THE remains of the Russian submarine squadron, numbering now only
seventeen vessels, headed out northward into the open sea, after
leaving their disabled consorts to their fate. In the brief space
occupied by her first rush they had recognised the _Narwhal_ both
by her size and speed, and one of the captains avowed that he had
recognised Alan Arnold, Olga’s late captive, standing under the
glass dome of the conning-tower, steering the great vessel upon her
devastating course.
Twenty miles out from the island they rose to the surface and made
out the aerial fleet some five miles to the southward, hovering at an
elevation of about a thousand feet, and evidently on the look-out for
them. Michael Lossenski, who had escaped the ram of the _Narwhal_, ran
up his flagstaff, and flew a signal which soon brought the air-ships
bearing down upon them. The _Revenge_ sank down to the surface of the
water, and took Lossenski off his ship in order that he might report
himself.
Olga and his father received the first news of the defeat of their
naval forces with cold displeasure; but when Michael told them that
more than half the fleet had been destroyed by the _Narwhal_, and that
it was believed that Alan was in command of her, Olga’s anger blazed
out into fury, and she cried passionately--
“You fools and cowards to have fled like that from one ship and one
man! Could not seventeen of you have overcome that one vessel? Had you
no rams, no torpedoes, that you fled before this single foe?”
He took the bitter rebuke in silence. He knew that he had failed both
in duty and courage, and that a reply would only make matters worse.
Olga looked at him for a moment, with eyes burning with scorn and
anger. Then she rose from her seat, and, pointing to the door of the
saloon, said--
“Go! You have disgraced yourself and us. Take your ships back to Mount
Terror, and await our further commands.”
With bowed head and face flushed with shame, the disgraced man walked
in silence out of the saloon and left Olga alone with his father. As
soon as he had gone Olga began striding up and down the saloon, her
hands clenched and her eyes, black with passion, glittering fiercely
under her straight-drawn brows.
Orloff Lossenski knew her too well not to let her anger take its course
uninterrupted, so he sat and watched her, and waited for her to speak
first. At last she stopped in front of him, and said in a low fierce
voice, that was almost hoarse with the strength of her passion--
“So! you were right, my friend. I was a fool, an idiot, to let those
two escape. I ought to have killed them, as you advised. They were of
no further use to us, and we could have done without them. Yes, truly I
was a fool, such a fool as love makes of every woman!”
“Not of every woman, Majesty,” replied Lossenski in a low soothing
tone, that was not without a trace of irony. “If I may say it without
disrespect, your ancestress, the great Catherine, knew how to combine
love and wisdom. When she wearied of a lover, or had no further use for
a man, she never left him the power of revenging his dismissal.”
“Yes, yes,” she replied. “I know that; but I did not weary of this man,
this king among men, for whose love I would have sold my soul. I only
wearied of my own attempts to win it. You know what I mean, Lossenski,
and you can understand me, for you have confessed that he was well
worthy of the sacrifice.
“You know that when he seemed my lover he was only my slave--that I
could not compel the man to love me, but only the passive machine that
I had made of him, and you know, too, that the moment I had let him
regain his freedom of will he would have loathed and cursed me, as no
doubt he is doing now.
“Why did I not kill him? How could I, when I loved him better than my
own life, and all my dreams of empire? Why, I could not even kill the
other one because he was Alan’s friend, and because he would have hated
me still more for doing so.
“But, after all,” she continued, speaking somewhat more calmly, “it is
not setting them free that has done the mischief. It is the treason
or the miracle that enabled them to capture the _Narwhal_. I would
give a good deal to know how that was done. They cannot have done it
themselves, for I had given them enough of the drug to deprive them of
all will-power for at least twenty-four hours, and I told that traitor,
Turgenieff, who must have betrayed the attack on Kerguelen, to give
them more when he landed them on the island.”
“But is your Majesty sure that they took the drug?” said Lossenski,
interrupting her for the first time. “Did you give it with your own
hand, or see them take it with your own eyes?”
“No!” said Olga, with a start. “I did not. I sent it to them by my
maid, Anna, but she swore that she put it in their wine, and when they
had finished their last meal the decanter was empty.”
