VICTORY.
It was a little after three o'clock in the afternoon when Natas,
Tremayne, and Arnold ended their deliberations in the saloon of the
_Ithuriel_. At the same hour a council of war was being held by
Generals le Gallifet and Cosensz at the Crystal Palace Hotel,
Sydenham, where the two commanders had taken up their quarters.
Since daybreak matters had assumed a very serious, if not desperate
aspect for the troops of the League to the south of London.
Communication had entirely ceased with the Tsar since the night
before, and this could only mean that his Majesty had lost the
command of the air, through the destruction or disablement of his
fleet of aerostats. News from the force which had descended upon
London told only of a fearful expenditure of life that had not
purchased the slightest advantage.
The blockade had been broken on the east, and, therefore, all hope of
reducing the city by famine was at an end. Their own war-balloons had
been either captured or destroyed, thousands of their men had
deserted to the enemy, and multitudes more had been slain. Every
position was dominated by the captured aerostats and the air-ships of
the Terrorists. Even the building in which the council was being held
might be shattered to fragments at any moment by a discharge of their
irresistible artillery.
Finally, it was practically certain that within the next few hours
their headquarters must be surrounded, and then their only choice
would lie between unconditional surrender and swift and inevitable
destruction by an aërial bombardment. Manifestly the time had come to
make terms if possible, and purchase their own safety and that of
their remaining troops. Both the generals and every member of their
respective staffs saw clearly that victory was now a physical
impossibility, and so the immediate issue of the council was that
orders were given to hoist the white flag over the tricolour and the
Italian standard on the summits of the two towers of the Crystal
Palace, and on the flagstaffs over the headquarters.
These were at once seen by a squadron of air-ships coming from the
north in obedience to Tremayne's summons, and within half an hour the
same squadron was seen returning from the south headed by the
flagship, also flying, to the satisfaction of the two generals, the
signal of truce. The air-ships stopped over Sydenham and ranged
themselves in a circle with their guns pointing down upon the
headquarters, and the _Ariel_, with Tremayne on board, descended to
within twenty feet of the ground in front of the hotel.
As she did so an officer wearing the uniform of a French General of
Division came forward, saluted, and said that he had a message for
the Commander-in-Chief of the Federation forces. Tremayne returned
the salute, and said briefly--
"I am here. What is the message?"
"I am commissioned by General Gallifet, Commander-in-Chief of the
Southern Division, to request on his behalf the honour of an
audience. He awaits you with General Cosensz in the hotel," replied
the Frenchman, gazing in undisguised admiration at the wonderful
craft which he now for the first time saw at close quarters.
"With pleasure. I will be with you in a moment," said Tremayne, and
as he spoke the _Ariel_ settled gently down to the earth, and the
gangway steps dropped from her bow.
As he entered the room in which the two generals were awaiting him,
surrounded by their brilliantly-uniformed staffs, he presented a
strange contrast to the men whose lives he held in the hollow of his
hand. He was dressed in a dark tweed suit, with Norfolk jacket and
knickerbockers, met by long shooting boots, just as though he was
fresh from the moors, instead of from the battlefield on which the
fate of the world was being decided. General le Gallifet advanced to
meet him with a puzzled look of half-recognition on his face, which
was at once banished by Tremayne holding out his hand without the
slightest ceremony, and saying--
"Ah, I see you recognise me, General!"
"I do, my Lord Alanmere, and, you will permit me to add, with the
most profound astonishment," replied the General, taking the
proffered hand with a hearty grasp. "May I venture to hope that with
an old acquaintance our negotiations may prove all the easier?"
Tremayne bowed and said--
"Rest assured, General, that they shall be as easy as my instructions
will permit me to make them."
"Your instructions! But I thought"--
"That I was in supreme command. So I am in a sense, but I am the
lieutenant of Natas for all that, and in a case like this his word is
law. But come, what terms do you propose?"
"That truce shall be proclaimed for twenty-four hours; that the
commanders of the forces of the League shall meet this mysterious
Natas, yourself, and the King of England, and arrange terms by which
the armies of France, Russia, and Italy shall be permitted to
evacuate the country with the honours of war."
"Then, General, I may as well tell you at once that those terms are
impossible," replied the Chief of the Federation quietly, but with a
note of inflexible determination in his voice. "In the first place,
'the honours of war' is a phrase which already belongs to the past.
We see no honour in war, and if we can have our way this shall be the
last war that shall ever be waged on earth.
