AT sunset on the 15th the sluice-door had been finally lowered into
its place and the pent-up waters of the lake of Aeria had risen nearly
forty feet by the next morning. Only the upper parts of the villas on
its banks were visible and its area was so enormously increased that
the whole appearance of the valley was altered.
Rising at first at the rate of three feet an hour, a rate which of
course decreased as the area became greater, the waters would reach the
entrance to the caverns soon after sunset on the evening of the fatal
23rd.
A little before midnight on the 21st the _Orion_, the sentinel ship
that was on guard at the time, sank swiftly down with the news that she
had made out by the light of the Fire-Cloud which, lurid and ghastly as
it was, was as brilliant and penetrating as that of the sun at noonday,
a large fleet of air-ships approaching from the northwards. The city
was by this time almost entirely submerged. Only a few minarets and
towers and the top of the great golden dome of the temple surmounted by
its crystal-winged figure, showed above the surface.
The remnant of the people of Aeria, now reduced to less than seven
thousand souls, including those chosen to take refuge in the caverns,
were occupying the villas on the slopes of Mount Austral about the
entrance to the caverns. Six thousand of them were men who had lived
solely in the hope of such an attack as was now about to be made and
which would enable them to die fighting the common enemy of mankind to
the last in defence of their beloved native land.
Not even now, when the hand of Destiny had set a definite limit to all
human hopes and fears, and when the remainder of their own lives could
be counted by hours, could this faithful remnant of the Aerians endure
the thought that what had been their paradise and their home should be
violated and polluted by the appearance of their foes.
Therefore they had lived for this last battle, and five hundred
air-ships were waiting to carry them into the air to engage in the
last fight that ever would be fought on earth. All their friends and
kindred, saving only the Children of Deliverance, as in fond fancy they
had called the little band of the chosen ones, were now dead, and the
few hours of life that were left to them had nothing more to give them.
So they received with a grim joy the summons to battle which had been
so long expected. Four thousand of them manned the air-ships, the rest
occupied the mountain batteries, and within a quarter of an hour of the
bringing of the news the war-ships had mounted into the air, and the
great guns of the batteries were ready to hurl their projectiles upon
the advancing foe.
It was a spectacle to make angels weep and devils laugh, this last
marshalling of the forces of human hate and hostility in the closing
hours of the life of humanity and on the threshold of eternity. It
seemed that the Tragedy of Man was to be played out to the bitter end,
and that human strife was only to cease on earth with the destruction
of the world. This, too, was the work of a single woman inspired by
quenchless hatred and insatiable ambition and a pride of spirit which,
in its haughty incredulity, still refused to believe that the end of
her conquering career had come.
Pitiless and without scruple to the end, Olga, while she was recovering
from her wound under the shelter of the Sultan’s roof, had managed,
with the aid of her waiting-woman Anna, not only to poison the Grand
Vizier Musa and Hakem the astronomer, but also to bring Khalid himself
into the same state of moral slavery in which she had so long held Alan
and Alexis.
It was she who had brought this fleet from Alexandria to Aeria. Once
under the fatal spell of her will-poison, she had commanded Khalid
to revoke the orders that he had given for peace, and he had obeyed.
A fleet of more than five hundred air-ships had been collected, and,
taking Khalid with her on board the _Revenge_, so that there should be
no chance of his recovering his volition, she had come to fulfil the
prophecy which Paul Romanoff uttered when in the last hour of his life
he had declared that one day the Eagle of Russia should fly over the
battlements of Aeria.
All the materials for constructing ten air-ships had been taken into
the caverns, so that in the event of the remnant surviving the empire
of the air should still be theirs, but the _Alma_ and the _Isma_ still
lay outside the entrance when the other ships had risen into the air.
At the supreme moment a controversy had arisen as to whether or not
Alan and Alexis--the latter of whom had been placed without question
among the chosen, not only because of his unequalled engineering skill,
but also because without him a daughter of the House of Arnold would
have died of her own will--should or should not take part with their
companions in the near approaching conflict.
This dispute was brought to a sudden close by Alan, who, with a sudden
inspiration, cut short all the loving entreaties that were being made
to him to take refuge in the caverns and avoid the chance which in
the heat of the conflict might destroy with him the male line of the
descendants of the first conqueror of the air.
“Do you not see,” he said, “that it is quite possible that their fleet
may be twice as strong as ours, and that in spite of all our gallant
forlorn hope can do they may cross the mountains and send their shells
into the valley?
