CHAPTER XXXIII
MR PARMENTER RETURNS
Just at the north of the summit on the top of which the observatory wasbuilt there was an oval valley, or perhaps it might be better describedas an escarpment, a digging away by the hand of Nature of a portion ofthe mountain summit by means of some vast landslide or glacier actionthousands of years ago.
As he closed the door of the main entrance to the observatory behindhim, he saw these strange, winged shapes circling in the air some threemiles away, just dimly visible in the moonlight and starlight. They werehovering about in middle air as though they were birds looking for afoothold. He ran back, switched the electric current off the aerographmachines at the base of the observatory, and turned it on to thesearchlight which was on the top of the equatorial dome. A great fan ofwhite light flashed out into the sky, he spelt out "Welcome" in thedot-and-dash code, and then the searchlight fell upon the valley.
"Thanks," came the laconic answer from the foremost airship; and thenLennard saw twenty-five winged shapes circle round the observatory anddrop to rest one by one in perfect order, just as a flock of swans mighthave done, and, as the last came to earth, he turned the switch and shutoff the searchlight.
He walked down to the hollow, and in the dim light saw something that hehad hardly believed possible for human eyes to see. There, in a spaceof, perhaps, a thousand yards long and five hundred yards wide, lay, ina perfect oval, a fleet of ships. By all appearances they had no rightto be on land. There was no visible evidence that they could rise fromthe solid earth after once touching it, any more than the albatross cando from a ship's deck.
A light flashed out from a ship lying at the forward end of the ellipsefor a moment into the sky and then it swung slowly round until it restedon the path from the observatory to the valley, and Lennard for a momentfelt himself blinded by its rays. Then it lifted and a most welcomelyfamiliar voice said:
"Well, Mr Lennard, here we are, you see, just a bit ahead of time, andhow's the comet?"
A ladder, obviously of American design, shot out from the side of theairship as Mr Parmenter spoke, and as soon as the lower end touched theground he walked down it with his hand outstretched. Lennard walked tothe foot of the ladder and took his hand, and said in a low voice:
"This is all very wonderful, Mr Parmenter, but I am glad that you arehere ahead of time, because the comet is too; and very considerably, Iam sorry to say."
"Eh, what's that you say, Mr Lennard?" replied the millionaire in ahurried whisper. "Nothing serious, I hope. We haven't come too late,have we? I mean too late to stop the war and save the world."
"I don't know about stopping the war," replied Lennard, "but, if noaccident happens or is arranged for, we can save the world still, Ithink."
"Accident arranged for?" echoed Mr Parmenter. "What do you mean by that?Are you talking about John Castellan and those Flying Fish things ofhis? I reckon we've got enough here to send him and his _Flying Fishes_into the sea and make them stop there. We've heard all about whatthey've been doing in the States, and I've got about tired of them. Andas for this old invasion of England, it's got to stop right away, orwe'll make more trouble for these Germans and Frenchmen and Russiansand Austrians than they ever dreamt of.
"Look at that fleet, sir. Twenty-five aerial battleships with a hundredand fifty miles an hour speed in them. Here to London in one hour andtwenty-five minutes or less, and guns--you just take a look at thoseexaggerated peashooters we've got on deck, and believe me, sir, that ifwe get one of John Castellan's _Flying Fishes_ within six thousand yardsof the end of one of those things it will do no more flying, except invery small pieces."
"I'm delighted to hear it, Mr Parmenter," replied Lennard, in a lowtone, "for to tell you the truth, we haven't many weeks left now.Something that I can so far neither calculate nor explain has changedthe orbit of the comet and it's due here at midnight on the thirtieth ofApril."
"Great Scott, and this is the nineteenth of March! Not six weeks! Iguess we'll have to hurry up with those cannons. I'll send a cable toPittsburg to-morrow. Anyhow, I reckon the comet can wait for to-night."
While Mr Parmenter had been speaking two other men had come down theladder from the deck of the airship and he continued:
"Now, let me introduce you. This is my old friend and college chum,Newson Hingeston, the man who invented the model we built this fleet on.This is Mr Hiram Roker, chief engineer of the fleet and Lord HighAdmiral of the air, when Mr Hingeston is not running his own ships."
Lennard shook hands with Mr Hingeston and Hiram, and was going to sayvery complimentary things about the fleet which had literally droppedfrom the clouds, when Mr Parmenter interrupted him again and said:
"You'll excuse me, Mr Lennard, but you'll be better able to talk aboutthese ships when you've had a trip in one of them. We've just crossedthe Atlantic in thirty hours, above the clouds, and to-morrow night ormorning, if it's cloudy when we've been through things generally, we'regoing to London in the flagship here--I've called her the _Auriole_,because she is the daisy of the whole fleet--biggest, fastest andprettiest. You just wait till you see her in daylight. Now we'll go downto the house and hear your news. We're thirty hours behind the times."
