The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 05

by Anthology

  The French and Russian loss had also been fairly heavy, for, despite Max's characteristically French sneer, the Germans had fought their ships splendidly, considering the fearful disadvantage at which they were placed by the assault of the aerostats. At length, Max, tired of watching in inactivity, yielded to Hartog's persuasions and his own inbred love of destruction, and flew from the flagstaff of the Revanche the signal which, according to the anarchist code, meant, "Fleet to engage. Destroy everything."

  The captains of the air-ships went to work in obedience to the signal with a business-like alacrity which proved how impatiently they had been waiting to take their share in the work of destruction. Max had reconsidered his decision as to the aerostats, and therefore had included them in the general order. In the first place, he felt it very unlikely that they would be the only vessels of the kind in the possession of the Russians, and secondly, he thought that it would not be safe to leave too great a destructive power at the disposal of society.

  The Revanche devoted herself exclusively for the time being to the aerostats, and almost as fast as her guns could be loaded and fired, the well-aimed shells struck the huge gas-holders which offered such a splendid mark for the gunners. The impact of the shells pierced the thin metal envelope, and as the hydrogen rushed out to mix with the air, the explosion ignited it, rending the envelope to fragments with a shock that shook the air for a hundred yards about it, and sending the car, with its crew and cargo, plunging headlong into the depths below.

  The crews of the war-ships looked upwards in wondering dismay at the marvellous spectacle presented by the two contending aerial fleets, the aerostats vainly trying to outsoar or escape from the guns of their agile enemies, and ever and anon bursting with a flash and a bang, like gigantic shells, as the fatal missiles struck them, while the air-ships, like gigantic birds of prey, outsoared and outflew them, sweeping hither and thither in bewilderingly rapid curves, and then stopping for a moment or two to send their terrible shells home.

  In less than an hour the marvellous but unequal battle was over, and the remains of the last aerostat had plunged in fragments into the sea. No fewer than five of them, deliberately driven by the anarchists over the fleets, had fallen amongst them, exploding their cargoes of bombs in their midst, wrecking the helpless battle-ships and cruisers, and blowing the torpedo-boats and catchers into atoms.

  At first the Germans had thought that the air-ships were the British craft belonging to the Syndicate about which so many rumours had been flying through the Continent; but, as soon as the last aerostat had been destroyed, they were speedily undeceived, for the anarchists now went to work with terrible effectiveness on French, Germans, and Russians alike. The war-ships, already half-crippled in their struggle with each other, fell an easy and a helpless prey to the twenty-one aerial cruisers, which, from their unassailable altitudes, swept their decks with storms of Maxim bullets, followed by showers of shells and bombs charged with anarchite and fire-mixture.

  By mid-day, out of the four great fleets, only six battleships and four cruisers remained afloat. Of the lighter craft, not one had escaped, and of the big ships that remained floating, more than half the crews had been killed, the guns were useless, the engines crippled, and the ships themselves were only kept afloat by their water-tight compartments. And so ended the great Battle of the Baltic- in the indiscriminate destruction of victors and vanquished by the common enemy of them both.

  "Dat is about de most unprofitable sea-fight vatever vas fought, I should tink," chuckled Hartog, as Max flew the signal to cease firing. " I suppose you vill leave dose fellows to get home as best dey can, and tell de story for der edification of Europe?"

  "Yes," said Max; "we shall produce the best effects that way, I think, and they certainly aren't worth wasting more ammunition on now."

  CHAPTER XXXII.

  THE OUTLAWS' EYRIE.

  IMMEDIATELY the signal to cease firing had been obeyed, the air-ships formed in line, and then the Revanche flew the signal, "Mount Prieta at a hundred miles an hour. Follow me. Do as I do."

  The fleet was now floating over the Bay of Kiel. An almost straight line of over a thousand miles in length, drawn south-west from Kiel, marked the course that the Revanche began to steer towards the stronghold which the organised forces of anarchy, now ranged under the leadership of Renault, had established in a little rock-walled valley, or rather a deep gorge fenced in with precipices impassable to man or beast, which lay on the northern verge of Mount Prieta.

  This is the highest peak of the Cantabrian mountains, the chain, which a glance at the map of Europe will show, running in continuation of the Pyrenean chain from the Bidassoa to Cape Finisterre. Another look at the map will show that the line of flight would pass over Hamburg, Bremen, Antwerp, Paris, and Bordeaux.

  Max kept the fleet at an elevation of two thousand feet, and as each of the cities was reached, he halted his fleet, sent a couple of shells from the bow gun of each vessel into the midst of it, and then, passing over it at ten miles an hour, dropped half a dozen fire-bombs from each of the ships, which were flying extended in a long line abreast. This was, of course, merely done for the sake of further intensifying, by purely wanton destruction, the terrorism which the news of the frightful termination of the Battle of the Baltic had by this time carried like wildfire over the telegraphs of the Continent.

