Every day after the issue of the circular the wire which connected the
Storage Works with Winnipeg was kept hot with the news of what was
going on in the far-away civilised world, but for some time all that
was heard in that land of unsetting suns only amounted to this:
Everywhere the Press of Europe had received the pronouncement of the
Trust with incredulous derision. It had, in fact, provided
professional humourists and caricaturists with quite a new field of
industry.
The Governments, as had been expected, took not the slightest notice
of it, and General Ducros and the French President, who alone knew
what a terrible meaning lay in the plain business-like language of the
circular, awaited more and more anxiously as the days went by the
execution of the dread fiat of the World Masters.
The sinking of the _Vlodoya_ and the disappearance of the _Nadine_ had
convinced the Minister for War and also the Russian Government that
the plot to capture the controllers of the Storage Trust had failed,
but they could do nothing without admitting that they knew and
believed in the power of the Trust to do as it threatened. Moreover,
they could not submit to the terms unless all the other Powers did,
and they had not even deigned to notice the existence of the Trust.
Meanwhile, the preparations for war went on, and on the day before the
expiration of the time given by the general ultimatum to France, the
French troops crossed the border at Verdun, Nancy, and Mulhausen, and
the Northern Squadron, strongly reinforced, blockaded the mouth of the
Elbe and the Kiel Canal. The Russian Baltic Squadron, which had been
going through its summer manoeuvres, blocked the exits from the
inland seas and threatened the northern coast of Germany, while the
Russian army was concentrating in enormous numbers at several points
along the Polish frontier.
When Austin Vandel took the dispatch containing this last news into
the department at the works which was commonly called the board-room,
the president passed it to Lord Orrel and Hardress, who were having a
smoke and afternoon chat with him, and said:
"Well, I reckon the Powers mean business, and so, as they haven't had
the politeness to answer that communication of ours, I reckon it's
about time we showed them that we mean it, too. They'll be fighting by
this time."
"I suppose so," replied Lord Orrel; "and of course it's no use waiting
any longer under the circumstances."
"Not a bit," added Hardress; "in fact, as you know, my idea was to
start a fortnight ago. If we'd done that they might have found it a
bit difficult even to start."
"But after all, Shafto," said his father, "a fortnight matters nothing
to us; and the object-lesson will be very much more striking if we
allow hostilities to get into full swing, and then bring them to a
dead stop. Still, we will begin at once, and I propose, president,
that when everything is ready your daughter shall do us the honour of
starting the engines."
"And if that wants any seconding," added Hardress, "I'll do it."
"I reckon that'll be about the proudest moment of Chrysie's life,"
laughed the president. "And seeing that our guests have pretty good
reason to take an interest in the engines, perhaps it would only be
polite to ask them to come and assist at the ceremony."
"Oh, certainly," said Lord Orrel. "There can't be any objection to
that. Shafto, suppose you go and invite them. And it wouldn't be a bad
idea if we had a little dinner together afterwards, just to celebrate
the occasion. You might see Miss Chrysie also and request the honour
of her services."
As Hardress left the room the president said to his nephew: "Austin,
you can go and wire to our people here and over in England that the
experiment begins to-night. Ask them to let us have all the news they
can send, and especially to let us know whether any electric
disturbances take place in our territories; and you might ask Doctor
Lamson to come over for a few minutes."
From this conversation it will be seen that the momentous voyage of
the _Nadine_ had ended without any further mishap. Davis Straits
and the Northern waters had been singularly clear of ice, and she had
been able to steer the whole way to Port Adelaide without difficulty.
Doctor Lamson had received them in the midst of his marvellous
creation as quietly as though he had been receiving them in his own
house at Hampstead. They had all admired and wondered at the sombre
magnificence of what was certainly the most extraordinary structure on
the face of the globe. But those who are permitted to see them have
marvelled still more at the huge engines and the maze of intricately
complicated apparatus which the magic of money and science had called
into being in the midst of this desolate wilderness.
