A FEW minutes before midnight on the fifteenth of May, in the year
2036, Khalid the Magnificent, lord and master of the greatest and most
splendid realm that had ever been ruled over by a single man since
the world began, stood alone on the spacious terrace of his palace
in Alexandria, gazing up at the myriads of stars that shone in the
cloudless firmament above him, and dreaming one of those dreams of
world-wide empire which had haunted the soul of such men as he from the
days of Rameses the Great until his own.
He was a man of thirty-four, tall, swarthy, and athletic, with the
proud aquiline features of the Arab, the dark, alternately flashing and
melting eyes of the Circassian, and the strong, reposeful dignity of
the Turk--a man whom women looked upon with love and men with respect
that was often akin to dread.
The lord of seven hundred million subjects who, even in those days, so
strong was still the faith and loyalty of the Moslem, looked upon him
only as something less than Allah and the Prophet whose sacred blood
flowed in his veins, his soaring ambition was not content even with the
splendid inheritance that he had received from his ancestors.
In his being were closely blended those elements of religious
enthusiasm and worldly ambition which had made the men of the Golden
Age of Islam such irresistible conquerors and such mighty rulers of
men. He had pondered over the past history of his faith and his people
from the times of the Prophet down to his own, until he had come to
believe himself the man chosen by Destiny to subjugate the world, and
to compel all men, from pole to pole, and east to west, to accept
the rule and faith of Islam, and to confess the unity of God and the
apostleship of Mohammed.
He saw in the vast area of the Anglo-Saxon Federation, which now, in
name at least, dominated Europe, America, and Australasia, only a
collection of democratic and ill-governed States in which the mob ruled
by blind counting of heads, and in which religion had been refined into
a mere philosophy of life and morals, the last word of which seemed to
him to be: Make the best of to-day, lest to-morrow should never come.
In his own breast the flame of the fierce, uncompromising faith of
Islam burnt, undimmed by the mists of the centuries that had passed
since the first Moslem armies had emerged from the deserts of Arabia to
conquer the greater part of the Roman world.
Why should he not send forth his armies, as the Khalifs of old had
done, to plant the banner of the Crescent over the subjugated realms of
Christendom, and rule, the greatest of the Commanders of the Faithful,
sovereign lord of a Moslem world?
It was a splendid destiny, but there was a power in the world, located
in one tiny spot of earth, and yet, so far as he knew, universal
and irresistible, before which the armies which he had called into
existence would be as helpless as a swarm of locusts before a forest
fire.
This power possessed the empire of the air, and therefore of the earth.
In the days of the Terror it had led the Anglo-Saxon race to the
conquest of the world. Would it sit idly now behind the bulwarks of
Aeria and watch his armies conquering the domains of Anglo-Saxondom?
Was it not far more likely that those terrible air-ships would be sent
forth to hurl their destroying lightnings from the skies and overwhelm
his armies and his cities in irretrievable ruin? These Aerians had
ruled the world for a hundred and twenty-five years, and yet had
committed no act of aggression upon the rightful liberties of any
nation. How, therefore, could he believe that they would hold their
mighty hand while he carried fire and sword through the habitations of
their blood and kindred?
If he gave the word for war, within forty-eight hours after he had
spoken more than ten millions of men, armed with weapons of fearful
precision and destructive power, would stand ready to do his bidding
and to carry the banner of the Crescent to the uttermost ends of the
earth; but of what use would be their numbers, their valour, or their
devotion with a squadron of aerial cruisers wheeling above them and
hurling death and destruction upon them from the inaccessible heights
of the sky?
He remembered how his ancestor Mohammed Reshad had been stopped in his
career of conquest, and how his victorious armies had been decimated
and thrown into confusion by a flotilla of air-ships and war-balloons
which a dozen cruisers of the present Aerian navy would have swept
from the skies in a few minutes. Intolerable as the thought was to his
haughty soul, the truth remained that, in the midst of all his power
and splendour, he was as helpless as a child before the real masters of
the world. He had armies and fleets, but he could not make war without
their permission or the assurance of their neutrality, save with the
certainty of disaster and defeat.
