To this Paris returned a polite but uncompromising refusal, and Berlin promptly said that if the expedition sailed with ex-Captain Fargeau on board, a German squadron would stop it and take him off. To this France replied by mobilising the Northern Squadron and ordering the Admiral in command to escort the expedition to sea and protect it against assault at all hazards. Paris also sent Berlin a curt Note intimating that if the threat were carried out it would be taken as a declaration of war.
Another Note arrived at Berlin about the same time from Petersburg, informing the German Kaiser that these French and Russian Polar Expeditions formed a joint enterprise on the part of the two countries, and that any act hostile to the one would be considered hostile to the other. The Note also plainly hinted that, considering the tremendous nature of the issues involved by a breach of the international peace, such a trivial matter as the extradition of a person accused of treason could not possibly under the circumstances afford a valid reason for what would be to all intents and purposes an act of war.
Within twenty-four hours a powerful French squadron was manœuvring off the mouth of the Kiel Canal, just out of range of the forts; the French Polar Expedition, with Victor Fargeau on board, was making its way at full speed down the English Channel; the Russian expedition, headed by theIvan the Terrible, passed the North Cape on its way to the coast of Greenland; and four millions of Russians and Frenchmen of all arms were massed on the eastern and western frontier of Germany. At the same moment Kaiser Wilhelm called upon his brother sovereigns of Austria and Italy, and the Triple Alliance stood to arms by land and sea. In a word, the European powder-magazine was lying wide open, and the firing of a single shot would have turned it into a volcano.
Still the weeks dragged on, till the tension became almost unendurable. According to an old North of England saying, "One was afraid and t'other daren't start," the risks were so colossal.
Great Britain meanwhile kept her own counsel, and went on sweeping up the remnant of the rebel Boers in South Africa. The only precaution she had taken was to place every effective ship in the Navy in commission.
It was at this juncture that Europe experienced a new sensation. In one memorable week English, American, French, German, Austrian, and Italian liners from American ports brought packages of the strangest proclamation that ever was issued, and in the mail-bags of the same boats there were similar communications addressed to all the Chancelleries of Europe, and these were of a character to shake the official mind to its very foundations, as in fact they ultimately did.
The communications, both public and private, took the form of a modest circular dated from the offices of the International Electrical Power and Storage Trust, Buffalo, N.Y. Those which were addressed to the crowned heads of Europe were accompanied by autograph letters respectfully requesting the personal attention of the monarch to the contents of the circular. The circular ran as follows:—
The Secretary of the International Electrical Power and Storage Trust is directed by his Board of Managers to inform the ruling sovereigns and peoples of Europe of the following facts, and to request their most serious attention to the same:—A.The Directors of the Trust view with great concern the formidable military and naval preparations which have lately been made by the Powers of Europe. In their opinion, these preparations point to a near outbreak of hostilities on such an immense scale that not only must a vast expenditure of blood and money be inevitable, but the commerce of the world will be most injuriously affected.B.This Trust is a business concern. Its Directors have no international sympathies whatever, and they don't want war. At the same time, if the Powers of Europe are determined to fight, the Trust will permit them to do so on payment of a capitation fee of the equivalent in the money of each respective country of one dollar per head of effective fighting men in the field per week—fees to be paid into the Bank of England within seven days after the commencement of hostilities. A liberal allowance will be made for killed and wounded if official returns are promptly sent to the London office of the Trust, 56bOld Broad Street, London, E.C.C.Prompt attention to the foregoing paragraphs is earnestly requested for the following reasons:—(1) The Trust has acquired control of the electrical forces of the Northern Hemisphere, and is, therefore, in a position to make all the operations of civilised life, including warfare, possible or impossible, as its commercial arrangements may demand. (2) One week from the date above will be given for the Powers of Europe to settle their differences without fighting or to accede to the terms offered by the Trust. Failing this, the Northern Hemisphere, with certain exceptions, will be deprived of its electrical force. The consequences of this will be that cables and telegraphs will cease to work, and all machinery constructed of iron or steel will break down if operated. Railroads will become useless, and bridges of metallic construction will collapse as soon as any considerable weight is placed upon them.D.Finally, I am directed to state that, in addition to these results, it is unhappily probable that the withdrawal of electrical force will very seriously affect the health of the populations of the Northern Hemisphere. Death-rates will very largely increase, and it is probable that a new disease unknown to medical science will make its appearance. It is expected to be fatal in every case, if the terms of the Trust are not complied with, but it will first affect the young and the weakly. It is, therefore, to be hoped that considerations of humanity, if not of policy, will induce the peoples and the Governments of Europe to accede without delay to the conditions which I have the honour to submit.
The Secretary of the International Electrical Power and Storage Trust is directed by his Board of Managers to inform the ruling sovereigns and peoples of Europe of the following facts, and to request their most serious attention to the same:—
A.The Directors of the Trust view with great concern the formidable military and naval preparations which have lately been made by the Powers of Europe. In their opinion, these preparations point to a near outbreak of hostilities on such an immense scale that not only must a vast expenditure of blood and money be inevitable, but the commerce of the world will be most injuriously affected.
B.This Trust is a business concern. Its Directors have no international sympathies whatever, and they don't want war. At the same time, if the Powers of Europe are determined to fight, the Trust will permit them to do so on payment of a capitation fee of the equivalent in the money of each respective country of one dollar per head of effective fighting men in the field per week—fees to be paid into the Bank of England within seven days after the commencement of hostilities. A liberal allowance will be made for killed and wounded if official returns are promptly sent to the London office of the Trust, 56bOld Broad Street, London, E.C.
