The Angel of the Revolution: A Tale of the Coming Terror

by George Chetwynd Griffith

  CHAPTER XXXII.

  THE END OF THE CHASE.

  The flight of the _Ithuriel_ and her consorts was so graduated, thatas they rose to the level of the storm-cloud they missed it andpassed diagonally beyond it at a sufficient distance to avoiddisturbing the electrical balance between it and the earth. Theobject of doing so was not so much to escape a discharge ofelectricity, since all the vital parts of the machinery and thepower-cylinders were carefully insulated, but rather in order not toprovoke a lightning flash which might have revealed their rapidpassage to the occupants of the _Lucifer_.

  As it was, they swept upwards and westward at such a speed that theyhad gained the cover of the thunder-cloud, and placed a considerablearea of it between themselves and the town, long before the stormbroke over Aberdeen, and so they were provided with ample shelterunder, or rather over, which they were to make their attack on the_Lucifer_.

  They waited until the clouds coming up from the westward joined thosewhich had begun to gather thick and black and threatening over theRussian fleet soon after the tremendous cannonade had begun. Theshock of the meeting of the two cloud-squadrons formed a fittingcounterpart to the drama of death and destruction that was beingplayed on land and sea.

  The brilliant sunshine of the midsummer afternoon was suddenlyobscured by a darkness born of smoke and cloud like that of amidwinter night. The smoke of the cannonade rose heavily and mingledwith the clouds, and the atmospheric concussions produced by thedischarge of hundreds of heavy guns, brought down the rain intorrents. Almost continuous streams of lightning flashed from cloudto cloud, and from heaven to earth, eclipsing the spouting fire ofthe guns, while to the roar of the bombardment was added an almostunbroken roll of thunder.

  Above all this hideous turmoil of human and elemental strife, thethree air-ships floated for awhile in a serene and sunlit atmosphere.But this was only for a time. Arnold had taken the position andaltitude of the _Lucifer_ very carefully by means of his sextant andcompass before he rose into the air, and as soon as his preparationswere complete he made another observation of the angle of the sun'selevation, allowing, of course, for his own, and placed his threeships as nearly perpendicular as he could over the _Lucifer_,floating on the under side of the storm-cloud.

  His preparations had been simple in the extreme. Four light stronggrappling-irons hung downwards from the _Ithuriel_, two at the bowand two at the stern, by thin steel-wire rope; two similar ones hungfrom the starboard side of the _Orion_, which was on his left hand,and two from the port side of the _Ariel_, which was on his righthand. As they gained the desired position, a man was stationed ateach of the ropes, with instructions how to act when the word wasgiven. Then the fan-wheels were slowed down, and the three vesselssank swiftly through the cloud.

  Through the mist and darkness underneath they saw the white shape ofthe _Lucifer_ almost immediately below them, so accurately had theposition been determined. They sank a hundred feet farther, and thenArnold shouted--

  "Now is your time. Cast!"

  Instantly the eight grappling-irons dropped and swung towards the_Lucifer_, hooking themselves in the stays of her masts and therailing that ran completely round her deck.

  "Now, up again, and ahead!" shouted Arnold once more, and thefan-wheels of the three ships revolved at their utmost speed; theair-planes had already been inclined to the full, the nine propellerswhirled round, and the recaptured _Lucifer_ was dragged forward andupwards through the mist and darkness of the thunder-cloud into thebright sunshine above.

  "Now is your time, cast!"

  _See page 242._]

  So suddenly had the strange manoeuvre been executed that those onboard her had not time to grasp what had really happened to thembefore they found themselves captured and utterly helpless. As shehung below her three captors it was impossible to bring one of the_Lucifer's_ guns to bear upon them, while four guns, two from the_Ariel_ and two from the _Orion_, grinned down upon her ready to blowher into fragments at the least sign of resistance.

  Added to this, a dozen magazine rifles covered her deck, threateningsudden death to the six bewildered men who were still staringhelplessly about them in wonderment at the strange thing that hadhappened to them.

  "Who are the Russian officers in command of that air-ship?" hailedMazanoff from the _Ariel_.

  Two men in Russian uniform raised their hands in reply, and Mazanoffhailed again--

  "Which will you have--surrender or death? If you surrender your livesare safe, and we will put you on to the land as soon as possible; ifnot you will be shot."

  "We surrender!" exclaimed one of the officers, drawing his sword anddropping it on the deck. The other followed suit, and Mazanoffcontinued--

  "Very good. Remain where you are. The first man that moves will beshot down."

  Almost before the last words had left his lips half a dozen men hadslid down the wire ropes and landed on the deck of the _Lucifer_. Themoment their feet had touched the deck each whipped a magazine pistolout of his belt and covered his man.

  Within a couple of minutes the captives were all disarmed; indeed,most of them had thrown their weapons down on the first summons. Thearms were tossed overboard, and all but the two Russian officers wererapidly bound hand and foot. Then three of the six men descended tothe engine-room, and one went to the wheel-house. In another minutethe fan-wheels of the _Lucifer_ began to spin round faster, andquickly raised her to the level of the other three ships, and so therecapture of the deserter was completed.