What would he not give for a squadron of these aerial battleships? Half
his empire, willingly, and yet he knew that even an attempt to build a
single air-ship would be the signal for his own death and the end of
the dominion of his dynasty.
He had no knowledge of the momentous events which had just been taking
place on the other side of the world. He still believed implicitly
in the unquestioned supremacy of the Aerians throughout the domain
of the skies, although he was well aware that some mysterious power
had successfully disputed with them the command of the seas, and he
remembered the stern threat of immediate war and annihilation that the
President of Aeria had promulgated against any who should even help in
the concealment of the air-ship that had been lost six years before,
and, so far as the world at large was concerned, had never been heard
of since.
Anglo-Saxondom, and therefore Christendom, lay at his mercy but for
this guardian power of the air. Its millions were unarmed and its
wealth unprotected. Its indolent and luxurious democracies, occupied
solely with social experiments and the increase of their material
magnificence, would be crushed almost without resistance by his
splendidly armed and disciplined legions.
The Crescent would replace the Cross above their temples, and the world
would be a Moslem planet but for this empire of the air, universal and
unconquerable, which barred his way to the dominion of the world and
the final triumph of his faith.
For the hundredth time he had revolved the hopeless dilemma in his
mind, alternately looking upon the conquests he longed for, and on the
splendid but useless forces at his command, when a huge, strange shape
dropped swiftly and silently out of the sky overhead, and, as though in
answer to the unspoken call of his intense longing, one of those very
air-ships of which he had been thinking with such angry despair swept
with a majestic downward sloping curve out of the dusk of the night,
and ran up close alongside the low parapet of the terrace on which he
was standing.
It was the first time he had ever seen one of these marvellous vessels,
which were the talk and the wonder of the world, at such close
quarters. Paralysed for the moment by mingled curiosity and amazement,
he recoiled with a startled invocation to the Prophet on his lips, and
then stood staring at it in silence, wondering whether the strange
apparition meant the visit of a friend or an enemy.
While he was standing thus the air-ship drifted as silently as a shadow
over the parapet, and sank gently down until it rested on the marble
floor of the vast terrace. Then a sliding door opened in the after-part
of the glass dome which covered the deck from stem to stern, a light
metal stairway fell from it, and three men richly and yet simply
dressed descended to the terrace and advanced to where he stood.
Two of them halted at a respectful distance, and the third, a man whose
dignity of bearing was enhanced by the snowy whiteness of his hair and
beard, advanced alone, and with a grave and courteous gesture of salute
said in English, the language of universal intercourse--
“Am I right in believing this to be the palace of his Majesty the
Sultan?”
It was some moments before Khalid recovered his composure sufficiently
to answer the question, simple as it was. His wonder was increased
tenfold when he saw that his visitor from the skies did not wear the
golden wings which were the insignia of the Aerians.
Was it possible that some other inhabitants of the earth had, in spite
of the rigid prohibition of the Supreme Council, managed to build an
aerial navy? His heart leapt with exultation at the thought. Obeying
the impulse of the moment, he took a stride forward and held out his
hand, saying--
“I know not who you are, or whence you come, but if you come in
friendship there is my hand in welcome. This is the palace, and I am
Khalid, the Commander of the Faithful. What is your errand?”
His visitor took the outstretched hand, and, bending low over it,
replied in a tone of the deepest respect--
“I am honoured and fortunate beyond measure! I trust your Majesty will
pardon the strangeness of my coming for the importance of the mission
that brings me.”
“Say on, sir, and tell me freely who you are and what your mission is,
for I am all impatience to know,” said the Sultan, speaking even more
cordially than before.
“I am Orloff Lossenski,” replied the ambassador from the skies, “and I
am the bearer of a message from my mistress, Olga Romanoff, by right of
descent Tsarina of the Russias, and deprived of her lawful rights of
rule by the Terrorists who reign in Aeria.”
“Then you are enemies of the Aerians?” broke in the Sultan, “and you
possess air-ships like that marvellous craft yonder! How have you--but
pardon me, I have interrupted you. You can satisfy my curiosity later
on.”