C.Prompt attention to the foregoing paragraphs is earnestly requested for the following reasons:—(1) The Trust has acquired control of the electrical forces of the Northern Hemisphere, and is, therefore, in a position to make all the operations of civilised life, including warfare, possible or impossible, as its commercial arrangements may demand. (2) One week from the date above will be given for the Powers of Europe to settle their differences without fighting or to accede to the terms offered by the Trust. Failing this, the Northern Hemisphere, with certain exceptions, will be deprived of its electrical force. The consequences of this will be that cables and telegraphs will cease to work, and all machinery constructed of iron or steel will break down if operated. Railroads will become useless, and bridges of metallic construction will collapse as soon as any considerable weight is placed upon them.
D.Finally, I am directed to state that, in addition to these results, it is unhappily probable that the withdrawal of electrical force will very seriously affect the health of the populations of the Northern Hemisphere. Death-rates will very largely increase, and it is probable that a new disease unknown to medical science will make its appearance. It is expected to be fatal in every case, if the terms of the Trust are not complied with, but it will first affect the young and the weakly. It is, therefore, to be hoped that considerations of humanity, if not of policy, will induce the peoples and the Governments of Europe to accede without delay to the conditions which I have the honour to submit.
As may well be imagined, this seemingly preposterous circular was received either with derision or contemptuous silence in every capital of Europe save Paris. There its import was only too well-known, but at the same time it was impossible for France alone among the nations to acknowledge herself the vassal of the Trust. In Petersburg something of the truth was known; but the Government, confident of the success of the two expeditions, just dropped the communication into the official waste-paper basket and went on with its naval and military preparations.
Everything depended upon the six vessels which were steaming towards Boothia Land reaching their goal and accomplishing their mission. If they succeeded, Europe would be plunged into the bloodiest war that had been fought since the days of Napoleon. If they failed, the war would be stopped by an invisible, but irresistible, force, and humanity would be astounded by the accomplishment of such a miracle of science as it had never seen before.
CHAPTER XXV
Every day after the issue of the circular the wire which connected the Storage Works with Winnipeg was kept hot with the news of what was going on in the far-away civilised world, but for some time all that was heard in that land of unsetting suns only amounted to this: Everywhere the Press of Europe had received the pronouncement of the Trust with incredulous derision. It had, in fact, provided professional humourists and caricaturists with quite a new field of industry.
The Governments, as had been expected, took not the slightest notice of it, and General Ducros and the French President, who alone knew what a terrible meaning lay in the plain business-like language of the circular, awaited more and more anxiously as the days went by the execution of the dread fiat of the World Masters.
The sinking of theVlodoyaand the disappearance of theNadinehad convinced the Minister for War and also the Russian Government that the plot to capture the controllers of the Storage Trust had failed, but they could do nothing without admitting that they knew and believed in the power of the Trust to do as it threatened. Moreover, they could not submit to the terms unless all the other Powers did, and they had not even deigned to notice the existence of the Trust. Meanwhile, the preparations for war went on, and on the day before the expiration of the time given by the general ultimatum to France, the French troops crossed the border at Verdun, Nancy, and Mulhausen, and the Northern Squadron, strongly reinforced, blockaded the mouth of the Elbe and the Kiel Canal. The Russian Baltic Squadron, which had been going through its summer manœuvres, blocked the exits from the inland seas and threatened the northern coast of Germany, while the Russian army was concentrating in enormous numbers at several points along the Polish frontier.
When Austin Vandel took the dispatch containing this last news into the department at the works which was commonly called the board-room, the president passed it to Lord Orrel and Hardress, who were having a smoke and afternoon chat with him, and said:
"Well, I reckon the Powers mean business, and so, as they haven't had the politeness to answer that communication of ours, I reckon it's about time we showed them that we mean it, too. They'll be fighting by this time."
"I suppose so," replied Lord Orrel; "and of course it's no use waiting any longer under the circumstances."
"Not a bit," added Hardress; "in fact, as you know, my idea was to start a fortnight ago. If we'd done that they might have found it a bit difficult even to start."
"But after all, Shafto," said his father, "a fortnight matters nothing to us; and the object-lesson will be very much more striking if we allow hostilities to get into full swing, and then bring them to a dead stop. Still, we will begin at once, and I propose, president, that when everything is ready your daughter shall do us the honour of starting the engines."
"And if that wants any seconding," added Hardress, "I'll do it."
"I reckon that'll be about the proudest moment of Chrysie's life," laughed the president. "And seeing that our guests have pretty good reason to take an interest in the engines, perhaps it would only be polite to ask them to come and assist at the ceremony."
"Oh, certainly," said Lord Orrel. "There can't be any objection to that. Shafto, suppose you go and invite them. And it wouldn't be a bad idea if we had a little dinner together afterwards, just to celebrate the occasion. You might see Miss Chrysie also and request the honour of her services."
As Hardress left the room the president said to his nephew: "Austin, you can go and wire to our people here and over in England that the experiment begins to-night. Ask them to let us have all the news they can send, and especially to let us know whether any electric disturbances take place in our territories; and you might ask Doctor Lamson to come over for a few minutes."
From this conversation it will be seen that the momentous voyage of theNadinehad ended without any further mishap. Davis Straits and the Northern waters had been singularly clear of ice, and she had been able to steer the whole way to Port Adelaide without difficulty. Doctor Lamson had received them in the midst of his marvellous creation as quietly as though he had been receiving them in his own house at Hampstead. They had all admired and wondered at the sombre magnificence of what was certainly the most extraordinary structure on the face of the globe. But those who are permitted to see them have marvelled still more at the huge engines and the maze of intricately complicated apparatus which the magic of money and science had called into being in the midst of this desolate wilderness.
So far, the involuntary guests of the Trust had not been permitted to see anything more than the outsides of the engine-rooms and the apartments which they occupied. They had been politely but unmistakably given to understand that, after what had happened, it would be necessary to consider them as prisoners. They would be treated with every consideration—in fact, as guests. But at the same time, they would be closely watched, and any attempt to communicate with any officer or workman employed on the Works would be immediately punished by close confinement for all of them. For their part, they had accepted the strange situation with perfect philosophy, and awaited the coming of the expeditions with a great deal more confidence than they would have felt had they known the terrible nature of the defences with which Doctor Lamson had armed this fortress in the wilderness.
