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Transcriber’s note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).
A dtailed Transcriber’s Note is at the end.
OLGA ROMANOFF
* * * * *
MORRISON AND GIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
* * * * *
[Illustration: EVIL IN SUCH A SHAPE MIGHT BE SOMETHING MORE THAN GOOD.
(_Frontispiece._) _See page 176._]
OLGA ROMANOFF.
by
GEORGE GRIFFITH.
Author of
“The Angel of the Revolution,” “The Outlaws of the Air,”
“Valdar the Oft-Born,” “Briton or Boer?” “The Romance of
Golden Star,” etc., etc.
“_And so they waited--waited while the ages-old snow and
ice melted from the bare, black rocks under the fierce
breath of the fire-storm; while the ocean of flame
seethed and roared and eddied about them, licking up the
seas and melted snows, and fighting with them as fire
and water have fought since the world began; while the
foundations of the Southern Pole quivered and rocked
beneath their feet, and the walls of their refuge quaked
and cracked with the throes of the writhing earth, and
cosmos was dissolved into chaos once more._”--p. 368.
With Sixteen Illustrations by Fred T. Jane.
London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., Ltd.
1897.
Copyrighted Abroad.] [All Foreign Rights Reserved.
* * * * *
TO HIRAM STEVENS MAXIM
THE FIRST MAN WHO HAS FLOWN BY MECHANICAL MEANS AND SO
APPROACHED MOST NEARLY TO THE LONG-SOUGHT IDEAL OF AERIAL
NAVIGATION
THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PROLOGUE 1
CHAP.
I. THE SURRENDER OF THE WORLD-THRONE 8
II. A CROWNLESS KING 14
III. TSARINA OLGA 26
IV. A SON OF THE GODS 35
V. A VISION FROM THE CLOUDS 47
VI. DEED AND DREAM 53
VII. THE SPELL OF CIRCE 66
VIII. THE NEW TERROR 75
IX. THE FLIGHT OF THE “REVENGE” 83
X. STRANGE TIDINGS TO AERIA 94
XI. THE SNAKE IN EDEN 102
XII. THE BATTLE OF KERGUELEN 110
XIII. THE SYREN’S STRONGHOLD 129
XIV. FROM THE SEA TO THE AIR 138
XV. OLGA IN COUNCIL 146
XVI. KHALID THE MAGNIFICENT 159
XVII. AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE 174
XVIII. A MOMENTOUS COMMISSION 188
XIX. FACE TO FACE AGAIN 202
XX. THE CALL TO ARMS 215
XXI. THE HOME-COMING 226
XXII. THE EVE OF BATTLE 243
XXIII. THE FIRST BLOW 253
XXIV. WAR AT ITS WORST 271
XXV. A MESSAGE FROM MARS 289
XXVI. SENTENCE OF DEATH 303
XXVII. ALMA SPEAKS 314
XXVIII. THE SIGN IN THE SKY 319
XXIX. THE TRUCE OF GOD 325
XXX. THE SHADOW OF DEATH 338
XXXI. THE LAST BATTLE 350
XXXII. THE SHE-WOLF TO HER LAIR 359
EPILOGUE 369
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
EVIL IN SUCH A SHAPE MIGHT BE SOMETHING MORE THAN GOOD
_Frontispiece_
NOT A VESTIGE OF OUR AIR-SHIP OR HER CREATORS REMAINED 22
AS SHE GAZED UPON IT, THE FIRES DIED AWAY 57
FLINGING LONG STREAMS OF RADIANCE FOR MILES INTO THE SKY 83
THE CLOUDS WERE RENT AND ROLLED UP INTO VAST SHADOWY BILLOWS 122
THE COMBINED SQUADRONS SWEPT ACROSS THE MOUNTAIN BARRIER 237
BATTERIES WHICH WOULD BE ABLE TO SURROUND AERIA WITH A ZONE OF
STORM AND FLAME 248
THE FOUR HUNDRED BATTLESHIPS OF THE TWO SQUADRONS ROSE INTO
THE AIR 252
THREE OF THE AIR-SHIPS SEEMED TO BREAK-UP AND ROLL OVER 259
A GREAT BATTLESHIP LEAPT UP OUT OF THE NETHER WATERS 266
THE “ISMA” SWOOPED DOWN 281
A FEARFUL SCENE UNFOLDED ITSELF AS THEY SWEPT UP OVER PARIS 286
“ONLY YOU CAN BID ME LIVE, ALMA” 317
STILL THE FIGHT WENT ON AT LONG RANGES 354
THE BLAZING SKY WAS LITERALLY RAINING FIRE OVER SEA AND LAND 367
OLGA ROMANOFF HAD SURVIVED THE DOOM OF THE WORLD 374
* * * * *
OLGA ROMANOFF.