  The two officers were at once summoned on board the _Ithuriel_ andshut up under guard in separate cabins. The rest of the crew of the_Lucifer_ was found to consist of the four traitors who had carriedher away, and two Russian engineers who had been put on board toassist in the working of the vessel.

  As soon as these had been replaced by a crew drafted from the_Ithuriel_ and her consorts under the command of Lieutenant Marston,Arnold gave the order to go ahead at fifty miles an hour to thenorthward, and the four air-ships immediately sped away in thatdirection, leaving Aberdeen to its fate, and within a little over anhour the sounds of both storm and battle had died away in silencebehind them.

  When they were fairly under way Natas ordered the four deserters tobe brought before him in the after saloon of the flagship. He sat atone end of the table, and they were placed in a line in front of himat the other, each with a guard behind him, and the muzzle of apistol at his head.

  "Peter Tamboff, Amos Vornjeh, Ivan Tscheszco, and Paul Oreloff! youhave broken your oaths, betrayed your companions, deserted the Causeto which you devoted your lives, and placed in the hands of theRussian tyrant the means of destruction which has enabled him tobreak the blockade of the Baltic, and so perhaps to change the wholecourse of the war which he is now waging, as you well know, with theobject of conquering Europe and enslaving its peoples.

  "Already the lives of thousands of better men than you have been lostthrough this vile treason of yours, the vilest of all treason, for itwas committed for love of money. By the laws of the Brotherhood yourlives are forfeit, and if you had a hundred lives each they would beforfeited again by the calamities that your treason has brought, andwill bring, upon the world. You will die in half an hour. If you haveany preparations to make for the next world, make them. I have donewith you. Go!"

  Half an hour later the four deserters were taken up on to the deck ofthe _Ithuriel_. The signal was given to stop the flotilla, which wasthen flying three thousand feet above the waters of the Moray Firth.As soon as they came to a standstill their crews were summoned ondeck. The three smaller vessels floated around the _Ithuriel_ at adistance of about fifty yards from her. The traitors, bound hand andfoot, were stood up facing the rail of the flagship, and four of hercrew were stationed opposite to them on the other side of the deckwith loaded rifles.

  They were allowed one last look upon sun and sky, and then their eyeswere bandaged. As soon as this was done Arnold raised his hand; thefour rifles came up to the ready; a stream of flame shot from them
uzzles, and the bodies of the four traitors lurched forward over therail and disappeared into the abyss beneath.

  "Now, gentlemen," said Arnold in French, turning to the two Russianofficers who had been spectators of the scene, "that is how we punishtraitors. Your own lives are spared because we do not murderprisoners of war. You will, I hope, in due time return to yourmaster, and you will tell him why we have been obliged to retake theair-ship which he surrendered to us by force, and therefore why wedestroyed his flagship in the North Sea. If Admiral Prabylov hadobeyed his orders, the _Lucifer_ would have been surrendered to usquietly, and there would have been for the present no furthertrouble.

  "Tell him also from me, as Admiral of the Terrorist fleet, that, sofar as matters have now gone, we shall take no further part in thewar; but that the moment he brings his war-balloons across the waterswhich separate Britain from Europe, the last hour of his empire willhave struck.

  "If he neglects this warning with which I now entrust you, I willbring a force against him before which he shall be as helpless as thearmies of the Alliance have so far been before him and hiswar-balloons; and, more than this, tell him that if I conquer I willnot spare. I will hold him and his advisers strictly to account forall that may happen after that moment.

  "There will be no treaties with conquered enemies in the hour of ourvictory. We will have blood for blood, and life for life. Rememberthat, and bear the message to him faithfully. For the present youwill be prisoners on parole; but I warn you that you will be watchednight and day, and at the first suspicion of treachery you will beshot, and cast into the air as those traitors were just now.

  "You will remain on board this ship. The two engineers will be placedone on board of each of two of our consorts. In twenty-four hours orso you will be landed on Spanish soil and left to your own devices.Meanwhile we shall make you as comfortable as the circumstancespermit."

  The two Russian officers bowed their acknowledgments, and Arnold gavethe signal for the flotilla to proceed.

  It was then about seven o'clock in the evening. Flying at the rate ofa hundred miles an hour, the squadron crossed the mouth of the MorayFirth trending to the westward until they passed over Thurso, andthen took a westerly course to Rockall Island, four hundred miles tothe west. Here they met the two other air-ships which had beendespatched from Aeria with extra power-cylinders and munitions of warin case they had been needed for a prolonged campaign.

  The cylinders, which had been exhausted on board the _Ithuriel_ andher three consorts, were replaced, and then the whole squadron roseinto the air from one of the peaks of Rockall Island and winged itsway southward to the north-western coast of Spain. They made theSpanish land near Corunna shortly before eight on the followingevening, and here the four Russian prisoners were released on thesea-shore and provided with money to take them as far as Valladolid,whence they would be able to communicate with the French militaryauthorities at Toulouse.

  The Terrorist Squadron then rose once more into the air, ascended toa height of two thousand feet, skirted the Portuguese coast, and thentook a south-easterly course over Morocco through one of the passesof the Atlas Mountains, and so across the desert of Sahara and thewilds of Central Africa to Aeria.