WITHOUT even pausing to see the effects of his charge upon the three air-ships above Alexandria, Alan kept the Avenger going at full speed, soaring up into the higher regions of the atmosphere with her prow pointed to the north-east. About three hours later she was floating at an elevation of nearly five miles above Moscow, not stationary, but sweeping round and round in vast circles on her quadruple wings after the manner of the condors of the Andes, which thus sustain themselves on almost motionless wings at vast elevations and very small expenditure of force.

Below an immense expanse of country lay in unclouded clearness under the glasses of the captain of the ship and George Cosmo, late engineer of the Narwhal, who was now chief engineer of the Aerian flagship.

Not only Moscow, but a dozen other towns lay at the mercy of the Avenger’s twenty-four guns, and yet no shot was fired, for Alan, despite the tremendous debt of vengeance that he owed to her who now, at last in very fact crowned Tsarina of the Russias, held her court at Moscow, was yet extremely loth to involve non-combatants in the destruction which he knew must follow the discharge of his guns.

Added to this, his present designs were rather to reconnoitre than to destroy. He was in command of the fastest and most powerful air-ship in the world, and the task that he had[272] set himself was to supervise the whole of the complicated arrangements that had been made for repelling the coming attack upon the Federation by the Moslems and Russians.

Thus he had started soon after midnight from Gibraltar, one of the chief power-stations and dep?ts in Europe. Thence he had run along the African coast over Oran, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, noting the sleepless activity of the brilliantly-lighted towns, the swarming transports and battleships in their harbours, and the crowds of anxious watchers in their streets. Then he had got round to the south of Alexandria, as has been seen, and there struck the first blow in the war.

Now, his object was to discover what disposition of troops were being made for the invasion of Austria and Germany. Another scout-ship would be by this time floating over St. Petersburg, and another over Odessa, and these were to report to him at noon.

He had kept the Avenger moving with sufficient rapidity to make it extremely difficult for her to be seen from the earth, as he wanted to see without being seen, and he remained undiscovered until nearly noon. All this time trains had been seen running in swift succession into Moscow from the east and out to the west, evidently conveying troops to the frontier.

A large fleet of air-ships, numbering apparently between two and three hundred vessels, were seen lying in four squadrons on the open space about the Kremlin, and others were constantly flying into and out of the city in all directions.

A few minutes after half-past eleven, Cosmo, after a long look through his glasses, called to Alan, who was looking out from the other side of the deck—

“I fancy they must have seen us at last. Three ships are coming up on this side as if they wanted to investigate.”

Alan crossed over and soon picked out the Russian vessels rising in long spiral sweeps from the earth about three miles to the northward and coming up very fast.

“They seem to have learned something in tactics during[273] the year,” he said. “They evidently know better than to rise perpendicularly while they suspect we are up here. They think they’ll be much more difficult to hit coming up like that.”

“Yes,” said Cosmo. “But we can soon show them the mistake in that idea. What are you going to do with them?”

“Destroy them, of course,” replied Alan. “It doesn’t matter about giving the alarm now. I think it’s pretty certain that the Russians are going to concentrate at Kieff, Vitebsk, Dünaburg, and Vilna, and those four squadrons down there are intended to cover them. We’d better let them concentrate, and make the fighting as short and sharp as possible. It would be a waste of time to destroy them here in detail, and the moral effect wouldn’t be anything like as good. What do you think?”

“I don’t think there’ll be any fighting,” replied Cosmo, “unless between the air-ships. The most hardened troops of the nineteenth century would have broken and run like a lot of sheep under our shells, and these poor fellows, who have never seen a battle in their lives, will do the same.

“I don’t believe we shall have any land fighting at all to speak of during the whole war. There will be nothing but massacres from the air on both sides. Still, I think you’re both wise and merciful in waiting until you can hit hard, though perhaps from the strictly military point of view we ought to have Moscow in ruins by sundown.”

“I won’t do that,” said Alan, shaking his head decisively. “There are three or four millions of women and children in it who have done no harm, and I’ll shed no more blood than I’m obliged to. We had better destroy those fellows, however, before they get too close. You know what to do.”

“Very well,” said Cosmo. “You’ll take the deck, I suppose?”

Alan nodded, and Cosmo saluted and went into the conning-tower. The Avenger now altered her course, so that her circling flight took her to the northward, above the three Russian air-ships that were sweeping round and round[274] so fast that it would have been impossible to train a gun upon them.

As soon as she got over them the Avenger quickened her course until she was flying round in the same circles and at the same speed as the Russians. This, of course, made her relatively stationary with regard to them, and it was now possible to take aim. Two of the broadside guns, one on each side, were much shorter than the others, and had been specially constructed for firing almost vertically downwards.