“That was a grave mistake, Majesty,” said Lossenski, in a tone of
respectful reproof, “and one which may yet cost you the empire of the
world. It is such trifles as that which destroy the grandest schemes.”
“I know! I know!” said Olga impatiently. “You may think me a fool and
a weakling, but I could not bring myself to see or speak to Alan again
after I had at last resolved to give up the hopeless task of winning
him, and send him away.
“But for that mistake the _Narwhal_ would still have been ours, and we
should have taken Kerguelen unawares. He could have told his people
nothing else that would have harmed us, for the more he tells them
about Mount Terror the more impossible they will see any attack upon
it to be. No, no, it was all that one fatal mistake! But there, it
tortures me to talk about it! Tell me, my old friend and counsellor,
what we are to do to repair the damage?”
Exhausted by her fierce and sudden outburst of passion, and the
bitterness of her regret, Olga threw herself into a chair and sat
waiting for Lossenski to speak. He remained silent for several moments,
buried in thought, and then he began speaking in the low, deliberate
tone of a man who has weighty counsels to impart.
“We cannot deny, Majesty, that we have been worsted in our two first
encounters with these Aerians, but we must learn wisdom and patience
from defeat. It seems plain to me that the Aerians are too strong for
us as we are.
“When we attacked them we forgot that, while we are children in
warfare, they are perfect masters of it. They have preserved the
traditions of their fathers, and for four generations they have been
trained in the use of the weapons which we have only just learnt to
use. Therefore my advice is that we do not attack them again for the
present.”
“But,” interrupted Olga, “in any case, they will attack us, and we
shall still have to fight.”
“Not of necessity, your Highness,” replied Lossenski. “You see they
have not pursued us, and the reason for this is that they know that
both our air-ships and our submarine vessels are swifter and more
powerful than theirs, with two or three exceptions.
“They will not attack us till they can do so on equal terms, and we
must take care that they never do that. You have plenty of treasure and
plenty of men at your command. Let us retire to our stronghold again
and devote ourselves to increasing our strength both by sea and in the
air, until we have made ourselves invulnerable.
“And remember, too, Majesty,” he continued with an added meaning
in his tone, “Aeria is not the world. There are vast possibilities
before you in other directions. I am convinced now that we have made a
mistake in attacking the Aerians first. Russia is ripe for revolt, and
great quantities of arms have already been manufactured. The tribes
of Western Asia need only a leader to take the field, and the Sultan
Khalid could put an army millions strong into the field within a few
months.
“On the other hand, Anglo-Saxondom is a babel of conflicting opinions,
and the mob rules throughout its length and breadth. Where everyone is
master there can be no leaders, and those who are without leaders are
the natural prey of the strong hand.
“They are wealthy and weak, and divided among themselves. The Aerians
have given them over to their own devices. Why should you not, when we
have repaired the damage we have suffered, take your aerial squadron to
Moscow, proclaim the new revolution, and crown yourself Tsarina in the
Kremlin?”
In speaking thus Orloff Lossenski was really only putting into formal
shape the project which it had all along been the aim of Olga and her
adherents to carry out. There was nothing new in the suggestion save
the proposition that the revolution should be proclaimed in Russia, and
that Olga should crown herself Tsarina before, instead of after, the
attempted subjugation of Aeria.
Up to the present it had been believed that nothing could possibly be
done until the power of the Aerians was either crushed or crippled,
but the battle of Kerguelen had clearly shown that this was a task far
beyond their present resources. Even the mastery of the sea was now no
longer theirs, thanks to the two fatal mistakes which Olga had made,
first in setting Alan and Alexis free, and second in sending them away
from Mount Terror in the swiftest and most powerful vessel in their
sea-navy.
Why she had been guilty of this last imprudence she could not even
explain to herself. It was one of those mistakes, made in pure
thoughtlessness, which again and again have marred the greatest schemes
of conquest. Another vessel would have done just as well, save that she
would not have performed the errand quite so quickly; but the _Narwhal_
happened to be in readiness at the moment, and as Peter Turgenieff, her
commander, was one of Olga’s most trusted sea-captains, she had given
him the order to convey Alan and Alexis to the island, and so the fatal
error had been committed.
