_Vanishing Ships_
Prester Kleig, ordered to Madagascar from the Secret Room, had been
merely an operative, honored above others in that he had been one of
the few, at that time, ever to visit the Secret Room. Now, however,
because he had walked closer to Moyen than anyone else, he assumed
leadership almost by natural right, and the men who had once deferred to
him took orders from him.
"Gentlemen," he snapped, while the last words of Moyen still hung in the
air of the Secret Room, "we must fight Moyen from here. The best brains
in the United Americas are gathered here, and if Moyen can be
beaten--_if_ he can be beaten--he will be beaten from the Secret Room!"
A sigh from the lips of Professor Maniel. The President of the United
Americas nodded his head, as though he too mutely gave authority into
the hands of Prester Kleig. The other Secret Agents shifted slightly,
but said nothing.
"I have been away a year," said Kleig, "as you know, and many things
have come into regular use since I left. Professor Maniel's machine for
example, upon which he was working when I departed under orders. There
will be further use for it in our struggle with Moyen. Professor, will
you kindly range the ocean, beginning at once, and see how many of these
monsters of Moyen we have to contend with?"
* * * * *
Professor Maniel turned back to his instruments, which he fondled with
gentle, loving hands.
"We have nothing with which to combat the attacking forces of Moyen,"
went on Kleig, "save antiquated airplanes, and such obsolete warships as
are available. These will be mere fodder for the guns, or rays, or
whatever it is that Moyen uses in his aero-subs. Thousands, perhaps
millions, of human lives will be lost; but better this than that Moyen
rule the West! Better this than that our women be given into the hands
of this mob as spoils of war!"
From the Secret Agents a murmur of assent.
And then, that voice again, startling, clear, with the slightest
suggestion of some Oriental accent, in the Secret Room.
"Do not depend too much, gentlemen," it said, "upon your antiquated
warships! See, I am merciful, in that I do not allow you to send them
against me loaded with men to be slaughtered or drowned! Professor
Maniel, I would ask you to turn that plaything of yours and gaze upon
the fleet of obsolete ships anchored in Hampton Roads! In passing,
Professor, I venture to guess that the secret of how I am able to talk
with you gentlemen, here in your Secret Room, is no secret at all to
you. Now look!"
The Secret Agents gasped again, in consternation.
From the white lips of mouselike Maniel came mumbled words, even as his
hands worked with lightning speed.
"His machine is simply a variation of my own. And, gentlemen,
compatriots, with it he could as easily project himself, bodily, here
into the room with us!"
* * * * *
Something like a suppressed scream from one of the men present. A cold
hand of ice about the heart of Prester Kleig. But the words of Professor
Maniel were limned on the retina of his brain in letters of fire.
Suppose Moyen _were_ to project himself into the Secret Room....
But he would not. He was no fool, and even these Secret Agents, most of
whom were old and no longer strong, would have torn him limb from limb.
But those words of Maniel set whirling once more, and in a new
direction, the thoughts of Prester Kleig.
"Mr. President, gentlemen...." It was the voice of Professor Maniel.
All eyes turned again to the screen upon which the professor worked his
miracles, which today were commonplaces, which yesterday had been
undreamed of. Every Secret Agent recognized the outlines of Hampton
Roads, with Norfolk and its towering buildings in the background, and
the obsolete warships riding silently at anchor in the roadstead.
For three years they had been there, while a procrastinating Cabinet,
Congress and Senate had debated their permanent disposal. They
represented millions of dollars in money, and were utterly worthless.
Prester Kleig, looking at them now, could see them putting out to sea,
loaded with brave-visaged men, volunteering to go to sure destruction to
feed the rapacity of Moyen's hordes. Men going out to sea in tubs,
singing....
But these ships were silent. No plumes of smoke from their funnels. Like
floating mausoleums, filled with dead hopes, shells of past and departed
glories.
The beating of waves against their sides could plainly be heard. The
anchor chains squeaked rustily in the hawse-holes. Wind sighed through
regal, towering superstructures, and no man walked the decks of any one
of them.
* * * * *
With bated breath the Secret Agents watched.
Why had Moyen bidden them turn their attention to these shells of
erstwhile naval grandeur?
This time no gasps broke from the lips of the Secret Agents. Not even
the sound of breathing could be heard. Just the sighing of wind through
the superstructures of a hundred ships, the whispering of waves against
rusted bulkheads.
Almost imperceptibly at first the towering dreadnought in the foreground
began to move! Slowly, the water swirling about her, she backed away
from her anchor, tightening the curve of the anchor chain! Water
quivered about the point of the chain's contact with the waves!
Quickly the eyes of the Secret Agents swept along the street of ships.
The same backward motion, of dragging against their anchor chains, was
visible at the bow of each warship!