“Her Majesty, my mistress, possesses a large fleet of air-ships, of
which this is one,” replied Lossenski, “and she has sent me as her
envoy to give your Majesty this letter which will explain my mission in
full. At this hour to-morrow night the Tsarina will come in person to
receive your answer to it.”
As he spoke he presented a letter to the Sultan, and then drew back a
pace. Khalid took the missive without a word and walked towards one of
the electric lamps with which the terrace was lighted, breaking the
seal as he went. This is what he read--
To Khalid the Magnificent,
Sultan of the Moslems.
You have dreams of world-wide conquest, but the fear of the power of
the Aerians restrains you from putting them into action. You command
armies and fleets, but they are useless and helpless because you
cannot fight in the air as well as on land and sea.
I can give you the power of doing this, and I will help you to the
conquest of the world if you will help me to regain the dominions
that were stolen from my ancestors in the days of the Terror.
Twenty-four hours after you receive this I will come for your answer
to it. If you agree to the general terms I have no fear but that the
details will be easily arranged between us. This is brought to you by
Orloff Lossenski, my chief counsellor and responsible minister, who,
at your Majesty’s desire, will lay the particulars of my proposals
before you in full.
OLGA ROMANOFF,
Tsarina of the Russias.
Hardly had the Sultan finished the perusal of this strangely curt and
yet all-pregnant letter when a cry from Lossenski’s two attendants
caused him to look up. If what he had seen but a few minutes before had
amazed him, what he saw now fairly stupefied him. A second air-ship,
similar in size and shape to the first, but with a hull of a strangely
lustrous blue metal, had dropped without sign or sound out of space,
and was hovering exactly above Lossenski’s vessel with her ten long
slender guns pointing in all directions.
A moment later she seemed to drop bodily on to the Russian air-ship,
splintering her thin steel masts with the weight of her hull, and yet
stopping in her descent before she crushed in the glass dome of the
deck. The next instant a score of men slipped swiftly over the side and
gained the open door of the Russians’ deck-chamber. Then there came a
sound of fierce cries and oaths, and the quick crackling reports of
repeating pistols.
The envoy’s two companions turned as though to fly, but two shots fired
in quick succession brought them down before they had made a couple
of strides. Then a dozen men leapt down upon the terrace and covered
Lossenski and the Sultan with their pistols before they had time to
recover from the stupefaction into which the suddenness of the attack
had thrown them.
The next moment a man, whose splendid stature raised him a good head
above the Russian and the Moslem, came down the steps from the deck of
the now captured air-ship. As he advanced towards them Khalid, brave
and haughty as he was, looked up at him almost as he might have looked
upon the visible shape of one of the angels of his faith.
He was dressed in the Aeria costume, save for the fact that, instead of
azurine and gold, his winged coronet was black and lustrous as polished
jet. In his left hand he carried a magazine pistol, and in his right
a long slender rapier with a blade of azurine that gleamed with an
intense blue radiance in the light of the electric lamps.
“Orloff Lossenski, you are our prisoner! Go back to your ship or you
will be shot where you stand. Sultan Khalid, have you received that
letter in your hand from this man?”
Alan’s words came quick and stern, but before they were spoken the
Sultan had put a golden whistle to his lips and blown a shrill call, in
instant obedience to which a stream of armed guards issued from a door
of the palace opening on to the terrace, spread out into a semi-circle,
and in turn Alan and his companions were covered by a hundred rifles.
“Now, sir, whoever you are,” exclaimed the Sultan, recovering at once
his courage and his composure, “you are _my_ prisoner! Throw down your
arms, or”--
“Stop!” cried Alan, in a voice that rang clearly over the whole
terrace. “Don’t you see that your palace is under our guns? Fire a
shot, and in an hour it shall be a heap of ruins.”
Khalid had forgotten the air-ships for the moment. He glanced up at the
two rows of guns, and saw in the lighted interiors of the deck-chambers
men standing ready to rain death and ruin in every direction.
Lossenski, too, grasped the suddenly changed situation in an instant.