Within an hour after the president had pronounced the fiat which was to alter the history of the world, everything was in readiness for the making of the Great Experiment, and, for the first time since their arrival in Boothia, Count Valdemar, Sophie, and the marquise were admitted into the great engine-rooms which stood in the middle of each side of the quadrangle. They stared in frank astonishment at the colossal machinery, and the count said to the president as they entered No. 1, or the Northern engine-room:
"Our aims may not be the same, but I am compelled to confess that you have wrought a most astounding miracle in the midst of the ghastly desert."
"It's pretty good," he replied; "but, after all, it's just the sort of miracle that dollars and brains can work all the time. This is not the miracle, this is only what is going to work it. The real miracle will be what our friends in Europe see and feel. Well, now, doctor, are we ready?"
"Quite," replied Lamson. "Lady Olive, you will send the signal to the other rooms? A man is stationed in each of them, and if you touch that button when Miss Vandel pulls the lever you will start the other three engines."
Miss Chrysie, looking just a trifle pale and nervous, took hold of the lever and stood ready to perform the most momentous act ever done by the hand of woman. It had been decided to start the engines precisely at six, and the minute hand of the engine-room clock was getting very near the perpendicular.
"It seems a pretty awful thing to do, you know, poppa," she said, "just to pull this thing and set half the world dying."
"No; I think you are wrong there, Chrysie," said Hardress, who was standing beside her, and Adelaide's teeth gritted together as she heard the name for the first time from his lips. "When you pull that lever you will save life, not destroy it. Without us the war might go on for months or years and cost millions of lives: but ten days after you have pulled that lever the European war will be impossible."
"Then," said Miss Chrysie, tightening her grip on the handle, "I guess I'll pull!" At this moment the clock struck the first note of six, and at the third she drew the lever towards her.
The starting-engine gave a few short puffs and pants. Lady Olive touched the button, and the bells tinkled in the other engine-rooms. The huge cranks of the steel giants began to revolve. The mighty cylinders gasped and hissed, and the huge fly-wheels began to move, at first almost imperceptibly, and then faster and faster, till each was a whirling circle of bright steel. The hiss of the steam ceased, and the four giants settled down to their momentous work in silence, save for a low, purring hum, which was not to cease day or night until armed Europe had acknowledged their all-compelling power.
"It is very wonderful, but very weird," said Adelaide to Chrysie as they left the room, "if only it is all true. To think that you, by just bending your arm should set those mighty monsters to work—and such work! to steal the soul out of the world, to paralyse armies and fleets, perhaps to make Governments impossible—perhaps to reduce civilisation to chaos!"
"I reckon those engines will cause less chaos than your friends in Europe, marquise," she replied, shortly, but not unkindly; "but, anyhow, they should have taken poppa's terms; and if they will fight, they must pay for the luxury. Anyhow, we'd better not talk about that; it's no use getting unfriendly over subjects we can't agree upon. What do you say, countess?"
"I entirely agree with you," said Sophie, frankly. "You know, Adelaide, that for prisoners of war we are being treated exceedingly well. And for the present, at least, until our hosts are able to terminate their invitation, I think we might be as nearly friends as we can be."
"That's so," said Miss Chrysie, heartily, yet well knowing that they were both awaiting the moment when, as they believed, the arrival of the expeditions would make the present owners of the works prisoners of France and Russia, and that either of them would poison her or put a bullet through her without the slightest hesitation. "Yes; that's so. We've got to live here together for a bit, and I reckon we may as well do it as pleasantly as possible. And now, suppose we go to dinner."
All things considered, the dinner was really a most agreeable function. The principal topic of conversation was, of course, the effect which the starting of the works would produce on the Northern Hemisphere in general and the fleets and armies of Europe in particular. International politics, too, were discussed, not only with freedom, but with a knowledge which would have astonished many a European Minister; but one subject was tabooed by mutual consent, and that was the French and Russian Polar Expeditions, which, if they were really making for Boothia Land, ought to arrive in about a week's time.
The three involuntary guests knew perfectly well that their hosts were expecting them. Their hosts knew that they knew this, and, therefore, as a matter of politeness and mutual convenience, the words "Polar Expedition" were absolutely banished from their conversation. Meanwhile, Port Adelaide had been fast emptying for the time when the colliers and cargo boats could get back, for the time was limited. Only theNadineand theWashington, a passenger boat capable of about sixteen knots, which had brought the staff up from Halifax, were kept, in addition to a couple of steam launches and a powerful tug sheathed and fitted as an icebreaker.
TheNadineand theWashingtonconstantly patrolled the coast for twenty miles in each direction, on the lookout for the expeditions. Around and inside the works life went on as quietly as though nothing out of the common was happening. The unsetting sun rose and dipped on the southern horizon, and the great engines purred unceasingly, working out the dream of the man whose mangled body lay in a nameless grave on an alien soil.
They had been working for six days when Europe awoke to an uneasy suspicion that, after all, there must have been something in that preposterous circular which the Electrical Power and Storage Trust, of Buffalo, N.Y., had sent out some five weeks before.
On the evening of the fifth day after Miss Chrysie had pulled the lever over in No. 1 engine-room a series of unaccountable accidents happened in the engine-rooms of the French Northern Squadron, which was blockading the mouth of the Elbe. Do what they would, the engineers could not keep the engines working smoothly. Little accidents kept on happening with such frequency that the efforts of the whole staff could scarcely keep the engines in working order; and about the same time the officers on the bridges, noticed that the compasses were beginning to behave in a most extraordinary fashion. Even when the ships were quite stationary, they wavered two or three degrees on either side of north, and as the night wore on the variation increased.
