THE SILENT ATTACK
At the exact instant when the second hand notched to the minute's
edge, and in precisely the spot indicated, a slight, luminous spot
became dimly visible above the trees. The spot took uncertain form
high above the ghost-glow rising from the unseen stockade. For an
instant it hung suspended, pale-greenish, evanescent.
Then, as a faint plop! drifted to the watchers--a sound no louder
than a feeble clack of the tongue--this indefinite luminosity began to
sink, to fade, falling slowly, gradually dissipating itself in the dim
light over the stockade.
The Master nodded, smiling, with never any hint of praise or
approbation. The fulfilment of his order was to him no other than it
is to you, when you drop a pebble into water, to hear the splash of
it. That his plan should be working out, seemed to him a perfectly
obvious, inevitable thing. The only factor that could possibly have
astonished him, just now, would have been the nonappearance of that
slight, luminous cloudlet at the precise spot and moment designated.
Neither Bohannan, Alden, nor Rrisa was watching the slow descent of
the lethal gas. All three had their eyes fixed on their own lethal-gas
pistols and on their watches. At mathematically the correct second,
Bohannan discharged his piece, correctly sighting direction and
elevation.
As he pressed trigger, a light sighing eased itself from the slim
barrel. Something flicked through the leaves; and, almost on the
instant, the phenomenon of the little phosphorescent spot repeated
itself, though in a different place from the first one. Captain
Alden's and Rrisa's shots produced still other blurs of virescence.
Then, as they all waited, crouching, came another and another tiny
explosion, high aloft, at precisely ten-second intervals. Here, there,
they developed, until twenty-nine of these strange, bubble-like things
had burst above and all about the huge enclosure. Then darkness and
silence once more settled down.
Nothing seemed to have happened. Night still reigned, starry with
glimpses of sky through wind-swayed trees. One would have said
everything still remained precisely as it had been before.
Yet presently, within the stockade or near it, a certain uneasy
_mélange_ of sounds began to develop. Here a cry became audible, there
a command. A startled voice called an order, but suddenly fell silent,
half-way through it. The worrying of the dog ceased with eloquent
suddenness. A curse died, unfinished.
And silence, as perfect as the silence of the unseen watchers strung
all about the periphery of the stockade, once more dominated the
night.
For precisely ten minutes, nothing broke that silence--minutes
during all of which the Master remained calmly waiting, with grave
confidence. Bohannan shuddered a little. His Celtic imagination was at
work, again. Uncanny the attack seemed to him, unreal and ghostlike.
So, perhaps, might strange, unbelievable creatures from some other
planet attack and conquer the world, noiselessly, gently, irrevocably.
This assault was different from any other ever made since man and man
first began battling together in the dim twilights of the primeval.
Not with shout and cheer did it rush forward, nor yet with venomous
gases that gave the alarm, that choked, that strangled, that tortured.
Silence and concealment, and the invisible blight of sleep, like the
greater numbing that once fell on the hosts of Sennacherib, enfolded
all opposition. All who would have stood against the Legion, simply
sighed once, perhaps spoke a few disjointed words, then sank into
oblivion.
So far as anyone could see, save for the bursting of twenty-nine
insignificant little light-bubbles, in mid-air, nothing at all had
happened. And yet tremendously much had happened, inside the huge
stockade.
Ten minutes to a dot had drifted by, seeming at least six times as
long, when all at once the Master stood up.
"The gas has dissipated enough now," said he, "so that we can advance
in safety. Come!"
The three also arose, half at his command, half from the independent
impulses given them by their watches as these came to the designated
second for the forward movement. The Master blew no whistle, gave no
signal to the many others scattered all through those darkly silent
woods; but right and left, and over beyond the stockade, he knew with
the precision of a mathematical equation every man was at that exact
moment also arising, also obeying orders, also preparing to close
in on the precious thing whereof they meant to make themselves the
owners.
Forward the Master made his way, with the three others of his
immediate escort. Though there no longer existed any need of silence,
hardly a word was spoken. Something vast, imminent, overpowering,
seemed to have laid its finger on the lips of all, to have muted them
of speech.
The vacuum-lights, however, were now freely flashing in the little
party, as it advanced directly toward the stockade. The men clambered
over rocks, through bushes, across fallen logs. Rrisa stopped,
suddenly, played his light on a little bundle of gray fur, and touched
it with a curious finger. It was a squirrel, curled into a tiny ball
of oblivion.