  That night Europe went almost mad with fear. The impartial destruction of the remains of the contending fleets in the Baltic proved, not only that the anarchists saw in the warfare that was being waged on land and sea an opportunity ready made to their hand for intensifying their terrorism of society tenfold, but also that against a fleet of air-ships so powerful as the one under Renault's command, both the Russian aerostats, from which such tremendous results had been expected, and the mightiest naval armaments afloat, were absolutely defenceless.

  This of itself was enough to send a thrill of terror through the Continent, but when, within the space of twelve hours from mid-day to midnight, five of the chief cities in Germany, Belgium, and France had been set on fire in a hundred places at once, it did not take long before terror was aggravated into something like delirium. The war, in which Germany and Denmark had now definitely joined, and upon which, under ordinary circumstances, the eyes of the world would have been fixed with all-absorbing interest, already occupied quite a secondary place in the imagination and the fears of the peoples of Europe.

  Indeed, voices were already being raised in appeal to the combatants to cease their own strife and unite in a determined effort to meet the common enemies of all organised society in their own element, and hunt them without mercy out of the world.

  It was by this time perfectly well known that the anarchists were not in sole possession of the priceless secret on which the power of the air-ships depended. There were other air-ships than theirs in existence, if anything superior to theirs, and, as the events that had taken place at Newcastle conclusively proved, they were under the control of honourable and distinguished men, who were firm friends of order, and therefore the irreconcilable enemies of anarchy.

  By the morning of the day after the Battle of the Baltic, all Europe, combatants and non-combatants alike, was asking where were these air-ships now, and what possible reason could the directors of the Aerial Navigation Syndicate have for keeping their ships out of the way and allowing the Anarchists to pursue their unheard-of depredations unmolested?

  The next morning the Times published the following letter from the Chairman of the Syndicate:-

  ÊÊ"SIR,- Will you allow me to remind those who are apparently under the impression that the Aerial Navigation Syndicate has a special mission and obligation to protect society at large from the onslaughts of the anarchists, that this Syndicate is a private corporation, founded primarily upon a commercial basis, for the furtherance of the purposes of those who have put their work and their money into it. What those purposes are, or in what manner they will be carried out, is our business
and no one's else.

  ÊÊ"We recognise no obligations to employ the force at our disposal according to the direction of any Government or Governments. We have broken no laws and attacked no one save the enemies of society, and therefore our right to complete freedom of action cannot be impugned. We shall act when and how we think fit, and that is all that I either can or will say on the subject.

  ÊÊ"I may add that so far, the publicity given by the newspapers with regard to events still fresh in the public memory has, in each instance, directly assisted the anarchists in their designs. Through the newspapers Renault's accomplices received the disguised message which he gave them from the dock at Bow Street; through the same medium they were informed of the precise hour at which his execution was to take place, and so were able to rescue him in the nick of time; and thus, too, the rescue of the crew of the Vengeur and the terrible tragedy at Newcastle were directly due to information derived from the minute details published in the newspapers.

  ÊÊ"I feel sure that all sensible people will agree with me that it would be something worse than madness for us to follow the same foolish course.--

  ÊÊYours truly,

  "HIRAM S. MAXIM."

  To this letter there was obviously no other answer than the admission that the position taken up by the Syndicate was unassailable from the points of view both of legality and expediency. Neither the British nor any other government had any claim to the knowledge of the secret of the motive power which was practically the sole yet priceless possession of the Syndicate. The Government was free to experiment in the same direction if it chose, but it had no power to compel a disclosure of the secret which had been brought from Utopia.

  Therefore, there was nothing else for society to do but to wonder and to wait, while warfare on land and sea, and anarchy militant in the air, spread terror and disquiet through the nations, and undermined the very foundations upon which the social fabric rested. But great and all as was the panic which obtained under the new reign of terror, it was by no means lacking in justification. Indeed, if all the facts could have been made public, they would rather have intensified than diminished it.

  During the short period that had elapsed since Max had escaped with the Vengeur from Utopia, he had accomplished wonders both of construction and organisation. He had used the practically unlimited funds which the depredations of the Destroyer on the North and South Atlantic had placed at his disposal, with an administrative skill well worthy of a far better cause.

  By means of the disguised agencies which Hartog had established and he had perfected, he had been able to obtain the materials for the construction of a fleet of twenty-five air-ships for warlike purposes, and one aerial transport, a very large craft, capable of lifting great weights and conveying them through the air at a speed which, though only about half that of the cruisers, was still quite enough to put her beyond the risk of capture save by the Syndicate's airships, of which only two were known to be in existence.

  This transport, which he had named the Voyageur, formed the link of communication between the camp of the anarchists on Mount Prieta and the outside world. She never travelled save by night and under the escort of two of the cruisers, and her duty was to meet the Pilgrim, which still passed unsuspected as the private yacht of a wealthy South American gentleman whose real name was Leo Marcel, at stated rendezvous at sea, out of the regular tracks of shipping, and to relieve her of the stores, guns, ammunition, or treasure which she carried, and bring them back through the air to the camp, which none of the air-ships were permitted even to approach, save under cover of clouds or darkness.