The next morning there happened what, up to then, was the strangest incident in warfare. TheCharles Martel, one of the most powerful ironclads in the French fleet, was cruising under easy steam, just out of range of the heavy guns on the canal forts, when the admiral commanding the squadron, who was on the bridge, heard a muffled grinding noise, and felt a shudder run through the vast fabric. The next moment an officer came up from the lower deck, saluted, and gasped:
"Admiral, the port shaft has broken, and we are only going quarter speed!"
He had hardly got the last words out of his mouth before there was another grinding shock, and a dull rattle away down in the vitals of the ship.
"Ah, there is something more!" cried the officer. "They tell me that the engines have been mad all night."
"Go and see what it is," said the admiral; "we must put out to sea with one engine." At that moment the chief engineer came up, looking white and scared, and said, in a low, shaking voice:
"Monsieur, the crank shaft of the starboard engine has splintered as though it had been made of glass. We are disabled!"
"Nom de Dieu!" exclaimed the admiral. "What is that you say?—disabled? and the tide setting in. Then we are lost. A few minutes will take us within range of the guns on the Canal and at Cuxhaven, and in an hour we may be ashore. There is no hope of repairs, I suppose?"
"Impossible, Monsieur l'Amiral. It would take weeks in the best dockyard in France to repair the damage."
"Then," said the admiral, turning to the commander, who was standing beside him, "we must do what we can. We will not be lost for nothing. Let everything be ready to return the fire of the forts as soon as we are within range."
By this time the German officers on the forts had noted with amazement, not unmixed with satisfaction, that some unaccountable accident had happened to the great French battleship. She was not under steam, she was not steering, she was simply drifting in with the tide as helplessly as a barrel. The tide was setting dead in towards the mouth of the Canal, and the commander of the great fort at Brunsbüttel, making certain of her surrender or destruction, ordered three of his heaviest guns, monsters capable of throwing a nine-hundred-pound shell to a distance of nearly fourteen miles, to prepare for action. They were mounted on disappearing carriages worked by hydraulic machinery.
The guns were already loaded, the mechanism was set in motion, and the giants rose slowly till their muzzles grinned over the glacis of the fort. Then, without any warning, the framework of one of the carriages cracked and splintered in all directions, the huge gun came back with a terrific crash on to the concrete floor of the emplacement, and, to the amazement of officers and gunners, broke into three pieces as if it had been made of glass instead of the finest steel that Krupp could produce.
Officers and men stared at each other in silent amazement. Were even the guns and their machinery affected by this strange languor which had been afflicting both men and animals for the last day or two? Instinctively they drew away from the other gun; but theCharles Martelwas now well within range, and Colonel Von Altenau saw that it was his duty not to allow her to come any closer. In fact, he was almost surprised to see that she had not already opened fire upon the fort, so he ordered the centre gun to be trained on her and fired.
As the lanyard was pulled, those on board the battleship saw a vivid burst of flame, and the roar of an explosion came dully across the water, but no shell followed it. The admiral immediately came to the conclusion that some accident had happened in the fort, and he ordered his two forward 13-inch guns to send a couple of shells into it. He went into the conning-tower, and as soon as he received the signal that the guns were ready and laid, he pressed the electric button which should have sent the sparks through the charges. Nothing happened, and the guns remained silent.
Then he called down the speaking-tube connecting the conning-tower with the barbette:
"The wire does not act. Let the guns be fired by hand."
He was obeyed, and the next moment the blast of a frightful explosion shook the whole fabric of the ship. Barbette and guns disappeared in a blinding blaze of flame. The solid steel crumbled to dust, the decks cracked like starred glass in all directions, and some forty brave fellows were blown over the edge of eternity without even knowing what had happened to them. Both guns had burst into thousands of fragments, just as the great German gun in the fort had done, killing every man within twenty yards of it. The guns had, in fact, behaved much as that little square of steel had done when Doctor Emil Fargeau hit it with a wooden mallet.
Thus the first shots of the war had resulted only in the slaying of those who had fired them. As the helplessCharles Marteldrifted slowly towards the other forts, they attempted to open fire on her, but after two more big guns had blown themselves to atoms, and killed or maimed a hundred men, she was allowed to drift on until she found a resting-place on the Elbe mud.
On the other ships of the French Squadron disaster after disaster had been happening meanwhile. Engine after engine broke down, electric signals, as well as the electrical ammunition lifts, ceased to work. The compass cards swung about as aimlessly as though there was no such thing as a Magnetic Pole in existence, and as ship after ship became disabled with broken shafts, cracked cylinders, or splintered piston-rods, a score of the finest warships that France had ever put to sea drifted helplessly up with the tide under the eyes of an enemy that could not fire a shot at them.
The commander-in-chief of the Brunsbüttel station telegraphed to his colleague at Kiel to report the unaccountable disaster, but no answer was received. The message was repeated, and a lieutenant came in a few minutes later, clicked his heels together, and said:
"Herr Commandant, it is impossible to communicate with Kiel, the instruments have ceased to work. I have telephoned as well, but the wires are dead."
"But it is ridiculous—unaccountable!" exclaimed the commandant. "We must communicate. Have an engine made ready at once, Lieutenant, and go yourself. I will send a letter."
The lieutenant found a locomotive with steam up. He took the commandant's letter and started. Within fifty yards the engine broke down as completely as the machinery of theCharles Martelhad done.
CHAPTER XXVI
Eight days out of the ten calculated by the president and Doctor Lamson for the progress of the Great Experiment had expired, and Europe presented the extraordinary spectacle of a continent armed to the teeth, possessing the mightiest weapons of destruction that human science and skill could invent and construct—and divided into two hostile camps which were practically unable to hurt each other.