"Indeed, I may tell you that we began this war as one of absolute
extermination. Had it not been for the intercession of Natasha, the
daughter of Natas, you would not even have been given the opportunity
of making terms of peace, or even of unconditional surrender. Our
orders were simply to slay, and spare not, as long as a man remained
in arms on British soil. You are, of course, aware that we have taken
no prisoners"--
"But, my lord, this is not war, it is murder on the most colossal
scale!" exclaimed the General, utterly unable to control the
agitation that these terrible words evoked, not only in his own
breast, but in that of every man who heard them.
"To us war and murder are synonymous terms, differing only as
wholesale and retail," replied Tremayne drily; "for the mere names we
care nothing. This world-war is none of our seeking; but if war can
be cured by nothing but war, then we will wage it to the point of
extermination. Now here are my terms. All the troops of the League on
this side of the river Thames, on laying down their arms, shall be
permitted to return to their homes, not as soldiers, but as peaceful
citizens of the world, to go about their natural business as men who
have sworn never to draw the sword again save in defence of their own
homes."
"And his Majesty the Tsar?"
"You cannot make terms for the Tsar, General, and let me beg of you
not to attempt to do so. No power under heaven can save him and his
advisers from the fate that awaits them."
"And if we refuse your terms, the alternative is what?"
"Annihilation to the last man!"
A dead silence followed these fearful words so calmly and yet so
inflexibly spoken. General le Gallifet and the Italian
Commander-in-Chief looked at one another and at the officers standing
about them. A murmur of horror and indignation passed from lip to
lip. Then Tremayne spoke again quickly but impressively--
"Gentlemen, don't think that I am saying what I cannot do. We are
inflexibly determined to stamp the curse of war out here and now, if
it cost millions of lives to do so. Your forces are surrounded, your
aerostats are captured or destroyed. It is no use mincing matters at
a moment like this. It is life or death with you. If you do not
believe me, General le Gallifet, come with me and take a flight round
London in my air-ship yonder, and your own eyes shall see how
hopeless all further struggle is. I pledge my word of honour as an
English gentleman that you shall return in safety. Will you come?"
"I will," said the French commander. "Gentlemen, you will await my
return"; and with a bow to his companions, he followed the Chief out
of the room, and embarked on the air-ship without further ado.
[Illustration: "Do you understand now why you could not make terms
for Russia?"
_See page 351._]
The _Ariel_ at once rose into the air. Tremayne reported to Natas
what had been done, and then took the General into the deck saloon,
and gave orders to proceed at full speed to Richmond, which was
reached in what seemed to the Frenchman an inconceivably short space
of time. Then the _Ariel_ swung round to the eastward, and at half
speed traversed the whole line of battle over hill and vale, at an
elevation of eight hundred feet, from Richmond to Shooter's Hill.
What General le Gallifet saw more than convinced him that Tremayne
had spoken without exaggeration when he said that annihilation was
the only alternative to evacuation on his terms. The grey legions of
the League seemed innumerable. Their long lines lapped round the
broken squadrons of the League, mowing them down with incessant
hailstorms of magazine fire, and overhead the air-ships and aerostats
were hurling shells on them which made great dark gaps in their
formations wherever they attempted anything like order. Every
position of importance was either occupied or surrounded by the
Federationists. There was no way open save towards London, and that
way, as the General knew only too well, lay destruction.
To the east of Shooter's Hill the air-ship swerved round to the
northward. The Thames was alive with steamers flying the red flag,
and carrying food and men into London. To the north of the river the
battle had completely ceased as far as Muswell Hill.
There the Black Eagle of Russia still floated from the roof of the
Palace, and a furious battle was raging round the slopes of the hill.
But the Russians were already surrounded, and manifestly outnumbered
five to one, while six aerostats were circling to and fro, doing
their work of death upon them with fearful effectiveness.
"You see, General, that the aerostats do not destroy the Palace and
bury the Tsar in its ruins, nor do I stop and do the same, as I could
do in a few minutes. Do you understand now why you could not make
terms for Russia?"
"What your designs are Heaven and yourselves only know," replied the
General, with quivering lips. "But I see that all is hopelessly lost.
For God's sake let this carnage stop! It is not war, it is butchery,
and we have deserved this retribution for employing those infernal
contrivances in the first place. I always said it was not fair
fighting. It is murder to drop death on defenceless men from the
clouds. We will accept your terms. Let us get back to the south and
save the lives of what remain of our brave fellows. If this is
scientific warfare, I, for one, will fight no more!"
