FIVE years had passed since the _Ithuriel_ had vanished like a cloud
from the sky, leaving, so far as the air-ship itself was concerned, no
more trace than if she had soared into space beyond the sphere of the
earth’s attraction and departed to another planet.
All the rest of the winter of 2030-1, tidings had been sought most
anxiously, but in vain, by the kindred and friends of those who
had formed her crew during the ill-fated voyage on which she had
disappeared into the unknown. The earth had been ransacked east and
west, north and south, by the aerial fleet in search of the missing
_Ithuriel_, but without result.
She had been traced to St. Petersburg and Vorobièvŏ, but there, like
the phantom craft of the Flying Dutchman, she had melted into thin
air so far as any result of the search could show. But when the snows
thawed on the mountains of Norway, and the bodies of eight Aerians
who had formed her crew on her last fatal voyage were discovered by a
couple of foresters in a melting snowdrift on the very spot on which
Vladimir Romanoff had been killed with his companions by order of the
Supreme Council, a thrill both of horror and excitement ran through the
whole civilised world.
That their death was intimately connected with the disappearance of the
air-ship was instantly plain to everyone, and the only inference which
could be drawn from such a conclusion was that at last some power,
silent, mysterious, and intangible, had come into existence prepared to
dispute the empire of the world with the Aerians, and, more than this,
had already struck them a deadly blow which it was utterly beyond their
power to return.
The effects of this discovery were exactly what Olga had anticipated.
From the first time since their ancestors had conquered the earth and
made war impossible, the supreme authority of the Aerians was called
into question. It was quite beyond their power to conceal the fact
that their flagship had either deserted or been captured, incredible
as either alternative seemed. The Central Council therefore wisely
accepted the situation, and immediately after the discovery of the
bodies the President published a full account of her last voyage, as
far as was known, in the columns of _The European Review_, the leading
newspaper of the day in the Old World.
The only clue to the fate of the air-ship seemed to lie in the fact
that at St. Petersburg a youth and young girl with whom Alan and Alexis
had made friends on their journey from London had gone on board the
_Ithuriel_ for a trip to the clouds. But this led to nothing. Who was
to recognise the daughter of the Tsar and the last male scion of the
House of Romanoff in Olga and Serge Ivanitch, who had never been known
as anything but the orphan grandchildren of Paul Ivanitch, the sculptor.
More than this, even to entertain for a moment the supposition that
this boy and girl--for they were known to be little more--could by any
possible means have overcome the ten Aerians, armed as they were with
their terrible death-power, and then have vanished into space with the
air-ship would have been to shatter the supremacy of the Aerians at a
blow.
Even as it was, the wildest and most dangerous rumours began to fly
from lip to lip and nation to nation all round the world, and for the
first time since the days of the Terror the “Earth Folk” began to think
of the Aerians rather as men like themselves than as the superior race
which they had hitherto regarded them.
The President of Aeria at once issued a proclamation asking, in the
interests of peace and public security, for the assistance of all the
civilised peoples of the earth in his efforts to discover the lost
air-ship, and also conditionally declaring a war of extermination on
any Power or nation which either concealed the whereabouts of the
_Ithuriel_ or gave any assistance to those who might be in possession
of her. This proclamation was published simultaneously in all the
newspapers of the world, and produced a most profound sensation
wherever it was read.
The terrible magic of the ominous word “war” roused at once the
deathless spirit of combativeness that had lain dormant for all these
years. It was impossible not to recognise the fact that this mysterious
power, which had come unseen into existence and had snatched the finest
vessel in the Aerian navy from the possession of the Council with such
daring and skill that not a trace of her was to be found, could have
but one object in view, and that was to dispute the Empire of the Air
with the descendants of the Terrorists.
This could mean nothing else than the outbreak, sooner or later, of
a strife that would be a veritable battle of the gods, a struggle
which would shake the world and convulse human society throughout its
whole extent. The general sense of peace and security in which men had
lived for four generations was shattered at a stroke by the universal
apprehension of the blow that all men felt to be inevitable, but which
would be struck no man knew when or how.
A year passed, and nothing happened. The world went on its way in
peace, the Aerian patrols circled the earth with a moving girdle of
aerial cruisers, ready to give instantaneous warning of the first
reappearance of the lost _Ithuriel_; but nothing was discovered. If
she still existed, she was so skilfully concealed as to be practically
beyond the reach of human search.