Alan stood by one of these and trained it on the first of the Russian vessels, which were coming up in a spiral line. At the right moment he pressed the button in the breech and released the projectile. The shot struck the Russian amidships. They saw the glass deck of the roof splinter, then the blaze of the explosion flashed out, the air quaked, and the next moment the fragments of the Russian warship were falling back upon the earth.

A second and a third shot followed as the other two came into position, and when Alan looked down towards the city again he saw that the four squadrons had taken the alarm, and were rising from the earth and scattering in all directions. This was just what he wanted, for it relieved him of the scruples which had prevented him from firing on them while they lay within the precincts of the city.

In an instant the crew of the Avenger were at their guns, and shell after shell sped on its downward way after the flying ships. Although, under the circumstances, the aim was necessarily hurried, for the captains of the Russian vessels, seeing the terrible disadvantage at which they were placed, had put on their utmost speed, the guns of the Avenger were so smartly handled that nearly a score of the Russians were either blown to fragments or crippled before the squadron escaped out of range.

“Well done!” said Alan. “That will teach them to keep a little smarter look-out next time.” And then he went on to himself—“I wonder whether she was on board one of those that are lying in little pieces down there? I suppose that[275] would be too good luck to hope for, and yet I don’t know, I think her end ought to be something different to that. I wonder what it really will be?”

He ordered his men to cease firing now, and placed the Avenger once more in her old position over Moscow, keeping her at a great elevation to guard against surprise from the squadron he had scattered. A few minutes later two air-ships were reported coming from the south and north. The flash of the sun on their blue hulls proclaimed them friends.

They were the vessels bringing the reports from St. Petersburg and Odessa, and these reports were to the effect that during the whole of the morning trains had been pouring through from the eastward and all the surrounding country towards the Austro-German frontier. Other reports from the westward had been received by the commanders of these two vessels to the effect that the Russian troops were massing along the frontier and seemingly preparing to invade the Federation area from the four points already selected by Alan.

He at once despatched orders by these two courier-vessels to the dep?ts at K?nigsberg, Thorn, Breslau, and Budapesth to assemble four squadrons of fifty vessels each, which were to be over the points of concentration at daybreak on the following morning.

These ships were to maintain their greatest possible elevation—that is to say, about three miles and a half—until the sun rose, then if the sky were clear they were to bombard the towns at once from that height; if not they were to use all precautions against surprise in passing through the clouds, and then the commanders were to use their own discretion as to the plan of operation, but Odessa, Kieff, Vitebsk, and Dünaburg were to be destroyed at all hazards as soon as it was certain that the invading forces were concentrated there, and preparing to march eastward.

As soon as these orders had been despatched the Avenger left Moscow, and started at full speed for Gibraltar, where she arrived about four o’clock in the afternoon.

Here Alan, after once more inspecting the land batteries[276] and the aerial defences of this important outpost of the Federation, received news of the annihilation of the four Moslem expeditions, and heartily congratulated Admiral Ernstein on the complete success of his operations.

It was at once apparent that the Sultan would not risk a second loss so enormous as this even if he had sufficient transports left and could persuade any more of his people to brave the terrors of such another sea-fight. This being so, only two alternatives would be open to him, either he must give up all idea of invading Europe by land or sea, or else he must attempt to force the bridges across the Dardanelles and the Straits of Gibraltar, and cross into Europe via Turkey and Spain.

Both these bridges, the main highways between Europe, Africa, and Asia Minor, were guarded on the European side by batteries of enormous strength, similar to those which guarded the Federation posts in the Mediterranean. They were magnificent structures, each four hundred feet broad, carrying twelve lines of railway as well as carriage drives and promenades, and, once in the hands of the enemy, troops could be poured across them in tens of thousands every hour.

Alan, after a brief conference with Ernstein, decided to pursue the same tactics here as he was going to make use of on the Russian frontier. The bridges were to be left completely open, but their supporting pillars were to be mined with torpedoes, connected by electric wires with the batteries.

If the Sultan attempted to force them, his men were to be allowed to concentrate on the African and Asiatic shores and to occupy the bridges, then the bridges were to be blown up and the forces on the opposite side to be dispersed by the batteries and the air-ships.

The message to the Dardanelles bridge was despatched by telephone over the cables connecting Gibraltar with Candia and Gallipoli, and similar instructions were sent on from Gallipoli to Constantinople, in case any attempt should be made to force the bridge which spanned the Bosphorus.