"Well spoken, General!" said Tremayne, laying his hand upon his
shoulder. "Those words of yours have saved two millions of human
lives, and by this time to-morrow war will have ceased, I hope for
ever, among the nations of the West."
The _Ariel_ now swerved southward again, crossed London at full
speed, and within half an hour General le Gallifet was once more
standing in front of the Crystal Palace Hotel. As it was now getting
dusk the searchlights of the air-ships were turned on, and they swept
along the southern line of battle flashing the signal, "Victory!
Cease firing!" to the triumphant hosts of the Federation, while at
the same time the French and Italian commanders set the field
telegraph to work and despatched messengers into London with the news
of the terms of peace. By nightfall all fighting south of the Thames
had ceased, and victors and vanquished were fraternising as though
they had never struck a blow at each other, for war is a matter of
diplomacy and Court intrigue, and not of personal animosity. The
peoples of the world would be good enough friends if their rulers and
politicians would let them.
Meanwhile the battle raged with unabated fury round the headquarters
of the Tsar. Here despotism was making its last stand, and making it
bravely, in spite of the tremendous odds against it. But as twilight
deepened into night the numbers of the assailants of the last of the
Russian positions seemed to multiply miraculously.
A never-ceasing flood of grey-clad soldiery surged up from the south,
overflowed the barricades to the north, and swept the last of the
Russians out of the streets like so much chaff. All the hundred
streams converged upon Muswell Hill, and joined the ranks of the
attacking force, and so the night fell upon the last struggle of the
world-war. Even the Tsar himself now saw that the gigantic game was
virtually over, and that the stake of world-empire had been played
for--and lost.
[Illustration: "A vision which no one who saw it forgot to the day of
his death."
_See page 353._]
A powerful field searchlight had been fixed on the roof of the
Palace, and, as it flashed hither and thither round the area of the
battle, he saw fresh hosts of the British and Federation soldiers
pouring in upon the scene of action, while his own men were being
mown down by thousands under the concentrated fire of millions of
rifles, and his regiments torn to fragments by the incessant storm of
explosives from the sky.
Hour after hour the savage fight went on, and the grey and red lines
fought their way up and up the slopes, drawing the ring of flame and
steel closer and closer round the summit of the hill on which the
Autocrat of the North stood waiting for the hour of his fate to
strike.
The last line of the defenders of the position was reached at length.
For an hour it held firm in spite of the fearful odds. Then it
wavered and bent, and swayed to and fro in a last agony of
desperation. The encircling lines seemed to surge backwards for a
space. Then came a wild chorus of hurrahs, a swift forward rush of
levelled bayonets, the clash of steel upon steel--and then butchery,
vengeful and pitiless.
The red tide of slaughter surged up to the very walls of the Palace.
Only a few yards separated the foremost ranks of the victorious
assailants from the little group of officers, in the midst of which
towered the majestic figure of the White Tsar--an emperor without an
empire, a leader without an army. He strode forward towards the line
of bayonets fringing the crest of the hill, drew his sword, snapped
the blade as a man would break a dry stick, and threw the two pieces
to the ground, saying in English as he did so--
"It is enough, I surrender!"
Then he turned on his heel, and with bowed head walked back again to
his Staff.
Almost at the same moment a blaze of white light appeared in the sky,
a hundred feet above the heads of the vast throng that encircled the
Palace. Millions of eyes were turned up at once, and beheld a vision
which no one who saw it forgot to the day of his death.
The ten air-ships of the Terrorist fleet were ranged in two curves on
either side of the _Ithuriel_, which floated about twenty feet below
them, her silvery hull bathed in a flood of light from their electric
lamps. In her bow, robed in glistening white fur, stood Natasha,
transfigured in the full blaze of the concentrated searchlights. A
silence of wonder and expectation fell upon the millions at her feet,
and in the midst of it she began to sing the Hymn of Freedom. It was
like the voice of an angel singing in the night of peace after
strife.
Men of every nation in Europe listened to her entranced, as she
changed from language to language; and when at last the triumphant
strains of the Song of the Revolution came floating down from her
lips through the still night air, an irresistible impulse ran through
the listening millions, and with one accord they took up the refrain
in all the languages of Europe, and a mighty flood of exultant song
rolled up in wave after wave from earth to heaven,--a song at once of
victory and thanksgiving, for the last battle of the world-war had
been lost and won, and the valour and genius of Anglo-Saxondom had
triumphed over the last of the despotisms of Europe.