Then without the slightest warning, while Anglo-Saxondom was in
the midst of the hundred and thirtieth celebration of the Festival
of Deliverance, the civilised world was started out of the sense of
security into which it had once more begun to fall by the publication,
in _The European Review_, of the following piece of intelligence:--
A MYSTERY OF THE SEA.
DISAPPEARANCE OF THREE TRANSPORTS.
It is our duty to chronicle the astounding and disquieting fact that
the three transports, _Massilia_, _Ceres_, and _Astræa_, belonging
respectively to the Eastern, Southern, and Western Services, have
disappeared.
The first left New York for Southampton four days ago, and should
have arrived yesterday. The Central Atlantic signalling station
reported her “All well” at midday on Tuesday, and this is the last
news that has been heard of her. The second was reported from Cape
Verd Station on her voyage from Cape Town to Marseilles, and there
all trace of her is lost, as she never reached the Canary Station.
The third was last heard of from Station No. 2 in the Indian Ocean,
which is situated at the intersection of the 80th meridian of east
longitude with the 20th parallel of south latitude; she was on her
way from Melbourne to Alexandria, and should have touched at Aden two
days ago.
The disappearance of these three magnificent vessels, filled as
they were with passengers and loaded with cargoes of enormous value
both in money and material, can only be described as a calamity of
world-wide importance. Unhappily, too, the mystery which surrounds
their fate invests it with a sinister aspect which it is impossible
to ignore.
That their loss is the result of accident or shipwreck it is almost
impossible to believe. They represented the latest triumphs of modern
shipbuilding. All were over forty thousand tons in measurement, and
had engines capable of driving them at a speed of fifty nautical
miles an hour through the water.
For fifty years no ocean transport has suffered shipwreck or even
serious injury, so completely has modern engineering skill triumphed
over the now conquered elements. Added to this, no storms of even
ordinary violence have occurred along their routes. After passing the
stations at which they were last reported, they vanished, and that is
all that is known about them.
The President of Aeria has desired us to state that he has ordered
his submarine squadrons stationed at Zanzibar, Ascension, and Fayal,
to explore the ocean beds along the routes pursued by the transports.
Until we receive news of the result of their investigation it will be
well to refrain from further comment on this mysterious misfortune
which has suddenly and unexpectedly fallen upon the world, and in
doing so we shall only express the fervent desire of all civilised
men and women when we express the hope that this calamity, grievous
as it is, may not be the precursor of even greater misfortunes to
come.
It would be almost impossible for us of the present day to form any
adequate estimate of the thrill of horror and consternation which this
brief and temperately-worded narration of the mysterious loss of the
three transports sent through the world of the twenty-first century.
Not only was it the first event of the kind that had occurred within
the memory of living men, but, saving the loss of the _Ithuriel_, it
was the first dark cloud that had appeared in the clear heaven of peace
and prosperity for more than a hundred and twenty years.
But terrible as was the state of excitement and anxiety into which it
threw the nations of the world, it gave place to a still deeper horror
and bewilderment when day after day passed and no tidings were received
of the three submarine squadrons, consisting of three vessels each,
which had been sent to inquire into the fate of the transports. They
dived beneath the waves of the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic, and that
was the last that was ever seen of them.
Month after month went by, every week bringing news of some fresh
calamity at sea--of the disappearance of transport after transport
along the great routes of ocean travel, of squadron after squadron
of submarine cruisers which plunged into the abysses of the sea to
discover and attack the mysterious enemy of mankind that lay hidden in
the depths, and which never reappeared on the surface. Whether they
were captured or destroyed it was impossible to say, simply because no
member of their crews ever returned to tell the tale.
Whatever doubt there had been as to the existence or hostile nature
of this ocean terror that was paralysing the trade of the world was
speedily set at rest by a discovery made in the spring of the year 2032
by a party of divers who descended to repair a fault in one of the
Atlantic cables about two hundred miles west of Ireland.