He knew far better than the Sultan did what would be the effect of
a discharge of that awful artillery upon the palace and the city,
and more than this, he saw the hopeless ruin of his mistress’s plans
that would follow the death of the Sultan. He turned to him with an
appealing gesture, and said--
“Your Majesty, for the sake of all you hold dear, send back your
guards! I surrender to save you!” and then, with a glare of impotent
hate at Alan, he turned and walked quickly towards the air-ships.
Nothing could have brought the terrible power of the Aerians home to
the mind of Khalid the Magnificent more convincingly than the position
in which he now stood. Absolute master of the greatest empire on earth,
he stood on the terrace of his own palace, in the midst of his own
capital, and with thousands of soldiers within call, as helpless as a
child.
But before he could force the words of surrender from his reluctant
lips an event occurred which, brave as he was, struck terror to his
heart. Alan had raised his rapier to command the attention of his men
at the guns, and the captain of the Sultan’s guards, thinking he was
going to strike his master, rushed forward and struck at the uplifted
blade with his scimitar. As the steel rang upon the azurine the
Damascus blade splintered to the hilt.
With a cry half of rage and half of fear the Moslem whipped a pistol
out of his sash, but before he could level it the bright blue blade
descended swiftly, and when its point was within a foot of his
assailant’s eyes Alan dropped his own pistol and pressed a jewel in the
centre of his belt-clasp. As he did so a pale blue flame leapt from the
point of his sword, and the Moslem, without as much as a sigh, dropped
dead on the floor of the terrace.
“Mashallah!” cried the Sultan, recoiling in ungovernable terror. “What
are you, man or fiend, that you carry the lightnings in your hand?”
“A man like yourself, Sultan, and one who wishes your Majesty no evil,”
replied Alan. “I am Alan Arnold, the son of the President of Aeria, and
therefore your friend, unless you choose to make me your enemy. I am at
present in command of the cruiser _Ithuriel_, and we have followed that
Russian vessel for over five thousand miles to find out what his errand
was. When he landed on your palace we guessed it, I think, pretty
nearly. Lossenski came to propose an alliance between your Majesty and
his mistress, Olga Romanoff, did he not?”
Before he replied the Sultan, seeing some of his guards advancing
again, and being now convinced that resistance was both unnecessary and
impossible, ordered them to take away the body of their comrade and
those of the two Russians who had been shot. Then he turned to Alan,
and said with politeness that was perhaps more Oriental than sincere--
“Pardon my ignorance, Prince of the Air! I did not know that I was
speaking to the son of one who is above all the kings of the earth.
That slave deserved his death for raising his arm against your
Highness. Yes, you are right. The Russian came to me with such a
proposal from her you name. Here is her letter. She styles herself
Tsarina of the Russias, but I have never heard her name before. Who is
she?”
“I will tell your Majesty,” said Alan, taking the letter which the
Sultan now held out to him without hesitation, “for no one can tell
you better than I can. She is the last living child of the House
of Romanoff. She is beautiful beyond description, and evil beyond
comprehension. She aspires to rule in fact as what she styles herself
in name, and to bring back the gloom of despotism and oppression on the
earth.
“She and her accomplices are responsible for that terrorism of the seas
which has paralysed international commerce for more than five years,
and they are also in possession of a fleet of about thirty air-ships.
How they were enabled to construct them there is now no time to
explain. Suffice it to say that they have them, that they have dared to
challenge the forces of Aeria to a contest for the empire of the world,
and that during the fortnight they have been fighting they have had
very much the worst of it.
“We have practically crippled their sea-power, blown up their submarine
dockyard, and destroyed about half of their aerial fleet. I tell you
this in order that you may receive her proposals with your eyes open.
The course of events has made your Majesty to a great extent the
arbiter of the destinies of humanity.
“Olga Romanoff knows that you have a splendid army at command, that you
have illimitable wealth to spend on war material, and that an alliance
between you would be irresistible. As an independent sovereign it is,
of course, within your right, as it is within your power, to conclude
this alliance if you think fit. Do so if you choose; but remember that
if you do you must assume the tremendous responsibility of plunging the
whole world into war, and bringing inconceivable desolation upon your
fellow-creatures. You will be allying yourself with the worst enemies
of humanity--nay, with the only enemies that humanity has on earth.
