EPILOGUE
"AND ON EARTH, PEACE!"
On the morning of the thirtieth of April, the interest of the wholeworld was centred generally upon Bolton, and particularly upon thelittle spot of black earth enclosed by a ring of Bessemer furnaces inthe midst of which lay another ring, a ring of metal, the mouth of thegreat cannon, whose one and only shot was to save or lose the world. Ata height of two thousand feet, twenty airships circled at varyingdistances round the mouth of the gun, watching for the one _Flying Fish_which had not been accounted for in the final fight.
The good town of Bolton itself was depopulated. For days past the comethad been blazing brighter and brighter, even in the broad daylight, andthe reports which came pouring in every day from the observatories ofthe world made it perfectly clear that Lennard's calculations would beverified at midnight.
Mr Parmenter and his brother capitalists had guaranteed two millionssterling as compensation for such destruction of property as might bebrought about by the discharge of the cannon, and, coupled with thisguarantee, was a request that everyone living within five miles of whathad been the Great Lever pit should leave, and this was authorised by aRoyal Proclamation. There was no confusion, because, when faced withgreat issues, the Lancashire intellect does not become confused. It justgets down to business and does it. So it came about that the people ofBolton, rich and poor, millionaire and artisan, made during thatmomentous week a general flitting, taking with them just such of theirpossessions as would be most precious to them if the Fates permittedthem to witness the dawn of the first of May.
The weather, strangely enough, had been warm and sunny for the lastfortnight, despite the fact that the ever-brightening Invader from Spacegradually outshone the sun itself, and so on all the moors round Boltonthere sprang up a vast town of tents and ready-made bungalows fromChorley round by Darwen to Bury. Thousands of people had come from allparts of the kingdom to see the fate of the world decided. What was leftof the armies of the Allies were also brought up by train, and all theBritish forces were there as well. They were all friends now for therewas no more need for fighting, since the events of the next few hourswould decide the fate of the human race.
As the sun set over the western moors a vast concourse of men and women,representing almost every nationality on earth, watched the coming ofthe Invader, brightening now with every second and over-arching thefirmament with its wide-spreading wings. There were no sceptics now. Noone could look upon that appalling Shape and not believe, and ifabsolute confirmation of Lennard's prophecy had been wanted it wouldhave been found in the fact that the temperature began to rise _after_sunset. That had never happened before within the memory of man.
The crowning height of the moors which make a semicircle to thenorth-west of Bolton is Winter Hill, which stands about half-way betweenBolton and Chorley, and, roughly speaking, would make the centre of acircle including Bolton, Wigan, Chorley and Blackburn. It rises to aheight of nearly fifteen hundred feet and dominates the surroundingcountry for fully fifteen miles, and on the summit of this rugged,heather-clad moor was pitched what might be called without exaggerationthe headquarters of the forces which were to do battle for humanity. Ahuge marquee had been erected in an ancient quarry just below thesummit; from the centre pole of this flew the Royal Standard of England,and from the other poles the standards of every civilised nation in theworld.
The front of the marquee opened to the south eastward, and by theunearthly light of the comet the mill chimneys of Bolton, dominated bythe great stack of Dobson & Barlow's, could be seen pointing like blackfingers up to the approaching terror. In the centre of the opening weretwo plain deal tables. There was an instrument on each of them, and fromthese separate wires ran on two series of poles and buried themselves atlast in the heart of the charge of the great cannon. Beside theinstruments were two chronometers synchronised from Greenwich andbeating time together to the thousandth part of a second, counting outwhat might perhaps be the last seconds of human life on earth.
Grouped about the two tables were the five sovereigns of Europe and thePresident of the French Republic, and with them stood the greatestsoldiers, sailors and scientists, statesmen and diplomatists betweeneast and west.
On a long deck chair beside one of the tables lay Lord Westerham withhis left arm bound across his breast and looking little better than theghost of the man he had been a month ago. Beside him stood Lady Margaretand Norah Castellan, and with them were the two men who had done so muchto change defeat into victory; the captain and lieutenant of theever-famous _Ithuriel_.
Never before had there been such a gathering of all sorts and conditionsof men on one spot of earth; but as the hours went on and dwindled intominutes, all differences of rank and position became things of the past.In the presence of that awful Shape which was now flaming across theheavens, all men and women were equal, since by midnight all might bereduced at the same instant to the same dust and ashes. The ghastlyorange-green glare shone down alike on the upturned face of monarch andstatesman, soldier and peasant, millionaire and pauper, the good and thebad, the noble and the base, and tinged every face with its own ghastlyhue.
Five minutes to twelve!
There was a shaking of hands, but no words were spoken. Norah Castellanstooped and kissed her wounded lover's brow, and then stood up andclasped her hands behind her. Lennard went to one of the tables andAuriole to the other.
Lennard had honestly kept the unspoken pact that had been made betweenthem in the observatory at Whernside. Neither word nor look of love hadpassed his lips or lightened his eyes; and even now, as he stood besideher, looking at her face, beautiful still even in that ghastly light,his glance was as steady as if he had been looking through the eye-pieceof his telescope.
Auriole had her right forefinger already resting on a little whitebutton, ready at a touch to send the kindling spark into the mighty massof explosives which lay buried at the bottom of what had been the GreatLever pit. Lennard also had his right forefinger on another button, buthis left hand was in his coat pocket and the other forefinger was on thetrigger of a loaded and cocked revolver. There were several otherrevolvers in men's pockets--men who had sworn that their nearest anddearest should be spared the last tortures of the death-agony ofhumanity.
The chronometers began to tick off the seconds of the last minute. Thewings of the comet spread out vaster and vaster and its now flamingnucleus blazed brighter and brighter. A low, vague wailing sound seemedto be running through the multitudes which thronged the semicircle ofmoors. It was the first and perhaps the last utterance of the agony ofunendurable suspense.