It must, however, be remembered that when she made it, it was
impossible for her to foresee its disastrous outcome. She implicitly
believed that the two Aerians were completely under the influence of
the will-poison, and so utterly unable to think or act independently,
or to form and execute the daring design which they had so successfully
accomplished.
But now that the mistake had been made, Orloff Lossenski saw that
the course he suggested to his mistress offered the only hope of
counteracting it. His advice pointed out the shortest road to the
attainment of the designs of Olga and her followers; and he gave it
in all sincerity, for he was absolutely devoted to Olga’s person and
fortune, and the realisation of her ambition was the dearest dream of
his own life.
It meant, too, the restoration of his own order to all its ancient
rights and privileges with the added wealth and dignity that would be
won by conquest. It meant the establishment of a Russian empire far
greater and more powerful than that of the last of the Tsars, for its
power would extend from the Pacific coast of Asia to the Atlantic coast
of Europe.
Olga heard him with flushed cheeks and shining eyes, and, when he had
done speaking, she rose to her feet again and faced him, looking every
inch a queen, in the ripe beauty of her perfect womanhood, and said,
in tones from which every trace of her former anger and sorrow had
vanished--
“Well spoken, Orloff Lossenski! That is worthy counsel for you to give
and for me to hear. I will follow it, for it is wise as well as bold,
and the day that I crown myself in the Kremlin you shall be the first
noble in Russia. But, stop--what of the Sultan? Surely he and his
armies will have to be reckoned with?”
“True,” said Lossenski. “But if he will not listen to reason, cannot
your air-ships destroy his armies like swarms of locusts, lay his
cities in ruins, and sweep him and his dynasty from the face of the
earth?”
“Yes, that is true again,” replied Olga. “Provided that the Aerians did
not come to his aid.”
“They would not do that, I think,” he replied.
“But to make that impossible why should you not make an alliance with
him and offer to help him with your air-ships and submarine navy to
the conquest of the world, on the condition of the restoration of the
Russian Empire and the division of the world between you? Remember that
as long as you kept the command of your navies of the air and the sea
you could always keep him to the terms when once made.”
As the old man ceased speaking Olga laid her hand upon his shoulder,
and said in a low, clear, steady voice that spoke of a great resolution
finally taken--
“My friend, you are the wisest of counsellors, and when I regain my
throne you shall be the first Minister of the Empire. I will pardon
your son for his failure to-day for the sake of his father’s wisdom,
and we will say no more about disaster and defeat. We will look forward
only to victory and the empire that it will bring us!”
But when the defeated squadrons arrived at Mount Terror Olga was rudely
awakened from her dreams of empire by the tidings of the disaster that
had occurred during her absence.
The damage inflicted by the _Narwhal_ was speedily proved to be
irreparable. For a distance of nearly a mile the roof of the tunnel had
sunk bodily down, blocking it for ever. Millions of tons of rock and
earth had fallen into the submarine channel, and all hope of clearing
it again was out of the question.
The explosion of the twelve torpedoes had not only brought down all
the rocks in their vicinity, but it had so shaken the earth in both
directions that a general subsidence had taken place, forming a barrier
which was so vast and massive that its removal, even if possible, would
have taken many months of labour; and so there was no avoiding the
dismal conclusion that their submarine dockyard was useless, and, for
the present at least, their sea-power crippled.
The effects of the explosion in the interior of the mountain, though
bad enough, were much less serious. Nearly seventy men, or more than
half the total garrison that had been left behind, had been either
killed or maimed for life. The six submarine warships that had been
lying in the lake were, of course, useless now that their way to the
sea was barred, and five of the twelve air-ships which had been lying
in the vast cavern whose floor formed the shores of the subterranean
lake were so seriously injured that considerable repairs would be
necessary for them.
The whole of the lower level of the vast system of chambers and
galleries which pierced the interior of the mountain in all directions
had been flooded by the volumes of water projected from the lake by the
explosion. Workshops, laboratories, and building-slips had been wrecked
or thrown into complete confusion, and the appearance of the whole of
the level was that of a place which had been swept by a tornado.