Away in the far northern wilderness the giant engines purred on remorselessly, continually drawing away more and more of the vital earth-spirit from Europe and Asia. In Great Britain and North America nothing had happened, except a succession of abnormally violent thunderstorms, and certain other minor electrical disturbances which were only detected by instruments at the observatories; but all cables had ceased to work, and the only sea communication possible was by means of wooden sailing ships, for every steamer, whether warship, liner, or tramp, broke down when she got about fifteen miles from the English or American coasts. What was happening in the Southern Hemisphere no one knew till long afterwards.
Throughout Europe and Asia a most extraordinary condition of things was coming to pass. What had happened at Kiel happened also at all the great fortresses along the German frontier which were invested by the French and Russians. Guns of all calibres on both sides burst, killing those who used them, but doing no damage to the enemy. Quick-firing guns jammed or burst and became useless. If a man tried to fire a rifle, the breech-lock blew out and killed or maimed him, until French and Germans, Russians, Austrians, and Italians alike refused to fire a shot, and even on the rare occasions when bodies of men got near enough to each other for a cavalry or bayonet charge, lance-points, sabres, and bayonets cracked and splintered like so many icicles.
By the tenth day every officer and man in Europe had recognised that if the war was to go on at all it would have to be fought out with fists and feet. All modern weapons of warfare had suddenly become useless. Moreover, communication had become so difficult, that the feeding of the vast armies in the field was rapidly approaching impossibility, and the helpless, hostile battalions were beginning to starve in sight of each other. Locomotives broke down or blew up, bridges collapsed under the weight of the trains, and now horses and men had become afflicted with a deadly languor which made severe exertion an impossibility.
From the war lords of the nations to the raw conscripts and the camp-followers it was the same. Neither mind nor body would do its work. The soul of the world was leaving it—drawn out by those remorseless engines into the vast receivers of the Storage Works—and men were beginning to find that without it they could neither think nor work any more than they could fight.
There was not a cable or a telegraph line in Europe or Asia that could be operated, not a stationary or locomotive engine that would work without breaking down or blowing up. Electric lighting and traction had for two or three days been things of the past. Throughout two continents industries and commerce, like war, were at a standstill; a sort of creeping paralysis had spread from the Straits of Dover to the Sea of Japan.
There were no exceptions, from the rulers of the highest civilisations down to the sampan men of Canton and the fur-clad Samoyeds of the northern wilderness. Great fleets and squadrons were either drifting about the ocean or lying helpless on rock or sand or mud-bank, like the silenced forts full of guns and ammunition and yet unable to fire a single shot either in attack or defence.
On the morning of the eleventh day the French President, who had been drawn along the useless railway from Paris to Calais by relays of horses harnessed to a light truck running on wheels of papier-maché, embarked for Dover on board a fishing-lugger. Twelve hours before the German Emperor had sailed from Cuxhaven, which he had reached by rail with infinite difficulty, and after a dozen breakdowns, for Harwich in a fast wood-built schooner-yacht.
During the last four or five days there had been very little communication between the Continent and England. All English steamers, including warships, had been forbidden to pass the three-mile limit. By a happy accident the Channel Fleet and the Home Defence Squadron had anchored in British waters after the manœuvres just before Miss Chrysie pulled that fatal lever. The Mediterranean Fleet was at Malta, powerless to move an engine or fire a gun. Communication across the narrow seas was still possible by wooden sailing craft, and it was the news which these had brought from England that had induced the Kaiser and the President to go and see the miracle for themselves.
The moment that they set foot on English soil, which they did almost about the same time, the growing lassitude of the last few days vanished.
"These are truly the Fortunate Isles just now," exclaimed the Kaiser, as he drew his first breath of the cool English air. "A few moments and I am a man again. Then that circular which we all laughed at so was true!" he went on, to himself. "Yes, everything seems going on as usual. They seem to be caring as little about the state of Europe as they did about the African war. Why, there's a train running as easily as though the railways of Europe were not strewn with wrecks."
Then he turned to the aide-de-camp who had accompanied him, and said:
"Von Kritzener, see if you can get me a special to London—but no, we had better keep incognito. Be good enough to go and see when there is a fast train to London, and then we will get something to eat."
The Emperor and his aide were both in ordinary yachting costume, and the points of the famous moustache had been drooped downwards. The aide came back to the yacht in a few minutes, saying that there was a fast train to London in forty minutes; so his majesty dined briefly but well at the Great Eastern Hotel, and presently found himself speeding swiftly and smoothly and with an unwonted sense of security towards London.
The French President experienced practically the same sensations when he landed at Dover and took the train to Charing Cross. Everything was going on just as usual. They were even doing target practice with the big guns from Dover Castle; and as he heard the boom of the cannon, he thought with a shudder of what had happened only a day or two before to the great French siege-guns before Metz and Strassburg.
All he noticed out of the common was what the Kaiser noticed too—lines of great steel masts along the coast and clumps of them on every elevation inland. From what he had already learnt from General Ducros, he half-guessed that these were the means through which the earth received the vast volumes of electricity given off from the works in Boothia Land, and that it was thus that the magnetic equilibrium was kept undisturbed.
In London nothing seemed altered. Everybody was going about his daily business as though no such continent as Europe existed; so the President and the Kaiser, wondering greatly, both went and put up at Claridge's, and there, to their mutual astonishment, recognised each other. Both were strictly incognito, both recognised that the state of affairs in Europe had reached the limits of the possible, and both guessed that they had come practically on the same errand. Wherefore Kaiser bowed to President and President bowed to Kaiser, after which they shook hands, took wine together, and, like a couple of good sportsmen, proceeded a little later on to discuss the situation in the Kaiser's private sitting-room.
The result of an interesting and momentous conversation was that the Kaiser sent his aide with an autograph letter to Marlborough House requesting the honour of an interview with King Edward for himself and the President.
The answer was a royal brougham and pair, and a cordial invitation to the two potentates whom fate and the great Storage Trust had brought so strangely together to sleep at Marlborough House.