At the thirtieth second Lennard looked up and said in a quiet,passionless tone:
"Ready!"
At the same moment he saw, as millions of others thought they saw, agrey shape skimming through the air from the north-east towards Bolton.It could not be a British airship, for the fleet had already scattered,as the shock of the coming explosion would certainly have caused them tosmash up like so many shells. It was John Castellan's _Flying Fish_ cometo fulfil the letter of his threat, even at this supreme moment of theworld's fate.
Again Lennard spoke.
"Twenty seconds."
And then he began to count."Nine--eight--seven--six--five--four--three--two--Now!"
The two fingers went down at the same instant and completed thecircuits. The next, the central fires of the earth seemed to have burstloose. A roar such as had never deafened human ears before thunderedfrom earth to heaven, and a vast column of pale flame leapt up with aconcussion which seemed to shake the foundations of the world. Then inthe midst of the column of flame there came a brighter flash, amomentary blaze of green-blue flame flashing out for a moment andvanishing.
"That was John's ship," said Norah. "God forgive him!"
"He will," said Westerham, taking her hand. "He was wrong-headed on thatparticular subject, but he was a brave man, and a genius. I don't thinkthere's any doubt about that."
"It's good of you t
o say so," said Norah. "Poor John! With all hislearning and genius to come to that--"
"We all have to get there some time, Norah, and after all, whether he'sright or wrong, a man can't die better than for what he believes to bethe truth and the right. We may think him mistaken, he thought he wasright, and he has proved it. God rest his soul!"
"Amen!" said Norah, and she leant over again and kissed him on thebrow.
Then came ten seconds more of mute and agonised suspense, and men'sfingers tightened their grip on the revolvers. Then the upturnedstraining eyes looked upon such a sight as human eyes will never seeagain save perchance those which, in the fulness of time, may look uponthe awful pageantry of the Last Day.
High up in the air there was a shrill screaming sound which seemedsomething like an echo of the roar of the great gun. Something like awhite flash of light darted upwards straight to the heart of thedescending Invader. Then the whole heavens were illumined by a blindingglare. The nucleus of the comet seemed to throw out long rays ofmany-coloured light. A moment later it had burst into myriads of faintlygleaming atoms.
The watching millions on earth instinctively clasped their hands totheir ears, expecting such a sound as would deafen them for ever; butnone came, for the explosion had taken place beyond the limits of theearth's atmosphere. The whole sky was now filled from zenith to horizonwith a pale, golden, luminous mist, and through this the moon and starsbegan to shine dimly.
Then a blast of burning air swept shrieking and howling across theearth, for now the planet Terra was rushing at her headlong speed ofnearly seventy thousand miles an hour through the ocean of fire-mistinto which the shattered comet had been dissolved. Then this passed. Thecool wind of night followed it, and the moon and stars shone down oncemore undimmed through the pure and cloudless ether.
Until now there had been silence. Men and women looked at each other andclasped hands; and then Tom Bowcock, standing just outside the marqueewith his arm round his wife's shoulders, lifted up his mighty baritonevoice and sang the lines:
"Praise God from whom all blessings flow!"
Hundreds and then thousands, then millions of voices took up thefamiliar strain, and so from the tops of the Lancashire moors the chorusrolled on from village to village and town to town, until with onevoice, though with many tongues, east and west were giving thanks forthe Great Deliverance.
But the man who, under Providence, had wrought it, seemed deaf and blindto all this. He only felt a soft trembling clasp round his right hand,and he only heard Auriole's voice whispering his name.
The next moment a stronger grip pulled his left hand out of his coatpocket, bringing the revolver with it, and Mr Parmenter's voice, shakenby rare emotion, said, loudly enough for all in the marquee to hear:
"We may thank God and you, Gilbert Lennard, that there's still a worldwith living men and women on it, and there's one woman here who's goingto live for you only till death do you part. She told me all about itlast night. You've won her fair and square, and you're going to haveher. I did have other views for her, but I've changed my mind, because Ihave learnt other things since then. But anyhow, with no offence to thisdistinguished company, I reckon you're the biggest man on earth justnow."
Soon after daybreak on the first of May, one of the airships that hadbeen guarding Whernside dropped on the top of Winter Hill, and thecaptain gave Lennard a cablegram which read thus:
"LENNARD, Bolton, England: Good shot. As you left no pieces for us to shoot at we've let our shot go. No use for it here. Hope it will stop next celestial stranger coming this way. America thanks you. Any terms you like for lecturing tour.--HENCHELL."
Lennard did not see his way to accept the lecturing offer because he hadmuch more important business on hand: but a week later, after amagnificent and, if the word may be used, multiple marriage ceremonyhad been performed in Westminster Abbey, five airships, each with abride and bridegroom on board, rose from the gardens of BuckinghamPalace and, followed by the cheers of millions, winged their waywestward. Thirty-five hours later there was such a dinner-party at theWhite House, Washington, as eclipsed all the previous glories even ofAmerican hospitality.
Nothing was ever seen of the projectile which "The Pittsburg Prattler"had hurled into space. Not even the great Whernside reflector was ableto pick it up. The probability, therefore, is that even now it is stillspeeding on its lonely way through the Ocean of Immensity, and it iswithin the bounds of possibility that at some happy moment in the futureand somewhere far away beyond the reach of human vision, its huge chargeof explosives may do for some other threatened world what the one whichthe Bolton Baby coughed up into Space just in the nick of time did tosave this home of ours from the impending Peril of 1910.
THE END
COLSTON AND COY. LIMITED, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH
The World Peril of 1910 Page 41