PROLOGUE. THE PROPHECY OF NATAS.
_These are the last words of Israel di Murska, known in the days of
strife as Natas, the Master of the Terror, given to the Children
of Deliverance dwelling in the land of Aeria, in the twenty-fifth
year of the Peace, which, in the reckoning of the West, is the year
nineteen hundred and thirty._
MY life is lived, and the wings of the Angel of Death overshadow me
as I write; but before the last summons comes, I must obey the spirit
within me that bids me tell of the things that I have seen, in order
that the story of them shall not die, nor be disguised by false
reports, as the years multiply and the mists gather over the graves of
those who, with me, have seen and wrought them.
For this reason the words that I write shall be read publicly in the
ears of you and your children and your children’s children, until they
shall see a sign in heaven to tell them that the end is at hand. No man
among you shall take away from that which I have written, nor yet add
anything to it; and every fifth year, at the Festival of Deliverance,
which is held on the Anniversary of Victory,[1] this writing of mine
shall be read, that those who shall hear it with understanding may lay
its warnings to heart, and that the lessons of the Great Deliverance
may never be forgotten among you.
It was in the days before the beginning of peace that I, Natas the Jew,
cast down and broken by the hand of the Tyrant, conceived and created
that which was known as the Terror. The kings of the earth and their
servants trembled before my invisible presence, for my arm was long and
my hand was heavy; yet no man knew where or when I should strike--only
that the blow would be death to him on whom it should fall, and that
nowhere on earth should he find a safe refuge from it.
In those days the earth was ruled by force and cunning, and the nations
were armed camps set one against the other. Millions of men, who had
no quarrel with their neighbours, stood waiting for the word of their
rulers to blast the fair fields of earth with the fires of war, and to
make desolate the homes of those who had done them no wrong.
In the third year of the twentieth century, Richard Arnold, the
Englishman, conquered the empire of the air, and made the first ship
that flew as a bird does, of its own strength and motion. He joined the
Brotherhood of Freedom, then known among men as the Terrorists, of whom
I, Natas, was the Master, and then he built the aerial fleet which,
in the day of Armageddon, gave us the victory over the tyrants of the
earth.
At the same time, Alan Tremayne, a noble of the English people, into
whose soul I had caused my spirit to enter in order that he might serve
me and bring the day of deliverance nearer, caused all the nations of
the Anglo-Saxon race to join hands, from the West unto the East, in a
league of common blood and kindred; and they, in the appointed hour,
stood between the sons and daughters of men and those who would have
enslaved them afresh.
The chief of these was Alexander Romanoff, last of the Tsars, or
Tyrants, of Russia, whose armies, leagued with those of France, Italy,
Spain, and certain lesser Powers, and assisted by a great fleet
of war-balloons that could fly, though slowly, wherever they were
directed, swept like a destroying pestilence from the western frontiers
of Russia to the eastern shores of Britain; and when they had gained
the mastery of Europe, invaded England and laid siege to London.
But here their path of conquest was brought to an end, for Alan
Tremayne and his brothers of the Terror called upon the men of
Anglo-Saxondom to save their Motherland from her enemies, and they rose
in their wrath, millions strong, and fell upon them by land and sea,
and would have destroyed them utterly, as I had bidden them do, but
that Natasha, who was my daughter and was known in those days as the
Angel of the Revolution, pleaded for the remnant of them, and they were
spared.
But the Russians we slew without mercy to the last man of those who had
stood in arms against us, saving only the Tyrant and his princes and
the leaders of his armies. These we took prisoners and sent, with their
wives and their children, to die in their own prison-land in Siberia,
as they had sent thousands of innocent men and women to die before them.
This was my judgment upon them for the wrong that they had done to me
and mine, for in the hour of victory I spared not those who had not
known how to spare. Now they are dead, and their graves are nameless.
Their name is a byword among men, for they were strong and they used
their strength to do evil.
So we made an end of tyranny among the nations, and when the world-war
was at length brought to an end, we disbanded all the armies that were
upon land and sank the warships that were left upon the sea, that
men might no more fight with each other. War, that had been called
honourable since the world began, we made a crime of blood-guiltiness,
for which the life of him who sought to commit it should pay; and as a
crime, you, the children of those who have delivered the nations from
it, shall for ever hold it to be.