Alden's foot narrowly missed the body of a sleeping robin. An owl,
lodged in the fork of a tree, moved not as the men passed. It, too,
was whelmed in deep, temporary Nirvana.
The party's next find arrested them, with a thrill of genuine
emotion, a triumph that could not be denied some few half-whispered
exclamations of exultation from the Master's three companions. He
himself was the only one who spoke no word. But, like the others, he
had stopped and was pointing the beam of his light on the figure lying
inert among broken bushes.
With his toe he touched this figure. His light picked up the man's
face from the gloom. That face was looking at him with wide-open eyes.
The eyes saw nothing; but a kind of overwhelming astonishment still
seemed mirrored there, caught in the last moment of consciousness as
the man had fallen.
The effect was startling, of that sleeping face, those open eyes, that
lax mouth. The man was breathing easily, peacefully as a tired child.
The Master's brows contracted a little. His lips tightened. Then he
nodded, and smiled the ghost of a smile.
"Lord!" exclaimed Bohannan, half awed by the weirdness of the
apparition. "Staring at us, that way--and all! Is he asleep?"
"Try him in any way your ingenuity may suggest," answered the Master,
while Alden blinked strangely through his eyeholes, and Rrisa in
Arabic affirmed that there is no God but Allah. "Try to force some
sense-impression to his brain. It is sleep, but it is more than that.
The best experiment for any doubting Thomas to employ is just to waken
this guard--if possible."
Bohannan shook his head.
"No," he answered, "I'm not going to make a fool of myself. There's no
going against any of your statements. I'm beginning to find that out,
definitely. Let's be on our way!"
The Master spoke a few quick words of Arabic to his orderly. Rrisa
knelt by the prostrate man. Then, while the Master kept the light-beam
on him, Rrisa unbuckled the guard's belt, with cartridges and holster
containing an ugly snouted gun. This belt the Arab slung round his own
body. He arose. In silence, leaving the unconscious man just as he had
fallen, they once more pushed onward.
Lights were beginning to gleam ahead, now, in what appeared to be a
long, high line. The trees half hid them, but moment by moment they
appeared more distinctly. Meantime, too, the glow over the stockade
was getting stronger. Presently the trees ceased; and there before
them the men saw a wide, cleared space, a hundred feet of empty land
between the woods and a tall, stout fence topped with live wires and
with numerous incandescents.
"Nice place to tackle, if anybody were left to defend it!" commented
Bohannan. None of the others answered. The Master started diagonally
across the cleared space, toward a cluster of little buildings and
stout gate-posts.
Hardly had they emerged from the woods, when, all up and down the
line, till it was broken by the woods at both ends where the stockade
joined its eastern and western wall, other men began appearing. And
all, alike, converged toward the gate.
But to these, the little party of four gave no heed. Other men
absorbed their interest--sleeping men, now more and more thickly
scattered all along the stockade. Save for a slight, saline tang
to the air--an odor by no means unpleasant--nothing remained of the
lethal gas.
But its victims still lay there, prone, in every possible attitude of
complete and overpowering abandonment. And all, as the party of four
passed, were quickly disarmed. Up and down the open space, other
Legionaries were at the same work.
The Master and his companions reached the gate-house first of any
in the party. The gate was massive, of stout oaken planks heavily
strapped with iron. About it, and the gate-house, a good many
guards were lying. All showed evidence of having dropped asleep with
irresistible suddenness.
Some were gaping, others foolishly grinning as if their last sensation
had been agreeable--as indeed it had been--while others stared
disconcertingly. The chin of one showed an ugly burn where his Turkish
cigarette had sagged, and had smoldered to extinction on the flesh.
One had a watch in his hand, while another gripped a newspaper. In the
gate-house, two had fallen face downward on the table that occupied
the center of the rough room; checker-pieces lay scattered from the
game they had been playing. Several men sprawled just outside the
little house, on the platform. Under the incandescents, the effect
grew weird.
Bohannan shuddered, as he glanced from one to another, then up at some
of the approaching men of the expedition. Rrisa affirmed that Mohammed
was indeed the prophet of Allah, and that the ways of the _Nasara_
were most strange.
"Good!" exclaimed the Master, with his first word of approval. Even
his aplomb was a little shaken by the complete success of the attack.
"It's all working like a clock."
"How about disarming these men, sir?" queried Captain Alden.
"No. They fall under the orders of another group."
"The way is clear, then--"
"Absolutely! These men will sleep almost precisely thirty minutes. The
way is clear ahead of us. Forward into the Palisade!"