It is time now to tell the story of the ships, the genealogy of the
_Mary Rose_, the secret of Brand's aerial wars, and how the great
outlaw gained command of the air.
Down through the ages sweeps that Pageant of the Ships, with oar,
sail, steam, electric, etheric power, cleaving the centuries since
the world was young.
First come the oared Long Ships, the slave-manned galleys, the
argosies of the Phoenicians, the Greeks, of Carthage, Rome,
Byzantium, of Barbary, Norway, Venice, Genoa, Spain. They are
human-wielded, sea-compelling engines.
Then come the Great Ships, the device of Henry VIII. They shattered
the galleons of Spain, they wrecked the Dutch Republic, destroyed the
Empire of France, gave Britain the command of the sea. They explored
the planet, they created the greater commerce. They come under sail,
they need no slave-engines, these white-winged servants of the winds,
winged conquerors of all seas.
Then come the iron ships which laid the cables, peopled the lands,
and narrowed down the world into a house for man; the steel ships,
smoke-maned conquerors of both wind and sea, not man-driven galleys,
but steam-driven carriers, racing cities, and cruising fortresses.
They drove the white sails from the face of the sea, drove them to
refuge in the skies. And so sweeps the majestic pageant of the ships
into the golden age of seamanship. "There shall be no more sea," for
man has taken wings to cleave the air. Poised on broad aeroplanes,
alive with power flashed to them through space, the aerial
battleships have claimed the very pathways of the eagles. Rolling
down the cloud-seas come the snow-white, glittering giants of the
electric age, England's dread Channel Fleet, surely the last supreme
achievement of mankind.
And far aloft, attended by white cirrii, hangs one small star-like
speck in the blue zenith, an unarmed private yacht offering to meet
the entire navy of Britain and all the fleets of Europe in single
combat.
There is a legend of John Brand I., that wandering on the moors by
the Lands End, he came upon a dark and silent pool. Being in an idle
mood he sat beside the bank throwing pebbles, and watched the little
ripples spread away over still water. So the thought came to him of
those small innumerable waves which constantly spread away from the
earth's centre, the waves of gravitation.
Thinking profoundly he took a pebble in his hand. What mighty chord
of the celestial music thrilled in that stone pulling it down to the
earth? What was its chord of mass--how many millions of waves to the
second? Perhaps a million vibrations.
Suppose then he made an engine which would sound that note exactly.
The stone would fall off the planet, be whirled into space!
Could he build a ship to carry such an engine, strike the great
chord, and hurl the vessel off among the stars? Could he arrest its
flight, create the ship into a planet, free from the earth, and
driven at his will within the limits of the atmosphere?
A pebble thrown into still waters, a thought thrown from Heaven into
a clear mind, and ripples spreading down through history! We all
know how Brand I. built the etheric ship, fighting his way through
the long silent years of galling poverty and majestic thought. He
was a lad when he threw the pebble, an old man when he set the
engines in motion, sounded the chord of mass at last, lifted the ship
from the earth--then failed to arrest its motion. In that strange
sepulchre his body rests, wandering down the starways, lost in the
depths of space, lighted by blazing suns, threading the
constellations for ever and ever.
John Brand II., the builder of Lyonesse, was more daring than his
father, and always more practical. His etheric ship, _Mars_, was
brought under perfect control, and with Lock's propellor developed
undreamed-of speed.
The _Mars_ had a quality of attracting dust, drawing raindrops after
her, and even small birds. Pebbles thrown from her port-holes would
not fall, but followed in the wake as satellites. Her compass needle
pointed fore and aft indifferent to the magnetism of the earth.
About her hull strange wandering fires flickered and gleamed at
night, and in the cloud-fields as she passed above them, dull
thunders muttered, with tremulous lightnings.
It was an attempt upon his life by anarchists which drove Mr. Brand
II. to the idea of defence. Like the stone spreading ripples on
still waters, his engines of the _Mars_ could send out waves into the
ether. He surrounded the ship with a small sphere of electric
ripples, and high explosives are so sensitive to these vibrations
that no shell or torpedo could enter this field of tension without
being instantly disturbed. So the _Mars_ was clothed with an
electric armour, and the steel planet became invulnerable. And she
could attack, projecting her electric waves ten miles through space
to explode the cartridges carried by hostile troops, the ammunition
of attacking field guns, the magazines of fortresses and ships.
John Brand II. sent out his fleet as he sent out his gold to serve
mankind in the quiet channels of commerce. The engineers and
captains of Lyonesse grew old in his service, and never knew the
secret of the ships, their fearful powers as applied to war. John
Brand III. reigned in his father's stead, and still the planets
served as merchantmen, and the lightnings slept in their engines. No
man had ever seen etheric power in action, no man, save Brand, could
wield the destroying flame. And now the Channel Fleet had ordered
him to surrender.
His planet of forged steel lay resting. Ice glistened on her flanks
from frosty sprays of cirrii streaming past her. Beneath were the
labouring battleships, the white seas of cloud, and the newly risen
sun blazed red in the east. Above her the stars in millions thronged
the black deeps of Heaven.
A message flashed down to the flagship instruments. "Come up and
fight me," said the _Mary Rose_.