The Mediterranean patrol was to be maintained as before,[277] and three air-ships were sent out to reconnoitre the African coast from Ceuta to Port Said during the night, and learn what they could of the Sultan’s intentions.

The rest of the evening and the greater part of the night were spent by Alan receiving and answering reports from the northern coast of the Mediterranean, the Russian frontier, and the principal cities of Europe, and in assuring himself that everything was ready, so far as was possible, to meet the storm that must infallibly burst over the Continent within the next few days.

What would have been in the nineteenth century a matter of weeks was now only one of days and hours. The enormously-developed system of intercommunication made transit, even for very large numbers of men and between very distant points, rapid to a degree undreamt of in the present century.

Trains could travel at two hundred miles an hour along the hundreds of quadruple lines which covered the Continent with their gigantic network, aerial cruisers could fly at more than twice this speed, and squadrons of submarine battleships could cleave their silent and invisible way through the ocean depths at a hundred and fifty miles an hour.

It was, therefore, almost impossible to tell without certain information where and how the blows of the enemy would be struck, or from how many points the European area of the Federation might be assailed at once, and vast indeed were the responsibilities and anxieties which weighed upon the man whose single brain was the centre of this vast and complicated system of defence, and on whose decisions would depend the safety or the destruction of millions of human beings.

Alan had managed to get four hours’ sleep in the afternoon between Moscow and Gibraltar, and he snatched two hours more before midnight. Then he was called, and the Avenger was just about to take the air to return to the Russian frontier, so that he might supervise the operations there, when the look-out on the summit of the Rock of Gibraltar saw and answered the Aerian private signal from the sky, and a few minutes later a fleet of more than a hundred air-ships dropped down out of the[278] darkness and hovered over what is now called the neutral ground between the Rock and Spain.

One of these alighted at the signal station itself. It was the Isma, and within three minutes after she had touched the ground Alan was shaking hands with Alexis and asking him what brought him back so soon from the East.

“I have come back because there is nothing much more to do there,” said Alexis. “Have you had any fighting here?”

“Yes,” said Alan; “or, at anyrate, a big massacre.”

And then he described what had befallen the Sultan’s expeditions.

“Horrible but necessary, I suppose!” replied Alexis, not without a shudder at the news. “I have been doing my damage on land. I didn’t wait for the enemy to begin hostilities, so as soon as day broke we got to work. We have wrecked Ekaterinburg, Slatonsk, Orenburg, and Uralsk, and blocked the four roads into Russia from Asia.

“The Tsarina’s Asiatic forces had concentrated there in large numbers ready to come into Europe. We found some air-ships intended to cover them, but we had the best of the elevation, and smashed them up. The slaughter has been something perfectly frightful. I had a hundred and fifty ships in action, and there isn’t a man left of the Asiatic troops that is not getting back to where he came from as fast as he can go.

“The towns are mere heaps of ruins and the railways utterly useless. I left twenty ships to patrol the frontier and stop any further movements into Russia, and twenty more are strung out in a line from the Caspian to the head of the Red Sea to cut communications between Asia and Africa.

“We came westward over Odessa this afternoon, and had a skirmish, in which, I am sorry to say, I lost five ships, but we destroyed twenty Russians, blew up the dockyard, and shelled the city by way of punishment. And now I’ve got myself and a hundred and thirty ships to place at your disposal for the present. There is nothing more to be feared from the East, for by to-morrow night, I think, the Asiatics will be thoroughly terrorised.”

[279]

“You have done more than I have in the way of slaughter and destruction,” said Alan. “But there will be some fearful work along the Russian frontier to-morrow morning. The Tsarina, as you call her, is concentrating her forces at Kieff, Vitebsk, Dünaburg, and Vilna for a descent upon Germany. I have ordered those four places to be destroyed as soon as possible after sunrise, and I am just starting now, so you had better come with me and order your ships to follow us.”

Both the commanders felt, as their combined squadrons were winging their way towards the Russian frontier, that the events of the next twenty-four hours or so would go far towards deciding the issues of the war, and therefore the fate of the world.

Alexis had given up the command of the Isma for the night to his first lieutenant, and was travelling on board the Avenger, in order that he and Alan might finally arrange their plans for the terrible deeds that were to be done on the following day. Both of them were serious almost to depression, for it must be remembered that neither possessed that love of fighting and slaughter which distinguishes the professional soldier of the nineteenth century.

Armed with the most awful weapons ever wielded by human hands, they had already, within the space of a few hours, hurled millions of their fellow-creatures into eternity and made thousands of homes desolate which a couple of days ago were happy. Now they were going to repeat the tragedy, on how vast a scale neither of them knew. Before the next sunset a ............