We leave you the command of the air, and that is the command of the
world; but should it come to pass--as in the progress of knowledge it
may well do--that others in the world outside Aeria shall learn to
navigate the air as you do, you shall go forth to battle with them and
destroy them utterly, for we have made it known through all the earth
that he who seeks to build a second navy of the air shall be accounted
an enemy of peace, whose purpose it is to bring war upon the earth
again.
Forget not that the blood-lust is but tamed, not quenched, in the
souls of men, and that long years must pass before it is purged from
the world for ever. We have given peace on earth, and to you, our
children, we bequeath the sacred trust of keeping it. We have won our
world-empire by force, and by force you must maintain it.
In the day of battle we shed the blood of millions without ruth to
win it, and so far the end has justified the means we used. Since the
sun set upon Armageddon, and the right to make war was taken from the
rulers of the nations, we have governed a realm of peace and prosperity
which every year has seen better and happier than that which went
before.
No man has dared to draw the sword upon his brother, or by force or
fraud to take that which was not his by right. The soil of earth has
been given back to the use of her sons, and their wealth has already
multiplied a hundredfold on every hand. Kings have ruled with wisdom
and justice, and senates have ceased their wranglings to soberly seek
out and promote the welfare of their own countries, and to win the
respect and friendship of others.
Yet many of these are the same men who, but a few years ago, rent each
other like wild beasts in savage strife for the meanest ends; who
betrayed their brothers and slaughtered their neighbours, that the rich
might be richer, and the strong stronger, in the pitiless battle for
wealth and power. They have become peaceful and honest with each other,
because we have compelled them to be so, and because they know that
the penalty of wrong-doing in high places is destruction swift and
certain as the stroke of the hand of Fate itself.
They know that no man stands so high that our hand cannot cast him down
to the dust, and that no spot of earth is so secret and so distant
that the transgressor of our laws can find in it a refuge from our
vengeance. We stand between the few strong and cunning who would
oppress, and the many weak and simple who could not resist them; and
when we are gone, you will hear the voice of duty calling you to take
our places.
When you stand where we do now, remember who you are and the tremendous
trust that is laid upon you. You are the children of the chosen out of
many nations, masters of the world, and, under Heaven, the arbiters
of human destiny. You shall rule the world as we have ruled it for a
hundred years from now. If in that time men shall not have learnt the
ways of wisdom and justice, you may be sure that they will never learn
them, and deserve only to be left to their own foolishness. Since the
world began, the path of life has never lain so fair and straight
before the sons of men as it does now, and never was it so easy to do
the right and so hard to do the wrong.
So, for a hundred years to come, you shall keep them in the path in
which we have set them, and those that would wilfully turn aside from
it you shall destroy without mercy, lest they lead others into misery
and bring the evil days upon earth again.
At the twenty-fifth celebration of the Festival of Deliverance, you
shall give back the sceptre of the world-empire into the hands of the
children of those from whom we took it,--because they wielded it for
oppression, and not for mercy. At that time you shall make it known
throughout the earth that men are once more free to do good or evil,
according to their choice, and that as they choose well or ill so shall
they live or die.
And woe to them in those days if, knowing the good, they shall turn
aside to do evil! Beyond the clouds that gather over the sunset of
my earthly life, I see a sign in heaven as of a flaming sword, whose
hilt is in the hand of the Master of Destiny, and whose blade is
outstretched over the habitations of men.
As they shall choose to do good or evil, so shall that sword pass away
from them or fall upon them, and consume them utterly in the midst of
their pride. And if they, knowing the good, shall elect to do evil, it
shall be with them as of old the Prophet said of the men of Babylon the
Great: Their cities shall be a desolation, a dry land and a wilderness;
a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither shall any son of man pass
thereby.
For from among the stars of heaven, whose lore I have learned and whose
voices I have heard, there shall come the messenger of Fate, and his
shape shall be that of a flaming fire, and his breath as the breath of
a pestilence that men shall feel and die in the hour that it breathes
upon them.
Out of the depths beyond the light of the sun he shall come, and
your children of the fifth generation shall behold his approach. The
sister-worlds shall see him pass with fear and trembling, wondering
which of them he shall smite, but if he be not restrained or turned
aside by the Hand which guides the stars in their courses, it shall go
hard with this world and the men of it in the hour of his passing.
Then shall the highways of the earth be waste, and the wayfaring of
men cease. Earth shall languish and mourn for her children that are no
more, and Death shall reign amidst the silence, sole sovereign of many
lands!