As soon as the amount of the damage done had been estimated, Olga
called a council of war, composed of twelve of her most skilled and
trusted adherents, in a chamber which was led up to by a path sloping
steeply up from the shores of the lake. This chamber was an almost
perfect oval, about sixty feet long by twenty wide, and about thirty
high.
Neither its temperature nor its internal appointments would have given
any idea of the fact that it was situated at the uttermost end of the
earth, and buried under the eternal snows of Antarctica. The rough rock
walls had been smoothed and hung with silken hangings, against which
statues of the purest marble gleamed white, and pictures, some of vast
size and exquisite execution, brought the scenes of sunnier lands to
the eyes of the occupants.
Electric light-globes hung in festoons all around, shedding a mild
diffused lustre over the luxurious furniture of the chamber. The floor
of lava, smoothed and polished, was covered with priceless carpets into
whose thick pile the foot sank noiseless, as though into soft, shallow
snow.
Treasures, both of art and luxury, which had been plundered from ocean
transports that had fallen victims to the rams of the submarine
cruisers were scattered about in lavish profusion that was almost
barbaric in its excess. Behind the hangings of the walls ran an
elaborate system of pipes which circulated fresh air drawn from the
exterior of the mountain, and, heated by passing through electric
furnaces, at once warmed and ventilated this council-chamber of the
extraordinary woman who, in virtue of her strange conquest of the air,
had come to be known among her followers as the Syren of the Skies.
Human art and science had completely conquered both the ruggedness of
Nature and the inclemency of the elements, and had transformed these
gloomy caverns, excavated by the volcanic fires of former ages out of
the heart of Mount Terror, into warm, well-lighted, and airy abodes,
capable of sheltering several hundred human beings from the rigours
even of the Antarctic winter.
This subterranean retreat and stronghold was roughly divided into two
levels, on the lower of which were situated the chambers and galleries
which served for the performance of all the work necessary for the
building of the air-ships and submarine vessels, while the upper was
devoted to store-rooms and dwelling-places for the followers and
assistants of the Queen of this strange realm.
No other region could have presented such a marvellous contrast to the
sunlit and flower-scented paradise which was the home of their mortal
enemies, the race with which they had dared to dispute the empire of
the world. The powers of darkness and of light could hardly have been
better typified than were these two contending forces by the different
characters of their respective strongholds.
When the Council of War, summoned at Olga’s bidding by Orloff
Lossenski, had assembled in the Central Chamber, a pair of heavy purple
velvet curtains parted, and the Syren entered from the gallery, which
had been hewn through the solid rock and which communicated with her
private suite of apartments. The members of the Council rose as she
entered and greeted her as subjects were wont to greet their sovereigns
in the days before the Terror.
She acknowledged their reverence with a royal condescension, and took
her seat on a raised divan at the inner end of the chamber. Beckoning
Lossenski to her side, she exchanged a few words with him in an
undertone, and then called upon Andrei Levin, the Secretary of the
Council, to enumerate the nature and extent of the losses they had
sustained in their brief but disastrous first attempt to cope with the
mighty race which had dominated the world for nearly a century and a
half.
When Levin had finished, it was found that, in addition to the
irreparable damage done to the submarine dockyard, no less than
thirty-five submarine cruisers had been destroyed or rendered useless,
while twenty-three air-ships had been annihilated by the projectiles
of the Aerians. This left an available fighting force of twenty-eight
submarine and twenty-four aerial warships fit for service.
It had been calculated that it would take at least a month of hard work
to get the subterranean arsenal into such working order as would enable
them to repair their losses, and after this at least twelve months
would have to elapse before they had brought their fighting force up to
the strength it had possessed but five short days before.
In addition to their losses in ships and war materials, more than a
hundred of Olga’s chosen and most devoted followers had lost their
lives in the terrible warfare which knew no sparing of life, and it
would be necessary to draft more men from Russia to replace them before
the work could be carried on upon an adequate scale.
Olga listened to the catalogue of disasters with frowning brows and
eyes gleaming with hardly-suppressed fury. When it was over, she rose
and spoke in a voice whose wonderful music and witchery seemed to charm
all sense of misfortune for the time being out of the hearts of her
listeners. A born queen of men, she knew when to wither with her scorn
or to charm with her sweetness, and she was well aware that this hour
of defeat and disaster was no time for reproaches or rebuke.