So far, the involuntary guests of the Trust had not been permitted to
see anything more than the outsides of the engine-rooms and the
apartments which they occupied. They had been politely but
unmistakably given to understand that, after what had happened, it
would be necessary to consider them as prisoners. They would be
treated with every consideration--in fact, as guests. But at the same
time, they would be closely watched, and any attempt to communicate
with any officer or workman employed on the Works would be immediately
punished by close confinement for all of them. For their part, they
had accepted the strange situation with perfect philosophy, and
awaited the coming of the expeditions with a great deal more
confidence than they would have felt had they known the terrible
nature of the defences with which Doctor Lamson had armed this
fortress in the wilderness.
Within an hour after the president had pronounced the fiat which was
to alter the history of the world, everything was in readiness for the
making of the Great Experiment, and, for the first time since their
arrival in Boothia, Count Valdemar, Sophie, and the marquise were
admitted into the great engine-rooms which stood in the middle of each
side of the quadrangle. They stared in frank astonishment at the
colossal machinery, and the count said to the president as they
entered No. 1, or the Northern engine-room:
"Our aims may not be the same, but I am compelled to confess that you
have wrought a most astounding miracle in the midst of the ghastly
desert."
"It's pretty good," he replied; "but, after all, it's just the sort of
miracle that dollars and brains can work all the time. This is not the
miracle, this is only what is going to work it. The real miracle will
be what our friends in Europe see and feel. Well, now, doctor, are we
ready?"
"Quite," replied Lamson. "Lady Olive, you will send the signal to the
other rooms? A man is stationed in each of them, and if you touch that
button when Miss Vandel pulls the lever you will start the other three
engines."
Miss Chrysie, looking just a trifle pale and nervous, took hold of the
lever and stood ready to perform the most momentous act ever done by
the hand of woman. It had been decided to start the engines precisely
at six, and the minute hand of the engine-room clock was getting very
near the perpendicular.
"It seems a pretty awful thing to do, you know, poppa," she said,
"just to pull this thing and set half the world dying."
"No; I think you are wrong there, Chrysie," said Hardress, who was
standing beside her, and Adelaide's teeth gritted together as she
heard the name for the first time from his lips. "When you pull that
lever you will save life, not destroy it. Without us the war might go
on for months or years and cost millions of lives: but ten days after
you have pulled that lever the European war will be impossible."
"Then," said Miss Chrysie, tightening her grip on the handle, "I guess
I'll pull!" At this moment the clock struck the first note of six, and
at the third she drew the lever towards her.
The starting-engine gave a few short puffs and pants. Lady Olive
touched the button, and the bells tinkled in the other engine-rooms.
The huge cranks of the steel giants began to revolve. The mighty
cylinders gasped and hissed, and the huge fly-wheels began to move, at
first almost imperceptibly, and then faster and faster, till each was
a whirling circle of bright steel. The hiss of the steam ceased, and
the four giants settled down to their momentous work in silence, save
for a low, purring hum, which was not to cease day or night until
armed Europe had acknowledged their all-compelling power.
"It is very wonderful, but very weird," said Adelaide to Chrysie as
they left the room, "if only it is all true. To think that you, by
just bending your arm should set those mighty monsters to work--and
such work! to steal the soul out of the world, to paralyse armies and
fleets, perhaps to make Governments impossible--perhaps to reduce
civilisation to chaos!"
"I reckon those engines will cause less chaos than your friends in
Europe, marquise," she replied, shortly, but not unkindly; "but,
anyhow, they should have taken poppa's terms; and if they will fight,
they must pay for the luxury. Anyhow, we'd better not talk about that;
it's no use getting unfriendly over subjects we can't agree upon. What
do you say, countess?"
"I entirely agree with you," said Sophie, frankly. "You know,
Adelaide, that for prisoners of war we are being treated exceedingly
well. And for the present, at least, until our hosts are able to
terminate their invitation, I think we might be as nearly friends as
we can be."