It need hardly be said that no one went to bed for the remainder of thatnight at Whernside. In one sense it was as busy a time as had been sincethe war began. The private telephone and telegraph wires betweenWhernside House and Settle and the aerograph apparatus at theobservatory were working almost incessantly till dawn, sending andreceiving messages between this remote moorland district and London andthe seat of war, as well as Bolton and Pittsburg.
The minutes and the hours passed swiftly, as all Fate-laden time doespass, and so the grey morning of a momentous day dawned over the westernYorkshire moors. Just as they were beginning to think about breakfastone of Lennard's assistants came down from the observatory with a copyof an aerogram which read:
"Begins. PARMENTER, Whernside. Pleased to hear of your arrival. Proposition laid before His Majesty in Council and accepted. Hope to see you and your friends during the day.--CHAMBERLAIN. Ends."
"Well, I guess that's all right, gentlemen," said Mr Parmenter, as hehanded the aerogram across the big table littered with maps, plans anddrawings of localities terrestrial and celestial.
The aerogram passed round and Mr Parmenter continued: "You see,gentlemen, although the United States has the friendliest of feelingstowards the British Empire, still, as the President told me the daybefore yesterday, this invasion of Britain is not our fight, and he doesnot see his way to making formal declaration of war; so he just gave mea permit for these ships to leave American territory on what theRussians and others call a scientific expedition in order to explore theupper regions of the air and demonstrate the possibility of navigatingthe air without using gas as lifting power--and that's just how we'vegot here with our clearance papers and so on all in order; and thatmeans, gentlemen, that we are here, not as citizens of the United Statesor any other country, but just as a trading company with something tohire out.
"John Castellan, as you will remember from what has been said, sold his_Flying Fishes_ to the German Emperor. Mr Lennard has proved to us byCastellan's own handwriting that he is prepared to sell them back to theBritish Government at a certain price--and that price is my daughter.Our answer to that is the hiring of our fleet to the British Government,and that offer has been accepted on terms which I think will show a veryfair profit when the war is over and we've saved the world."
"I don't think it will take very long to stop the war," said the creatorof the aerial battle-fleet, in his quiet voice. "Saving the world is, ofcourse, another matter which no doubt we can leave safely in the handsof Mr Lennard. And now," he continued more gravely, "when is the news ofthe actual coming of the comet to be made public? It seems to me thateverything more or less hangs upon that. The German Emperor, and,therefore, his Allies and, no doubt, half the astronomers of Europe,have been informed of Mr Lennard's
discovery. They may or may notbelieve it, and if they don't we can't blame them because it was onlygiven to them without exact detail."
"And a very good thing too," laughed Lennard, "considering the eccentricway in which the comet is behaving. But everything is settled now,unless, of course, some other mysterious influence gets to work; and,another thing, it's quite certain that before many days the comet mustbe discovered by other observatories."
"Then, Mr Lennard," said Mr Parmenter, "we've been first in the fieldso far and I reckon we'd better stop there. Pike's Peak, Washington andArequipa are all on to it. Europe and Australia will be getting therepretty soon, so I don't think there's much the matter with you sending amessage to Greenwich this morning. The people there will find it allright and we can run across from London when we've had our talk with thePrime Minister and post them up in any other details they want. I'llsend a wire to Henchell and tell him to hurry up with his gun atPittsburg and send on news to all the American observatories. Then we'llhave breakfast and, as it's a cloudy morning, I think we might startright away for London in the _Auriole_ and get this business fixed up.The enemy doesn't know we're here at all, and so long as we keep abovethe clouds there's no fear of anyone seeing us. The world has onlyforty-four more days to live, so we might as well save one of those dayswhile we can."
The result of the somewhat informal council of war, for, in sober truth,it was nothing else, was that the commanders of the airships wereinvited to breakfast and the whole situation was calmly and plainlydiscussed by those who from the morning would probably hold the fate ofthe world in their hands. Not the least important of the aerograms whichhad been received during the early morning had been one, of course incode, from Captain Erskine of the _Ithuriel_ from Harwich, welcoming theaerial fleet and giving details of his movements in conjunction with itfor the next ten days. The aerogram also gave the positions of thelighters loaded with ammunition which he had deposited round the Englishshores in anticipation of its arrival.
Soon after eight o'clock a heavy mist came down over Whernside and itscompanion heights, and Mr Parmenter went to one of the windows of thebig dining-room and said:
"I reckon this will just about fit us, Mr Lennard, so, if you've gotyour portmanteau packed, have it sent up to the _Auriole_ at once, andwe'll make a start."
Within thirty minutes the start was made, and with it began the mostmarvellous experience of Gilbert Lennard's life, not even excepting hisbattle-trip in the conning-tower of the _Ithuriel_.