Nearly the whole of the next day was occupied in interviews between the three rulers, and also with the Ministers of the great Powers who were still in London. The American Minister and the English manager of the Great Storage Trust were present at most of them. At the end of a lengthy discussion on thestatus quo, the Kaiser confessed, in his usual frank, manly fashion, that not only Germany, but Europe, was helpless in face of the invisible but tremendous force which the Trust had shown itself capable of exercising.
"We are beaten," he said, "and it would be only foolishness to hide the fact. Our ships are helpless hulks, most of them wrecks, our trains will not run, our machinery will not work, our guns will not shoot. Within three days we have gone back to the Middle Ages, or beyond them, for, even if we had armour, you could break it with your fist, and you would not even want a mailed one," he added, with a laugh at his own expense.
"There are over ten millions of men carrying arms they cannot use, and hundreds of thousands of these men are starving because the railways are useless and no food can be got to them. It would be absurd were it not so great a tragedy; but since we cannot fight, we must arrange our differences some other way. What do you say, Monsieur le President?"
"I say as your Majesty does," replied Monsieur Loubet, in his blunt, common-sense fashion; "and since these gentlemen of the Trust have shown us how helpless fleets and armies may be rendered, perhaps Europe may be induced to seek for some more reasonable method of arranging disputes than by the shedding of blood."
"I most sincerely hope so," said King Edward; "and if these gentlemen are prepared to endorse these sentiments on behalf of their august masters, I think there will be little difficulty in arranging matters satisfactorily and putting an end to what may be justly described as an intolerable and impossible condition of affairs. What do you say, gentlemen?" he went on, turning to the Ministers.
"I fear, your Majesty, it would be necessary for me to communicate with my imperial master before I could pledge him to any course resembling surrender."
"My dear count," said the Kaiser, turning towards him with a laugh, "I am afraid you hardly realise the position. It would take you at the very least three weeks, possibly six, to reach Petersburg. You forget that all the mechanical triumphs of civilisation are for the present things of the past. There are no cables, no telegraphs, no railways. Neither horses nor men are capable of any great exertion, and their strength is becoming less every hour. Petersburg is farther from London to-day than Pekin was a month ago."
"And even from Paris," added the President when the Emperor had finished, "I have been four days travelling. I came to Calais in a truck drawn by horses along the railway, and from Calais in a fishing boat. Gentlemen, if I may venture to advise, I would suggest that the best, nay, the only thing that Europe, in your persons, can do, is to place itself in the hands of His Majesty King Edward. We have been enemies, but he is the friend of all of us, and if any man on earth can and will do right it is he."
"I entirely agree with Monsieur le President," said the Kaiser. "We are helpless, and he can help us. For my own part, I place the interests of Germany unreservedly in his hands."
After this it was impossible for the Ministers of the other Powers to hold back, and so a joint-note was drawn up there and then, praying King Edward to accept the office of mediator between the signatory Powers and those uncrowned monarchs who, from their citadel in the midst of the far-off northern wilderness, had proved their title to sovereignty by demonstrating their power to render the nation helpless at their will.
The only communication that was now possible with Canada, and therefore with Boothia Land, was by means of aërographic messages transmitted from one station to anotherviathe north of Scotland, The Faroes, Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland, where the cable was working as usual. It took nearly twelve hours for the messages to reach the works, and the president had scarcely communicated its contents to his colleagues when theNadinecame rushing full speed into Adelaide Bay with the news that the great Russian ice-breaker, with three other vessels in her wake, was steaming down from the northward about twenty miles away.
CHAPTER XXVII
The news of the coming of the expeditions was allowed to spread without comment through the works, and, to the intense surprise of the three involuntary guests of the Trust, no apparent precautions were taken to protect the works or the harbour in which theNadineand theWashingtonwere now lying against the coming of what everyone knew could be nothing but a hostile force. The two vessels having made their report, filled their bunkers and steamed out of the harbour again to the southward and westward. The great engines purred on, still draining Europe and Asia of their vital essence. An aërograph message was sent to King Edward and the President of the United States. The one to King Edward informed his Majesty that the president and board of trust, while insisting upon the terms of the circular they had addressed to the Powers of Europe, and giving fair warning of what would happen if those terms were ignored, were perfectly content to leave everything else in His Majesty's hands.
The message to the President gave him all the news that there was to give, and informed him that as soon as the King's decision was announced the engines would be stopped, the insulators removed, and the electrical and magnetic currents allowed to flow back over their natural courses, the result of which would be that, in from twenty-four to thirty-six hours, normal conditions would be re-established, and the business of the world could go on as usual. All fighting, however, save under a war-tax of a dollar per head per week of men engaged in armies and fleets would be prohibited. If this condition, which the London manager of the Trust had been instructed to lay before His Majesty and the foreign Ministers in London, were violated, the engines would be started again, with the same results as before.
It was about eight o'clock in the evening of the same day, to put it in conventional terms, for the long summer twilight of Boothia Land knew no morning and no evening, that the huge shape of the Russian ice-breaker, followed by her three consorts, one a genuine wooden-built exploring ship and the others, to a nautical eye, unmistakably steel cruisers disguised with wooden sheathings, rounded Cape Adelaide into the bay. A couple of miles behind them came the three ships of the French expedition, an antiquated cruiser fitted with the best modern guns, and two obsolete coast-defence ships, slow but strong, and also armed with formidable guns.
"So your friends have come at last," said Miss Chrysie to Adelaide and Sophie as they were taking their evening promenade along one of the broad parapeted walls which formed the quadrangle of the works. "Somehow I always thought it was this pole they were going to look for, not the other one. I reckon they allowed there was a lot more to be found here than up north yonder."
"Of course they did," said Adelaide, with a low laugh that had a wicked ring in it. "There is no need for diplomacy now. Here is the world-throne, the seat of such power as man never wielded before. Here, within these four great walls, are contained the destinies of all the nations on earth. Here is everything; anywhere else nothing. Pah! is it not worth fighting for?"