So her voice was low and sweet, and almost pleading, as she reviewed
the situation, which, for the moment, seemed so dark, and appealed to
her followers, through those who commanded them, not to yield before a
sudden and temporary misfortune, but to learn from defeat the lessons
of victory. She reminded them of all that their ancestors and hers had
lost at the hands of the Terrorists, the forefathers of the hated and
arrogant Aerians, and she painted in glowing colours the glory and the
boundless wealth that would be the reward of victory.
Heavy as their losses had been, there was no reason why they should
not repair them. She reminded them how, five years before, they had
possessed but a single air-ship, and were only a weak and scattered
body of revolutionaries. Now they possessed, even after all they had
lost, an aerial fleet superior to all the vessels of the Aerian navies
save two, and submarine cruisers swifter and more powerful than any
that floated, save only the stolen _Narwhal_. More than this, they were
now supported by a vast organisation numbering thousands of devoted men
and women, any one of whom would give his or her life for the cause for
which they were fighting.
She only spoke for a quarter of an hour or so, but every word went
home, and when she concluded with an appeal to their loyalty and
devotion, the twelve members of the Council rose with one accord
to their feet, and there and then spontaneously renewed the oaths
of fealty to her person and dynasty which they had taken when they
enlisted in her service. Every man of them was a scion of some once
noble Russian house, and her cause was theirs in virtue of personal
interest as well as that sentiment of blind, unreasoning loyalty which
even four generations of freedom had failed to eradicate from the
Russian blood.
Olga thanked them with a tremor in her voice which, whether it was
real or not, spoke to them with far greater eloquence than words, and
then she bade Lossenski lay before the Council the plans which she
had already discussed with him for the future conduct of the vast
enterprise which had opened so inauspiciously.
Lossenski rose at once, and for over two hours unfolded a vast and
subtly-conceived scheme, which has been very briefly outlined in a
previous chapter, and the results of the working out of which will
become apparent in due course.
At the end of the discussion which followed it was decided that a
transport should be purchased as soon as possible in a Russian port and
sent out to Antarctica with fresh supplies of men and materials.
A flotilla of twelve marine cruisers was told off to convoy her on her
voyage, and protect her from possible attack in case the Aerians should
suspect or discover the purpose to which she was devoted.
As no more submarine vessels could be built in Antarctica--for
the fearful cold of the outside waters made such work totally
impossible--all efforts were to be concentrated upon the increase of
the aerial navy, and a hundred air-ships, in addition to those already
in existence, was fixed upon as the minimum strength that it would be
safe to depend upon, when the hour for the final struggle came.
No force was to be wasted, if possible, upon minor attacks or isolated
engagements, for the Russians, like the Aerians, had learnt that, under
the conditions of the new warfare, skirmishes only meant destruction in
detail and loss of strength entirely disproportionate to the advantage
gained.
Thus virtually the same decisions were arrived at in Aeria and
Antarctica. Both sides resolved to husband their resources and increase
their strength, and then to risk everything upon the issue of one
mighty conflict, a veritable struggle of the gods, in which both
equally recognised that the defeated would be annihilated and the
victors would remain undisputed masters of the world.
Finally, it was decided that Orloff Lossenski should depart at once
with a formal offer of alliance to the Sultan of the Moslem Empire,
and that a day later Olga should follow with a squadron of twenty
air-ships and give him the alternative of alliance or immediate war.
If, as was confidently expected, he chose alliance, five submarine
cruisers were to be given to him, so that he might use them as models
for the construction of a fleet which should be powerful enough to
sweep the Aerian warships from the seas, and which would be supplied
with the secret motive power at a station to be established at Larnaka
under Russian control.
Then, when all was in readiness for the world-war, Olga was to be
proclaimed Tsarina in Moscow, and the standard of absolute monarchy
once more reared over the re-erected throne of the House of Romanoff.
Anglo-Saxondom was to be invaded and conquered, and Aeria itself
attacked and either subdued or depopulated and laid waste.