But you, so long as you continue to walk in the way of wisdom, shall
live in peace until the end, whether it shall come then or in the ages
that shall follow. And if it shall come then, you shall await it with
fortitude, knowing that this life is but a single link in the chain of
existence which stretches through infinity; and that, if you shall be
found worthy, you shall be taught how a chosen few among your sons and
daughters shall survive the ruin of the world, to be the parents of the
new race, and replenish the earth and possess it.
Out of the Valley of the Shadow of Death I stretch forth my hands in
blessing to you, the children of the coming time, and pray that the
peace which the men of the generation now passing away have won through
strife and toil in the fiery days of the Terror, may be yours and
endure unbroken unto the end.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The 8th of December, on which day, in the year 1904, the armies
of the Anglo-Saxon Federation and the aerial navy of the Terrorists
defeated and almost annihilated the hosts of the Franco-Slavonian
League, then besieging London under the command of Alexander Romanoff,
last of the Tsars of Russia, and so made possible the universal
disarmament which took place the following year.--_The Angel of the
Revolution_, chap. xlvi.
CHAPTER I. THE SURRENDER OF THE WORLD-THRONE.
A HUNDRED years had passed since Natas, the Master of the Terror,
had given into the hands of Richard Arnold his charge to the future
generations of the Aerians--as the descendants of the Terrorists who
had colonised the mountain-walled valley of Aeria, in Central Africa,
were now called; since the man, who had planned and accomplished the
greatest revolution in the history of the world, had given his last
blessing to his companions-in-arms and their children, and had “turned
his face to the wall and died.”
It was midday, on the 8th of December 2030, and the rulers of all the
civilised States of the world were gathered together in St. Paul’s
Cathedral to receive, from the hands of a descendant of Natas in the
fourth generation, the restoration of the right of independent national
rule which, on the same spot a hundred and twenty-five years before,
had been taken from the sovereigns of Europe and vested in the Supreme
Council of the Anglo-Saxon Federation.
The period of tutelage had passed. Under the wise and firm rule of the
Council and the domination of the Anglo-Saxon race, the Golden Age had
seemed to return to the world. For a hundred and twenty-five years
there had been peace on earth, broken only by the outbreak and speedy
suppression of a few tribal wars among the more savage races of Africa
and Malaysia. Now the descendants of those who had been victors and
vanquished in the world-war of 1904, had met to give back and assume
the freedom and the responsibility of national independence.
The vast cathedral was thronged, as it had been on the momentous day
when Natas had pronounced his judgment on the last of the Tyrants of
Russia, and ended the old order of things in Europe. But it was filled
by a very different assembly to that which had stood within its walls
on the morrow of Armageddon.
Then the stress and horror of a mighty conflict had set its stamp
on every face. Hate had looked out of eyes in which the tears were
scarcely dry, and hungered fiercely for the blood of the oppressor. The
clash of arms, the stern command, and the pitiless words of doom had
sounded then in ears which but a few hours before had listened to the
roar of artillery and the thunder of battle. That had been the dawn of
the morrow of strife; this was the zenith of the noon of peace.
Now, in all the vast assembly, no hand held a weapon, no face was there
which showed a sign of sorrow, fear, or anger, and in no heart, save
only two among the thousands, was there a thought of hate or bitterness.
For three days past the Festival of Deliverance had been celebrated all
over the civilised world, and now, in the centre of the city which had
come to be the capital, not only of the vast domains of Anglo-Saxondom,
but of the whole world, a solemn act of renunciation was to be
performed, upon the issues of which the fate of all humanity would
hang; for the members of the Supreme Council had come through the skies
from their seat of empire in Aeria to abdicate the world-throne in
obedience to the command of the dead Master, from whom their ancestors
had derived it.
At a table, drawn across the front of the chancel, sat the President
and the twelve men who with him had up to this hour shared the empire
of the human race. Below the steps, on the floor of the cathedral,
sat, in a wide semicircle, the rulers of the kingdoms and republics
of the earth, assembled to hear the last word of their over-lords,
and to receive from them the power and responsibility of maintaining
or forfeiting, as the event should prove, the blessings which had
multiplied under the sovereignty of the Aerians.
The President of the Council was the direct descendant not only of Alan
Tremayne, its first President, but also of Richard Arnold and Natasha;
for their eldest son, born in the first year of the Peace, had married
the only daughter of Tremayne, and their first-born son had been his
father’s father.
Although the average physique of civilised man had immensely improved
under the new order of things, the Aerians, descendants of the pick of
the nations of Europe, were as far superior to the rest of the assembly
as the latter would have been to the men and women of the nineteenth
century; but even amongst the members of the Council, the splendid
stature and regal dignity of Alan Arnold, the President, stamped him
as a born ruler of men, whose title rested upon something higher than
election or inheritance.