"My dear marquise," said Sophie, "do you not think that you are letting your feelings run away with you? I grant you they are natural, but——"
"But I guess that's what she means all the same," said Chrysie; "and I don't like her any the less for saying it. Those scientific expeditions of yours have just come out here to take the works by storm, if they can, and run the show on their own. Well, that's war, and we're not going to grumble at it. We've made war on Europe, and Europe's feeling pretty sick over it; but I'll tell you honestly that the sickness of Europe just now isn't a circumstance to what those expeditions are going to experience if they try to rush these works by force, and they won't get them any other way. Well, now I see that some of the people are going down to the steam launch. Shouldn't wonder if Lord Orrel and poppa were sending your friends an invitation to supper, or breakfast, or whatever you'd call it in this everlasting daylight. I reckon that would be quite an interesting little surprise-party, wouldn't it?"
"Delightful!" said Sophie, her quick wits already at work on the problem of how to turn such a surprise-party to the advantage of Russia. After all, when the supreme moment came, it might be possible. Victor Fargeau would be there on the French expedition, with all the information required to keep the works in operation, or to give the soul which they had stolen from the world back to it. Even at the last moment it was still possible to triumph.
Almost at the same instant similar thoughts were passing through Adelaide's brain. Here were both expeditions. They had arrived at the psychological moment. She knew that the ships were armed with the finest weapons that modern science could create. There were hundreds of trained sailors, gunners, and marines on board. The works were within easy range of the bay, where the Russian ships were even now coming to an anchor. Surely in the face of such a force—a force which could wreck even these tremendous works—the Masters of the World could do nothing but surrender. At the same time, she would have given a good deal to have had in her pocket the dainty little revolver which she knew Miss Chrysie had in hers.
While they were talking, the French expedition, of which one of the ships had broken down and been compelled to refit at Halifax, delaying both expeditions over a week, in addition to the coaling, rounded Cape Adelaide and proceeded to anchor. There were now six armed vessels in the bay, at a distance of about four miles from the works.
A glance through a pair of field-glasses from the walls made it plain that all disguise had now been thrown aside. The joint Polar expeditions were now frankly hostile squadrons. The great ice-breaker mounted two six-inch guns forward, one aft, and six twelve-pound quick-firers on each broadside. The wooden exploring ship carried no heavy metal, but the disguised cruisers had mounted all their guns; the French vessels, too, frankly bristled with weapons, from guns capable of throwing a 100-lb. shell down to one-pound quick-firers and Maxims. In short, if the works had been a hostile fortress no more unmistakable demonstration could have been made against them by a beleaguering squadron.
But although there was no mistaking the errand of the ships, and though it was plain that they had been expected, the guest-prisoners were astounded to find that, so far as they could see, not the slightest preparations were taken for defence. There was not a gun visible, and everyone, chiefs and workmen, went about their business without the slightest show of concern. The vast quadrangle stood amidst the rocks and sand of the wilderness, dark, silent, and inscrutable, and the huge engines purred on unceasingly, and Austin Vandel sat at his instruments in the telegraph-room, awaiting the word from the King of England, which alone could stop them.
"They are inscrutable, these people," said Sophie to Adelaide when Chrysie had left them on the wall to answer a message from her father. "They know that the guns on those ships could level even these huge walls with the ground in a few hours, wreck their machinery—though our friend Victor would scarcely allow them to do that if he could help it—and bring them to the choice between surrender and death; but here they are, going on with their work as usual, and not even taking any notice of the arrival of the fleet. Mr Vandel told papa that they have 100-lb. dynamite guns, but where are they?—there's not a weapon of any kind to be seen."
"That doesn't say that they are not here, my dear Sophie," replied Adelaide. "In fact, I confess that this very silence and apparent carelessness may hide some terrible possibilities. You know what an easy prey we thought we should find theNadine, and you saw what happened to theVlodoya. Frankly, I tell you I do not think that the success of the expeditions is at all certain. You never know what these diabolical people with their new inventions are going to do next. Look how that hateful American girl has outwitted us all along; and yet she's as friendly as possible all the time."
"Except when she was firing on theVlodoyawith that horrible gun of hers," added Sophie. "Don't you wish you had that revolver of hers?"
"I would give my soul for it," replied Adelaide, between her clenched teeth.
"And if you had it, what would you do with it?"
"Kill her first, and then him," came from between the marquise's clenched teeth.
"What!" said Sophie, with a vicious little laugh, "kill the man for whose sake you were willing to betray all our plans and perhaps lose us the control of the world? Why, your first condition was that no harm should come to him."
"I had hopes then, I have none now," she replied, in a tone that sounded like a snarl. "He has found me out, and I have lost him; and when you have lost a man, why should he go on living? I have loved him; yes, perhaps I love him still in some strange way; but you are woman enough and Russian enough, Sophie, to know that I would rather be a mourner at their funeral than a bridesmaid at their wedding."
"My dear Adelaide," said Sophie, slipping her arm through hers, "that is an excellent sentiment excellently expressed. Now I see that you are with us entirely. We are really true allies now, and it rests with us and papa to make the success of the expedition a certainty. Will you promise me that if matters come to an extremity, as they certainly will do in a few hours, you really will shoot Ma'm'selle Chrysie and this absurd Englishman who has preferred an American hoyden to the most beautiful woman in Europe?"
"Yes; if I could, I would do it. I would swear that to you on a crucifix," replied Adelaide de Condé, in a low tone that had a hiss running through it.
"Then come down to my room and I will show you something," said Sophie. "I dare not do it here, for you never know what eyes are watching you."
When they reached Sophie's apartment she put her hand into the side-pocket of a long fur-trimmed cloak that she was wearing, and took out Miss Chrysie's revolver.
"There it is," she said, handing it to the marquise. "You have told me that you are a good shot, so you can use it better that I can. I hope you will use it at the right time and won't miss."