There, lying in the Atlantic ooze, they found the shattered fragments
of the _Sirius_, a transport which had disappeared about a month
before. The great hull of the splendid vessel had been torn asunder by
some explosive of tremendous power, and, more than this, her hold had
been rifled of all its treasure and the most valuable portions of its
cargo. After this there no longer remained any doubt that the depths
of the ocean were the hunting-ground of some foe of society, one at
least of whose objects was plunder.
The President and Council of Aeria found themselves at last confronted
and baffled by an enemy who could neither be seen nor reached in his
hiding-place, wherever it might be, beneath the surface of the waters.
Thousands of lives had been sacrificed, and treasure in millions had
been lost by the end of the first year of what men had now come to call
the New Terror.
New fleets of submarine cruisers were built and held in readiness
in all the great ports of the world, and these scoured the ocean
depths in all directions with no further result than the swift and
silent annihilation of vessel after vessel by some power which struck
irresistibly out of the darkness and then vanished the moment that the
blow had been delivered.
As yet, however, no enemy appeared on land or in the air, nor were any
tidings heard of the lost _Ithuriel_, or her captain and lieutenant.
The Aerians had replaced her with ten almost identical vessels and had
raised the strength of their navy to two hundred and fifty vessels,
one hundred of which were kept in readiness in Aeria, while the other
hundred and fifty were distributed in small squadrons at twenty-four
stations, half of which were in the Western hemisphere and half in the
Eastern.
The submarine warfare had now practically ceased. Nearly two hundred
vessels belonging to Aeria, Britain, and America, had been captured or
destroyed by an enemy which at the period at which this portion of the
narrative opens was as supreme throughout the realm of the waters as
the Aerians were in the air. To the menace of the air-ships this hidden
foe replied by severing all the oceanic cables and paralysing the
communication of the world save overland and through the air.
Thus, at the end of six years after the capture of the _Ithuriel_ by
Olga Romanoff more than half the work of those who had brought peace on
earth after the Armageddon of 1904 had been undone. All over the world,
not even excepting in Aeria, men lived in a state of constant anxiety
and apprehension, not knowing where or how their invisible enemy would
strike them next.
The Masters of the World were supreme no longer, for a new power had
arisen which, within the limits of the seas, had proved itself stronger
than they were. Communication between continent and continent had
almost ceased, save where the Aerian air-ships were employed. In six
short years the peace of the world had been destroyed and the stability
of society shaken.
Among the nations of Anglo-Saxondom the change had manifested itself by
a swift decadence into the worst forms of unbridled democracy. Men’s
minds were unhinged, and the most extravagant opinions found acceptance.
Parliaments had already been made annual and were fast sinking into
machines for registering the ever-changing opinions of rival factions
and their leaders. Sovereigns and presidents were little better than
popular puppets existing on sufferance. In short, all that Paul
Romanoff had prophesied was coming to pass more rapidly than even he
had expected so far as the area of the Anglo-Saxon Federation was
concerned.
In the Moslem Empire affairs were different, but no less threatening.
The Sultan Khalid the Magnificent, as he was justly styled by his
admirers, saw clearly that the time must come when this mysterious
enemy would emerge from the waters and attempt the conquest of the
land, and for three years past he had been manufacturing weapons
and forming armies against the day of battle which he considered
inevitable, and which he longed for rather than dreaded.
Thus, while Anglo-Saxondom was lapsing into the anarchy of unrestrained
democracy, the Moslem monarch was preparing to take advantage of the
issue of events which, skilfully turned to account, might one day make
him master of the world.
Such was the condition of affairs throughout the world on the 1st of
May 2036, and then the long-expected came in strange and terrible
shape. At midnight a blaze of light was seen far up in the sky over
the city of Aeria. A moment later something that must have been a
small block of metal fell from a tremendous height in the square in the
centre of the city, and was shivered to fragments by the force of its
fall.
On the splintered pavement where it fell was found a little roll of
parchment addressed to the President. It was taken to him, and he
opened it and read these words:--
To Alan Arnold, President of Aeria.
If you want your son Alan and his friend Alexis, go and look for them
on an island which you will find near the intersection of the 40th
parallel of south latitude and the 120th meridian of west longitude
in the South Pacific. They have served my turn, and I have done with
them. Perhaps they will be able to tell you how I have conquered the
Empire of the Sea. Before long I shall have wrested the Empire of the
Air from you as well.
OLGA ROMANOFF.