“This Olga Romanoff is called by her followers the Syren of the Skies,
and the name is an apt one, for she is a very syren, armed with arts
that can charm a man’s heart out of his breast, make him forget his
duty to himself and his loyalty to his race, and, like Circe of old,
reduce him to an animal that exists only for the execution of her will
and the gratification of her desires. I speak with knowledge; for I
have felt, and through me the world will feel, the terrible force of
her spells, and I tell you frankly, as man speaking honestly with man,
that if you make this alliance there will be war between your people
and mine to the death.
“As far as a single man can do so, you hold the fate of mankind in your
hand, and within the next forty-eight hours you will decide it. Now I
have done my duty, and given you such warning as I can. You will answer
for your decision at the bar of God, and it is not for me to say more.
“Whether we meet again as enemies or not, let us part friends, and let
me implore you, for the love of God and your kind, to rest content with
what the Fates have already given you. You have raised the Moslem power
to a pitch of splendour and dominion far beyond all its former glories.
You have all that man could ask for”--
“Yes, as a man,” interrupted the Sultan, who up to this point had
listened with silent attention to Alan’s quick, earnest words. “But not
all that the Commander of the Faithful may be content with. I know not
what the religion of your people is, but you know that the laws of mine
command me, as they command every true Moslem, to plant the banner of
the Prophet over the habitations of the infidel and to give the enemies
of the Faith the choice between the sword and the Koran.
“It is not for mere conquest that I have created my armies and my
fleet. It is in obedience to the commands of Heaven, which has given me
the means of conquering the earth for Islam.”
Khalid spoke rapidly and fiercely with heaving breast and eyes blazing
with the lurid light of fanaticism. Alan heard him out in silence. Then
his hand fell heavily on the Moslem’s shoulder, and holding him at
arm’s length he looked him straight in the eyes and said, slowly and
deliberately--
“Sultan, a man’s faith, by whatever name it may be called, is no
concern of ours. He is responsible for it to his God, and there is an
end of it. But when you tell me that your faith commands you to force
it with fire and sword upon the consciences of those who hold another
creed, then I tell you to your face that you are a fanatic and a
persecutor.
“Blood enough and to spare has been shed in the wars of creeds, and
if I believed that you meant to revive the warfare between Cross and
Crescent, I would strike you dead where you stand, as I struck your
slave down just now. But I cannot believe it either of you or any other
enlightened man.
“I am not in any mood to utter empty threats, but I am speaking no
idle words when I tell you that the hour in which you make war on
Christendom, either for political or religious conquest, shall be the
hour in which you will hear the voice of Destiny speaking your own doom.
“More than that, I ask you now to pledge me your word as an honest
man and a ruling King that for twelve months from now, at the very
least, you will neither draw a sword nor fire a shot either against
Anglo-Saxondom or any other Power.”
He stopped, and took his hand from the Sultan’s shoulder. Khalid
recoiled and drew himself up to the full height of his royal stature as
he replied--
“Prince of the Air--demi-god almost as you are--you must learn that
the Commander of the Faithful is not to be dictated to on the roof of
his own palace, even by you. Am I your slave that you should lay these
commands upon me?”
Before he made any reply in words Alan communicated a few rapid orders
to those in command of the two air-ships in the Aerian sign-language.
The _Ithuriel_ rose from above the _Vindaya_, as the Russian air-ship
was named, and both vessels ranged themselves alongside the front of
the terrace. The Sultan watched this manœuvre in helpless silence, well
knowing that whatever it imported he was powerless to resist. Then Alan
went on--
“Not my slave, Sultan, but my fellow-man, and as such I will, if I
can, and by any means within my power, prevent you from committing such
a colossal crime as that which I am afraid I must now believe you are
contemplating. Now listen well, for my words mean much.
“Those two air-ships could lay your capital, vast and splendid as it
is, in ruins before to-morrow’s sun rises, and as surely as those stars
are shining above us they shall do so unless you give me the pledge I
ask for. I ask it in the name of all humanity, and I will not spare a
few thousands of lives to enforce it.”