With not a soul aboard them, the ships were waking into strange and
awesome life, dragging at their anchors, like hounds pulling at leashes
to be free and away!
"How are they doing it?" It was almost a whisper from the President.
"Some electro-magnetic force, sir!" stated Prester Kleig. "Professor
Blaine, that is your province! Please note what is happening, and advise
us at once if you see how they are doing it!"
A grunt of affirmation from surly, obese Professor Blaine.
* * * * *
All eyes turned back again to the miracle of the moving ships. One by
one, with crashes which echoed and re-echoed through the Secret Room,
the anchor chains of the dreadnoughts parted. The ends of them swung
from the prows of the warships, while the severed portions splashed into
the Roads, and the waters hid them from view.
The great dreadnought in the foreground swung slowly about until her
prow was pointed in the direction of the open sea, and though no sea was
running, no smoke rose from her funnels, she got slowly, ponderously
under way, and started out the Roads. Behind her, in formation, the
other ships swung into line.
In a matter of seconds, faster than any of these vessels had ever
traveled before, they were racing in column for the open Atlantic. And
from the sound apparatus came wails and shrieks of terror, the
lamentations of men and women frightened as they had never been
frightened before.
The shores behind the moving column of ships was moment by moment
growing blacker with people--a black sea of people, whose faces were
white as chalk with terror.
But on, out to sea, moved the column of brave ships.
A new note entered into the picture, as from all sides airplanes of many
makes swooped in, and swept back and forth over the moving ships, while
hooded heads looked out of pits, and faces of pilots were aghast at
what they saw.
* * * * *
A ghost column of ships, moving out to sea, speed increasing moment by
moment unbelievably. Even now, five minutes after the first dreadnought
had started seaward, the wake of each ship spread away on either hand in
the two sides of a watery triangle whose walls were a dozen feet
high--racing for the shores with all the sullen majesty of tidal waves.
The crowds gave back, and their screams rose into the air in a
frightened roar of appalling sound.
Even now, so rapidly did the warships travel, many of the planes could
throttle down, so that they flew directly above the heaving decks of the
runaway warships.
"Get word to them!" cried Prester Kleig suddenly. "Get word to them that
if they follow the ships out to sea not a pilot will escape alive!"
One of the Secret Agents rose and hurried from the Secret Room,
traveling at top speed for the first of the many doors enroute to the
broadcasting tower from which all the planes could be reached at once.
Prester Kleig turned back to the magic screen of Maniel.
The warships, water thrown aside by the lifting thrust of their forefeet
in mountains that raced landward with ever-increasing fury, were
clearing the Roads and swinging south by east, heading into the wastes
of the Atlantic. As they cleared the land, and open water for unnumbered
miles lay ahead, the speed of the mighty ships increased to a point
where they rode as high on the water as racing launches, and the
creaking and groaning of their rusty bolts and spars were a continual
paean of protest in the sound apparatus accompanying the showing of the
miracle on the screen.
"They're heading straight for the spot where that super-submarine lies!"
said the President, and no one answered him.
* * * * *
Prester Kleig, watching, was racing over in his mind what he could
recall of his country's armament. Warships were useless, as was being
proved here before his eyes. But there still remained airplanes, in
countless numbers, which could be diverted from ocean travel and from
routine business, to battle this menace of Moyen.
But....
He shuddered as he pictured in his mind's eye the meeting of his
country's flower of flying manhood with the monsters of Moyen.
His eyes, as he thought, were watching the racing of those ocean
greyhounds, out to sea. They were now out of sight of land, and still
some of the planes followed them.
A half hour passed, and then....
The American pilots, in obedience to the radio signals, turning back
from this strange phenomenon of the ghost column of capital ships.
Simultaneously, out of the sky dead ahead, dropped the first flight of
Moyen's aero-subs.
At the same moment the mysterious power which had dragged the ships to
sea was withdrawn, and the warships, with no hands to guide them, swung
whither they willed, and floated in as many directions as there were
ships, under their forward momentum. There were a score of collisions,
and some of the ships were in sinking condition even before the
aero-subs began their labors.
* * * * *
The remaining ships floated high out of the water, because they carried
no ballast, and from all sides the aero-subs of Moyen settled to the
task of destruction--destruction which was simply a warning of what was
to come: Moyen's manner of proving to the Americas the fact that he was
all-powerful.
"God, what fools!" cried Prester Kleig.
The rearmost of the American aviators had looked back, had seen the
first of the aero-subs drop down among the doomed ships. Instantly he
turned out to sea again, signalling as he did so to the nearest other
planes. And in spite of the radio warning a hundred planes answered that
signal and swept back to investigate this new mystery.
"They're going to death!" groaned the President.
"Yes," said Kleig, softly, "but it saves us ordering others to death.
Perhaps we may learn something of value as we watch them die!"