The Angel of the Revolution Part 31

The searchlights flashed to and fro along the line, plainly showing the great ma.s.ses of the aerostats' gas-holders, with their long slender cars beneath them. A blue light was burnt on the largest of the war-balloons, and at once the whole flotilla began to ascend towards the clouds, followed by the two air-s.h.i.+ps.

"Here they come!" said Arnold, as he saw them rising through a cloud-rift. "Come out and watch what happens to the first one that shows herself."

He went out on deck, followed by Natasha, and took his place by one of the broadside guns. At the same time he gave the order for the _Ithuriel's_ searchlight to be turned on, and to sweep the cloud-field below her. Presently a black rounded object appeared rising through the clouds like a whale coming to the surface of the sea.

He trained the gun on to it as it came distinctly into view, and said to Natasha--

"Come, now, and fire the first shot in the warfare of the future. Put your finger on the b.u.t.ton, and press when I tell you."

Natasha did as he told her, and at the word "Fire!" pressed the little ivory b.u.t.ton down. The sh.e.l.l struck the upper envelope of the balloon, pa.s.sed through, and exploded. A broad sheet of flame shot up, brilliantly illuminating the sea of cloud for an instant, and all was darkness again. A few seconds later there came another blaze, and the report of a much greater explosion from below the clouds.

"What was that?" asked Natasha.

"That was the car full of explosives striking the earth and going off promiscuously," replied Arnold. "There isn't as much of that aerostat left as would make a pocket-handkerchief or a walking-stick."

"And the crew?"

"Never knew what happened to them. In the new warfare people will not be merely killed, they will be annihilated."

"Horrible!" exclaimed Natasha, with a shudder. "I think you may do the rest of the shooting. The effects of that shot will last me for some time. Look, there's another of them coming up!"

The words were hardly out of her mouth before Arnold had crossed to the other side of the deck and sped another missile on its errand of destruction with almost exactly the same result as before. This second shot, as it was afterwards found, threw the Russian squadron into complete panic.

The terrific suddenness with which the two aerostats had been destroyed convinced those in command of the others that there was a large force of air-s.h.i.+ps above the clouds ready to destroy them one by one as they ascended. Arnold waited for a few minutes, and then, seeing that no others cared to risk the fate that had overwhelmed the first two that had sought to cross the cloud-zone, sank rapidly through it, and then stopped again.

He found himself about six hundred feet above the rest of the squadron. The _Ithuriel_ coming thus suddenly into view, her eight guns pointing in all directions, and her searchlight flas.h.i.+ng hither and thither as though seeking new victims, completed the demoralisation of the Russians. For all they knew there were still more air-s.h.i.+ps above the clouds. Even this one could not be pa.s.sed while those mysterious guns of unknown range and infallible aim were sweeping the sky, ready to hurl their silent lightnings in every direction.

Ascend they dare not. To descend was to be destroyed in detail as they lay helpless upon the earth. There was only one chance of escape, and that was to scatter. The commander of the squadron at once signalled for this to be done, and the aerostats headed away to all points of the compa.s.s. But here they had reckoned without the incomparable speed of their a.s.sailants.

Before they had moved a hundred yards from their common centre the _Ariel_ and the _Orion_ headed away in different directions, and in an inconceivably short s.p.a.ce of time had described a complete circle round them, and then another and another, narrowing each circle that they made. One of the aerostats, watching its opportunity, put on full speed and tried to get outside the narrowing zone. She had almost succeeded, when the _Orion_ swerved outwards and dashed at her with the ram.

In ten seconds she was overtaken. The keen steel prow of the air-s.h.i.+p, driven at more than a hundred miles an hour, ripped her gas-holder from end to end as if it had been tissue paper. It collapsed like broken bubble, and the wreck, with its five occupants and its load of explosives, dropped like a stone to the earth, three thousand feet below, exploding like one huge sh.e.l.l as it struck.

This was the last blow struck in the first aerial battle in the history of warfare. The Russians had no stomach for this kind of fighting. It was all very well to sail over armies and fortresses on the earth and drop sh.e.l.ls upon them without danger of retaliation; but this was an entirely different matter.

Three of the aerostats had been destroyed in little more than as many minutes, so utterly destroyed that not a vestige of them remained, and the whole squadron had not been able to strike a blow in self-defence. They carried no guns, not even small arms, for they had no use for them in the work that they had to do. There were only two alternatives before them--surrender or piecemeal destruction.

As soon as she had destroyed the third aerostat, the _Orion_ swerved round again, and began flying round the squadron as before in an opposite direction to the _Ariel_. None of the aerostats made an attempt to break the strange blockage again. As the circles narrowed they crowded closer and closer together, like a flock of sheep surrounded by wolves.

Meanwhile the _Ithuriel_, floating above the centre of the disordered squadron, descended slowly until she hung a hundred feet above the highest of them. Then Arnold with his searchlight flashed a signal to the _Ariel_ which at once slowed down, the _Orion_ continuing on her circular course as before.

As soon as the _Ariel_ was going slowly enough for him to make himself heard, Mazanoff shouted through a speaking-trumpet--

"Will you surrender, or fight it out?"

"_Nu vot_! how can we fight with those devil-s.h.i.+ps of yours? What is your pleasure?"

The answering hail came from one of the aerostats in the centre of the squadron. Mazanoff at once replied--

"Unconditional surrender for the present, under guarantee of safety to every one who surrenders. Who are you?"

"Colonel Alexei Alexandrovitch, in command of the squadron. I surrender on those terms. Who are you?"

"The captain of the Terrorist air-s.h.i.+p _Ariel_. Be good enough to come out here, Colonel Alexei Alexandrovitch."

