The Angel of the Revolution: A Tale of the Coming Terror by Griffith (reading like a writer txt) 📗
- Author: Griffith
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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 space 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-ship, 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 shell as it struck.
This was the last blow struck in the first aërial 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 shells 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 [Pg 214] 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-ships 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-ship 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 aërial squadron, surrenders unconditionally, save for guarantee of personal safety to himself and his men," reported Mazanoff, as he came within earshot of the flagship.
"Very good," replied Arnold from the deck of the Ithuriel. [Pg 215] "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 ships 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. [Pg 216]
CHAPTER XXIX.AN EMBASSY 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-ships. 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 encumbered 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, [Pg 217] 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 shells 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-ships 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 C�strin 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 flashing 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 [Pg 218] 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."
"Oh no," replied Arnold. "You needn't be afraid of that. If his Majesty won't come to terms, you will smash up the war-balloons and then come and join us in the general bombardment. I see, by the way, that there are ten or a dozen more of these unwieldy monsters with the Russian force moored to the ground yonder on the outskirts of C�strin. It will be a little amusement for us if we have to come to blows to knock them to pieces before we smash up the Tsar's headquarters.
So saying, Arnold increased the speed of the Ithuriel, swept round in front of the line, and communicated the same instructions to the captain of the Ariel.
A few minutes later the Ariel and the Orion began to rise with their charges to the higher regions of the air, leaving the Ithuriel and the one aerostat to carry out the plan which had been arranged by Natas and Arnold an hour previously.
As the speed of the aerostat was only about twenty miles an hour against the wind, a rope was passed from the stern of the Ithuriel to the cordage connecting the car with the gas-holder, and so the aerostat was taken in tow by the air-ship, and [Pg 219] dragged through the air at a speed of about forty miles an hour, as a wind-bound sailing vessel might have been towed by a steamer.
On the journey the elevation was increased to more than four thousand feet,—an elevation at which both the Ithuriel and her captive, and especially the former, presented practically impossible marks for the Russian riflemen. Almost immediately over C�strin they came to a standstill, and then Colonel Alexandrovitch and Professor Volnow were summoned by Natas into the deck saloon.
He explained to them the mission which he desired them to undertake, that is to say, the conveyance of a letter from himself to the Tsar offering terms for the surrender of the Lucifer. They accepted the mission; and in order that they might fully understand the gravity of it, Natas read them the letter, which ran as follows:—
Alexander Romanoff,—
Three days ago one of my fleet of air-ships, named the Lucifer, was delivered into your hands by traitors and deserters, whose lives are forfeit in virtue of the oaths which they took of their own free will. I have already taken measures to render abortive the analysis which you ordered to be performed in the chemical department of your Arsenal at St. Petersburg, and I have now come to make terms, if possible, for the restoration of the air-ship. Those terms are as follows—
An hour before daybreak this morning I captured nine of your
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