CHAPTER VII
_Golden Oblivion_
"This," said Prester Kleig, as coldly precise as a judge pronouncingsentence of death, "will precipitate the major engagement with Moyen'sforces. The fools, to rush in like this, when they have been warned! Buteven so, they are magnificent!"
The pilots of the aero-subs must instantly have noticed the return ofthe American pilots, for some of the aero-subs which had dropped to theocean's surface rose again almost instantly, and swept into battleformation above the drifting hulks of the warships.
The Americans were wary. They drew together like frightened chickenswhen a hawk hovers above them, and watched the activities of theaero-subs, every move of each one being at the same time visible andaudible to the Secret Agents in the Capitol's Secret Room.
The aero-subs which had submerged singled out their particular preyamong the floating ships, and the Secret Agents, trying to see how eachseparate act of destruction was accomplished, watched the aero-sub inthe foreground, which happened to be concentrating on the dreadnoughtwhich had led the ghost-march of the warships out to sea.
* * * * *
The aero-sub circled the swaying dreadnought as a shark circles a wreck,and through the walls of the aero-sub the watchers in the Secret Roomcould see the four-man crew of the thing. Grim faced men, men of theOrient they plainly were, coldly concentrating on the work in hand.Their faces were those of men who are merciless, even brutal, withneither heart nor compassion of any kind for weaker ones. One manmaneuvered the aero-sub, while the other three concentrated on theapparatus in the nose of the hybrid vessel.
"See," spoke Prester Kleig again, "if you can tell what manner of raythey use, and how it is projected. That's your province, GeneralMunson!"
From the particular Secret Agent named, who was expert for war in themembership of the Secret Room, came a short grunt of affirmation. A fewmurmured words.
"I'll be able to tell more about it when I see how they operate whenthey are flying. That black streak under water ... well, I must see itout of the water, and then...."
But here General Munson ended, for the aero-sub which they wereespecially watching had got into action against the dreadnought.
The aero-sub was motionless and submerged just off the port bow of thedreadnought. The three men inside the aero-sub were working swiftly andefficiently with the complicated but minute machinery in the nose oftheir transport.
"It can be controlled, then, this ray," said Munson, interruptinghimself. "Watch!"
* * * * *
From the nose of the aero-sub leaped, like a streak of black lightning,that ebon agency of death. It struck the prow of the battleship--and theprow, as far aft as the well-deck, simply vanished from sight,disintegrated! It was as though it had never been, and for a second, soswiftly had it happened, the water of the ocean held the impression thatportion of the warship had made--as an explosive leaves a crater in thesoil of earth!
Then a drumming roar as the sea rushed in to claim its own. The roaring,as of a Niagara, as the waters claimed the ship, rushing downpassageways into the hold, possessing the warship with all theinvincible, speedy might of the sea.
Mingled with this roaring was the shivering, vibratory sound whichPrester Kleig had experienced in his half-dream. The sound was sointense that it fairly rocked the Secret Room to its furthermost cranny.
For a second the dreadnought, wounded to death, seemed to shudder, tohesitate, then to move backward as though wincing from her death blow.It was the pound of the inrushing waters which did it. Then up came thestern of the mighty ship, as she started her last long plunge into thedepths.
But attention had swung to another warship, on the starboard beam ofwhich another aero-sub had taken up position. Again the ebon streak ofdeath from her blunt nose, smashing in and through the warship, directlyamidships, cutting her in twain as though the black streak had been apair of shears, the warship a strip of tissue paper.
Up went the prow and the stern of this one, and together, the waterseparating the two parts as it rushed into the gap, the broken warshipwent down to its final resting place.
* * * * *
Abruptly Professor Maniel swung back to the American planes which hadcome back to investigate the activities of the aero-subs, and on thescreen, in the midst of the battle formation into which the pilots hadswept to hurriedly, the Secret Agents could see the faces of thosepilots....
White as chalk with fear, mouths open in gasping unbelief. One man, apale-faced youth, was the first to recover. He stared around at hiscompatriots, and plainly through the sound apparatus in the Secret Roomcame his swift radio signals.
"Attack! Who will follow me against these people?"
His signals were very plain. So, too, were the answers of the otherpilots, and the heart of Prester Kleig swelled with pride as he listenedto the answering signals--and counted them, discovered that every lastpilot there present elected to stay with this youngster, to avenge theircountry for this contemptuous insult which had been put upon her by therape of Hampton Roads.
Into swift formation they swept, and with these planes--all planes inuse were required by franchise of operating companies to be equipped forthe emergencies of war--swung into an echelon formation, the youthfulpilot leading by mutual consent.
They swept at full speed toward the warships, four of which had by thistime been sent to destruction--one of which had appeared to vanishutterly in the space of a single heartbeat, so quickly that for a secondor two the shape of its bilge, the bulge of its keel, was visible in theface of the deep--and openly challenged the aero-subs.
* * * * *
Muzzles of compressed air guns projected from the wing-tips of theplanes. Buttons were pressed which elevated the muzzles of guns arrangedto fire upward from either side the fighting pits, twin guns that werefired downward from the same central magazine--the only guns in use inthe Americas which fired in opposite directions at the same time.
But for a few moments the aero-subs refused combat. Their speed wasterrific, dazzling. They eluded the thrusts, the dives and plunges ofthe American ships as easily as a swallow eludes the dive of a buzzard.
It came to Prester Kleig, however, that the aero-subs were merelyplaying with the Americans; that when they elected to move, the planeswould be blasted from the sky as easily as the warships were beingerased from the surface of the Atlantic.
One by one, as methodically as machines, the aero-sub pilots blasted thewarships into nothingness. They had their orders, and they went abouttheir performance with a rigidity of discipline which astounded theSecret Agents. They had been ordered to destroy the warships, and theywere doing that first--would go on to completion of this task, no matterhow many American planes buzzed about their ears.
But one by one as the warships sank, the aero-subs which had either sunkor erased them made the surface and leaped into space with a snappingback of wings that was horribly businesslike as to sound, and climbed upto take part in the fight against the American planes, which mustinevitably come.
* * * * *
The last warship, cut squarely in two from stem to stern along hercenter, as though split thus by a bolt of lightning, fell apart likepieces of cake, and splashed down, sinking away while the spume of herdisintegration rolled back from her fallen sides in white-crested waves.
"It exemplifies the policies of Moyen," said Prester Kleig, "for hisconquest of the world is a conquest of destruction."
The last aero-sub took to the sky, and the Americans rushed into battlewith fine disregard for what they knew must be certain death. They werenot fools, exactly, and they had seen, but not understood, the manner inwhich those gallant old hounds of the sea had been erased fromexistence.
But in they went, plunging squarely into the heart of the aero-subs'leading formation, which formation consisted of three aero-subs, flyinga wi
ng and wing formation.
The young American signaled with upraised hand, and the American pilotsmade their first move. Every plane started rolling, at dazzling speed,on the axis of its fuselage, while bullets spewed from the guns thatfired through the propellers.
Bullets smashed into the leading aero-subs, with no apparent effect,though for a second it seemed that the central aero-sub of the leadingformation hesitated for a moment in flight.
Then, swift as had that black streak flashed from the nose of aero-subssubmerged, a streak darted from the nose of the central aero-sub, andglistened in the sun like molten gold!
* * * * *
It touched the youngster who had called for volunteers for his attackagainst this strange enemy. It touched his plane--and the plane vanishedinstantly, while for a fraction of a second the pilot was visible in hisplace, in the posture of sitting, hand on a row of buttons which did notexist, head forward slightly as he aimed guns that had vanished.
Then the pilot, still living, apparently unhurt, plunged down eightthousand feet to the sea. The water geysered up as he struck, thenclosed over the spot, and the gallant American youngster had become thefirst victim in battle of the monsters of Moyen.
Victim of a slender lancet of what seemed to be golden lightning.
"He could have killed the pilot aloft there," came quietly from Munson,"but he chose to pull his plane away from around him! Their control ofthe ray is miraculous!"
As though to confirm the statement of Munson, the leading aero-substruck again, a second plane. The plane vanished, but from the spotwhere it had flown, not even a bit of metal or of man sufficiently largeto be seen by the delicate recording instruments of Maniel dropped outof the sky.
The ray of gold was a ray of oblivion if the minions of Moyen willed.