“If you could!” ejaculated the Sultan, half involuntarily. “I have
heard much of your wonderful air-ships, but do you know that I have a
hundred thousand soldiers in the city, and that I have hundreds of guns
which will hurl their projectiles for miles into the air? If only one
of the hundreds struck either of those vessels of yours, she would fall
like a stone and be dashed to pieces on the earth. The fighting would
not be all on one side.”
His tone grew more and more defiant as he went on, and Alan saw that
some stern lesson would be necessary to induce him to give the pledge
upon which the safety of millions depended. In quiet, even tones, that
contrasted strongly with those of the Moslem, he said--
“We of Aeria are not accustomed to boast our prowess lightly, and I
am threatening nothing that I cannot do. Still, I do not wish you to
give the pledge I ask save in the fullest knowledge. If you will trust
yourself with me on board the _Ithuriel_ for an hour under my pledge of
your safe return I will prove to you to demonstration that your city
would be as defenceless beneath our guns as a collection of tents would
be. The moon is high enough now to give us plenty of light for the
experiment if you think fit to make it.”
The Sultan hesitated for a few moments, as though in doubt whether
he would be permitted to return if he once allowed the _Ithuriel_ to
carry him away from the earth. Then he remembered that no man had ever
known the Aerian who had broken his word. He looked into Alan’s strong,
frank face, and read there an absolute assurance that his safety would
be respected. Then, with a slight inclination of his head, he said--
“Your words are wise. I will come, and if you convince me that you can
do as you say I will swear by the holy name of the Prophet that I will
make no war upon any man for a year from now.”
Alan signalled to the _Ithuriel_, which ran in close to the terrace.
The door of the deck-chamber opened, a gangway was run out, and for the
first time in his life Sultan Khalid trod the deck of a cruiser of the
air. The _Ithuriel_ and the _Vindaya_ at once mounted up into the now
brightly moonlit atmosphere.
The Sultan saw the myriad lights of his splendid capital sink swiftly
down into a vast abyss that seemed to open beneath him. The dim horizon
widened out until it enclosed an immense expanse of pale grey desert to
the south, while to the north a dark stretch of sea spread out farther
than the eye could reach. Up and up the air-ships soared until the
lights of Alexandria glimmered like a faint white mist at the bottom of
a seemingly unfathomable gulf. At length Alan, who was standing beside
him, pointed down and said--
“There is your city. If I gave the word, a hundred shells a minute
would be rained on to it from here. Do you think your guns could reach
us?”
“No,” said the Sultan, striving in vain to repress a shudder at the
fearful prospect disclosed by Alan’s words. “But how could your shells
strike that little patch of light which is miles away, and thousands of
feet below us?”
“That, too, I will prove to you, but not at the expense of your city.”
He sent an order to the engine-room, and the _Ithuriel_ swerved round
to the northward and, followed by the _Vindaya_, swept out over the
Mediterranean, in the direction of Crete.
Half an hour’s flight at full speed brought them in sight of a small
rocky islet which showed like a black spot on the surface of the
moonlit sea. The two air-ships were stopped six thousand feet above
the water, and about four miles from the heap of rocks. Alan then gave
orders for each of the ships to train four guns upon it.
“Now,” he said to the Sultan, “fix your glass on that mass of rocks
down yonder and watch what happens.”
As he spoke he raised his hand and the eight guns were discharged
simultaneously. The Sultan heard no report and saw no flash, but a few
seconds later he saw through the night glasses that Alan had given him
a vast mass of flame of dazzling brilliancy burst out over the islet,
covering it completely, for the moment, with a mist of fire.
“Now you shall see the effects of our shells,” said Alan. The two
vessels sank rapidly down in a slanting direction towards the spot
where the projectiles had struck. A hundred feet from the surface of
the water they stopped, and Alan said--
“Now look for the island.”
Khalid swept the sea with his glass. The islet had vanished, the waves
were breaking over what seemed to be a sunken reef, and that was all.
With hands that trembled, in spite of all that he could do to keep them
steady, he took the glass from his eyes, saying in a voice that was
shaken by irresistible emotion--
“God is great, and I am but a man, while you are as demigods. It is
enough! I will give the pledge you ask for.”