"That's so," said Miss Chrysie, heartily, yet well knowing that they
were both awaiting the moment when, as they believed, the arrival of
the expeditions would make the present owners of the works prisoners
of France and Russia, and that either of them would poison her or put
a bullet through her without the slightest hesitation. "Yes; that's
so. We've got to live here together for a bit, and I reckon we may as
well do it as pleasantly as possible. And now, suppose we go to
dinner."
All things considered, the dinner was really a most agreeable
function. The principal topic of conversation was, of course, the
effect which the starting of the works would produce on the Northern
Hemisphere in general and the fleets and armies of Europe in
particular. International politics, too, were discussed, not only with
freedom, but with a knowledge which would have astonished many a
European Minister; but one subject was tabooed by mutual consent, and
that was the French and Russian Polar Expeditions, which, if they were
really making for Boothia Land, ought to arrive in about a week's
time.
The three involuntary guests knew perfectly well that their hosts were
expecting them. Their hosts knew that they knew this, and, therefore,
as a matter of politeness and mutual convenience, the words "Polar
Expedition" were absolutely banished from their conversation.
Meanwhile, Port Adelaide had been fast emptying for the time when the
colliers and cargo boats could get back, for the time was limited.
Only the _Nadine_ and the _Washington_, a passenger boat capable
of about sixteen knots, which had brought the staff up from Halifax,
were kept, in addition to a couple of steam launches and a powerful
tug sheathed and fitted as an icebreaker.
The _Nadine_ and the _Washington_ constantly patrolled the coast for
twenty miles in each direction, on the lookout for the expeditions.
Around and inside the works life went on as quietly as though nothing
out of the common was happening. The unsetting sun rose and dipped
on the southern horizon, and the great engines purred unceasingly,
working out the dream of the man whose mangled body lay in a nameless
grave on an alien soil.
They had been working for six days when Europe awoke to an uneasy
suspicion that, after all, there must have been something in that
preposterous circular which the Electrical Power and Storage Trust, of
Buffalo, N.Y., had sent out some five weeks before.
On the evening of the fifth day after Miss Chrysie had pulled the
lever over in No. 1 engine-room a series of unaccountable accidents
happened in the engine-rooms of the French Northern Squadron, which
was blockading the mouth of the Elbe. Do what they would, the
engineers could not keep the engines working smoothly. Little
accidents kept on happening with such frequency that the efforts of
the whole staff could scarcely keep the engines in working order; and
about the same time the officers on the bridges, noticed that the
compasses were beginning to behave in a most extraordinary fashion.
Even when the ships were quite stationary, they wavered two or three
degrees on either side of north, and as the night wore on the
variation increased.
The next morning there happened what, up to then, was the strangest
incident in warfare. The _Charles Martel_, one of the most powerful
ironclads in the French fleet, was cruising under easy steam, just out
of range of the heavy guns on the canal forts, when the admiral
commanding the squadron, who was on the bridge, heard a muffled
grinding noise, and felt a shudder run through the vast fabric. The
next moment an officer came up from the lower deck, saluted, and
gasped:
"Admiral, the port shaft has broken, and we are only going quarter
speed!"
He had hardly got the last words out of his mouth before there was
another grinding shock, and a dull rattle away down in the vitals of
the ship.
"Ah, there is something more!" cried the officer. "They tell me that
the engines have been mad all night."
"Go and see what it is," said the admiral; "we must put out to sea
with one engine." At that moment the chief engineer came up, looking
white and scared, and said, in a low, shaking voice:
"Monsieur, the crank shaft of the starboard engine has splintered as
though it had been made of glass. We are disabled!"
"Nom de Dieu!" exclaimed the admiral. "What is that you
say?--disabled? and the tide setting in. Then we are lost. A few
minutes will take us within range of the guns on the Canal and at
Cuxhaven, and in an hour we may be ashore. There is no hope of
repairs, I suppose?"
"Impossible, Monsieur l'Amiral. It would take weeks in the best
dockyard in France to repair the damage."
"Then," said the admiral, turning to the commander, who was standing
beside him, "we must do what we can. We will not be lost for nothing.
Let everything be ready to return the fire of the forts as soon as we
are within range."