One of the aerostats moved out of the midst of the Russian squadron and made its way towards the _Ariel_. As she approached Mazanoff swung his bow round and brought it level with the car of the aerostat, at the same time training one of his guns full on it. Then, with his arm resting on the breach of the gun, he said,--

"Come on board, Colonel, and bid your balloon follow me. No nonsense, mind, or I'll blow you into eternity and all your squadron after you."

The Russian did as he was bidden, and the _Ariel_, followed by the aerostat, ascended to the _Ithuriel_, while the _Orion_ kept up her patrol round the captive war-balloons.

"Colonel Alexandrovitch, in command of the Tsar's aerial squadron, surrenders unconditionally, save for guarantee of personal safety to himself and his men," reported Mazanoff, as he came within earshot of the flags.h.i.+p.

"Very good," replied Arnold from the deck of the _Ithuriel_. You will keep Colonel Alexandrovitch as hostage for the good behaviour of the rest, and shoot him the moment one of the balloons attempts to escape. After that destroy the rest without mercy. They will form in line close together. The _Ariel_ and the _Orion_ will convoy them on either flank, and you will follow me until you have the signal to stop. On the first suspicion of any attempt to escape you will know what to do. You have both handled your s.h.i.+ps splendidly."

Mazanoff saluted formally, more for the sake of effect than anything else, and descended again to carry out his orders. The captured flotilla was formed in line, the balloons being closed up until there was only a couple of yards or so between any of them and her next neighbour, with the _Orion_ and the _Ariel_ to right and left, each with two guns trained on them, and the _Ithuriel_ flying a couple of hundred feet above them. In this order captors and captured made their way at twenty miles an hour to the north-west towards the headquarters of the Tsar.

CHAPTER XXIX.

AN EMBa.s.sY FROM THE SKY.

By the time the captured war-balloons had been formed in order, and the voyage fairly commenced, the eastern sky was bright with the foreglow of the coming dawn, and, as the flotilla was only floating between eight and nine hundred feet above the earth, it was not long before the light was sufficiently strong to render the landscape completely visible.

Far and wide it was a scene of desolation and destruction, of wasted, blackened fields trampled into wildernesses by the tread of countless feet, of forests of trees broken, scorched, and splintered by the iron hail of artillery, and of towns and villages, reduced to heaps of ruins, still smouldering with the fires that had destroyed them.

No more eloquent object-lesson in the horrors of what is called civilised warfare could well have been found than the scene which was visible from the decks of the air-s.h.i.+ps. The promised fruits of a whole year of patient industry had been withered in a few hours under the storm-blast of war; homes which but a few days before had sheltered stalwart, well-fed peasants and citizens, were now mere heaps of blackened brick and stone and smoking thatches.

Streets which had been the thoroughfares of peaceful industrious folk, who had no quarrel with the Powers of the earth, or with any of their kind, were now strewn with corpses and enc.u.mbered with ruins, and the few survivors, more miserable than those who had died, were crawling, haggard and starving, amidst the wrecks of their vanished prosperity, seeking for some scanty morsels of food to prolong life if only for a few more days of misery and nights of sleepless anxiety.

As the sun rose and shed its midsummer splendour, as if in sublime mockery, over the scene of suffering and desolation, hideous features of the landscape were brought into stronger and more horrifying relief; the scorched and trampled fields were seen to be strewn with unburied corpses of men and horses, and ploughed up with cannon shot and torn into great irregular gashes by sh.e.l.ls that had buried themselves in the earth and then exploded.

It was evident that some frightful tragedy must have taken place in this region not many hours before the air-s.h.i.+ps had arrived upon the scene. And this, in fact, had been the case. Barely three days previously the advance guard of the Russian army of the North had been met and stubbornly but unsuccessfully opposed by the remnants of the German army of the East, which, driven back from the frontier, was retreating in good order to join the main force which had concentrated about Berlin, under the command of the Emperor, there to fight out the supreme struggle, on the issue of which depended the existence of that German Empire which fifty years before had been so triumphantly built up by the master-geniuses of the last generation.

After a flight of a little over two hours the flotilla came in sight of the Russian army lying between Custrin on the right and Frankfort-on-Spree on the left. The distance between these two towns is nearly twelve English miles, and yet the wings of the vast host under the command of the Tsar spread for a couple of miles on either side to north and south of each of them.

In spite of the colossal iniquity which it concealed, the spectacle was one of indescribable grandeur. Almost as far as the eye could reach the beams of the early morning sun were gleaming upon innumerable white tents, and flas.h.i.+ng over a sea of glittering metal, of bare bayonets and sword scabbards, of spear points and helmets, of gold-laced uniforms and the polished accoutrements of countless batteries of field artillery.

Far away to the westward the stately city of Berlin could be seen lying upon its intersecting waters, and encircled by its fortifications bristling with guns, and in advance of it were the long serried lines of its defenders gathered to do desperate battle for home and fatherland.

As soon as the Russian army was fairly in sight the _Ithuriel_ shot ahead, sank to the level of the flotilla, and then stopped until she was overtaken by the _Orion_. Tremayne was on deck, and Arnold as soon as he came alongside said--

"You must stop here for the present. I want the aerostat commanded by Colonel Alexandrovitch to come with me; meanwhile you and the _Ariel_ will rise with the rest of the balloons to a height of four thousand feet; you will keep strict guard over the balloons, and permit no movement to be made until my return. We are going to bring his Majesty the Tsar to book, or else make things pretty lively for him if he won't listen to reason."

"Very well," replied Tremayne. "I will do as you say, and await developments with considerable interest. If there is going to be a fight, I hope you're not going to leave us out in the cold."