"But how?" exclaimed Adelaide, staring at her in amazement as she put out her hand for the dainty little weapon.
"How!" laughed Sophie. "My dearest Adelaide, we have to learn many things in such a service as ours. Miss Chrysie did not know that she was walking and talking just now with one of the most expert pickpockets in Europe. Why, I once stole an ambassador's letter-case while I was waltzing with him. He was terribly upset, poor man, and of course I sympathised with him; but it was never found, and the contents proved very useful."
"You are wonderful, Sophie!" exclaimed Adelaide, as she put the revolver into her pocket. "And, of course, all things are fair in love, war, and diplomacy. Well, you have no need to fear that I shall not use this."
At this moment there was a knock at the door, and the count came in.
"Well, papa," said Sophie, "have you any news? What are these people going to do? Have you been able to persuade them to surrender to the expedition?"
"On the contrary, my dear Sophie," he replied, "they are more inexplicable than ever. Would you believe it that Lord Orrel has actually asked me to go down with him to the port and ask the French and Russian leaders of the expedition to dinner, the invitation to include our excellent friend Victor Fargeau?"
"That is only a plot!" exclaimed the marquise; "a shallow plot to get them into the works and make them prisoners. Of course they will not be so idiotic as to come."
"It is difficult," said the count, "to see how they could refuse such a hospitable offer without at once declaring hostilities. We do not know how the works are defended, or what unknown means of destruction these people may possess, and, to be quite candid, I do not think that our hosts would be guilty of an act of treachery. You know these Anglo-Saxons are always chivalrous to the verge of imbecility. For instance, if the tables had been turned, should we have treated them as they have treated us? I think you will agree with me that we should not. No; I have no fears whatever on that score, and I shall support Lord Orrel's invitation with the most perfect confidence."
CHAPTER XXVIII
Lord Orrel and the count started from the little station just outside the western gate of the works in the private car used by the directors and drawn by a neat little electric engine, which was accustomed to do the four miles in ten minutes.
Meanwhile, Lady Olive had what might, by a stretch of imagination, be called afternoon tea, in that land where it was never quite afternoon or morning, on the western wall looking down towards the harbour. When Miss Chrysie sat down and threw back her afternoon wrap Adelaide and Sophie were disconcerted, if not altogether surprised, to see that she had a light, long-barrelled, wicked-looking pistol hanging by a couple of silver chains from her waist-band.
"My dear Chrysie," said Lady Olive, "what are you carrying that terrible-looking weapon for? You don't expect that you will have to use it, surely," she went on, with just a touch of sarcasm in her tone, "considering what very good friends we have all managed to keep so far?"
"Well, I hope not," said Miss Chrysie, looking round the tables with eyes which had both a laugh and a menace in them. "Of course, it is to be hoped that everything will go off smoothly, but poppa had a friend in the old times who said something that means a lot. He said, 'You don't want a gun often, but when you do want it you want it badly.' Isn't that so, poppa?"
"Just his words, Chrysie," said the president, "just his words; and he knew what he was talking about when he used them. I never met a man who could hold his temper longer or shoot quicker; and when he used a gun someone usually wanted a funeral pretty soon."
"But surely," said Sophie, "you don't suppose for a moment that our expected guests from the expedition will——"
"I don't know what they'll do, although I think I know what they'll want to do," she replied, quickly. "But somehow I managed to lose my other little pepper-box this morning. Where it's gone to or who's got it I don't know, so I got this instead. It's a pretty thing," she went on, playing with it as a woman might toy with a jewel, "seven-shooter and magazine action. If you hold the trigger back after you've fired the first shot, it shoots the other six in about three seconds."
"A very handy thing in a tight corner, I should say," said Hardress, smiling at her over the top of his tea-cup, "and in such hands I should think a very ugly thing to face."
Adelaide's fingers were itching to take out the revolver and shoot both of them when she saw the all-meaning glance which passed between them while he spoke, but instead of that she raised her tea-cup and touched it with her pretty lips, and as she put the cup down she said, with the sweetest of smiles, to the president:
"I think it is quite charming of you, Mr President, to ask the leaders of the expedition to dinner in such a friendly way. Surely it is not always usual to ask the enemy within the gates?"
"We have no enemies, marquise," he replied, gravely, "except those who stand in the way of our commercial undertaking, and with them, of course, business is business, and there is no sentiment in that. Of course we have a pretty good idea why these two expeditions have come to the magnetic pole instead of trying to get to the North Pole, but we've not been lying awake at nights worrying about that, and there's no particular reason why we shouldn't ask the scientific explorers to dinner. All the same, if they happen to have come with the idea that they have a better right to these works than we have, and they want any trouble—why, they can have it."
"And," added Hardress, still looking across at Chrysie, "I think they will find it the most extraordinary kind of trouble that mortal man ever ran up against."
"It's to be hoped," said Doctor Lamson, speaking for the first time since the little tea-party had begun, for he had been thinking hard, and every now and then raising his eyes as though to seek inspiration from Lady Olive's calm, patrician face, as calm now, on the eve of a struggle which could scarcely end without bloodshed, and might end in ruin, as it would have been in a London drawing-room—"I most sincerely hope that it will not come to actual hostilities; it would be really too awful."
"I wonder if it would be permissible for a prisoner of war to ask what would be too awful, doctor," said Sophie, looking at him with a smile which somehow made him think of a beautiful tigress he had seen in the Thiergarten in Berlin.
"The means that we should be compelled to employ in such a case to reduce those two squadrons, or expeditions, or whatever they call themselves, to something about as unsubstantial as that," replied the doctor, blowing a puff of cigarette smoke into the air.
At this moment Austin Vandel came up on to the wall, and handed a piece of paper to his father.
"Just come through, dad," he said. "I reckon we've frozen that war clean out."
The president opened the paper and read aloud: