CHAPTER VI
_Vanishing Ships_
Prester Kleig, ordered to Madagascar from the Secret Room, had beenmerely an operative, honored above others in that he had been one ofthe few, at that time, ever to visit the Secret Room. Now, however,because he had walked closer to Moyen than anyone else, he assumedleadership almost by natural right, and the men who had once deferred tohim took orders from him.
"Gentlemen," he snapped, while the last words of Moyen still hung in theair of the Secret Room, "we must fight Moyen from here. The best brainsin the United Americas are gathered here, and if Moyen can bebeaten--_if_ he can be beaten--he will be beaten from the Secret Room!"
A sigh from the lips of Professor Maniel. The President of the UnitedAmericas nodded his head, as though he too mutely gave authority intothe hands of Prester Kleig. The other Secret Agents shifted slightly,but said nothing.
"I have been away a year," said Kleig, "as you know, and many thingshave come into regular use since I left. Professor Maniel's machine forexample, upon which he was working when I departed under orders. Therewill be further use for it in our struggle with Moyen. Professor, willyou kindly range the ocean, beginning at once, and see how many of thesemonsters of Moyen we have to contend with?"
* * * * *
Professor Maniel turned back to his instruments, which he fondled withgentle, loving hands.
"We have nothing with which to combat the attacking forces of Moyen,"went on Kleig, "save antiquated airplanes, and such obsolete warships asare available. These will be mere fodder for the guns, or rays, orwhatever it is that Moyen uses in his aero-subs. Thousands, perhapsmillions, of human lives will be lost; but better this than that Moyenrule the West! Better this than that our women be given into the handsof this mob as spoils of war!"
From the Secret Agents a murmur of assent.
And then, that voice again, startling, clear, with the slightestsuggestion of some Oriental accent, in the Secret Room.
"Do not depend too much, gentlemen," it said, "upon your antiquatedwarships! See, I am merciful, in that I do not allow you to send themagainst me loaded with men to be slaughtered or drowned! ProfessorManiel, I would ask you to turn that plaything of yours and gaze uponthe fleet of obsolete ships anchored in Hampton Roads! In passing,Professor, I venture to guess that the secret of how I am able to talkwith you gentlemen, here in your Secret Room, is no secret at all toyou. Now look!"
The Secret Agents gasped again, in consternation.
From the white lips of mouselike Maniel came mumbled words, even as hishands worked with lightning speed.
"His machine is simply a variation of my own. And, gentlemen,compatriots, with it he could as easily project himself, bodily, hereinto the room with us!"
* * * * *
Something like a suppressed scream from one of the men present. A coldhand of ice about the heart of Prester Kleig. But the words of ProfessorManiel were limned on the retina of his brain in letters of fire.Suppose Moyen _were_ to project himself into the Secret Room....
But he would not. He was no fool, and even these Secret Agents, most ofwhom were old and no longer strong, would have torn him limb from limb.But those words of Maniel set whirling once more, and in a newdirection, the thoughts of Prester Kleig.
"Mr. President, gentlemen...." It was the voice of Professor Maniel.
All eyes turned again to the screen upon which the professor worked hismiracles, which today were commonplaces, which yesterday had beenundreamed of. Every Secret Agent recognized the outlines of HamptonRoads, with Norfolk and its towering buildings in the background, andthe obsolete warships riding silently at anchor in the roadstead.
For three years they had been there, while a procrastinating Cabinet,Congress and Senate had debated their permanent disposal. Theyrepresented millions of dollars in money, and were utterly worthless.Prester Kleig, looking at them now, could see them putting out to sea,loaded with brave-visaged men, volunteering to go to sure destruction tofeed the rapacity of Moyen's hordes. Men going out to sea in tubs,singing....
But these ships were silent. No plumes of smoke from their funnels. Likefloating mausoleums, filled with dead hopes, shells of past and departedglories.
The beating of waves against their sides could plainly be heard. Theanchor chains squeaked rustily in the hawse-holes. Wind sighed throughregal, towering superstructures, and no man walked the decks of any oneof them.
* * * * *
With bated breath the Secret Agents watched.
Why had Moyen bidden them turn their attention to these shells oferstwhile naval grandeur?
This time no gasps broke from the lips of the Secret Agents. Not eventhe sound of breathing could be heard. Just the sighing of wind throughthe superstructures of a hundred ships, the whispering of waves againstrusted bulkheads.
Almost imperceptibly at first the towering dreadnought in the foregroundbegan to move! Slowly, the water swirling about her, she backed awayfrom her anchor, tightening the curve of the anchor chain! Waterquivered about the point of the chain's contact with the waves!
Quickly the eyes of the Secret Agents swept along the street of ships.The same backward motion, of dragging against their anchor chains, wasvisible at the bow of each warship!
With not a soul aboard them, the ships were waking into strange andawesome life, dragging at their anchors, like hounds pulling at leashesto be free and away!
"How are they doing it?" It was almost a whisper from the President.
"Some electro-magnetic force, sir!" stated Prester Kleig. "ProfessorBlaine, that is your province! Please note what is happening, and adviseus at once if you see how they are doing it!"
A grunt of affirmation from surly, obese Professor Blaine.
* * * * *
All eyes turned back again to the miracle of the moving ships. One byone, with crashes which echoed and re-echoed through the Secret Room,the anchor chains of the dreadnoughts parted. The ends of them swungfrom the prows of the warships, while the severed portions splashed intothe Roads, and the waters hid them from view.
The great dreadnought in the foreground swung slowly about until herprow was pointed in the direction of the open sea, and though no sea wasrunning, no smoke rose from her funnels, she got slowly, ponderouslyunder way, and started out the Roads. Behind her, in formation, theother ships swung into line.
In a matter of seconds, faster than any of these vessels had evertraveled before, they were racing in column for the open Atlantic. Andfrom the sound apparatus came wails and shrieks of terror, thelamentations of men and women frightened as they had never beenfrightened before.
The shores behind the moving column of ships was moment by momentgrowing blacker with people--a black sea of people, whose faces werewhite as chalk with terror.
But on, out to sea, moved the column of brave ships.
A new note entered into the picture, as from all sides airplanes of manymakes swooped in, and swept back and forth over the moving ships, whilehooded heads looked out of pits, and faces of pilots were aghast atwhat they saw.
* * * * *
A ghost column of ships, moving out to sea, speed increasing moment bymoment unbelievably. Even now, five minutes after the first dreadnoughthad started seaward, the wake of each ship spread away on either hand inthe two sides of a watery triangle whose walls were a dozen feethigh--racing for the shores with all the sullen majesty of tidal waves.
The crowds gave back, and their screams rose into the air in afrightened roar of appalling sound.
Even now, so rapidly did the warships travel, many of the planes couldthrottle down, so that they flew directly above the heaving decks of therunaway warships.
"Get word to them!" cried Prester Kleig suddenly. "Get word to them thatif they follow the ships out to sea not a pilot will escape alive!"
One of the Secret Agents rose and hur
ried from the Secret Room,traveling at top speed for the first of the many doors enroute to thebroadcasting tower from which all the planes could be reached at once.Prester Kleig turned back to the magic screen of Maniel.
The warships, water thrown aside by the lifting thrust of their forefeetin mountains that raced landward with ever-increasing fury, wereclearing the Roads and swinging south by east, heading into the wastesof the Atlantic. As they cleared the land, and open water for unnumberedmiles lay ahead, the speed of the mighty ships increased to a pointwhere they rode as high on the water as racing launches, and thecreaking and groaning of their rusty bolts and spars were a continualpaean of protest in the sound apparatus accompanying the showing of themiracle on the screen.
"They're heading straight for the spot where that super-submarine lies!"said the President, and no one answered him.
* * * * *
Prester Kleig, watching, was racing over in his mind what he couldrecall of his country's armament. Warships were useless, as was beingproved here before his eyes. But there still remained airplanes, incountless numbers, which could be diverted from ocean travel and fromroutine business, to battle this menace of Moyen.
But....
He shuddered as he pictured in his mind's eye the meeting of hiscountry's flower of flying manhood with the monsters of Moyen.
His eyes, as he thought, were watching the racing of those oceangreyhounds, out to sea. They were now out of sight of land, and stillsome of the planes followed them.
A half hour passed, and then....
The American pilots, in obedience to the radio signals, turning backfrom this strange phenomenon of the ghost column of capital ships.
Simultaneously, out of the sky dead ahead, dropped the first flight ofMoyen's aero-subs.
At the same moment the mysterious power which had dragged the ships tosea was withdrawn, and the warships, with no hands to guide them, swungwhither they willed, and floated in as many directions as there wereships, under their forward momentum. There were a score of collisions,and some of the ships were in sinking condition even before theaero-subs began their labors.
* * * * *
The remaining ships floated high out of the water, because they carriedno ballast, and from all sides the aero-subs of Moyen settled to thetask of destruction--destruction which was simply a warning of what wasto come: Moyen's manner of proving to the Americas the fact that he wasall-powerful.
"God, what fools!" cried Prester Kleig.
The rearmost of the American aviators had looked back, had seen thefirst of the aero-subs drop down among the doomed ships. Instantly heturned out to sea again, signalling as he did so to the nearest otherplanes. And in spite of the radio warning a hundred planes answered thatsignal and swept back to investigate this new mystery.
"They're going to death!" groaned the President.
"Yes," said Kleig, softly, "but it saves us ordering others to death.Perhaps we may learn something of value as we watch them die!"