At the last stroke of twelve, the President rose in his place, and, in
the midst of an almost breathless silence, read the message of Natas to
the great congregation. This done, he laid the parchment down on the
table and, beginning from the outbreak of the world-war, rapidly and
lucidly sketched out the vast and beneficent changes in the government
of society that its issues had made possible.
He traced the marvellous development of the new civilisation, which, in
four generations, had raised men from a state of half-barbarous strife
and brutality to one of universal peace and prosperity; from inhuman
and unsparing competition to friendly co-operation in public, and
generous rivalry in private concerns; from horrible contrasts of wealth
and misery to a social state in which the removal of all unnatural
disabilities in the race of life had made them impossible.
He showed how, in the evil times which, as all men hoped, had been
left behind for ever, the strong and the unscrupulous ruthlessly
oppressed the weak and swindled the honest and the straightforward. Now
dishonesty was dishonourable in fact as well as in name; the game of
life was played fairly, and its prizes fell to all who could win them,
by native genius or earnest endeavour.
There were no inequalities, save those which Nature herself had imposed
upon all men from the beginning of time. There were no tyrants and no
slaves. That which a man’s labour of hand or brain had won was his,
and no man might take toll of it. All useful work was held in honour,
and there was no other road to fame or fortune save that of profitable
service to humanity.
“This,” said the President in conclusion, “is the splendid heritage
that we of the Supreme Council, which is now to cease to exist as such,
have received from our forefathers, who won it for us and for you on
the field of the world’s Armageddon. We have preserved their traditions
intact, and obeyed their commands to the letter; and now the hour has
come for us, in obedience to the last of those commands, to resign our
authority and to hand over that heritage to you, the rulers of the
civilised world, to hold in trust for the peoples over whom you have
been appointed to reign.
“When I have done speaking I shall no longer be President of the
Senate, which for a hundred and twenty-five years has ruled the world
from pole to pole and east to west. You and your parliaments are
henceforth free to rule as you will. We shall take no further part in
the control of human affairs outside our domain, saving only in one
concern.
“In the days when our command was established, the only possible basis
of all rule was force, and our supremacy was based on the force that
we could bring to bear upon those who might have ventured to oppose us
or revolted against our rule. We commanded, and we will still command,
the air, and I should not be doing my duty, either to my own people or
to you, if I did not tell you that the Aerians, not as the world-rulers
that they have been, but as the citizens of an independent State, mean
to keep that power in their own hands at all costs.
“The empire of earth and sea, saving only the valley of Aeria, is yours
to do with as you will. The empire of the air is ours,--the heritage
that we have received from the genius of that ancestor of mine who
first conquered it.
“That we have not used it in the past to oppress you is the most
perfect guarantee that we shall not do so in the future, but let all
the nations of the earth clearly understand, that we shall accept any
attempt to dispute it with us as a declaration of war upon us, and that
those who make that attempt will either have to exterminate us or be
exterminated themselves. This is not a threat, but a solemn warning;
and the responsibility of once more bringing the curse of war and all
its attendant desolation upon the earth, will lie heavily upon those
who neglect it.
“A few more needful words and I have done. The message of the Master,
which I have read to you, contains a prophecy, as to the fulfilment of
which neither I nor any man here may speak with certainty. It may be
that he, with clearer eyes than ours, saw some tremendous catastrophe
impending over the world, a catastrophe which no human means could
avert, and beneath which human strength and genius could only bow with
resignation.
“By what spirit he was inspired when he uttered the prophecy, it is not
for us to say. But before you put it aside as an old man’s dream, let
me ask you to remember, that he who uttered it was a man who was able
to plan the destruction of one civilisation, and to prepare the way for
another and a better.
“Such a man, standing midway between the twin mysteries of life and
death, might well see that which is hidden from our grosser sight. But
whether the prophecy itself shall prove true or false, it shall be well
for you and for your children’s children if you and they shall receive
the lesson that it teaches as true.
“If, in the days that are to come, the world shall be overwhelmed with
a desolation that none shall escape, will it not be better that the end
shall come and find men doing good rather than evil? As you now set the
peoples whom you govern in the right or the wrong path, so shall they
walk.
“This is the lesson of all the generations that have gone before us,
and it shall also be true of those that are to come after us. As the
seed is, so is the harvest; therefore see to it that you, who are
now the free rulers of the nations, so discharge the awful trust and
responsibility which is thus laid upon you, that your children’s
children shall not, perhaps in the hour of Humanity’s last agony, rise
up and curse your memory rather than bless it. I have spoken!”