  The camp itself, despite the ruggedness and forbidding character of its surroundings, was admirably fitted by nature for the purpose to which Max had devoted it. The gorge was walled in by rocks ranging from a hundred to a hundred and fifty feet in height on all sides save the north, where, through a deep narrow cleft, the stream of water, which came from the upper part of the mountain and traversed the centre of the little sheltered valley, found its way down the slopes which inclined toward the shore of the Bay of Biscay.

  On either side of this stream extended for about three hundred yards to the walls of rock, a fairly level, sloping plain of light, sandy soil, on which between fifty and sixty wooden huts and workshops were now standing. As long as it remained undiscovered by the only enemies that Renault and his followers had to fear, this refuge formed a hidden, entrenched camp, from which the anarchists could safely defy the combined forces of Europe.

  From it they could issue forth to slay and plunder and destroy, and to it they could return without the slightest fear of being followed. It was, in fact, a very fortress of anarchy entrenched in the midst of civilisation, impregnable and unassailable by all means save one, and only treachery or the most improbable accident could bring that means into operation against it.

  A few minutes after midnight on the 17th July, Renault's fleet sighted the dark summit of Mount Prieta rising high above the sea of clouds over which the air-ships had been flying at an ever-increasing altitude after leaving Bordeaux in flames behind them.

  Speed was immediately slackened, and the fleet swept slowly forward until a single faint ray of light became visible at the bottom of the dark gulf formed by the gorge in the mountain side. Then the propellers stopped, and one by one the ships sank downwards, until they rested side by side on a little plateau at the upper part of the valley. The Revanche landed last, and as they disembarked, Max said to Hartog-

  "Well, aerial navigation is a very fine thing in its way, but it's a relief to get your feet on terra firma again, and have a good stretch, after all. Isn't the air of this valley splendid? I wonder what the powers that be down yonder would give for a sniff at it."

  "I don't tink myself," said Hartog sententiously, "dat dey vould find it very goot for deir healts, unless dey came mit an air-fleet dat vould make it very unhealty for us. But goot air it is, and I can tell you I am as hungry as a volf. Ve had better go and get some supper."

  "Yes," replied Max, "that's a very sensible and practical remark. I used to think birds of prey voracious to the extent of greediness-"

  "But now dat you are a bird of prey yourself; you see dat flying gifs a big appetite. Dat's so, eh?" interrupted Hartog, with a guttural chuckle at his own joke.

  "If you like to put it so, yes," laughed Renault. "But you might have put it more politely, perhaps. Still, I'll return good for evil for once, and ask you to supper. Lea expects me to-night, and I daresay she'll have enough for two or three."

  "Eh? Vat is dat? Is Ma'm'zelle Lea here? I did not know dat de camp of de outlaws vas peautified by such a charming presence as hers."

  "Look here, Franz," said Renault, with another laugh, "I shall begin to think that the air of the upper regions has made you drunk if you begin to talk like that. That speech was the nearest approach to poetry that you've made by at least a thousand miles. I must try and remember it for Lea's benefit. But, by the way, you mustn't call her 'Ma'm'zelle Lea' now."

  "Ah, I see!" said Hartog, nodding and patting him on the shoulder with his little flat and somewhat flabby hand. "I remember vat you said dat night in de club-room. And so de proud demoiselle has surrendered at discretion, has she? Vell, I congratulate you, friendt Max. I don't tink fery much of vomen myself, for deir mental machinery is altogeder too complicated. I likes my own machinery much better. I feel I can depend more upon it. But still Lea is as peautiful as she is goot, and in every vay a vorty mate for de chief of der Outlaws of der Air. But you haf not told me yet how she came here."

  "Franz," said Max, "if you were not literally rolling in your ill-gotten gains, I should think you wanted to borrow something from me, but as that can't be the case, I suppose I must put it down to pure good nature. As for the way Lea got here, that's very simple.

  "You see, the notoriety that Mrs. Cora Dail got through that unfortunate affair at Bow Street and the Old Bailey got rather oppressive, and then some long-nosed mouchard in the serv
ice of the French police managed to smell out a distant connection between her and one of the President's servants, who was suspected of putting that bomb in the carriage, and so Madame Dail decided to return to America while the road was yet open to her.

  "She sold off her house before any of our stray shells or bombs smashed it up, and sailed from Marseilles to New York in that Messageries steamer, the Champagne, which you remember never was heard of again. She had the misfortune to fall in with three of our air-ships, of which the Revanche was one, and they stopped her, kidnapped Madame Dail and two or three other lady friends of hers, some of whom you know. Then they, cleared everything that was light and handy and valuable out of the ship, and then sent her to the bottom, as it wasn't thought advisable that she should get to New York and tell any tales."

  "Ah!" said Hartog, with a chuckle. "So dat is vat became of her, is it? I tought some accident of dat kind had happened, ven I heard she had not arrifed."

  "But here we are," interrupted Max, "at my humble home, for the time being, and there is Lea's own fair self coming to meet us. Now do try and remember that pretty speech for her again."