“What if one of them exploded here and wrecked the outworks and the
entrance to the caverns? All hope, even for us, would then be lost,
the doors could not be lowered, and we should either have to let the
waters of the lake flow out or they would flow into the caverns by the
upper entrance and ruin all our labours.
“We have proved that the _Alma_ and the _Isma_ are the two best
air-ships in existence. They can soar higher and travel faster than
any others. Would it not be madness to deprive our defending force of
them, and would it not be cowardice in us not to do all we can to save
all that is left for us to hope for on earth? I for one shall go, and I
don’t believe that I shall go alone.”
“If the _Alma_ goes the _Isma_ goes too,” said Alexis. “Alan is right.
We should be cowards to turn our backs on the enemy at the last moment.”
“And if you go, we go,” said Alma and Isma in a breath. “If you live we
will live with you, but we will not live without you.”
There was no answer to such reasoning as this, nor was there any longer
any law on earth save that of individual will. The first motive power
that had swayed the world was the last that survived and would be the
last to die. Those of the old crews of the two air-ships who were found
among the chosen at once came forward to take their places, and with
them came too those who had elected to take the hazard of life or death
with them.
“There shall be no widows in the new world,” said they. And so every
man who rose into the air on board the two great warships carried with
him the woman without whom the one last chance of life would not have
been worth taking.
As they left the earth the remainder of the little company retired into
the caverns, leaving two sentinels posted at the outer door ready to
give the alarm in case it should be necessary to lower the doors. As
they did so a long, dull, distant roar came from the northward telling
that the last battle of man with man had begun.
In accordance with a plan hastily arranged before they rose, the _Alma_
was to guard the northern end of the valley, while the _Isma_ kept
watch over the southern. They soared up and up until the peaks of the
mountains were a good five thousand feet below them.
From this elevation those on board the _Alma_ could see the enemy’s
fleet stretching out in a huge crescent, made up of tiny points of
light which shone in the unnatural glare that illumined the earth and
sky, and ever and anon they saw enormous spheres of flame blaze out
along the line as the projectiles from the land batteries burst in
front of them. The gunners were only trying their range and the enemy
were still beyond it.
The explosion of the projectiles told the assailants that Aeria was
on the alert, still prepared for battle and still, for all they knew,
as impregnable as ever. Seeing this, they ceased their advance and a
battle of tactics preceded the pitiless struggle which only the victors
would survive.
Hour after hour the Moslem and Russian air-ships strove to out-soar the
Aerians, or to make a rush in twos and threes that would bring them
within range of the charmed circle of the mountains. But no sooner
did one of them sweep up at full speed out of the distance and slow
down sufficiently to train her guns than the atmosphere about her
was convulsed with a mighty shock and changed instantly into a mist
of fire, and when this vanished she had vanished too, shattered to
fragments which dropped in a rain of molten metal thousands of feet to
the earth below.
Morning came, the flaming arch of the Fire-Cloud sank lower and lower
in the heavens until it stretched a broad band of lurid light round
the western horizon, and an unclouded sun brought the last dawn but
one that the terror-maddened myriads of earth would ever see. Still
the fight went on at long ranges; still ship after ship of the hostile
fleet made its desperate effort to cross the invisible barrier which
was drawn all round Aeria by the range of its protecting guns, only
to be overturned and hurled to the earth by the shock of an exploding
projectile or to be fairly struck and dissolved to dust.
[Illustration: STILL THE FIGHT WENT ON AT LONG RANGES. _Page 354._]
No matter how high they attempted to soar, the _Alma_ and the _Isma_
were still above them, and if the shells from the land batteries failed
to do their work the guns of the air-ships did it for them and the
result was the same--annihilation.
The night of the 22nd was spent in incessant attack and defence. The
crews of the Aerian ships, grown desperate in their supreme despair,
now left the mountains and sallied forth into the open, engaging the
enemy ship for ship and gun for gun in a last determined effort to
destroy them, or be destroyed, and far out from the still untouched
battlements of Aeria the fight raged fast and furious.
There now was no thought of safety in the hearts of the Aerians. They
had come forth to kill and be killed. The rules of aerial tactics were
utterly neglected. They laid their guns alongside and, rushing through
the air at their utmost speed, they hurled themselves with the ram
upon every Moslem or Russian vessel that they could meet or overtake,
crashing into her with irresistible force and going with her into
annihilation as their two cargoes of shells exploded under the shock.
