be war to the death, Why not begin now, as Sophie hadwhispered?

  For the moment she was mad, or she would not have done what she did.But she was mad--mad with failure, hopeless love, and the hatred whichonly the "woman scorned" can feel. She pulled Chrysie's revolver outof her pocket, and snarled between her teeth:

  "You have got him, but you shall not keep him!"

  The revolver went up at the same moment, and she pulled the trigger.Three shots cracked in quick succession. Hardress went down with abroken thigh; Chrysie, in the act of drawing her own revolver,received a bullet in her arm, which was intended for her heart; andthe third one went through the hood of her cloak, just touching theskin above the ear.

  She tried to get out the revolver with her left hand; but, before shecould do so, Sophie and Fargeau had opened fire, and at Sophie's firstshot, she clasped her hand to her side, and went down beside Hardress.Lord Orrel had a bit of his left ear snipped off, and the presidentgot a flesh wound just below the left shoulder.

  The two admirals, who had already taken their seats in the car, withMadame de Bourbon and the Russian professor, sprang to their feet;but, before they could leave the car, a strange and awful thinghappened. A blinding glare of light shone out from the southern tower,where Doctor Lamson had been watching the departure through hisnight-glasses. The thin ray wavered about until it fell on SophieValdemar and Adelaide de Conde, still standing close together, withVictor Fargeau just in front of them.

  For a moment their faces showed white and ghastly in the blazingradiance; and then, to the amazement and horror of those who saw thestrangest sight that human eye had ever gazed upon, down the ray oflight, invisible, but all-destroying, flowed the terrible energy ofthe disintegrator on the top of the tower. Their hair crinkled up anddisappeared, the flesh melted from their faces and hands. For aninstant, two of the most beautiful countenances in Europe weretransformed into living skulls, which grinned out in unspeakablehideousness. Then their clothing shrivelled up into tinder, and allthree dropped together in an indistinguishable heap of crumblingbones.