By this time the German officers on the forts had noted with
amazement, not unmixed with satisfaction, that some unaccountable
accident had happened to the great French battleship. She was not
under steam, she was not steering, she was simply drifting in with the
tide as helplessly as a barrel. The tide was setting dead in towards
the mouth of the Canal, and the commander of the great fort at
Brunsbuettel, making certain of her surrender or destruction, ordered
three of his heaviest guns, monsters capable of throwing a
nine-hundred-pound shell to a distance of nearly fourteen miles, to
prepare for action. They were mounted on disappearing carriages worked
by hydraulic machinery.
The guns were already loaded, the mechanism was set in motion, and the
giants rose slowly till their muzzles grinned over the glacis of the
fort. Then, without any warning, the framework of one of the carriages
cracked and splintered in all directions, the huge gun came back with
a terrific crash on to the concrete floor of the emplacement, and, to
the amazement of officers and gunners, broke into three pieces as if
it had been made of glass instead of the finest steel that Krupp could
produce.
Officers and men stared at each other in silent amazement. Were even
the guns and their machinery affected by this strange languor which
had been afflicting both men and animals for the last day or two?
Instinctively they drew away from the other gun; but the _Charles
Martel_ was now well within range, and Colonel Von Altenau saw that
it was his duty not to allow her to come any closer. In fact, he was
almost surprised to see that she had not already opened fire upon the
fort, so he ordered the centre gun to be trained on her and fired.
As the lanyard was pulled, those on board the battleship saw a vivid
burst of flame, and the roar of an explosion came dully across the
water, but no shell followed it. The admiral immediately came to the
conclusion that some accident had happened in the fort, and he ordered
his two forward 13-inch guns to send a couple of shells into it. He
went into the conning-tower, and as soon as he received the signal
that the guns were ready and laid, he pressed the electric button
which should have sent the sparks through the charges. Nothing
happened, and the guns remained silent.
Then he called down the speaking-tube connecting the conning-tower
with the barbette:
"The wire does not act. Let the guns be fired by hand."
He was obeyed, and the next moment the blast of a frightful explosion
shook the whole fabric of the ship. Barbette and guns disappeared in a
blinding blaze of flame. The solid steel crumbled to dust, the decks
cracked like starred glass in all directions, and some forty brave
fellows were blown over the edge of eternity without even knowing what
had happened to them. Both guns had burst into thousands of fragments,
just as the great German gun in the fort had done, killing every man
within twenty yards of it. The guns had, in fact, behaved much as that
little square of steel had done when Doctor Emil Fargeau hit it with a
wooden mallet.
Thus the first shots of the war had resulted only in the slaying of
those who had fired them. As the helpless _Charles Martel_ drifted
slowly towards the other forts, they attempted to open fire on her,
but after two more big guns had blown themselves to atoms, and killed
or maimed a hundred men, she was allowed to drift on until she found a
resting-place on the Elbe mud.
On the other ships of the French Squadron disaster after disaster had
been happening meanwhile. Engine after engine broke down, electric
signals, as well as the electrical ammunition lifts, ceased to work.
The compass cards swung about as aimlessly as though there was no such
thing as a Magnetic Pole in existence, and as ship after ship became
disabled with broken shafts, cracked cylinders, or splintered
piston-rods, a score of the finest warships that France had ever put
to sea drifted helplessly up with the tide under the eyes of an enemy
that could not fire a shot at them.
The commander-in-chief of the Brunsbuettel station telegraphed to his
colleague at Kiel to report the unaccountable disaster, but no answer
was received. The message was repeated, and a lieutenant came in a few
minutes later, clicked his heels together, and said:
"Herr Commandant, it is impossible to communicate with Kiel, the
instruments have ceased to work. I have telephoned as well, but the
wires are dead."
"But it is ridiculous--unaccountable!" exclaimed the commandant. "We
must communicate. Have an engine made ready at once, Lieutenant, and
go yourself. I will send a letter."
The lieutenant found a locomotive with steam up. He took the
commandant's letter and started. Within fifty yards the engine broke
down as completely as the machinery of the _Charles Martel_ had done.