The last sun rose and saw the fight still going on. What had begun as
the greatest battle in the history of war had now dwindled down to a
series of single combats. At length the end came. It was a few minutes
after midday that the last blow in the battle was struck. Ten Russian
and Moslem air-ships, all that remained of the great fleet that Olga
had brought against Aeria, formed in line ten miles from the Ridge and
made a last attempt to break through the defences.
Flying through a storm of shells from the land batteries, seven of
them were torn to pieces and the other three, just as they reached the
Ridge, were met obliquely by the five remaining vessels of the Aerian
fleet. The same moment the _Alma’s_ broadside was discharged upon them,
friend and foe vanished together in a mist of flame--and so ended the
assault and defence of Aeria.
“We can go down now!” said Alan in a broken voice to Alma, who was
standing white and speechless with horror at his side in the bows of
the air-ship. “It is all over! God rest their gallant souls, for they
left the world like brave men and true Aerians!”
“Amen!” sighed Alma. Then, after a brief pause, she said--“I wonder
whether Olga Romanoff is alive or dead?”
The two air-ships now sank together and alighted close to the entrance
to the caverns.
There the splendid fabrics were reluctantly abandoned, their crews
disembarked, taking with them everything they wished to preserve, and
a minute inspection was made for the last time of the triple doors and
the machinery for lowering them and filling the spaces between them
with water to be frozen as soon as they were in their places.
This occupied the time until the evening, and then all went once more
into the open air to take what might be their last look at the sun. The
waters of the lake were now within a few feet of the entrance, creeping
more and more slowly upwards, and across the vast expanse of water,
lying unruffled by the lightest breeze, fell the mingled rays of the
sinking sun and the brightening Fire-Cloud.
There was not a cloud in the heavens and no breath of wind relieved
the almost suffocating heat of the inert and sultry air. It seemed as
though all terrestrial nature lay paralysed in a stupor of terror,
waiting for the fire-blast that would wither it into death and ruin.
As the sun sank down behind the veil of flame his disc loomed redly
and dully through it. Long streams of fire, blue and green and orange,
darted across the disc and leapt and played round its circumference
until it sank finally out of sight. The little group on the shore of
the lake gazed at each other in silence as it disappeared.
Their faces looked wan and ghastly in the awful light that now reigned
supreme in the heavens. Most of them turned away in grief and horror
too deep for words, and with one last look at earth and sky, crept into
the caverns, unable any longer to support the terror of the scene.
But a few remained, determined to see the fearful drama played out to
the end, if they could, and among these were Alan and Alexis, whose
duty kept them by the doors, the President and Francis Tremayne, and
Alma and Isma, whom nothing could persuade to leave their husbands’
sides.
No human eyes had ever beheld so magnificent or so awful a display of
celestial splendours as they beheld during the three hours that they
stood in the doorway after sunset. The Fire-Cloud now covered almost
the whole heavens, and its enormous nucleus blazed like a gigantic
sun down out of the zenith with a heat and radiance that were almost
insupportable.
Huge masses of flame leapt out continuously, as though hurled from its
fiery heart, and were projected far beyond its circumference, while
the incandescent cloud-mass which surrounded it was torn and convulsed
by internal commotions which spread out and out in enormous waves of
many-coloured fires until they disappeared below the horizon.
Still there was neither sound nor breath of wind upon earth, only the
awful stillness in which the world waited for the hour of its doom
to strike. At last, towards ten o’clock, the water began to lap the
threshold of the entrance, and Alan, pointing to it, said--
“Come, we must take our last look at the world! It is time to lower the
doors.”
The words were scarcely out of his mouth before a low dull booming
sound came echoing down the gorges of Mount Austral. They looked up
and saw huge masses of snow and ice loosened from its upper heights
gliding, at first slowly and then more and more swiftly, down towards
the valley beneath, a mighty avalanche which in a few minutes more
would carry irresistible ruin in its path.
“In with you all!” cried Alan. “Quick! That is the beginning of the
end; the snows are melting and the waters will be over us in another
hour.”
All but he and Alexis hurried in, and they, grasping the levers on
either side of the door, pulled them, and the enormous sheet of steel
descended quickly along its grooves and shut them in from the outer
world, upon which chaos was about to fall.